Aristotle’s Political Science

A few years ago, I considered writing one for this topic. At that time, I had already realized that there is a huge barrier for Mainland Chinese to understand political science (especially Western). English is only a small part of the problem. Their worldviews have two fatal shortcomings. One is that their worldview is Marxism. Another is that they think that political science is similar to natural science. Let me address the second problem here. (The first point is hard.) 

The textbook I would like to use is: Steven B. Smith, "Political Philosophy," Yale University Press, 2012. It is for a Yale undergraduate course, year 2 or 3. Chapter 5 is about Aristotle. Our focus here is the section under the title ‘Political Science and Political Judgment’(pp.84-88). The following excerpt is from page 84:

The core of Aristotle’s political science is based on the discovery of a certain kind of knowledge that he describes as practical reason (phronēsis). He distinguishes practical knowledge from two other forms: scientific or theoretical reason (epistēmē) and technical or productive knowledge (technē). Theoretical wisdom seeks out necessary or universal truths, what is true always and everywhere, such as those discovered in mathematics or logic. Technical know-how is the kind of instrumental knowledge involved in the production of useful objects. Practical knowledge, by contrast, is the knowledge of right action, where the end or aim of the action is the action itself performed well. It entails not a form of instrumental reasoning—knowing the most efficient means to produce a desired end—but is a kind of connoisseurship that involves knowing the right thing to do under the specific circumstances.

So Aristotle classifies knowledge in three types: theoretical, technical or productive knowledge, and practical reason. Natural science is based on theoretical knowledge, engineers use technical or for productive knowledge, and politics (including economics, sociology, etc.) uses practical knowledge. The first one includes all natural sciences. The second one includes all types of engineering. The third one includes political science, economics, sociology, etc. I think that now we should add the fourth type: life sciences, e.g. biochemistry. 

A few years back, I wrote some write-ups concerning learning methods, based on the Bible. 

References: 

1. Philosophy and sciences (1) (jiahan1.wixsite.com)

2. Learning Methods (2) (jiahan1.wixsite.com) 

3. Religion (3) (jiahan1.wixsite.com)

4. Relate Philosophy to Religion (4) (jiahan1.wixsite.com)