Towards The Good: The Study Of Teleology In Aristotle's Political Thought

This dissertation inquired into some of the teleological arguments in Aristotle's political thoughts and tried to interpret and reconstruct his political thoughts from the perspective of the teleological views of cosmos and nature.On the basis of the interpretation of his natural teleology, this dissertation argued that nature makes both human being and polis have a natural end which is called Good. For human being, his ultimate Good is happiness that is determined by human nature. Human's happiness is the activity of soul that is according to virtues, his pursuit for happiness is also called the perfection of human nature through the acquisition of virtues. Polis, whose ultimate good is also happiness, exists by nature. Since human being is political animal by nature, only in polis with regime and laws can he achieve the happiness and the perfection of human nature. But only those poleis that have excellent regime and laws can provide citizens with the best education about all kinds of virtues and offer enough opportunities for the perfection and happiness. Legislators and statesman, educated by Aristotle, also regard the ultimate Good of citizens and polis as their end, and strive to make the perfection and happiness of human become true, through establishing excellent regime and making excellent laws, or reforming those perverted regimes.This dissertation make it clear that three points are the fundamental principles of Aristotle's political thoughts: firstly, human being's ultimate Good is the self-realization and happiness; secondly, the ultimate Good for polis is the perfection and happiness of citizens; thirdly, the ultimate Good for guiding the legislators and statesman is also the perfection and happiness of citizens. Thus, on the basis of the three fundamental principles, this dissertation proposed the theory of happiness for human being's pursuit for the ultimate Good, the theory of polis for polis's pursuit for the ultimate Good and the theory of regime for legislator and statesman's pursuit for the ultimate Good. Further, this dissertation also explored the theory of public education, which is interweaved with the theory about happiness, polis and regime.