Aristotle's Thoughts On Citizen

Citizen, as a political conception, refers to the relationship between individual and political community, and it's a fundamental conception in political theory. To make a review of the meaning and development of the conception is an important part of the course of human being's political civilization. Aristotle (BC384-BC322), is one of the most important Greek political theorist. He, for the first time, made a survey of the issue of citizen of ancient Greek states. Besides, he proposed a theory of citizen with his great talents at an early time, which is the origin of the western theory of citizen. So, the research and study of his theory of citizen is helpful for us to understand the issue of citizen.The aim of theory of citizen is to answer the question about the relationship between individual and political community, to understand the issue about thoughts of citizen we have to understand human being and political community. The first part of this thesis is to answer questions as follows: In the system of Aristotle's political thoughts, what does city-state mean, and what does man in it mean? For Aristotle, city-state is the perfect human political community, a natural existence, an integrated organism, a perfectionist political community with a practice of virtues. In regard to human beings, Aristotle asserted that the difference between human beings and animals is that the former have reason and a will apt to a good life but the latter haven't. However, the reason and the will are just potential capacities, and they must be realized if men wanted to be real men. And the city-state provides a room for men to realize those potential capacities. So, if man wanted to be a real man, he must be a member of a city-state and be a citizen who participates in the city-state affairs. Only when a man is a citizen of a city-state he is a real man, although city-state is a natural existence, the aim of city-state is to perfect the virtues of citizens, the essence of city-state is an autonomous community of citizens. Man and city-state are inner connected, the essence of Aristotle's thoughts on citizen is to keep the individual and city-state harmonious, and to eliminate the contradiction between them.