Written by Aristotle in the 4th century BCE, Politics can be seen as a companion volume to his Nicomachean Ethics, in which he defines a life of good quality and sets about describing how it should be achieved. In Politics he describes the kind of political association that would best facilitate the ends described in Nicomachean Ethics. But Politics is not subservient to the other work. In it, Aristotle claims that individuals are largely defined by the cities they live in and that man can be fully rational only by participating in the city. In Ethics, the city is a complete whole and each individual is a mere part.

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