Abstract

Why should the many be accorded a role in governing? In Book III of his Politics, Aristotle advances a handful of arguments on behalf of their participation (1281a39-1282a41, 1286a31-35).2 These arguments deserve examination because they have been misunderstood and have, therefore, been accepted or rejected for the wrong reasons. They deserve examination too because the Greek theory and practice of democracy continues to exercise a powerful attraction upon contemporary generations. Aristotle is, of course, among the principal sources of our knowledge of the Greek experience of democracy