Aristotles' slavery Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Aristotles' slavery - Essay Example The bodily parts such as arm, leg, hand, and eye that he uses in the service of all even if it is the hand he raises to deflect a blow from the master. Aristotle assumes all of this, even though it renders his logic impossible. The slave at such a moment is not defying the master by defending himself against a blow. He is certainly asserting himself as his own most not so asserting himself; he is not acting as the mere part, nothing but the master’s possession (Swanson 16). Hence, the question of vantage, a question that one is familiar in literary analysis. Aristotle makes his point concerning the status of the slave by simply eliding his point of view. This text informed every bit as much by what appears in it as what does not. Then there is the question of the status of an analogy; this is primarily a literary device. The leg is a part that serves the organism, and the qua organism is the higher value. This last is a point Aristotle establishes by analogy. The context for the analogy is the value that belongs to the city. He says, â€Å"The notion of a city naturally precedes that of a family or an individual, for the whole must necessarily be prior to the parts, for if you take away the whole man, you cannot say a foot or a hand remains†. There is a moment of indeterminacy here. If Aristotle’s entire argument in the analogy is only that the part is taken away with the whole. This gives the ostensible rigor of proper philosophic discourse of the analogy disposal (Wrenhaven 35). For Aristotle, when society or the family is taken away, so is the individual, and the hand is an individual part of the body but he also suggest that the relationship is analogous in other ways. The human body is in the city and interests of the city and its use involve his sacrifice. Such a sacrifice makes the highest value for the individual. As such, the individual may be put to use if rational individual has reason to know that the collectivity is the