SİYASAL DÜŞÜNCE

The members of the Polis, in other words citystate, consist of polites, namely the citizens; and the citizens of the polis consist of free Greek men among which foreigners, women, and slaves are not included. The citizenship status was not given to those who were foreigners, women, and slaves in ancient polis of Greece.

Agora, gymnasium, and theatre all together were institutions of ideological re-production of the society since they served for helping people to realise that they lived in a society.

The stratum of Perioikos was more crowded than the stratum composed by Spartans. They were living at the outside lands of Sparta. They were entitled to hold their own lands but had to pay a fee for that. They did not have a political right for joining in administrative duties of the state. They were sometimes used as soldiers, but as a separate unit of army from the Spartans.

Free population of Athens had four strata: Eupatrides, geomores, demiurgus, and thetes –the nobles, small farmers, craftsmen, and poor peasants, respectively. Both inter-class and intra-class struggles between these groups had led to different types of administrations such as Aristocracy, oligarchy, plutocracy, and democracy.

One of the main separations of Sophists from the traditional Greek philosophy was the aim of their investigation. Till to Sophists, the Greek philosophy was a search for the objective reality. However, the aim of the Sophists was not contemplative, but practical. Hence, they became an educational movement in Greek polis. They were teaching the art of life and how to control it to the youth.

It can be noticed that this philosophy had nothing to do with society. It was a kind of internal transcendentalism and a form of monkhood. However, it is still a crucial cornerstone in terms of development of the modern egalitarian political thoughts. This is because of the fact that human beings first time in the course of human history demonstrated a collective uprising with the Cynics achievement of raising awareness against to the non-egalitarian life style.

Plato’s general philosophy can be considered as an introduction for his political thoughts. It always should be kept in mind that the Platonic philosophy is based on a non-egalitarian belief. His philosophy usually starts with underlining the importance of reason (logos). Therefore, he splits the being into object (material) and idea (thought). The human being has material and ideal sides. The ideal side .should govern the material side, namely the body

It has to be kept in mind that ideal state of Plato is not a historical one. It has not become concrete in any period of history. It is timeless. Four elements affect the degeneration of the states: disappearance of internal harmony of society, violation of division of labour within the society, emergence of economical class conflicts, and finally, moral corruption and destruction of unity of the rulers.

"A) The need of mass for social knowledge" is one of the reasons for the birth of sophist thought in Athens.

Since the formation can be understood as a material form gaining process, we can comprehend a formation through influencing factors: material causes, formal causes, effective causes, and target oriented causes. Aristotle said that target-oriented (teleological) causes were the ones that provide a competent form to the formation. Thus, if we reveal the targets of formations, then we can achieve a true comprehension. That is to say, in order to understand the things, one should consider the form, rather than the material. For instance, target of an acorn is to be an oak tree.

For Aristotle, stability of the regimes should be ensured. He was against to the revolutionary movements. He considered revolutions as a disease. Then, the disease should be cured.

The members of the Polis, in other words citystate, consist of polites, namely the citizens; and the citizens of the polis consist of free Greek men among which foreigners, women, and slaves are not included.

In Sparta, another political institution was Apella, something similar to the popular assembly. The drafts, prepared by Gerousia were approved by Apella. The members of the Apella were Spartans who were over thirty-years old and they were not allowed to debate about the drafts.

Free population of Athens had four strata: Eupatrides, geomores, demiurgus, and thetes-the nobles, small farmers, craftsmen, and poor peasants, respectively. Both inter-class and intra-class struggles between these groups had led to different types of administrations such as Aristocracy, oligarchy, plutocracy, and democracy. Contrary to the Sparta, political debates and competition were very vivid in Athens and participants were also large in numbers. The reason behind the prosperous philosophical and political tradition of the ancient Greece is demonstrated in association with this background that someway illustrates a form of what we call today as democracy.

Not only the object and the content, but also methods of investigation changed with Sophists. Previously, methodological understanding of philosophers of nature was based on the method of deduction.

According to Socrates,virtue was a form of knowledge and thus something that could be taught to people.

It always should be kept in mind that the Platonic philosophy is based on a non-egalitarian belief.

The scheme presented by Plato portrays a static societal structure. Indeed, he was aware of the fact that ordinary states cannot achieve all these virtues and thus turn into a just organisation.

According to Aristotle, the structure of the being cannot be understood just by considering the external appearance. Rather, internal relations and connections should be revealed and the substance or cause of the being must be comprehended metaphysically.

Contrary to idealist philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, a materialist contribution to social philosophy was important.

Cicero’s main aim was to turn back to old aristocratic days. According to Cicero, public and republic –state- were the same. When people united within a stable order, a need for administration occurred. Society was a result of sense of community and state was a result of political differentiation. State was a unity, in which people were united with a common objective and connected to each other with legal bonds