Aristotelianism

Abstract

The idea that Aristotelianism constitutes a distinct strand in the history of political thought has followed argument in the history of ethics, especially since Alasdair MacIntyre opposed an Aristotelian “tradition of the virtues” to “the Enlightenment project” in moral philosophy epitomized by Kant. MacIntyre’s historicization of Aristotelian ethics and politics is itself opposed by the rival Thomistic Aristotelianism of Terence Irwin, whose melding of Aristotelianism with modern theories, to which he offers it as a theoretical corrective, follows an Oxonian tradition in the history of political thought.