Ancient and Modern Political Philosophy

A reader of Aristotle's Politics would be justifiably bewildered to find it endorsing 'Aristocracy' as the best type of Political entity, but devoting most of its discussion to what qualify as only inferior types. Reading it as part of a standard American Academic curriculum will likely do nothing to dispel the bewilderment, because that work most typically appears within a Political Science Department, whereas Aristotle's clarification of the issue is generally only presented across campus, in the Philosophy Department, the Academic division in which his Nichomachean Ethics is typically studied. It is the latter work that describes who the 'best' are, and the Principle of the social context in which they interact. Plato, usually regarded as inferior to Aristotle as a systematizer, is actually the better organized of the two when it comes to the presentation of Political Philosophy. For, Bestness is covered by the Republic, while his Laws is reserved for his treatment of inferior types of Government. Given this clarification, what can now be gleaned from both these pioneers of Political Philosophy is their common belief that the Rule of Persons is, potentially, at least, superior to the Rule of Law and the Rule of System. Perhaps nothing crystalizes the differences between Ancient and Modern Political Philosophy than the fact that the most noteworthy, and, possibly, the only Modern treatment of the Rule of Persons comes from Machiavelli, whose portrait of a Ruler would likely be characterized by Aristotle as of the 'Worst'. Accordingly, by advocating a Phronetocracy--the Rule of the Wisest--Evolvementalism personalizes Political Philosophy in order to re-institute the relevance to the topic of 'Bestness'.