Circle and Ellipse

It is unclear whether or not Aristotle is aware that a Circle is a special case of an Ellipse, i. e. is a closed regular plane figure of precisely one focus.  If he were, he might consider that divine, because perfect, motion might be Elliptical, and not merely Circular.  He might also recognize the deficiency of presumably self-sufficient Contemplation--that it lacks the companionship that obtains in more comprehensive enclosed contexts, e. g. Friendship, which is constituted by two foci.

Community, Nature, Supernature

According to Aristotle, Humans are "by nature political animals".  Clearly, the principle of the basic community, the family, is Natural--to propagate the species, via reproduction and child-rearing.  Likewise, at least one principle of larger communicaties is the continuation of the species, as is evidenced by their foundation at locations that conduce to the provision of vital necessities, e. g. arable land, access to transportation routes, etc.  So, Nature is a sufficient condition of community-formation, leaving uncertain whether or not it is also a necessary condition of it.  In other words, uncertain is whether there is a Supernatural principle of community-formation, e. g. notably, of the Psychopolis and Theopolis of Medieval Theology, i. e. the assemblage of immaterial eternal Souls that have been liberated from the cursed Human species.  Not very much is known about this 'City of God',  but even if such entities exist, why they might engage in a process--communing--the known principle of which, according to Aristotle, is animalistic, remains unclear.

State, History, Cosmopolity

Aristotle asserts that the State is by nature "the end" of all earlier forms of society, citing the village as an example.  Now, if the Whole is prior to the Part, Man is by nature a political animal, and "the state is a creation of nature", the only State that is truly the End of all others is a Cosmopolity.  But, since he does not arrive at that conclusion, he gives no consideration to the inter-State relations that would by necessity constitute the Means to that End.  Instead, it is not until Kant, followed by Hegel and Marx, takes up the topic two millennia later, that those relations are characterized.  However, none of the three is, like Aristotle, a Holist, so their concepts of the development are fundamentally Hobbesian, i. e. the essential motor of which is conflict.  In contrast, a more benign, Holistic, concept might recognize the role played in the gradual development of the eventual Cosmopolity by Communication, Transportation, and Trade.  No doubt war, sometimes terrible, has dissolved boundaries between incomplete Polities.  But, to make it the exclusive principle of History expresses a saturnine view of Human nature that might reflect, in contrast with Aristotle's Ancient Mediterranean orientation, the influences of darker Christian Theology and/or starker Northern European climate.

Deity, Simplicity, Complexity

Generally well-recognized is that Evolution disproves Aristotle's thesis that Species are fixed.  But, it also constitutes a more fundamental repudiation of Aristotelianism. For, in attributing Simplicity to his deity, he, at the same time, deifies Simplicity.  Accordingly, that the Telos of the universe is that deity, is equivalent to the principle that Simplicity is the highest value.  Thus, Darwin's discovery of a transition from less complex organisms to more complex organisms, e. g. via the emergence of a more versatile thumb, at minimum, inverts the Aristotelian conatus, and, thus, the Aristotelian value system, even if that conatus is not conceived as Teleological.  Now, because Evolution is an indefinite process, the theories that espouse it offer no concept of a maximum entity.  But Aristotle does--his deity is the periphery of the Cosmos, which it therefore encompasses.  However, he abstracts the circumference from the rest of the circle, thereby reducing the entity that occupies it to Simplicity.  That abstraction, because arbitrary, exposes his prejudice for Simplicity, the real deity of his system.

Polis, Communication, Transportation

As has been previously discussed, the concept of a Polis can vary with the available Means of Production.  Another way that Technology can variably influence the concept is via Means of Communication and Transportation.  For, manageability of size of a Polis, a topic of interest to Aristotle is influenced by how quickly word and members can travel within it.  Accordingly, another feature of a Polis treated by Aristotle, and others, is Foreign Policy.  For, as has become more and more apparent, thanks to the speed and scope of current Means of Communication and Transportation, a Cosmopolis is now possible, if not imminent.  But, if so, all the members of the Species will be citizens of the same Polis, in which case Foreign Policy becomes a thing of the past.  So, Size and Foreign Policy, two more components of a Political Philosophy, are variable and contingent.

Property and Contingency

Aristotle's rejection of Plato's Communalism, in favor of an advocacy of Private Property, is open to three interpretations: 1. An Atomist repudiation of his earlier Holism; 2. An unwitting contradiction; or 3. An advocacy of a diversification within the Whole. In any case, the conflict between the two Ancients seems to anticipate the more recent one regarding Property between Socialism and Capitalism.  However, one significant distinction between the two debates is Modern Industrialization, which, for Marx, is the decisive factor in his promotion of the abolition of Private Property, a factor entirely unknown to Plato and Aristotle.  So, the question of the status of Private Property in the best Polis is a contingent, depending on, among other things, the available Means of Production, and not an eternal, problem, despite its treatment as such in many doctrines.

Organicism and Theopolis

As has been previously discussed, a significant challenge to Social Atomism is the existence of the human Species, since in any association of members of the species, it constitutes what Atomism denies--a concrete Unity of the Multiplicity. So, one variety of the doctrine that seems to overcome that challenge is Theopolis, which, as populated by incorporeal Souls that have been individually saved from the cursed species, therefore transcend it. Now, as is well-known, the existence of such a Polis seems neither provable nor disprovable, but, even so, what is usually attributed to it, including that it is a 'city', are characteristics that do not seem to transcend the corporeal realm.  Rather, it seems to consist in nothing more than many of the corporeal goods without the corporeal ills, but also without some of the corporeal goods, namely those which are properties of what is excluded from this realm--intra-species relations.  So, not only is the existence of a Theopolis questionable, so, too, is whether or not, even in principle, it is a better Polis than the Organicist one.