Compare and contrast the political philosophies of Rousseau and Aristotle.

To analyze each philosopher's view of politics, you must first examine his ideas on man's place in society.  Aristotle proposed in Poetics that mankind is only a part of a whole; he claimed that the state came first, and that the family and then the individual evolved from the state.  He theorized that if a physical body ceases to be, you can not be left with an independent hand or a foot, because a part...

To analyze each philosopher's view of politics, you must first examine his ideas on man's place in society.  Aristotle proposed in Poetics that mankind is only a part of a whole; he claimed that the state came first, and that the family and then the individual evolved from the state.  He theorized that if a physical body ceases to be, you can not be left with an independent hand or a foot, because a part can not exist separated from its whole.  The same, Aristotle says, is true for individuals apart from society:

"Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god."

This society is what makes mankind morally upright, and our morality is what makes us better than the animals.  Rousseau, on the other hand, believed that society actually corrupted mankind, and that our moral evolution worked backward from what Aristotle described.  Rousseau describes the "noble savage," the man that, if left to nature, would be uncorrupted in his natural state.  Rousseau theorized that society only works because we (somewhat subconsciously) enter into what he called a "social contract" that allows us all to band together so that our common needs are met.  He felt that this mutual agreement had many political drawbacks, as it caused the development of pride over natural self-love, and pride caused vanity:

“The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had some one pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: "Do not listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!” 

So while Aristotle believed mankind thrived on society and was born a political being, Rousseau believed mankind was forced to become political out of a mutual benefit that outweighed remaining independent.