The tension between politics and economy in Aristotle: the critique to the chrematistic activity and the centrality of the sacer

BORISONIK, HERNÁN GABRIEL

Santiago de Chile

Congreso; Santiago 2009 World Congress of Political Science; 2009

International Political Science Association

Based fundamentally on the writings of Giorgio Agamben on the theories of Aristotle and the contributions of Émile Benveniste on the vocabulary of the Indo-European institutions, the idea of Sacer (sacred) appears as an unavoidable element in analyzing the structure of occidental political thought, from its beginning up to the present time. Such interpretations shed new ideas on an essential topic: the relationship between politics and economy in Aristotle.Aristotelian thought places money has a privileged place therefore futhering his arguement. Just as much as the accumulation and the lending of money that is seen in his chrematistics? analysis (Politics 1256b - 1258ª) as well as in the need to consecrate the ill-gotten gains in the democracies (Politics 1320ª), it is clear that money appears in crucial parts of his analysis in order to define the relationship between the sacred and the profane, between politics and the economy.This lecture intends to analyze the Aristotelian passages previously mentioned as well as comment on some of the complementary notes taken from the Nicomaquean Ethics and the Constitution of Athens so as to integrate them along with Agamben?s explanation/theory of the Homo Sacer.For these reasons mentioned above, categories such as "sacred", "use", and "exclusion" will serve as fundamental terms for this analysis.