Aristóteles y la nueva ciencia política de Alexis de Tocqueville

This article attempts to understand the intellectual influence of Aristotle on Tocqueville in the elaboration of his “new political science”. Our thesis is that, in order to try to counter-act the threats inherent in democracy, Tocqueville integrates some Aristotelian categories, and that this is one of the nuclei of his new political science, and is also the origin of many of its ambiguities. The paper is divided into five parts. In the first we will briefly examine Tocqueville’s dis-satisfaction with a certain liberalism that precedes him. In the second, we will dwell on the notion of citizenship elaborated by the French aristocrat, with which he attempts to resolve his concerns. The third part argues that the Tocquevillian notion of citizenship has a close kinship with some aspects of Aristotelian practical philosophy. The fourth section offers some reflections on Tocqueville’s political philosophy, and the fifth closes with some brief conclusions.