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MAYHEW, Robert. Aristotle's Criticism of Plato's Republic. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997. x + 163 pp. Cloth, $53.00; paper, $21.95-Aristotle dedicates the first chapters of Politics B to a critical examination of Plato's Kallipolis from the standpoint of the end of the city (its unity) and the means to achieve it (communism). Many modern commentaries have depicted Aristotle's critique as unfair to Plato. Through a detailed philosophical commentary, Mayhew attempts to demonstrate on the contrary that "Aristotle is right, and his modern critics wrong" (p. 130).
Plato holds that the unity of the city should be the unity of the individual human being. By contrast, Aristotle insists that "not only is a city made up of a number of human beings, but also of a number of human beings differing in kind (eidei). For a city does not come to be out of similar people" (Politics...