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Relativist multiculturalism bears little resemblance to true multiculturalism, as this examination of relativist multiculturalism's critique of classical liberal education in the US reveals. Classical liberal toleration recognizes & attempts to relieve the natural tension between individual liberty & social cohesion by tolerating extraordinary individuals, while asking, in the name of social harmony, that they keep to themselves. Relativist multiculturalism celebrates -- rather than merely tolerates -- extraordinary individuals, & therefore would replace classical liberalism's equality of rights with an equality of lifestyles. However, in subordinating the goal of social harmony to that of self-creation, relativist multiculturalism threatens separatism, hostility, & violence, leading in time, perhaps, to a new civil war. M. Maguire

THE AUTHOR SURVEYS RECENT SCHOLARSHIP ON ARISTOTLE, FOCUSING ON THE PHILOSOPHER'S VIEWS REGARDING POLITICS AND SEXUALITY; HIS DEFENSE AND CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY; AND HIS THOUGHTS ON SLAVERY, NATURE, AND POLITICAL JUSTICE.

A CHIEF CONCERN OF DEMOCRATIC THEORISTS, TODAY AND PERENNIALLY, IS THE POTENTIAL TENSION BETWEEN DEMOCRACY'S TWIN PILLARS -- EQUALITY-DERIVED MAJORITY RULE AND INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY. RECONCILING THESE PRINCIPLES IN PRACTICE IS PERHAPS THE GAUGE OF DEMOCRATIC HEALTH. ON THIS ISSUE, THE AUTHOR FINDS IN ARISTOTLE'S DEMOCRATIC ANALYSIS A TIMELESS PERSPICACITY. ARISTOTLE'S CRITIQUE OF WHAT HE CALLS THE DEMOCRATIC "PRESUPPOSITION" LAYS BARE FOR US THE COMPLEX, RELATIVE SUPER- AND SUBORDINATION OF FORCE, EQUALITY, AND FREEDOM LYING AT THE HEART OF DEMOCRATIC JUSTICE. IN SO DOING, ARISTOTLE REFUTES HOBBES'S CHARGE THAT HIS AFFECTION FOR DEMOCRACY OWES TO HIS BLINDNESS TO REALPOLITIK.

While Plato's political dialogues give much attention to the relation of the legal and the divine, this subject receives scant notice in Aristotle's Politics. But this is not a sign that Aristotle neglects or dismisses the subject; it is in fact perfectly consistent with what the author understands to be Aristotle's view of the proper political relation of laws and gods. This view emerges indirectly, and only after reflection on the substance and manner of Aristotle's "umpiring" of a staged debate over the rule of the "best laws" versus that of the "best man" (Politics III). From the standpoint of the highest, Aristotle finds law to be both regime-derivative and somewhat prudence-impeding. At the same time, the "apolitical" character of the best man's rule necessitates the rule of law, and with it —for largely utilitarian reasons — Aristotle's public acquiescence in the apotheosis of the legal. But this teaching, and its basis, emerge fully only when the Politics' relative "silence" is interpreted in light of the open statements of a text much less palatable and thus much less accessible to statesmen and citizens (and even to political scientists): the Metaphysics. The Politics' obliqueness, argues the author, owes to the fact that Aristotle's final understanding of the relation of laws and gods cannot be fully disclosed publicly if it is to achieve its end of improving public life.