From the start, Aristotle narrows the discussion of Politics II to the question of whether citizens ought to share everything shareable (women, children, property) or merely some of those things (1260b36-1261a4), and instead of discussing the politeia of Plato’s Kallipolis as a whole, he focuses narrowly (starting from 1261a4-9) on how Plato’s analysis fails to support the claim that the citizens of a polis ought to share everything.

But Aristotle’s treatment of Plato’s Republic - longer than his discussion of any other politeia - does less than this, and not just because it concentrates almost solely on negative points. Politics II promises to survey esteemed politeiai, both theoretical and actual, with the aims of finding their good points and of showing the need for Aristotle’s own ideal politeia (1260b27-36). This volume, then, is not for readers primarily interested in Aristotle’s general relation to the metaphysics, epistemology, or moral psychology of the Republic, but for readers seeking a detailed “philosophical commentary” (2) on Politics II 1-5. Further, Mayhew prefaces his project with the claim that “these chapters have for the most part been neglected,” a claim which is immediately followed by the observation that “for instance, there has been no book-length study of them written in this century” (ix). Robert Mayhew’s book concerns not the whole of Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato’s Republic but only those contained in Politics II 1-5, and these criticisms frequently seem to be more a riff on Republic 461e-466d than a careful sifting of the entire work.

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