Aristotle's second book of Politics offers a useful starting-point for the investigator who seeks to distinguish Greek attitudes to novelty in different spheres of activity. He begins by outlining and criticising various theories of ‘ideal states’ starting with Plato's Republic and Laws, and examines in particular the latter's arguments for owning property, wives and children in common. Seemingly new ideas of this kind, he suggests, may already have been tested and found wanting in the past:

Aristotle gives guarded praise to his teacher's clever if impracticable proposals: ‘All the writings of Plato are original: they show ingenuity (kompson), novelty of view (kainotomon), and a spirit of inquiry (zētētikon). But perfection in everything is perhaps a difficult thing.’ No other thinker, he notes,

After rejecting the ideas of Phaleas (an otherwise unknown political thinker of the late fifth century bce), Aristotle goes on to discuss the ideas of the flamboyant fifth-century city-designer, Hippodamos of Miletos, ‘the first man without practical experience of politics who attempted to handle the theme of the best form of constitution’. Hippodamos also proposed that a reward should be offered for ‘inventions of benefit to the state’, and anticipated the Athenian law that the children of men who died in battle should be supported at public expense.