“A Note on Locke's ‘Great Art of Government’” presents a valuable and provocative argument that scholars have hitherto paid insufficient attention to an important ambiguity in John Locke's frustratingly brief account of the “great art of government” in the crucial fifth chapter of the Second Treatise of Government (Locke, 1960: sec. 42, l. 23). However, there is one pivotal point upon which the note's analysis may conceal as much as it reveals, and in order to frame the debate properly it is important to establish clarity about the nature of the possible ambiguity in Locke's description of the goal of the political art being “the increase of lands,” or alternatively the “increase of hands.” Following John Gough's suggestion (Locke, 1966: 23, n. 1), the note maintains that the context of the passage in section 42 of the Second Treatise relating to the “great art of government” favours the use of hands rather than lands (Locke, 1960: sec. 42, ll. 22–23). However, there is strong evidence indicating that the context of this passage is not what the note suggests it is.

Résumé. Dans ce texte, je mets en parallèle l'anthropologie politique d'Aristote et d'Épicure, pour repenser l'opposition moderne entre le communautarisme et la théorie du contrat social. J'établis un dialogue entre ces deux penseurs pour défendre la thèse selon laquelle pour Épicure, l'appartenance à une communauté politique est essentielle au bonheur. En premier lieu je montre que selon Aristote et Épicure, les êtres humains possèdent une capacité politique, car ils sont capables de partager une conception commune de la justice communiquée par le langage. En second lieu, en faisant ressortir le sens aristotélicien de ce qu'est quelque chose «par nature», je montre que l'être humain est aussi, sous l'horizon épicurien, par nature un animal politique.

Abstract. In this text, I confront Aristotle and Epicurus' political anthropology to rethink the modern opposition between communitarian and social contract theories. Contrary to the secondary literature that opposes Aristotle and Epicurus according to the nature-convention controversy, I establish a dialogue between them to show that according to Epicurus, being part of a political community is essential to happiness. First, I show that according to Aristotle and Epicurus, human beings possess a political capacity in that they can share a conception of justice communicated through language. Second, by analysing the Aristotelian meaning of what something is “by nature”, I show that human beings are also, according to Epicurus, by nature political animals.