In Politics I 2, Aristotle claims that anthropos is a political animal (zōon politikon) and that indeed human beings are ‘more political animals than any kind of bee or any herd animal’ (Pol. I 2, 1253a2–9).1 These propositions serve as premises in his genealogy of the polis as natural in the same chapter. Accordingly, an appropriate test of what Aristotle means by zōon politikon is afforded by whether from a proposed definition his genealogy of the polis can be derived. The question is not about this or that polis or constitutional form, but about the polis qua form of association or community (koinōnia). We know this because, in Pol. I.2, Aristotle portrays the polis as the terminus ad quem of a natural process of social complexification, differentiation, and integration from less complete but intuitively natural forms of association: households and villages (Pol. I 2, 1253b15–28). But why not end up with a more cosmopolitan form of association than the Greek polis? Why not a nation state? Why not a world state? To determine what makes the polis the most authoritative, comprehensive, and complete association, as Aristotle calls it (Pol. I 1, 1252a4–6), it seems we need a contextually relevant conception not only of zōon politikon, but also of polis. A deficient definition of either is likely to lead to defective conceptions of the other, leaving it even more doubtful whether Aristotle’s conclusion can be shown to follow from his premises. Valid and sound inference is hostage to semantics in just this way.