Aristotle on deliberation
Its place in ethics, politics and rhetoric
Aristotle differs from most later philosophers in distinguishing clearly between epistemic reasoning, which aims for truth, and practical reasoning, which does not. How can he posit this distinction and yet not dismiss practical reasoning as flattery and manipulation, as Plato did? The answer lies in the concepts of deliberation (boulē, bouleusis) and deliberate choice (proairesis). They link Aristotle’s rhetoric, ethics, and politics together and help provide definitions of all three: Ethics is about deliberate choices by individuals. Politics and rhetoric are about the collective deliberate choices by the polity: politics is about making these choices well so that the good life of all citizens is optimally secured; rhetoric is the principal means to do this. These links have not been much discussed by scholars, probably because few studies range across these three Aristotelian ‘arts’; a proper discussion of them should draw on modern work in ethics, political science, and rhetoric. These key concepts and Aristotle’s discussions of them offer inspiration for modern theories of ‘deliberative democracy,’ citizenship, argumentation, debate, and the public sphere.
References
Aristotle
(
1995)
The complete works of Aristotle. The revised Oxford translation
.
I-II. 6. printing with corrections. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Aristotle
(
1991)
On rhetoric: a theory of civic discourse
. Trans.
George A. Kennedy. New York: Oxford UP 1991.
Brockriede, W. and Ehninger, D
(
1960)
Toulmin on argument: an interpretation and application.
Quarterly Journal of Speech
, 46, 44–53.
Downs, A
(
1957a)
An economic theory of political action in a democracy.
Journal of Political Economy 65,
135–150.
Downs, A
(
1957b)
An economic theory of democracy
. New York: Harper and Row.
Dryzek, J
(
2000)
Deliberative democracy and beyond: liberals, critics, contestations
. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dryzek, J
(
2010)
Rhetoric in democracy: a systemic appreciation.
Political Theory
38, 319–339.
Fortenbaugh, W.W
(
1975)
Aristotle on emotion: a contribution to philosophical psychology, rhetoric, poetics, politics and ethics
. New York: Barnes & Noble.
Habermas, J
(
1997)
The theory of communicative action. Vol. 1: Reason and the rationalization of society
. Translated by
Thomas McCarthy. Cambridge: Polity Press. (Original:
Die Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Band I: Handlungsrationalität und gesellschaftliche Rationalisierung
1981.)
Johnstone, C. L
(
1980)
An Aristotelian Trilogy: ethics, rhetoric, politics, and the search for moral truth.
Philosophy & Rhetoric
13,: 1–24.
Kenny, A
(
1966)
Practical inference.
Analysis
26, 65–75.
Kenny, A
(
1979)
Aristotle’s theory of the will
. London: Duckworth.
Kock, C
(
2003)
Multidimensionality and non-deductiveness in deliberative argumentation. In
F. H. van Eemeren,
J. A. Blair,
C. A. Willard, and
A. F. S. Henkemans (Eds.),
Anyone who has a view: theoretical contributions to the study of argumentation
(pp. 155–171). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Kock, C
(
2007)
Norms of legitimate dissensus.
Informal Logic
27, 179–196.
Kock, C
(
2009)
Choice is not true or false: the domain of rhetorical argumentation.
Argumentation
23, 61–80.
Larmore, C
(
1996)
Pluralism and reasonable disagreement. In
The Morals of Modernity
(pp.152–173). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nichols, M. P
(
1987)
Aristotle’s defense of rhetoric.
The Journal of Politics
49, 657–677.
Nussbaum, M
(
1986)
The fragility of goodness
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Triadafilopoulos, T
(
1999)
Politics, speech, and the art of persuasion: toward an Aristotelian conception of the public sphere.
The Journal of Politics
61, 741–757.
Yack, B
(
2006)
Rhetoric and public reasoning: an Aristotelian understanding of political deliberation.
Political Theory
34, 417–438.
Cited by
Cited by 3 other publications
Craig, Robert T.
2023.
Deliberative Play.
American Behavioral Scientist 67:8
► pp. 951 ff.
de Castro Caeiro, António
2023.
Aiming for True Life as an Act of Choice. In
Aristotle on Truth, Dialogue, Justice and Decision [
Law and Philosophy Library, 144],
► pp. 55 ff.
Husted, Emil & Majken Mac
2021.
Instituting Deliberation: Three Stages of Bottom-Up Policymaking in Denmark’s Alternative Party. In
Soziologie der Parteien [
Politische Soziologie, ],
► pp. 59 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.