Deliberation with persuasion: the ‘political’ in Aristotle’s Politics

ABSTRACT This paper suggests the conception of the ‘political’ in Aristotle’s Politics as an alternative to the Hobbesian conception of the ‘political’. More specifically, I will develop two arguments in this paper. First, investigating Aristotle’s conception of the ‘political’ in the Politics, I will maintain that the ‘political’ rule (πολιτικὴ ἀρχή) is not a political ideal to be realised in the best possible regime but the necessary condition for making political life possible. Second, exploring ‘persuasion’ as the most imperative way in which a particular claim about justice may be justified in democratic deliberation, I will argue that in Aristotle’s conception of the political, democratic deliberation is not constrained by an architectonic political vision or a shared solidarity but guided by persuasion based on the fear of domination under which antagonistic contentions between citizens can contribute to making a tolerably good decision without empowering anyone who knows better.