Beyond friendship: Aristotle on conflict, deliberation, and attention

Aristotle is generally understood as a theorist of unitary rather than adversary democracy. Although it cannot be denied that Aristotle stresses the role of community and friendship in politics, I argue that his understanding of deliberation takes its very meaning from the presence of (multiple) conflicts. Aristotle thus provides us with a communicative conception of political practice that does nor require the bonds of civic friendship, nor shared substantive interests. What makes politics possible for Aristotle in the face of such discord is a quality of attention inherent in the very practice of deliberation. Aristotle's analysis of rhetoric gives us a fuller account of this ''attention,'' and points to some of the problems and possibilities of this account for contemporary democratic theory.