Deliberative Democracy, Active Citizenship and Critical Culture: From Aristotle’s Rhetoric to Contemporary Political Philosophy

• Main Author: Francisco Arenas Dolz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Icono 14 2013-01-01
• Series: La Revista Icono 14
• Subjects: citizen participation; critical thinking; democracy; ethics; moral education; political philosophy
• Online Access: https://icono14.net/ojs/index.php/icono14/article/view/518

The aim of this paper is to defend an adequate reading of Aristotle’s deliberative rhetoric that allows us to understand practical rationalization as a process of interpretation of human actions. After the consideration of rhetoric as a general human ability that is indispensable for political coexistence, the impact of the Aristotelian rhetorical proposal is pressed, not just as a defense of the importance of rhetoric in a democratic society, but also as a novel attempt to understand what it means to speak of practical rationality.