Civil Strife and Conceptual Contestation in Aristotle and Aeschylus

• In Event: Poster Session: Political Thought and Philosophy I

Abstract

Thucydides’ theme of conceptual contestation (3.82.4–6) remains a constantly cited passage for its powerful description of the extremes of civil strife. This paper examines the understudied appearance of this theme in the writings of two other ancient authors: Aristotle and Aeschylus. I show that Aristotle and Aeschylus offer novel reworkings of the Thucydidean theme by turning respectively to the devices of luck and persuasion, and argue that Aristotle pessimistically attributes civil strife to fortune, while Aeschylus optimistically celebrates persuasive speech in civil strife. Conceptual contestation, as narrated by Thucydides, occurred in a politically deadlocked Corcyra, leading its inhabitants to reevaluate concepts based on factional interest. Actions were described and debated in self-serving ways. This was a practice that would be formally defined by the Romans as an oratorical technique to disingenuously phrase one’s actions in a contrasting moral light. An orator who masters this technique would describe himself as wise instead of cunning, or brave instead of over-confident. I show that conceptual contestation is developed in novel directions by Aristotle and Aeschylus.
Aristotle treats conceptual contestation as a catalyst exacerbating social inequality. Building on Hatzistavrou (2013) and Kraut (2002), my reading connects Politics V to passages in the Ethics and Rhetoric. I draw on Martha Nussbaum’s Aristotelian account of moral luck, or what happens to an agent outside her agency, and show that the experience and choices of oligarchic and popular classes are determined to a degree on their ‘goods of luck’ (Εὐτυχία). Moral luck plays a role in how the city’s inhabitants experience life in the polity, giving rise to conceptual contestation over divergent meanings of justice, and making civil strife contingent to some degree on the vicissitudes of fortune. Aristotle’s pessimistic view attributes conceptual contestation to the luck of the city’s inhabitants.
This view contrasts with Aeschylus’s optimistic celebration of speech. Although Aeschylus treats conceptual contestation as a futile restraint against civil strife, he advances a different strategy of persuasive speech. My reading of the Eumenides foregrounds conceptual contests over the meaning of justice in the play’s criminal trial. Building on Karas (2023), I show that the contest fails to curb the looming threat of civil strife encroaching upon Athens, requiring Aeschylus to turn to the device of persuasion (Πειθώ). Following the trial’s failure, the agents of civil strife are not disarmed through institutional or legal proceedings, but by the techniques of persuasion.

Author

• Theodore Lai Wenming, Georgetown University