Herrick Chap IV

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) on Rhetoric

 

Lecture notes

 

 

Aristotle’s place in Western thought is derived from his scientific, systematic approach to all topics.   Already well educated by the time he reached Athens from northern Greece (Stagira), Aristotle entered into Plato’s academy at age seventeen.  Here he entered into a circle of some of the greatest philosophical and scientific minds of the age.

 

Although Aristotle carried forward Plato’s fight against the sophists, he still saw the fundamental importance of rhetoric to the intellectual/scientific process.  Thus, Aristotle avoids the moral tone of rhetoric in favor of a pragmatic and scientific approach.

 

By applying a scientific approach to rhetoric, Aristotle is able to validate it, from a Platonic perspective, as techne, an art that claims specific knowledge sets and unique areas of study as its own. –  Remember Plato’s Socrates’ question to Gorgias: “With what class of objects is rhetoric concerned?” –

 

Aristotle wanted to answer Plato’s call that rhetoric was not a techne.   In the process he borrows from both the sophists and Plato to generate a scientific, systematic approach to rhetoric based on sciences from psychology and demography to linguistics and discourse analysis, and, in the process, sets the stage for several of the “sciences” that hold forth in current Western ideology.  Essentially, Aristotle builds a new paradigm . . .

 

Aristotle’s Definitions of Rhetoric

Two main texts for our classroom concerns:

Aristotle opens the rhetoric maintaining that: “rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic”

An understanding of the term counterpart is necessary to understand this phrase.  “Counterpart” is the same term that Plato uses in Gorgias when he says that rhetoric is the counterpart of cookery.  This negative analogy between rhetoric and cookery in Plato’s Sham Arts is displaced in Ari’s use of the same rhetorical strategy to situate rhetoric in the realms of dialectic.  If dialectic is accepted as a techne (and it is), then rhetoric, itself must be seen as a part of techne and thus an art in itself.

 

Aristotle defines dialectic as “a logical method of debating issues of general interest, starting from widely accepted propositions (endoxa)” (74) and to be able to hold up an argument while saying nothing self-contradictory.

 

Though based upon endoxa (a sophistic device), dialectic’s true strength derives from its ability to view both sides of an argument – and then to use, in its way, endoxa to generate conclusions based on an audience’s emotions.  Dialectic tests old ideas while creating new ones.

 

Rhetoric and dialectic both begin with endoxa; however, rhetoric uses a different set of proofs than does dialectic.  These proofs lie in character (ethos) and emotions (pathos) – whilke dialectic can be seen as socially constructed logic (logos).  Rhetoric and dialectic combined comprise Aristotle’s tripartite rhetorical tream of ethos, pathos, and logos.

 

 

The two complimentary arts of rhetoric:

 

Thus, we can see rhetoric as being more relative to human nature in its natural need to appeal to the people who are being courted through language and dialectic as relative to the process of the argument – the academic side of persuasion.

 

Aristotle saw the scientific stystematization of rhetoric as a way to remove it from the groundless persuasion of the sophists as well as from the strict logic of philosophy.

 

Aristotle sees the techne/art, rhetoric, as something other than sophistry, poetic, or logic 

 

 

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“Rhetoric is the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.”

 

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As Herrick observes, “Aristotle’s rhetoric is primarily the study of finding persuasive arguments and appeals, and not as a technique for making persuasive and impressive speeches”(75).  While the sophists taught their students  to memorize great speeches and to learn persuasion through imitation and practice, Aristotle taught his students to investigate rhetorical situations and to use rationale to discover what is persuasive in any setting.  The forensic investigation of human persuasion has begun.

 

Rhetoric as Techne (75)

Aristotle sees rhetoric as a scientific and systematic art, a techne with its own set of knowledge, its own domain.  Neither dialectic, logic, nor poetry can achieve rhetoric’s goal – to discover available means of persuasion.

 

Like medicine, rhetoric cannot guarantee success – it can achieve only as much as circumstances will allow.  However, part of the circumstances is the “technician’s own knowledge of his subject.

 

Why rhetoric is useful:

  1. Rhetoric works to ensure truth and justice.  Because all things are not equal and because sometimes the true and just become obscured in public debate, we need rhetoricians, good speakers and writers who are advocates for the truth, in order that truth might prevail in public situations.  “We need rhetoric to ensure that just and true ideas prevail over unjust and untrue ideas” (76).  Aristotle contends that if the untrue and unjust prevail, it is the fault of poor rhetoric.
  2. Rhetoric helps to connect a point/agenda with an audience through specific appeal.  Logic is never the best argument (“because there are people we simply cannot instruct”); therefore we must connect the point we wish to make to the notions of our audience.  This is not sophistry inasmuch as it involves no lies or obfuscation, rather it relates to the rhetor’s ability to connect with his audience on their own terms.  (KB’s consubstantiation). 
  3. Rhetoric allows a rhetor to see clearly the pros and cons of each issue.  It allows a rhetor to see both sides of a situation in order to both formulate his own position as well as to fully understand his opponent’s position. 
    1. This sort of knowledge advances the three basic benefits of sound rhetoric:

                                                               i.      testing ideas,

                                                             ii.      advocating points of view,

                                                            iii.      discovering relevant facts and truths

  1. Rhetoric is a form of self-defense using speech and reason.  Aristotle sees it as absurd that we teach physical self-defense and respect and admire physical strength while neglecting the intellectual strengths.  He claims, “the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs: (77)

 

The Enthymeme

 

Examples are inductive

Enthymemes (and syllogisms) are deductive

 

Paradeigma (example): an argument from a particular instance or small number of instances to a probable generalization.  Examples can be “hard fact” and will be seen as such by an audience who construes experience with the truth – however, examples can also be taken out of context . . .

 

 

Interesting point: because both sides value the premises and appeals at hand, both the speaker and the audience construct and maintain the argument as it proceeds.  Lloyd Bitzer the “enthymeme’s successful construction accomplished through the joint efforts of speaker and audience” (78) – as well, in this sense, we can see the successful enthymeme as a product of dialectic action.

 

By its nature the enthymeme assumes the audience’s acceptance of main premise, e.g. Smith and Jones, both murderers, should receive the same sentence is based upon the basic premise that one person should not get off lighter than the other – or that the crime defines the punishment and all people who commit such crimes should receive equal treatment. 

 

This is where the idea of a rhetorical syllogism comes into play: It is assumed that the audience already holds the unspoken values implied/assumed in the enthymeme.  Aristotle believed that all successful rhetoric is founded upon the enthymeme: an “argument marked by premises that are unstated because they are accepted mutually by the speaker and the audience” (78).

 

Because rhetoric is important in debates over contingent matters where conclusions must be based upon probabilities rather than fact, the enthymeme becomes an important part of the larger picture of rhetoric.  An enthymeme depends upon past conclusions in order to generate current conclusions that will, doubtlessly, be used in future revisions, i.e., the enthymeme is the basic stuff of dialectic and historical-cultural movement.  In this sense we can see Aristotilian rhetoric as a communal, democratic device for resolving conflicts, advancing advocacy, and discovering, through the process of investigating the means of persuasion, the psychology of the audience on both public and private levels.  Sound rhetoric cannot ignore its audience – the people.

 

Three divisions of speech

 

Aristotle’s three artistic proofs

Essentially, these are the three main courses of study that validate rhetoric as techne/art 

 

 

The Topoi (or lines of argument)

 

On common fallacies

Aristotle lists nine types of enthymemes that seem reasonable but must be seen as fallacies (see 86)

 

On style

·        Aristotle sees discussion of style as unworthy” here but, because it is a part of rhetoric he has his say.

·        Dramatic ability is hard to teach because it is a natural talent

·        A speech’s style must be appropriate to the occasion

·        Language should be clear and “current”, i.e, easy to understand

·        Language should have a natural quality to it – no artificial devices

·        Note that Herrick sees this as a move against the highly artistic and artificial style of the sophists

·        Aristotle sees great strength in the efficient use of metaphor and the doom of poor metaphor. 

o       Apt comparisons help to get meaning across while ingratiating the audience.  Yet, even though strength in the composition metaphors is seen as essential to sound rhetoric, Aristotle claims that this skill is derived from natural talent and can’t really be taught (implications for the teaching of college writing here?)