Aristotle. On Rhetoric. Translated by George A. Kennedy
Oxford University Press, USA; (2006).
Book 1
In this historical text, Aristotle defines rhetoric as the “ability, in each [particular] case, to see the available means of persuasion.” It is the ability to understand both sides of an argument, and the ability to defend and uphold one side of the argument, or attack another’s argument. . Rhetoric takes into account the variable factors in argumentation such as emotion, audience and the context of the argument.
By being aware of the persuasive tactics of others, their ability to sway the jury through emotions, credibility, and reason, students of rhetoric are more likely to come to just conclusions in the context of a larger audience.
Defending and upholding an argument, or attacking another’s argument can be done either “randomly” or by “habit,” or it can be done by observing the “path” of success for argumentation. To observe how to do something successfully and then hone your skills is “the activity of art.” Therefore rhetoric can be considered an art.
Deliberative rhetoric is preferable to Aristotle because it is the process of arguing to take future action, rather than arguing about past events (judicial) or arguing to uplift or devalue a figure or concept (epideictic). Deliberative rhetoric stays on task by keeping focused on the subject under deliberation, and it is argumentation for the sake of action.
According to Aristotle, it is necessary to study rhetoric in order to understand the modes of persuasion that are being used on the audience (jury), and to be able to use those persuasive methods when necessary. Understanding rhetoric allows the audience to make informed decisions that are not just based on emotion or personal interests. Rhetoric allows laws to be implemented justly. Studying rhetoric furthers the democratic process because it allows decisions to be made by the aware audience, and the power does not rest only in the hands of one person (the judge). Understanding rhetoric allows the audience to see the truth through the persuasive methods. He refutes that the study of rhetoric will allow unjust people to take advantage of the public because “the true and the just are by nature stronger than their opposites, so that if judgments are not made in the right way [the true and the just] are necessarily defeated [by their opposites].”
Being able to argue on both sides of the argument does not confuse or corrupt the students of rhetoric, but allows them to clearly see and defend the true and just side of the equation. There is no shame in being able to use speech in your defense, or to use rhetoric to decipher and understand the truth. “And if it is argued that great harm can be done by unjustly using such power of words, this objection applies to all good things except for virtue, and most of all to the most useful things, like strength, health, wealth, and military strategy; for by using these justly one would do the greatest good and unjustly, the greatest harm.”
Aristotle defines artistic proofs as means of persuasion that are prepared through the methods of the speaker. Artistic proofs are invented by the rhetor. On the other hand, inartistic proofs are pre-existing means of persuasion that are not devised by the speaker (rhetor): “witnesses, testimony from torture, contracts, and such . . . .”
There are three types of artistic proofs: persuasion through the character (ethos) of the speaker, persuasion through emotion (pathos), and persuasion through “the arguments . . . truth or apparent truth” (logos), or logical reasoning.
Character can be extremely persuasive to an audience because “we believe fair-minded people to a greater extent and more quickly [than we do others], on all subjects in general and completely . . .”. If an audience trusts the speaker, they are more easily persuaded from the onset of the argument. (30)
A probability is what is likely to happen, or likely to be true in any situation under normal conditions. It is what happens “for the most part.” It is probable that the strong man will crush the small man, and not the other way around.
Signs are either universal or particular. They point to the truth of an argument, and can be either refutable or irrefutable. The refutable example is “since Socrates was wise and just, it is a sign that the wise are just,” and an example he gives of an irrefutable sign is a woman who “has milk” has given birth. An infallible sign cannot be refuted, as in the example of a woman who has breast milk has given birth.
An enthymeme is a pattern of reasoning that has a statement followed by a cause, or reason why the statement is true, and there is a missing element, or unstated assumption that ties the two spoken statements together. A paradigm is a method of persuasion that uses a past example to support the argument.
Aristotle writes, “Since the persuasive is persuasive to someone … no art examines the particular . . . neither does rhetoric theorize about each opinion. . . but about what seems true to people of a certain sort.” (41). Rhetoric is not a specific art that applies to only one subject (like medicine). The art of rhetoric can be applied to many general subjects, but in each case the art of rhetoric takes on a subject as a means of persuading the audiences to think about the subject in a certain way, or take action in regards to the subject under discussion. Part of understanding rhetoric is realizing that certain methods of persuasion are going to be more effective than others depending on the audience. The techniques used are going to vary from audience to audience. The art is understanding what method or persuasion will work best on whom.
According to Aristotle, “[Rhetoric’s] function is concerned with the sort of things we debate and for which we do not have other arts and among such listeners as are not able to see many things all together or to reason from a distant starting point. And we debate about things that seem to be capable of admitting two possibilities; for no one debates things incapable of being different either in past or future or present, at least not if they suppose that to be the case; for there is nothing more to say. . . thus it is necessary for an enthymeme and a paradigm to be concerned with things that are for the most part capable of being other than they are” (41-2). Here Aristotle notes that Rhetoric is only concerned with subjects that can be deliberated on. There is no point in applying rhetoric to concepts that are finite. Rhetoric can only be applied to subjects that have inherent dichotomies. There is no point in arguing about something that cannot be changed, and there is no point in arguing about something that is just a one-sided fact. For example, rhetoric is pointless when stating a fact such as I need to breathe oxygenated air in order to live. It is what it is. If I don’t breathe oxygenated air, I will die. However, the an argument can exist when considering how clean the air should be that I breathe, or whether or not people have the natural right to breathe clean air.
Aristotle states that “the more speakers fasten upon the subject matter in its proper sense, the more they depart from rhetoric and dialectic” (44-45). The more certain we are of a subject, the less room there is for argument; if we know the truths of a subject, there is no need for the deliberation that is inherent of rhetoric and dialectic.
Idia are specific topics such as politics or ethics and koinon are the “subjects for argument common to all species of rhetoric: the possible and impossible, past and future fact, degree of magnitude” (316).
There are three types of rhetoric varying according to how each regards time, audience, and purpose. Aristotle argues that a speaker must have propositions about the possible and impossible, the true and the false, the important and the irrelevant, the advantageous, the just, the honorable and their opposites. Deliberative rhetoric is concerned with the future and the speaker, “whether exhorting or dissuading,” is advising about future events. A member of the “democratic assembly” will be determining what happens in the future, so deliberative rhetoric is aimed at the general public or a private group of people, and it attempts to persuade the audience to take action or make a decision about future events. The primary end is action of some sort. The end is either to see the path of advantage or recognize a harmful course of action.
Judicial rhetoric has to do with persuading the audience (jury) about past events. Judicial rhetoric asks the audience to come to a conclusion about what has been done in the past, and the speaker focuses on prosecution or defense. The primary end is to pass judgment and issue a just verdict about a past event. The end is whether or not the judgment is just or unjust.
Epideictic rhetoric is focused on the present because the speaker reminds the audience of the past, and also projects what might happen in the future in order to persuade them of what to think at the moment. The audience is the general public, and epideictic rhetoric either places blame or praises, and the end is either to bring honor or shame to the addressed subject.
A speaker must present if something is possible because there is no point in arguing about something that is impossible. The same goes for assumptions of what is true or false. If the speaker does not address each of these factors, then they will not be able to persuade effectively. If the speaker convinces the audience that someone has acted honorably instead of harming someone for their own advantage, the argument for that person is stronger. Much of this has to do with the motives of the speaker. The speaker must establish the parts of the argument that are relevant and important and not waste time on the irrelevant issues. The speaker must address what is just and persuade the audience of what is just and honorable in order to effectively persuade them that something or someone is the opposite.
All speakers must be able to create comparisons and contrasts. It is more persuasive to draw comparisons between two ideas. The audience will understand the argument better if the speaker is able to make connections to other ideas that are easily understood. Conversely, if the speaker can show the audience the opposite of the ideas that he is trying to convey, then they are able to see the distinction between the concepts more clearly. For example, by demonstrating what is just by showing what is unjust, it becomes clearer when a just act has been done.
Since deliberative rhetoric is concerned with what is to come in the future, it must determine what is possible or impossible in regards to “finances, war and peace, national defense, imports and exports, and the framing of laws.”
Aristotle states: “insofar as someone tries to make dialectic or rhetoric not just mental faculties but sciences, he unwittingly obscures their nature by the change, reconstructing them as forms of knowledge of certain underlying facts, rather than only of speech.” (53) Rhetoric cannot be broken down to a finite science because to do so would reduce its capabilities. The same methods of rhetoric can be used to convince an audience to do or think one thing at a certain time, and then be used on a different audience to take the opposite belief or action at another time. Rhetoric is abstract in the sense that it does not always produce the same result. A speaker can use the same methods to achieve opposite ends, so it is not just A will always be greater than B in every circumstance. Rhetoric is not like math where one can always expect 1 + 1 to equal 2. It is an art of variables (speaker, audience, subject, objective), not a science of definites.
According to Aristotle, “It is necessary also to be willing to do research about what has been discovered elsewhere in regard to deliberation about these matters” (54).
If a speaking is delivering a speech on war and peace, it is necessary to know the conditions of war and peace elsewhere. The speaker must do research about the subject in order to best deliberate about the future course of action to take. By seeing what works not only in “one’s own city,” but elsewhere in the world, the speaker is more educated and convincing about the right course of action to take. Also, it is important for local (national) issues to understand the conditions in surrounding areas so that the public can be aware of what they are up against in their region of the world.
Happiness is, or should be, ultimately what the general public wants, and the purpose of deliberative rhetoric is to determine what course to take in the future in order to produce the most favorable result, which ideally is happiness. Since happiness “to an individual privately and to all people generally” is the “one goal,” it is necessary to define and determine the particulars of happiness.
Happiness can be defined as “success combined with virtue, or as self-sufficiency in life, or as the pleasantest life accompanied with security, or as abundance of possessions and bodies, with the ability to defend and use these things: for all people agree that happiness is pretty much one or more or these.”
The parts of happiness are good birth, good children and numerous children, wealth (abundance of cash, land, possessions of . . . size and beauty, slaves and cattle, privately owned and “securely held and freely employed and useful”), good reputation, honor, health, beauty, strength, excellence of stature, a good old age, many friendships and good friendships, good luck, and virtue.
Aristotle defines good as “whatever is chosen for itself and that for the sake of which we choose something else and what everything having perception of intelligence aims at or what everything would [aim at] if it could acquire intelligence.” Having virtues is good because those that have them “are productive of good things and matters of action.” Pleasure is good because “all living things desire it.” Both pleasant and fine things are good. Things are good if the opposites are bad. Things are good which are not in excess, but things that are excessive are bad. Things that cost a lot in labor or expense must be good because they require the payment of a high price to get them. The thing that many want must be good because the many would not want something that was bad. The thing that is praised must be good or it would not be worthy of praise.
There are things that “might be brought about and things that are brought about easily.” Things that are easy are done in little time or with little effort. People value exceptional things (that are unique) because those things bring honor. People value easy things because they are accessible to them, and possible. People value what they are naturally good at, or things that they have experience doing because they come by success easily. People value the things that are not done by just commoners because those things are “more praiseworthy” because they are less common. People value things that are longed for because these things inspire want and to get something that is wanted is good. All these concepts of good vary according to the character of the person in question because people of high character value good things that people of low character do not.
Aristotle brings in degrees of magnitude because it is necessary to understand what is more or less important, what is greater or smaller in value, in order to determine what is more advantageous or what will bring about the ultimate good in any given situation. So, if one is deliberating on a subject and trying to determine the course of action to take for the greater good, he will need to know the varying degrees of magnitude for each subject. !
The koinon of magnitude are: exceeding (“great and in more quantity than something else”) and exceeded (having a quantity that can be contained by something else; greater and more in comparison with less, great and small and much and little be in comparison to the magnitude of most things, much and little (65). What is scarcer is greater than what is abundant, but the opposite is true when one factors in the value of something as determined by its usefulness. Aristotle defines arete or excellence (virtue) as “an ability, as it seems, that is productive and preservative of goods, and an ability for doing good in many and great ways, actually in all ways in all things.” The characteristics of virtue are: “justice, manly courage, self-control, magnificence, magnanimity, liberality, gentleness, prudence, and wisdom.”
Praise is speech that makes clear the great virtue [of the subject praised]. Praise has to do with the actions of those who act with “deliberative purpose.” Encomium has to do with deeds. “The deeds are the signs of the person’s habitual character, since we would praise even one who had not accomplished anything if we believed him to be of the sort who could.” Blessing and felicitation are also aspects of praise. Amplification can be used when giving praise. So, doing the opposite of praising (proving a lack of virtue, showing a lack of deliberative purpose, showing bad deeds, condemnation, and amplification of fault) is the rhetoric of blame.
Paradigms (examples) can be used to show the things done in the past that were praiseworthy or blameworthy in order to persuade the audience to make a decision about a future course of action.
Artistic proofs are best suited to deliberation because they can persuade the audience to take action based solely on the techniques of the speaker. Paradigms (examples) are best suited to deliberation because what has been done in the past can most likely predict what will happen in the future. Inartistic proofs best suit forensic situations because the speaker is dealing with evidence (witnesses, testimony, etc.) to make a case about a past event. Amplification enhances the ability to heap blame or praise on an individual or a concept, and since the point of epidiectic rhetoric is to venerate or denigrate in order to affect the present mood of the audience, amplification is the best means of honing in on the subject in question.
Wrongdoing is “doing harm willingly in contravention of the law (specific law or common law, meaning the law of the land, or the law of the people or their customs/culture). Vice and weakness motivates people to do wrong. People do everything for seven causes: “through chance, through nature, through compulsion, through habit, through reason, through anger, through longing.” People do wrong who think they can do it and get away with it, or do it and the punishment will not be severe, “but those most think they can do wrong without penalty who are skilled at speaking and disposed to action and experienced in many disputes and if they have many friends and if they are rich.” People who have friends or accomplices are likely to do wrong; the people who feel their friends have been wronged, judges favoring their friends, people with many enemies or no enemies, people who are unlikely suspects, people who have means of concealment, and people who can profit from wrongdoings are more likely to do wrong. People do wrong when the punishment will not be severe, or when the act of wrongdoing may bring vengeance or praise. People more likely to do wrong those who are warlike, those seeking immediate pleasure or profit (the weak), those seeking long-lasting pleasure although the punishment is immediate, those who act by accident, necessity, natural instinct or habit, those who have made a mistake, those in need, and those with good reputations (because they can get away with it) and those with bad reputations (because they have nothing to lose). It is important to distinguish the reasons people do wrong in order to understand how to come to a just decision about their case. People who do wrong because they can get away with it are many times more despicable than those who do wrong out of need (the poor). Understanding the motivation for the wrongdoing establishes the case for against the wrongdoer.
People who are wronged have pleasures that the wrongdoer lacks, are those who do not take precautions and are not on guard, trusting people, easy-going people, shy people, those who have had wrong done to them and have not prosecuted the wrongdoer, those who have never been wronged, or who have been wronged often (both are off guard), those who have been slandered or who are easily slandered, those who are hated and despised, the descendents, family or friends of those who have done wrong, enemies and friends, those not good at speaking or taking action, those who are friendless, those who don’t have time to waste in court (the self-employed), those who have done many wrongs to others, those who other people have asked or demanded that wrong be done to them, those who have a chance of fair consideration, people who have previous complaints and differences with the wrongdoer, those who will be wronged by others if the wrongdoer doesn’t act first, and those who can do many just things after being wronged.
The topics of pleasure are as follows: nature, memories, hopes, desires, revenge, talking and writing about the beloved, mourning and lamentation, to be revenged, getting what is longed for, winning, games of physical combat and mental wit, serious sports that one is practiced in, lawsuits and contentious debates to those practiced and adept, honor and reputation, friends, fondness of things, imagination, desire, to be liked and admired, to be flattered and to flatter, the habitual, change, to admiration, benefiting others and being well treated, learning, imitation and reasoning of the mind, watching something drastically change from bad to good, or vice versa, narrow escapes from dangers, like to like, things of one’s own (words and deeds), lovers, honors, and children, rivalry, to be the leader, to be wise, to be knowledgeable, to do what one is good at, relaxation, laughter and laughable things.
The five kinds of atechnic (inartistic) proofs are laws, witnesses, contracts, tortures and oaths.
Book 2
One must consider more than just the logos centered arguments. It is necessary to consider that a person’s character will influence the decision of the audience, and that the emotions of the audience will also play a role in whether or not an audience is persuaded. For example, a logical argument from an untrustworthy or angry speaker will not be effective solely based on logic alone. Ethos is more useful in deliberative situations while pathos is more useful in forensic situations.
It is easier for the audience to make a decision about taking action when the person is favorable, or friendly, when they are giving their argument. The crowd will not want to go along with the decision of someone who they do not trust. Pathos is more effective when an audience must pass judgment about past events. For example, if an audience is emotionally persuaded that a wrong has been committed, they are more likely to pass judgment on the wrongdoer.
The three characteristics that a person wants to suggest in order to construct a positive ethos are practical wisdom, virtue, and good will; when exhibiting these characteristics the speaker is able to establish a positive ethos.
Aristotle’s definition of emotion is as follows: “The emotions are those things through which, by undergoing change, people come to differ in their judgments and which are accompanied by pain and pleasure, for example, anger, pity, fear, and other such things and their opposites.” He has this to say about anger:“Let anger be [defined as] desire, accompanied by [mental and physical] distress, for apparent retaliation because of an apparent slight that was directed, without justification, against oneself or those near to one.” The sources are belittling through contempt, spite, and insult. People become angry at those who laugh at them, scoff and mock, those who speak badly of and scorn things they take most seriously, friends who mistreat them; those who do not return favors, and do not return favors on an equal basis; inferiors who oppose or belittle them, friends who speak ill of them, those insensitive to their needs; those who rejoice at their misfortune and do not care if they are suffering, those who bring bad news, or those who listen to bad things about them or see the bad side of them. They become angry at people who belittle them who are rivals, those who they admire, those they wish to be admired by, those who are embarrassed in front of them, and those who belittle the people they care about. They become angry at those who mock them when they are being serious, and those who are forgetful. It is useful for a speaker to know what angers people so that the audience’s anger will not be invoked, or in certain instances, the speaker can provoke the audience to anger in order to persuade them based on this emotion.
Aristotle defines calmness as follows: “Let calmness be [defined as] a settling down and quieting of anger.” People feel calm towards people who do not belittle them, and they are calm to the speaker who treats them as they feel they should be treated, or the speaker who makes them feel that they are being held in high regard, and they are calm when they feel that those who have provoked their anger have gotten their punishment, or when justice has been done. They are calm towards those who are humble and those who do not contradict them, and they are calm towards those who take them seriously; they are calm to those who have shown past kindness, and to those who are not insulting, and those who ask them for a favor and plead with them not to be angry, which shows humility. They are calm towards those who do not insult or scoff at the people they care about, and towards people they fear and respect and towards people who show respect.
A speaker can instill calm in an audience by making them feel comfortable, by getting them to laugh or play, by allowing them to enjoy themselves, by showing them their prosperity and success, and when he leads them to focus on their pleasures rather than their pains. People can also be calmed after time has passed and they’ve had time to cool their anger, or when a speaker can demonstrate that vengeance has been carried out against someone who has angered them. They are calm when they take pity on offenders, or when the offenders have suffered, or when they feel that they have served their punishment for wrongdoing, or when justice has been done, or when they feel that their victims will not recognize that they are the cause of suffering. You can instill calm in an audience when you point out these various circumstances that call for calmness, according to the situation at hand.