Aristotle Rhetoric

The work by Aristotle which bears the name Rhetoric is one of several works in which Arisotle wrote about rhetoric. The others are lost.

Rhetoric is, broadly speaking, persuasive speech.

In antiquity, there was an important and lively debate about whether there was a body of knowledge that could be called 'rhetoric' and hence rhetoric could be taught or whether it was something that could not be taught (a knack, a matter of experience, a habit, perhaps).  Aristotle apparently waffled on the issue.

The question is whether there is a systematic body of knowledge that can be used to reliably produce persuasion as there is a technical skill to produce pots that hold water or a technical skill to produce spacecraft. Is there a technical skill that leads to a practice for persuasion?

technical skill: practice : : science : theory

Plato, in a dialogue called the Gorgias, had answered, 'no.' He argued that rhetoric was like cooking: it takes a certain knack that cannot be taught or passed on to make a great chef. Nutrition and dietetics, yes, there is a skill to it: gastronomically impressive food, no skill. Just so, a great persuader is not the product of teaching. In Plato's Phaedrus, however, he suggested that there might be a more intellectually respectable form of rhetoric.

BOOK I CHAPTER 1
1354a5: "the subject can plainly be handled in a systematic way"--thus it looks as though Aristotle thinks that there is a technical skill to rhetoric, in a way ("can" above). It all hinges on what he means by "systematic."

1354a12: the substance of rhetorical persuasion is enthymemes (one of Aristotle's terms for logical deductions used in rhetoric). Other factors (such as arousing emotions) have nothing to do with the essential facts.--thus it looks as though Aristotle is going to treat of the 'force' of logic in persuasion by treating of logic. "Persuasion is a form of proof" (1355a4)

BOOK I CHAPTER 2
What is going on now? Aristotle ignores what he 'just' said in chapter 1 (which he may never have intended to precede or follow this one) and suggests that there are two parts to rhetoric:

1. Technical modes of persuasion
1. Things depending on the speaker's personal character
2. What puts the audience in a certain frame of mind: the exciting of emotions
   
3. The proof, or apparent proof.
2. Non-technical modes
1. Evidence: documents, testimony, physical things.

1C is the only part that corresponds to the claims for rhetoric in chapter 1.
1B is expressly banned from the techne of rhetoric in chapter 1!

Possibilities:

• There is a subtle reading which integrates the two chapters into a whole. Most scholars favor this option.
  
• The two are not compatible and were not conceived as a single continuous treatise. We happen to have these two chapters preserved, but they are not compatible nor can they have been meant to be together. Barnes favors this option.
  

Neither chapter 1 nor chapter 2 makes a simple and easy fit to the rest of the Rhetoric.

But 1C is a reasonable description of a large part of Rhetoric I, and 1B (the exciting of emotions) is a good fit for Rhetoric II. As for 1A, Aristotle apparently thinks such things as common sense, good character, and good will are not matters to be taught: the speaker has to take care of them on his or her own.

But Rhetoric has three books, not just 2: Rhetoric III is about the arrangement of a speech and correct language. In other words, Aristotle is engaging in his typical classify, analyze, and prescribe method: he analyzes the parts of a speech formally and prescribes how a speech should be arranged.

Aristotle apparently thought that rhetoric could be taught: at least to some degree. Else why write these treatises?

But the question of whether there is an art of rhetoric is answered by Barnes with 'no.' Rhetoric is rather a combination of at least three different separate arts: logic, psychology, and language and composition.

They are separate arts because there are no common axioms, theorems, etc. shared by them. What is more, all three exist independently of rhetoric.

So rhetoric is an interdisciplinary enterprise that requires mastery of three skills, among other things.

BOOK I
Three types of rhetoric: 1. deliberative/political (policy, legislation), 2. forensic (law court), 3. Epideictic (show oratory with no particular subject or sphere of applicability: speeches for every occasion and to show off one's speaking skills).

Much of I.4-14 is about very general truths that can serve as premisses for deductions.

I.1-3 and I.20-26 contain general remarks about the arguments used in rhetoric.

The deductive ones are called enthymemes, and the inductive ones are called illustrations or examples.

Rhetoric is a counterpart to or a branch of dialectic.

'The task of rhetoric is to deal with those matters which we deliberate about without having arts or disciplines to guide us, and to deal with them in the hearing of people who cannot take in complicated arguments at a glance or follow a long chain of reasoning.' 1357a
In other words, rhetoric is for those who do not know about a subject matter or cannot or will not learn about it.
'...we must not carry the reasoning too far back, or the length of the argument will produce obscurity; nor should we put in all the steps which lead to the conclusion, or else we shall waste words in stating the obvious...We must not start from any old opinion but from those of definite groups of people, namely, the judges or those whose authority they recognize...We must also base our arguments on what happens for the most part as well as upon what necessarily happens.' 1395b24ff.
Thus rhetoric often leaves out parts of arguments: it is tailored to its audience, who cannot be expected to follow tedious scientific discussion.

'It is about actions that we deliberate and inquire, and all actions have a contingent character--hardly any of them are determined by necessity. Again, conclusions which state what holds for the most part must be drawn from premisses which hold for the most part, just as necessary conclusions must be drawn from necessary premisses ... It is thus evident that the propositions on which enthymemes are based, though some of them may be necessary, will in the main hold for the most part.' 1357a25

Thus rhetoric is concerned with things that hold for the most part, things that are contingent, not necessary. The premisses may be 'for the most part,' the conclusions may be  'for the most part,' or the logical link between premisses and conclusions may be 'for the most part.'

Barnes suggests that 'for the most part' in these texts could be any of the following: 1) a proto-statistical notion (avant la lettre); 2) another way of saying 'possibly'; or 3) a way to say 'by nature.'

BOOK II:
II.1-11 is about emotions. Next comes character traits.

He treats emotions individually, saying 1. what having the emotion is, 2) what are the typical objects of the emotion, and 3) why it is typically aroused.
Emotion is defined as: 'those feelings which change us in such as way as to effect our judgement and which are accompanied by pain or pleasure.' (1378a21).

Barnes claims that the part about judgement in the definition is there because the current topic is rhetoric: rhetoric has to do with affecting people's judgement, and so that aspect of emotions is important for rhetoric. Barnes claims that making heavy weather out of that part as a trait of emotion in general is inappropriate. In other words, this is not meant to be a fully general all-purpose definition, but rather one that emphasizes those aspects of emotion that are important for rhetoric. Barnes warns us that the same applies to the individual emotions: Aristotle is concerned with aspects of them that matter for rhetoric, not with a full and balanced scientific discussion of them.

Barnes chooses the emotion pity as an illustration (because it is important in the Poetics):
"Pity may be defined as a feeling of pain at an apparent evil, destructive or painful, which befalls someone who does not deserve it and which we might expect to befall ourselves or some friend of ours--and to befall us soon." (1385b12)
From this definition, A concludes that the person who is destitute, down on their luck. penniless, and has no real prospects as well as the person who is utterly self-confident cannot feel pity (strictly speaking, this claim requires that all of that person's friends be destitute or utterly self-confident too!).
Also, A concludes that if you feel pity, you must believe that some people are good, because you must believe that the evil is undeserved (which, supposedly, requires you to believe that the sufferers are good).
But A also says at 1386a that we can feel pity based on memory of similar things or based on expectations about the future, which opens up the scope of pity and the destitute and self-confident can after all feel pity (if they and their friends were not always so or do not expect to always be so).
We also feel pity if something good happens after someone has died (and so they cannot enjoy it): that does not fit the definition...

We feel pity, says A, for people whom we know (but not those very close to us) and are like us (we must think that what happens to them might happen to us).

BOOK III intro material:
"In speaking we should properly be satisfied if we do not annoy our audience--we should not also try to please them; for we ought in justice to fight our case with no help beyond the facts, and nothing should matter except the proof of these facts. Nonetheless, as I  have already said, other things have a considerable effect on the outcome because of the deficiencies of the audience. Hence the arts of language must have a small but genuine importance...But not as much importance as some people think." III.1

The body of book III is full of common ideas about speeches, nothing too interesting philosophically. How to write an introduction, how to insult your opponent, etc. Syntax has some role, as does careful use of words and precision.