Michelle and I will be leading the discussion on Aristotle's Rhetoric Monday evening (3/10). Below you will find a brief bio and summary outline of Rhetoric along with discussion questions.
About Aristotle
Aristotle was born 384 B.C. When he was 17, he enrolled in Plato’s academy. In 334 B.C., he began tutoring Alexander the Great. Three years later, with Alexander’s permission, Aristotle opened his own Academy in Athens called the Lyceum. For the rest of his life, Aristotle worked as a teacher, researcher and writer of a variety of subjects including science, math, philosophy and politics at the Lyceum.
Summary of Rhetoric
Without being scholars of rhetoric, philosophy or Aristotle, we would summarize his Rhetoric as follows:
Book I- classifies and defines rhetoric, classifies three kinds of oratory and discusses the formation of special arguments for each kind
· Classifies rhetoric as a counterpart/branch of dialectic, classifies both as arts
· Defines rhetoric – “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion”
· Classifies three kinds of oratory
o political (deliberative) - aims to determine the best course of future action
o ceremonial (epideictic) - aims to assign praise or blame to issues presently at hand
· Discusses special arguments for political/deliberative speech
o defines “five matters on which all men deliberate and which all political speakers make speeches” – Ways and Means, Peace and War, National Defence, Imports and Exports/Food Supply, and Legislation
o Discusses happiness and its “constituent parts” as he explains that happiness is the common aim among all men that “determines what they choose and what they avoid”
o Discusses Goodness and Utility – “the political or deliberative orator’s aim is utility…utility is a good thing”
o Categorizes forms of government – Democracy (aiming to preserve freedom), Oligarchy (aiming to preserve wealth), Aristocracy (aiming to maintain education and national institutions), and Monarchy (in limited or unlimited forms, aiming to protect the monarch or tyrant)
· Discusses special arguments for the epideictic/ceremonial speech
o Discusses Virtue/Vice, Nobleness/Baseness since they are the object of praise and blames – also discusses that these can be used in the ethical appeal
· Discusses special arguments for the forensic speech
o Defines wrong-doing, the aims of those who do it, pleasure sought by doing it, the state of mind of wrongdoers, and the kinds of people who are wronged
o Discusses just and unjust actions
o Discusses written ordinances and unwritten rules of communities as well as universal law/law of nature
o Discusses how to use inartistic proofs (contracts, tortures, and oaths)
Book II- discusses ethical and pathetic appeals, analyzes emotions, provides common topics, explains enthymemes and examples and how to detect and use them
· Discusses ethical and pathetic appeals, and the emotions the speaker must invoke in the audience either towards himself or towards the message
o Ethos is invoked when the audience determines that the speaker has good sense, good moral character, and goodwill
· Extensive discussion of emotions – systematic, scientific (psychological) discussion of several emotions in terms of state of mind in which the emotion is felt, who the people are to whom the emotion is usually directed, and on what grounds the emotion is evoked
o Discusses how persons of different ages and fortunes would be affected differently by pathetic appeals
· Outlines common topics (topoi, commonplaces - complete list here:http://rhetoric.byu.edu/canons/invention/topics%20of%20invention/TOPICS.HTM)
· Explains examples, enthymemes (and maxims) and explains how to generate examples and utilize maxims
· Explains how to distinguish genuine and apparent enthymemes and how to refute them
Book III- addresses appropriate style and proper arrangement
· Style of expression
o Discusses only prose – separates rhetoric and poetic
o Defines good style – clear and appropriate - language and tone
o Discusses metaphors at length
· Proper order of the speech
o Essential parts – the statement of the case, then the argument
o Specific parts may be appropriately added in different kinds of speech – discusses forensic speech specifically
o Limits the parts of a speech to introduction, statement, argument (including refutation and/or comparison as needed), and epilogue
Aristotle and his work aligns well with physical science and the scientific method which includes observing and analyzing. Aristotle’s method includes presenting experiences and common beliefs about those experiences followed by rigorous analysis of both. Knowledge of rhetoric is gained by studying and codifying rhetorical practices in contexts. In this way, unlike Plato, Aristotle assumes that our sensory experiences are true representations of the world.
Questions for Discussion:
1. How does Aristotle’s definition of “good” differ from that of the other rhetors we have studied thus far?
2. Bizzell and Herzberg state that “Aristotle reduced the concerns of rhetoric to a system that thereafter served as its touchstone. To speak of classical rhetoric is thus to speak of Aristotle’s system and its elaboration by Cicero and Quintillian.” Why was Aristotle’s system so influential?
3. Would Aspasia have been as welcome in Aristotle’s circles as she was in those of Plato and Socrates? Why or why not?
4. How are Aristotle’s teachings relevant today?
Love the outline. And great questions. I'm thinking over them before class!
ReplyDeleteGreat summary and questions. Thanks for posting this before class. I've been mulling over the questions and look forward to a good discussion.
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