Aristotle: On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. George A. Kennedy translation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Aristotle: Rhetoric. In Plato’s Gorgias and Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Joe Sachs translation. Newburyport: Focus Philosophical Library, 2008.
Larry Arnhart: Aristotle on Political Reasoning: A Commentary on the Rhetoric. DeKalb: Northern Illinois Press, 1981.
Note: This is the second of two essays on the Rhetoric and Arnhart’s commentary. The first will be found under the title “Aristotle’s ‘Rhetoric.'”
Arnhart asks, “Can rhetoric be distinguished from sophistry?” (3) And while rhetoric may be said to “elevate politics by bringing thought to bear upon action,” “the problem is that while rhetoric seems in some respect to be the means by which reason guides political action, it often seems to be an art of deception, inimical to rational deliberation” (3). What, then, is “the place of reason in political life”? (3)
Modern thinkers cannot make up their minds. Some of them want reason, usually defined as induction based on the result of experiment, to rule. Others reject this ‘rationalism,’ saying that it cannot account for the depth and power of human passions and appetites. These two opinions share a suspicion of rhetoric, as “the rationality of rhetoric becomes especially dubious if scientific demonstration is taken to be the sole model of valid reasoning”; a “further consequence” of that assumption is that “the political itself becomes irrational” (4).
Arnhart turns to Aristotle to show the way out of this dilemma. Aristotle considers reason to be broader and more complex than modern rationalists say it is. He differentiates persuasion from instruction and compulsion, opinion from absolute truth and falsehood, probability from necessity and chance, and enthymeme from strict demonstration and sophistical fallacy. Arnhart concerns himself especially with Aristotle’s knack of showing how opinions have rational content and how the passions are at least amenable to reason. Enthymeme, the characteristic form reason takes in rhetoric, links rational logos to character or ethos, and both to passion or pathos. Even as Plato’s Socrates opposed the sophistic rhetoric of Gorgias, Aristotle opposes the rhetoric of Isocrates, reputedly the student of Gorgias. In doing so, as Arnhart remarks, he structures his treatise like a speech, beginning with an introduction and ending with a peroration (189 n. 1).
Rhetoric is the counterpart, “the antistrophe of dialectic,” Aristotle observes (1354a). Both address things as they are, with things “within the knowledge of all people,” and both “belong to no separately defined science” (1354a). Dialectic is the characteristic philosophic way of Socrates; it “test[s] and maintain[s] an argument” (1354a). Rhetoric enables persons to “defend themselves and attack others” (1354a)—most obviously at trial. Socrates defended himself at trial and saw the jury vote against him. Given both its status as dialectic’s complement or counterpart and apparent failure of Socratic rhetoric to defend Socrates’ life (even as it defended his way of life in a way that indelibly marked Western civilization), it may be no accident that the name of Socrates appears more often in the Rhetoric than in any other Aristotelian treatise.
Rhetoric is an art, and enthymeme, the form of reason most associated with that art, makes up “the body” of rhetorical persuasion, even as stylistic ornamentation and appeals to the emotions make up its ‘externals’ (1354a). “It is wrong to warp the jury by leading them into anger or envy or pity,” Aristotle writes, Socratically (1354a). Rhetoric, whether before a jury or in the assembly, finds its place within a framework of laws which should constrain the judges. Aristotle finds this good, given that “legislation results from consideration over much time, while judgments are made at the moment” of the trial or debate also because lawmakers tend to look to the future and to general principles, whereas judges and juries live in the present, often looking to emotions of “friendliness and hostility and individual self-interest” (1354b). As Arnhart observes, the laws themselves issue from the political regime, knowledge of which requires political science, which is not itself the art of rhetoric (24).
An enthymeme is a syllogism based not on a certainty, a truth held to be self-evident, but on a probability. Syllogisms based on probability can encompass opinion because there is a likelihood that opinion has some element of truth in it; “humans have a natural disposition for the true and to a large extent hit on the truth” (1355a). “Rhetoric is useful because the true and the just are by nature stronger than their opposites” (1355a). This is how rhetoric differs from instruction, which is knowledge-based not opinion-based. Both rhetoric and dialectic can argue both sides of a question, which raises suspicions about those practiced in them; rightly used, they both sift out true from false. In rhetoric, this requires the speaker to know his opponent’s argument; specifically, the function of art of rhetoric “is not to persuade but to see the available means of persuasion in each case,” even as the knowledge-based art of medicine does not “create health but… promote[s] this as much as possible” (1355a). As Arnhart puts it, “One possesses rhetoric as an art only when one knows the reasons for the success of some techniques of persuasion and the failure of others”; art requires knowledge, as does science, but unlike science it aims at a practical purpose or telos (15). “The result is that rhetoric is a certain kind of offshoot of dialectic and of ethical studies, which it is just to call politics” (1356a).
More formally, then “Let rhetoric be [defined as] an ability, in each [particular] case, to see the available means of persuasion” (1355b). Unlike other arts it has no particular subject, but instead ranges over human character and conduct generally. It does so in three ways: by reflecting upon the character of the speaker; by inclining the listener “in some way”; and by making an argument “showing or seeming to show something” (1355b-1356a). Character persuades because “we believe fair-minded people to a greater extent and more quickly [than we do others],” especially “where there is not exact knowledge but room for doubt” (1356a). Listeners are inclined to believe by appeals to emotion, “for we do not give the same judgment when grieved and rejoicing or when being friendly and hostile” (1356a). And of course the argument itself must be plausible. It may include deductive arguments or enthymemes but it can and often should also include inductive arguments based on example, on “paradeigma” (1356b). But all rhetorical arguments concern matters for choice–that is, matters not necessarily true (as a geometrical proof) but probably true, and moreover contingent upon taking some action–a matter of practice not theory. And, as Arnhart writes,”Once it is recognized that the enthymeme encompasses all the pisteis—logos, ethos, and pathos—that it is a rhetorical vehicle not only for purely logical proof but also for displaying the moral and intellectual virtues of the speakers and for dealing with the emotions and characters of the listeners, the unity of [the] first two books of the Rhetoric becomes apparent” (52-53). “Through rhetoric the political discourse of ordinary men can become a rational activity, but such a discourse could never become rational if scientific instruction were the only form of reasoning,” given the fact that not all of us are scientists (26). Or, as Aristotle puts it, “rhetoric is a combination of analytical knowledge and knowledge of characters”; “on the one hand it is like dialectic, on the other like sophistic discourses. 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” (1359a).
Aristotle identifies three kinds of rhetoric: deliberative rhetoric consists of either exhortation or dissuasion, looking to the future, aiming at achieving the advantageous or avoiding the harmful; judicial rhetoric consists of either accusation or defense, looking at the past, aiming at achieving justice or avoiding the unjust; epideictic or “display” rhetoric consists of praise or blame, looking at the present and aiming at bringing honor or in shaming.
Deliberative rhetoric addresses matters not of necessity, nor of nature, nor of chance but only those things that “by their nature, are within our power and of which the inception lies in us” (1359a). These subjects include finances, war and peace, national defense, imports and exports, and legislation. Aristotle mentions the several kinds of knowledge each of these entails, emphasizing the importance of understanding the several forms of political regimes and the things that corrupt and strengthen each one; “to know what regime is advantageous on the basis of past history but also to know the regimes in effect in other city-states, observing what regimes are suitable to what sort of people” belongs “to political science, not to rhetoric,” but nonetheless forms the basis of any prudent public speech (1360a). In his discussion of regimes he discusses democracy (which distributes offices by lot), oligarchy (which distributes offices to the wealthy), aristocracy (wherein offices go to the educated), and monarchy (ruled either by one person bound by custom and law or by a tyrant, whose power is “unlimited” (1365a-b).
With respect to the end or telos he aims at, the rhetorician will understand that “just about every person in private and all people in common” aim at eudaimonia or happiness, by which Aristotle means “good activity combined with virtue, or self-sufficiency in living or the most pleasant life consistent with safety, or abundance of possessions and bodies along with the power to protect and make effective use of them” (1360b); everyone agrees that happiness consists of one or more of these things. With respect to the means to that end, the political or deliberative rhetorician should aim at the advantageous, which is a “good,” by which Aristotle means “whatever is chosen for itself and that for the sake of which we choose something else and what everything having perception or intelligence aims at what everything would [aim at] if it could acquire intelligence” (1362a). The virtues “are necessarily a good; for those having them are well-off in regard to them, and virtues are productive of good things and matters of action” (1362a). His list of the virtues generally follows the more extensive account offered in the Nicomachean Ethics; consistent with his politics of moderation, Aristotle propounds his famous ethics of moderation, the ‘mean between the extremes’. Persuasive arguments will appeal to the inclinations of the type of persons addressed—victory, honor, money—while seeking to temper these loves, lest they run to self-destruction. He commends a sober realism, reminding his readers that “the possible is greater than the impossible, for one is useful in itself, the other not” (1365a). In view of the actual city in which the speaker lives, one “should not forget the purpose of each regime; for choices are based on it. the purpose of democracy is freedom, of oligarchy wealth, of aristocracy things related to education an the traditions of law, of tyranny self-preservation” (1366a). Given these purposes, each regime fosters a certain ethos or character, and a prudent speaker will recall that “the character distinctive to each is necessarily most persuasive to each” (1366a). To this the speaker must appeal, even as he aims at moderating its extremes.
This leads Aristotle to a discussion of epideictic rhetoric, the rhetoric of praise and blame. He defines virtue as “an ability… that is productive and preservative of goods” an ability for “doing good” in “all ways in all things” (1366a). Since rhetoric aims at moving listeners to action, the “virtue of intelligence whereby people are able to plan well for happiness in regard to the good and bad things” (1366b), prudence, should characterize the rhetorician who would strengthen this ability in his listeners. Virtuous character and actions generally deserve honor; “praise” or epainos means speech in praise of character, “encomium” speech in praise of actions. “The deeds are signs of the person’s habitual character” (1367b); virtue is then an ability strengthened by good habits. Because imitate what is praised, imitation of virtue, if repeated, will become habitual. “Duties and studies and exertions are painful,” but “habit makes them pleasurable” (1370a). The form of speech heard in epideictic rhetoric is “amplification”; it “aims to show superiority” (1368a). This contrasts with the form of speech best in deliberative speeches, which is example, and that best in judicial speeches, enthymeme. Examples get us thinking of how to choose; enthymemes get us thinking about proof, evidence.
Judicial speech consists of accusation and defense. Enthymemes here should derive from the purposes for which persons do wrong, how such persons are mentally disposed, and what kind of persons wrongdoers do wrong to. “Vice and weakness are the reasons why people make the choice of harming and doing bad things” (1368b); actions impelled by necessity or compulsion or nature do not amount to criminal actions. But “those who think they can do wrong without penalty” often speak well, have many friends and/or wealth; they “think they can get away with [wrongdoing]” (1372a). Their victims are the opposite: friendless, moneyless, and inarticulate (1372b-1373a). Because judicial speech particularly addresses matters of justice and injustice, Aristotle offers a definition of justice suitable for the courtroom: obedience to the law. He names two kinds of law: “specific” law, the kind deliberately enacted by the regime and thus “defined by each people in reference to themselves,” and “common” law, “based on nature, for there is in nature a common principle of the just and unjust that all people in some way divine, even if they have no association of commerce with each other” (1373b). This is the origin of what came to be called “natural law,” a notion that appears nowhere in the Nicomachean Ethics or the Politics, but which fits well with the discussion of judicial speech here (see Arnhart, 104-105). Offenses against law may be directed either at individuals within the polis or at the polis itself (1373b).
“Fairness” or equity “goes beyond the written law” (1374a). As befits the author of the Nicomachean Ethics, where the ethical importance of circumstances receives considerable attention—an action usually wrong might be right in certain circumstances, as for example killing in self-defense—Aristotle praises those “forgiving of human weakness,” urging speakers to “look not to the law” in every case “but to the legislator and not to the word but to the intent of the legislator, and not to the action but to the deliberate purpose and not to the part to the whole, not [looking at] what a person is now but what he has been always or for the most part” (1374b). The equitable person will “bear up when wronged,” “go into arbitration rather than to court” (1374b). “If the written law is contrary to the facts [of the case], one must use common law and argument based on fairness as being more just” (1375a), closer to the “common” or natural law. This emphasis on equity extends to the means by which a court should collect evidence; Aristotle opposes torture, urging that speakers in court reject evidence gathered in that way as unreliable (1376b-1377a).
If Book I centers on the kinds of arguments speakers should use, Book II centers on ethos, the character of the speaker, which “makes much difference in regard to persuasion” (1377b) and also pathos, the emotions of the listeners. “There are three things we trust other than logical demonstration”: the character-qualities of prudence and of virtue generally, and the emotionally appealing quality of eunonia or goodwill. “A person seeming to have these qualities is necessarily persuasive to the hearers” (1378a); in the Rhetoric, “seeming” often comes up, because Aristotle knows as well as Machiavelli that men see what you appear to be, not always (or even usually) what you are. The difference between the two philosophers lies in the uses to which they put that observation.
Unlike arguments, which appeal to reason (which is painless), 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”; these include “anger, pity, fear, and other such things and their opposites” (1378a). Emotions should be considered from three angles: the state of mind of those in the grip of emotion; those on whom their emotions are fixed; the reasons for which they have fixed their emotions on those persons. A speaker must appeal to his listeners’ emotions, not only their reason, so to neglect any of these angles would cause his speech to fail. Modern political philosophers—Thomas Hobbes above all—have esteemed the Rhetoric‘s account of the emotions, committed as they are to the manipulation of human nature, and conceiving of human nature as primarily an impassioned thing. As Arnhart remarks, Aristotle proceeds differently. “Aristotle shows how the passions can be led to an integral part of enthymetic argument”; while “the sophist excites the passions to direct his listeners from rational deliberation, the Aristotelian speaker controls the passions by reasoning with his listeners” (112). This can happen because “men are continually talked into or out of their passions, either by themselves or by others. Passions do respond to arguments,” unlike bodily sensation and appetites (114).
Aristotle discusses seven pairs of contrasting passions. Pairings of opposites suggests the possibility of balancing. He first pairs anger and calmness, anger being the most immediately dangerous of the passions, whether in the courts or in assemblies. Anger is “desire, accompanied by distress, for conspicuous retaliation because of a conspicuous slight that was directed, without justification, against oneself or those near to one” (1378a). Dwelling on retaliation also brings “a kind of pleasure” (1378b). On the level of opinion, anger leads to belittling, whether in the form of contempt, spite, or insult. The young and the rich especially love insult, “for by insulting they think they are superior” (1378b). Those belittled also feel anger, rulers and the well-born most of all, because they deem themselves worthy of great respect. Interestingly, even philosophers feel anger toward those who speak “against philosophy,” “taking pride in philosophy” (1379a)—likely another glance at Socrates’ confrontation with the jury that convicted him of impiety and corrupting the young. Generally, everyone becomes anger at the belittlement of what they take pride in, and even more so “if they suspect they do not really have” what they take pride in (1379)! For the speaker, this suggests that “it might be needful in speech to put [the listeners] in the state of mine of those who are inclined to anger and to show one’s opponents as responsible for those things that are the causes of anger and that they are the sort of people against whom anger is directed” (1380a).
Anger’s opposite, calmness, “a settling down and quieting of anger” (1380a), prevails when we contemplate “all who regard [us] as [we] ourselves would” (1380a) and also when those who have wronged or offended us “confess themselves justly punished” (1380a). If anger entails belittling, calmness entails respect. “Those wishing to instill calmness [in his listeners] should speak from these topics; they produce such a feeling in them by having made them regard those with whom they are angry as either persons to be feared or worthy of respect or benefactors or involuntary actor or as very grieved by what they have done” (1380b).
The second pair of emotions, friendliness and enmity, center on loving, and whether it is returned or rejected. “A friend is one who loves and is loved in return,” and in that reciprocal love we want what we think are good things for our friend, “not what one thinks benefits oneself” (1381a). Virtues attract friendship, especially liberality, courage, justice, and moderation. We are friendly with “those who are ready to make or receive a joke,” “able to be kidded and kidding in good sport” (1381a). At the same time, friends take the same things seriously, those “who long for the same things when it is possible to share them at the same time” (1381b). Friends “join in doing good” (1381b). Enmity arises from the opposites of these conditions. Aristotle distinguishes between enmity founded on anger, a painful emotion, and enmity founded on hatred, which does not pain the one who hates.
Fear and confidence form the third pair. “A sort of pain or agitation derived from the imagination of a future destructive or painful evil”—in the near future, not far removed—fear derives from a perception of ill-will in another combined with his power to do something about it (1382a). There is much to fear from our fellow human beings, as “most people are rather bad, slaves of profitmaking, and cowardly in danger” (1382b). With Machiavelli and John Calvin, Aristotle knows that “human beings usually do wrong when they can” (1382b). We should especially fear those among us who do not rage but remain “calm”—the dissembling and the unscrupulous—”for with these it is unclear if they are close [to acting]” (1382b). Fear has a good side, however. It “makes people inclined to deliberation” (1383a). A speaker who wants to put his listeners in a deliberative frame of mind might well “make them realize that they are liable to suffering” (1383a). Confidence arises in those who “have not been put to the test” and in those who have the resources needed to pass it (1383a). Dangers at sea do not faze those who have never undergone them or those who have undergone them many times. People also feel confident if they have done no wrong, or few wrongs, and generally “if their relationship to the gods is good, both as known from signs and oracles and in other ways” (1383b). One can infer from this that a speaker who wants his listeners to face danger with confidence will invoke the favor of the gods.
Shame and shamelessness, the fourth pair of emotions, derive from the social aspect of human nature. Shame is pain or agitation at those evils which seem “to bring a person into disrespect,” whereas shamelessness belittles such evils, or doesn’t care about them (1383b). Actions resulting from vice—particularly injustice, licentiousness, or greed—bring us to shame. More subtly, Aristotle observes that we feel ashamed if we don’t “share in the fine things of which all have a share or all those like oneself or most of them”—”one’s equals,” members of the same nation, fellow citizens, or the same age or family (1383b). And doubly so if it seems to be our own fault. Arnhart suggests that shame and shamelessness are central to Aristotle’s list because the Rhetoric deals with emotions as they are shaped by the civic training of the laws, and this pair of emotions form the psychological basis for the difference between a law-abiding citizen and an outlaw (130).
Kindness and unkindness form the fifth pair, kindness being a willingness to serve the needy, and “not in return for anything” (1385a). A kind person will “stand by someone in poverty and those in exile” (1385a). Unkind persons expect repayment in kind; if you go bankrupt or are expelled from the polis they tend not to know you, anymore. After all, in those circumstances what can you do for them?
Pity and indignation differ from kindness and unkindness because they involve self-regard rather than self-interest, a concern for one’s person rather than for one’s property. Pity is “pain at an apparently destructive or painful evil happening to one who does not deserve it and which a person might expect himself or one of his own to suffer, and this when it seems close at hand” (1385b). We feel pity for good people, and for those like ourselves. “The situation here is analogous to that of friendship,” Arnhart remarks, “in which love of others arises from love of oneself” (131). We feel indignation at the success of bad people. We are likely to feel it at the newly rich than those loaded with ‘old money,’ because “what is long established seems close to nature,” thus better, more acceptable (1387a). We feel indignant at persons of lesser worth; for example, a musician who wrangles with a just man will arouse indignation because “justice is better than music” (1387b). Conversely, person who know themselves to be ‘of no account’ seldom feel indignation; “the servile, the worthless and the unambitious are not given to indignation, for there is nothing of which they regard themselves as worthy” (1387b).
The seventh pair of emotions, envy and emulation, continue in this vein of men’s social inclinations. Envy resembles shame in that it registers distress at the success of one’s equals who have attained good things when you have not. “Small-souled” or petty people often feel envy because “all things seem great to them” (1387b). But most people feel envy most often in matters of honor and love. We also envy those who naturally enjoy what we once did; “this is why the older [envy] the young” (1388a), sighing that youth is wasted on them, rather than seeing that youth is necessary to them for the sake of recouping their many blunders. By contrast, emulation is “a good thing and characteristic of good people,” especially “great-souled” or magnanimous ones (1388a). Emulation registers distress at not having what one’s equals have but then aspiring to have those things and not wishing that others do not have them.
Aristotle next begins an ascent from the passions, returning to a consideration of character first as relating to nature and specifically to age, then as relating to family status, then as relating to wealth, and finally as relating to political power. Our age influences our character. The young “are prone to desires and inclined to do whatever they desire,” especially in pursuing their sexual desires (1389a). In all things they prove “unable to resist their impulses,” loving not only beautiful bodies but honor and victory even more than honor, “for youth longs for [the] superiority” their inferiority in years has denied them (1389a). They don’t love money because “they have not yet experienced want,” and they are not cynical because they have “not yet seen much wickedness” (1389a). Trusting and hopeful, “like those drinking wine, the young are heated by their nature,” and tend toward wishful thinking (1389a). They are magnanimous because “they have not been worn down by life” and “think they know everything and strongly insist on it” precisely because they don’t know much (1389a-b). Their wittiness tracks their quest for superiority, “for wit is cultured insolence” (1389b).
Old people are the opposite not only in years but in character—less sure of themselves, cynical, suspicious. “They love as if they would one day hate and hate as if they would one day love,” having lost the whole-heartedness of youth (1389b). They have been worn down by life, becoming small-souled as a result. They are fearful, cold-blooded; “age has prepared the way for cowardice, for fear is a kind of chilling” (1389b). “They are more fond of themselves than is right,” living for the small advantage and committing wrongs not out of insolence but malice (1390a). Grumpiness suits them; “they are querulous and not witty nor fond of laughter” (1390a). Prudent speakers who appeal to the aspirations of youth will talk to the elderly about Social Security.
Men in the prime of life (physically between thirty and thirty-five years of age, intellectually at about forty-nine) “combine prudence with courage and courage with prudence, while among the young and old those things are separated” (1390b). Arnhart notes the brevity of this chapter and the narrow age limits to men in their prime, speculating that Aristotle implies that “only philosophic souls can combine the exuberance of youth with the steadiness of old age” and sustain that balance (137).
Good birth, a good that “comes from chance” rather than nature, means “rank in society that derives from ancestors” (1390b). It too influences character, supposedly in a good way but not always. “Many” of the well-born “are worthless” by nature (1390b), the silver spoons stuck in their mouths from birth provide no nutrition to their souls. The virtuous among the well-born, one ventures to suppose, derive their goodness from emulation and education.
Sheer wealth is still further removed from nature, having no necessary connection with birth, with family. The character of the wealthy is “plain for all to see”: insolent, arrogant, ostentatious and pretentious, vulgar, “they think everybody else has the same opinions as they do” (1391a). “At the same time, this feeling is reasonable”—recall Arnhart’s observation that Aristotle looks for some form of reason even in the emotions, and even more in character—because “there are many who need what they have” (1391a). Asked if is better to be rich or wise, Simonides the poet somewhat acerbically intoned, “To be rich, for one sees the wise waiting at the doors of the rich” (1391a). Aristotle is less amused; “the character that comes from wealth is that of a lucky fool” (1391a). The newly-rich are the worst, “lack[ing] education in the use of wealth” and thus given to insolence and immoderation (1391a). The newly-rich trap themselves permanently in the vices of youth, self-contradictorily imagining themselves playboy-philosophers.
And finally there is the character of the powerful. They have “some characteristics that are the same as wealth, some that are better” (1391a). More manly and ambitious than the rich, and often conscious of the responsibilities attendant to their station, the powerful will behave with dignity and often with moderation. But “if they commit wrong, they do it on a large, not a small, scale” (1391a). For better or for worse, they think big. Generally, with both the wealthy and the powerful “there is one very good characteristic” following from their good fortune: “these people are lovers of the gods and have a special relation to divinity, having faith in the gods because of the benefits that have come to them from fortune” (1391a-b).
Speaking of the elevation of the soul as it looks to the divine, Aristotle now moves from character to reason, back to enthymemes. Rightly guided emotions and well-developed character, in part guided and developed by reasonable speech, can bring citizens to the sound judgments in the courtroom and the assembly, persuasive speech being directed precisely toward bringing listeners to arrive at such judgments. Deliberative, demonstrative, and judicial rhetoric all aim at this, and Aristotle outlines several features common to rhetoric generally, whatever its genre. These include “magnitude,” by which he means the use of magnification and diminution of persons and actions, and assessments of possibility, impossibility, and above all probability, assessments which induce listeners to think and indeed to think practically and not in terms of their fond hopes or chilling fears.
Aristotle wants speakers to keep the minds and hearts of their listeners in the real world. Hence the four “sources” of enthymemes he identifies are all ‘down-to-earth’: probabilities, examples or parallels, and the two kinds of “signs” or evidence, “necessary” and “fallible.” Exemplary parallels may be drawn from the past—what we would call parallels or analogies drawn from history, such as the need to respond to an enemy’s military buildup with one of your own, as was so conspicuously not done in Europe or the United States in the 1930s—or they may be drawn from fables, such as the stories of Aesop—memorable tales generally accepted as specimens of prudential wisdom. Fables work somewhat like maxims, “assertion[s] of generality” (1395a) which may come at the end of a fable; if you add a reason or a cause to the maxim you will have an enthymeme. Both fables and maxims appeal to the “assumptions people have”; maxims “then speak in general terms consistent with these views” (1395a), adding plausibility to what the speaker says.
Enthymemes or “rhetorical syllogisms” can be demonstrative or refutative. Aristotle lists 28 strategies of argument employed in them. These include drawing out the consequences of a proposed action, spotting contradictions in your opponent’s argument, linking cause to effect, and defining terms. In his discussion of definition, Aristotle points to Socrates, who saw the importance of ‘What is?’ questions. Arnhart remarks that the chapter on definition, “more than any other, points to the problem of Socratic rhetoric” (148) and to the animus against philosophers who insist on asking awkward questions like “What is the divine?” (1398a), questions that raise suspicions about their piety. Sophists do that, too, often adding challenges to “public standards of justice as merely conventional” (152). But “unlike the sophists, Socrates thinks that certain ends of nature require the aid of convention for their fulfillment” (152), and Aristotle, with his way of including appeals to emotions and character within a rhetoric framed by enthymetic syllogisms, evidently concurs. “It is clear,” Arnhart writes, “that rhetorical reasoning may be judged by the standards of syllogistic logic” (160).
In Book III Aristotle turns to lexis, to how to say things; the three dimensions of lexis are delivery, literary style, and the arrangement or structure of the speech. “It is not enough to have a supply of things to say, but it is necessary to say it in the right way” (1403b). Although matters of delivery may seem trivial to a serious man, they can be crucial to success “because of the corruption of the citizens” (1404a), which comes as much to see a show as to weigh policy proposals. Audiences have been corrupted in this respect by the poets, who traditionally memorized their poems and pronounced their “sweet nothings” with bardic self-assurance (1404a). Aristotle insists that “the lexis of prose differs from that of poetry” (1404a) because its virtue is clarity. “Authors should compose without being noticed and should seem to speak not artificially but naturally,” minimizing the use of strange words, clever puns, and neologisms. He admits metaphor because “all people carry on their conversations in metaphors” (1404b); for that reason, their use isn’t showy. Metaphors can also engage the mind in a proto-philosophic activity: “if “transferred from things that are related but not obviously so,” they do something philosophers do, namely, “to observe the likeness even in things very different” (1412a). He quotes a Pythagorean philosopher who likened an arbiter to an altar because “one who has been wronged flies to both” (1412a).
Aristotle takes care to make his stylistic recommendations consistent with his guiding intention to bring reasoning into rhetoric. He commends propriety to speakers, advising them to measure appeals to emotion and to character in accordance with the subject-matter. Don’t imitate the tragic poet Cleophon; “some of what he used to say is like calling a fig ‘Madame'” (1408a). Prose has its own rhythms, and in this as in so much else “all things are limited by number” (1408b)—a point poets too do well to appreciate. He praises the “periodic” style of rhetoric, by which he means exactly the opposite of Cicero’s sense of the word. Instead of long and complex sentences, Aristotle wants them to write “an expression having a beginning and an end in itself and a magnitude easily taken in at a glance” (1409a).
Different styles go with different genres of rhetoric. Written statements are more precise than performed ones, which are “very much a matter of delivery” (1413b). Performed speeches may read poorly when reduced to writing; an American might think of Henry Clay, by all accounts a perfect spellbinder on the floor of the United States Senate, but whose speeches seem rather thin in substance on the printed page. Performed speeches themselves fall into two categories, the “ethical” or character-centered and the “emotional” (1413b), the first more sober than the second.
Aristotle concludes his discussion of the formal characteristics of speeches with a discussion of their structure or taxis. Simply put, the speaker should state his subject and then demonstrate his claims. In epideictic speeches, his introduction should identify who are what is to be praised or blamed; in judicial speeches, he should offer a sample of the argument to come in order to clarify his purpose. As for deliberative speeches, an introduction isn’t necessary because the listeners already know the topic. Deliberative speeches also need little or no narrative (“no one narrates future events” [1417b]), but epideictic and judicial speeches do, because narrative can illustrate character, and those kinds of speeches character is very much at issue. In an aside, Aristotle mentions that mathematical works have no moral character because they treat necessities, not matters of deliberate choice, whereas Socratic dialogues do have such a character and do address matters of deliberate choice. And they do have narrative frames. Every narrative will point to reasons for action, but the speaker must take care to make these plausible to his listeners; remember that “people do not believe anyone does anything willingly except what is advantageous” (1417a).
The kind of proofs offered also vary from genre to genre. Epideictic speeches will amplify (or, in a critical speech, diminish) the good and advantageous aspects of the persons or deeds expounded. Deliberative speeches should focus on probabilities and examples, whereas judicial speeches should feature enthymemes above all else. Enthymeme doesn’t go so well in the other two genres because “logical demonstration has neither ethos nor moral purpose” (1418a). The counterpart of proof is interrogation, whereby the speaker tests the arguments of his adversary. When Meletus denied that Socrates believed in gods, Socrates asked him if daimones were not children of the gods. Meletus admitted that they are, and Socrates, who often mentioned his guardian daimon, had him cornered: “Does anybody think there are children of gods but no gods?” (1419a). Aristotle urges care in interrogation, inasmuch as if your adversary comes up with an apt reply your rhetorical goose will be cooked. Humor, too, should be used with care. “Irony is a more suitable style for civilized people than clowning, since someone who is ironic is making the joke to his own standard, while someone who is clownish is making it to that of someone else” (1419b); listeners distrust servility in a speaker.
An epilogue should dispose the hearer favorably toward the speaker, unfavorable toward the adversary, amplify one’s own arguments and minimize his, move the listeners emotionally, and remind them of the main points of the argument. Reminding will impress the listeners with your credibility; you have delivered on the promises you made at the beginning of your speech.
Arnhart concludes his commentary with two points for his audience, which consists not of would-be rhetoricians but political scientists. First, political reality is contingent, based on choices as well as necessities. “To understand these choices, the political scientist must study them as they are manifest in common opinions,” inasmuch as they cannot be understood as if they were physical objects perceived by the senses (186-187). Second, all reasoning—theoretical as well as practical—”depends upon commonsense opinions” or presuppositions; these “cannot be proven because they are the source of all proofs” (187). “The Hobbesian political scientist know more than he will admit (188), which a polite way of hinting that he knows less than he will say.
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