Aristotle | rhetoric-greeks

Some of Aristotle's most influential concepts were proofs, appeals, and speech genres.

The Aristotilian School of Thought

Like the Sophists, Aristotle was a metic, born into a wealthy family from a small town, Stagira, in northern Greece.
Aristotle completed his education at the Academy as one of Plato's favorite students.
After Plato's death, Aristotle was hired as a mentor/tutor to the son of the King of Macedonia. That son, Alexander, would later become Alexander the Great, ruler of Greece.
Aristotle founded his own school in Athens in 334 BC, the Lyceum. He did not have much of a public persona, preferring instead to write and teach.
To explain his ideas about rhetoric, Aristotle drew from both Sophistic and Platonic teachings, but his epistemology - that is, his theory of the origins of knowledge - was mostly from an empiricist (scientific) outlook.
Instead of turning to the noumenal world like Plato, Aristotle encouraged humans to focus on our present reality. He developed a system of categorization based on observation that is still influencial in modern science and philosophy today.
His empiricist view was that knowledge and truth are absolute, found through scientific observation. Being situated in a world of uncertainty, rhetoric, on the other hand, was composed of probable truths.
Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic speech, according to Aristotle. While dialectic focuses on two opposing arguments, rhetoric looks for any means of persuasion available.

Proofs

Inartistic proofs are items related to a speech that were not introduced by the rhetor, such as facts, statistics, laws, oaths, etc.
Artistic proofs are the appeals created by the rhetor: logos, pathos, and ethos.

Appeals

Logos --> logic and reason

In his text the Rhetoric, Aristotle examines two types of arguments, respectively based on deductive and inductive reasoning.
Deductive: general --> specific
- Enthymemes are deductive arguments based on "probable premises" - they draw specific conclusions based on popular beliefs and ideas commonly accepted as true, though they may not be (77).
- Syllogisms are claims based on general premises that are absolutely true.
Inductive: specific --> general
- Inductive arguments are built on the strength of examples; they compare items in a category to form broad conclusions.
- For instance, say you meet a sailor who is very tan, and then subsequently meet several more sailors with tanned skin. Based on these inductive examples, you would likely draw the conclusion that all people who work on boats have tan skin. The more examples you have, the more valid the conclusion seems.

-enthymeme

-syllogism

Speech Genres

Pathos --> emotion

Aristotle's concept of proximity states that "the intensity of emotions" evoked by a speech depends on how close the object that triggers those emotions is to us in space and time (72).
In terms of relationships, people who are close to us affect our emotions more than strangers or people far away.
To move an audience to a certain state of mind, Aristotle utilized figurative language (metaphors) and descriptive language to capture the audience members' imaginations with mental pictures.

Ethos --> credibility

This was the most important appeal to Aristotle, as he believed that credibility is the "most potent form of persuasion" (69). If a speaker seems trustworthy and believable, the audience will be more accepting of any given message.
To establish ethos, a speaker has three basic concepts to consider: phronesis, eunoia, and arete.
Phronesis is wisdom and practical knowledge gained through the study of political science, history, and ethics (70). The more educated and wise a speaker seems, the more impressive they will be to audiences.
- Example: A professor with a Ph.D. will seem more knowledgable on their chosen subject than a graduate assistant.
Eunoia is a sense of goodwill and best intent towards the audience - a speaker should have the audience's interests in mind.
- Example: A large company wants to demolish part of a local forest to build a shopping center. In a town meeting about the issue, environmentally-minded townsfolks are not likely to give much attention to a speech from a company spokesperson because the business does not care about the citizens' interests, only in making money.
Arete is a speaker's character, their virtue. Speakers need to be aware of what particular audiences will think of their deeds and values and how that might affect reception of the speech's message.

Aristotle divided public speaking into three major categories: epideictic, forensic, and deliberative.

Epideictic or ceremonial speeches intend to praise or blame their subjects. These speeches are composed for special occasions such as funerals and commencement ceremonies which require speaking about the present.
Forensic speeches are utilized in legal settings, especially by lawyers, to assess innocence or guilt by speaking about the past..
Deliberative speeches are used most often in political situations to spurn future action. One example of deliberative speech is the US President's State of the Union address.

These genres often overlap - for example, a car salesman's pitch is mostly deliberative, as he wants to persuade you to buy from him in the future. However, he might also use epideictic rhetoric to point out flaws of the competing products.

That's all from Aristotle...

Now that we've learned about the classic Athenian schools of thought, let's review with a three-way comparison.

Almost done!