Today we have to sift through quite a bit of Aristotle. I want to:
- Discuss Aristotle’s orientation toward rhetoric
- Identify the major branches of rhetoric
- Identify the primary rhetorical appeals
- Identify the five “canons” of rhetoric
- Explicate a few key terms
Aristotle’s Orientation Toward Rhetoric
A few questions:
- What does it mean that rhetoric is “antistrophos” to dialectic? Is rhetoric a knowledge?
- Why is rhetoric necessary? (I.2.12-14; questions of absolute knowledge vs questions of almost absolute knowledge)
- When does rhetoric go wrong?
- Let’s look closely at that definition of rhetoric
- Responses to Plato (I.i.13)
- Swipes at Isocrates
Rhetoric’s Three Major Branches
Aristotle identifies three major branches, or species, of rhetoric (see I.iii.1-4):
- Deliberative Rhetoric
- Judicial (or Forensic) Rhetoric
- Epideictic Rhetoric
Each of these branches serves a different purpose and focuses on a different time (past, present, or future).
Each, also, prioritizes different appeals.
Rhetorical Appeals
The rhetorical appeals can be thought of as an identification of the central elements of any rhetorical engagement. Later scholars will argue that these appeals are operating in any communicative act, and are not exclusive to a strictly rhetorical speech/performance. They are:
- Logos
- Artistic vs. Inartistic
- Why study dialectic? I.i.12
- Ethos
- Pathos
We need to pull these apart and understand what each offers.
The 5 Canons of Rhetoric
We might think of the 5 canons as the five elements of crafting a speech. They were:
- Invention heuresis
- Arrangement taxis
- Style lexis
- Memory mneme
- Delivery hypocrisis
How to do invention, see I.ix.28-30.
As you might expect, Aristotle prioritizes invention, or the generation of ideas. He feels that his contemporaries spend far too much time on style and performance, and far too little on substance. Although, I find his acknowledgement of the audience’s disposition to be particularly important.
Aristotle opens Book 2 with a discussion of disposition and pathos, writing:
But since rhetoric is concerned with making a judgment (people judge what is said in deliberation, and judicial proceedings are also a judgment), it is necessary not only to look to the argument, that it may be demonstrative and persuasive but also [for the speaker] to construct a view of himself as a certain kind of person and prepare the judge; 3. for it makes much difference in regard to persuasion (especially in deliberations but also in trials) that the speaker seem to be a certain kind of person and that his hearers suppose him to be disposed toward them in a certain way and in addition if they, too, happen to be disposed in a certain way. (II.i.2-3; see also I.i.9)
If we read this passage (and the rest of the introductory material in Book 2) carefully, then we can see that Aristotle’s definition of pathos is not necessarily theatrical or performative. In fact, in Book 3, he rails against orators who model themselves after actors in the theater. Unlike the sophists, he isn’t interested in pathos as a pull on the heart strings as much as in it as a way of setting a mood. Certainly, it is proper for the orator to demonstrate investment in her topic, to be passionate, but it is a fine line and slippery slope into baffoonery. Much later in the semester we will discuss Thomas Rickert’s notion of ambient rhetorics (the way environs affect judgment and disposition) across this sense of pathos.
A few key terms:
- Syllogism vs. Enthymeme
- Topoi (Commonplaces); see Lanham handout
- Def. of Happiness in the Rhetoric I.v.3, Pleasure I.vi.6.
For homework, you should read the Halloran and the Sullivan readings. Both are linked off of our homepage.
