Rhetoric
Aristotle, 350 BC
In Athens every citizen defended himself in court, in front of hundreds of fellow citizens. Aristotle analysed what persuasion rests on: on the character of the speaker, on the feelings of the listener and on the argument itself. From this book you will learn how a strong argument works, how anger and pity work, and why a clear sentence persuades better than an ornate one.
Who it is for
For people who have to persuade: at work, in an argument, in front of an audience. And for those who want to understand why people believe some words and not others.
It is absurd to be ashamed of not being able to defend yourself with your body, and not to be ashamed of not being able to defend yourself with words and reason.
Tomorrow you will speak before hundreds of fellow citizens
Picture Athens of the fourth century BC. A neighbour has taken you to court over a debt or a plot of land. You cannot hire a lawyer: by Athenian custom, each person speaks for themselves. You will be heard not by one judge, but by hundreds of ordinary citizens, who will hear both sides and vote the same day. Someone who could not speak could pay a logographer, who would write a speech for him. But he still had to learn it by heart and deliver it himself.
In this city Aristotle, a pupil of Plato, studied and taught for some twenty years. His teacher looked on the art of speech with suspicion: in the dialogue “Gorgias” rhetoric appears as an immoral trade, unworthy of a serious mind. Aristotle saw it differently. He noticed a strange thing. A person feels ashamed if he cannot defend himself with his body, but somehow is not ashamed if he cannot defend himself with words. Yet reasoned speech is more proper to a human being than the strength of his arms.
That is how “Rhetoric” came about, a book that the whole later theory of persuasion argues with and rests on. There are almost no clever tricks in it. Aristotle asks why people believe some words and not others, and lays out the answer in parts: who speaks, who listens and what exactly is said.
You will see what trust in a speaker rests on, and why a short argument is stronger than a long chain of reasoning. You will learn how a speech in court differs from a speech at a celebration. You will work out how anger, calm, fear and pity arise. And at the end you will understand why a clear sentence persuades better than an ornate one. We begin with what Aristotle himself considered the speaker's task.
The speaker's task: to see everything that can persuade
Aristotle begins with a definition, and it sounds surprisingly modest. For him, rhetoric is the ability to find, in each case, what can persuade here. Persuading is not required, but seeing every possibility is. He compares the orator with a doctor. The doctor's task is not to make every patient perfectly healthy, but to bring the sick person towards health as far as possible. One can treat well even someone who will never fully recover.
Why does one need such a skill at all? Aristotle is sure that truth and justice are by nature stronger than their opposites. If a just cause nevertheless loses, the fault lies with the one who defended it badly. Besides, some listeners cannot be persuaded by exact knowledge: a strict proof is like a lesson, and there are no lessons in court or at an assembly. So one has to speak in the language of what everyone knows.
Aristotle divides everything that persuades through the speech itself into three parts. Later they came to be called by their Greek names: ethos, pathos and logos.
• The character of the speaker. We believe decent people more readily and more quickly, especially where exact knowledge is lacking and opinions diverge. Aristotle calls character almost the strongest means of persuasion. But with an important reservation: trust must be created by the speech itself, not by the fame a person already has when they rise to speak.
• The mood of the listener. Feelings change judgement. People who are friendly think about the same matter differently from those who are irritated.
• The argument itself. What is proved by the words of the speech, or looks proved.
Where does trust come from? Aristotle explains it from the opposite side, through bad advisers. Some are wrong because they lack good sense. Others understand what is best, but because of a bad character say something other than what they think. Still others are clever and honest, but do not wish their listeners well, and keep the best advice to themselves. So in every speech the listener looks for good sense, decency and goodwill. A good reputation will not do this for you: in every conversation they have to be shown anew.
About the author
Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher of the fourth century BC, a pupil of Plato and tutor of Alexander the Great. In Athens he founded his own school, the Lyceum, and wrote about logic, nature, ethics, politics and poetry.
All books by this author: Aristotle
Terms from the book
- Socrates
- Plato
- Pericles
- Rhetoric
- ethos
- pathos
- logos
- Euripides
- logographer: In ancient Athens, a craftsman who wrote court speeches for a fee. The litigant learned such a speech by heart and delivered it himself.
- Gorgias: A famous ancient Greek orator and teacher of eloquence of the fifth century BC. Plato named his dialogue about rhetoric after him.
- enthymeme: Aristotle's term: a rhetorical syllogism, a conclusion that rests on what the listeners already take to be true.
- Dorieus: An ancient Greek athlete from the island of Rhodes, who three times won at the Olympic Games in the pankration, a mixture of wrestling and boxing. Aristotle uses him as an example in his reasoning.
- tyrant: In ancient Greece, a ruler who seized sole power outside the laws of the city. The word did not always mean cruelty, though such rule often came with it.
- Dionysius: A ruler of whom Aristotle speaks as one asking for bodyguards. He is usually taken to be Dionysius the Elder, who became tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily.
- Pisistratus: An Athenian politician of the sixth century BC. Having been granted a guard by his fellow citizens, he seized power and became tyrant of Athens.
- Theagenes: Tyrant of the city of Megara in the seventh century BC.
- Megara: An ancient Greek city between Athens and Corinth.
- Darius: Darius I, Persian king of the sixth and fifth centuries BC. Under him the Persians first made war on Greece.
- Xerxes: Persian king, son of Darius. In 480 BC he invaded Greece.
- Stesichorus: An ancient Greek poet of the seventh and sixth centuries BC, who lived in Sicily.
- Himera: An ancient Greek city on the north coast of Sicily.
- Phalaris: Tyrant of the Sicilian city of Akragas in the sixth century BC, who went down in history for his cruelty.
- Scythians: Nomadic peoples who lived in ancient times in the steppes north of the Black Sea. The Greeks regarded them above all as brave warriors.
- Philocrates: An Athenian politician of the fourth century BC, who negotiated peace with Philip of Macedon.
- Ergophilus: An Athenian commander of the fourth century BC, who was tried by his fellow citizens. Aristotle cites his case as an example of how anger subsides.
- Callisthenes: An Athenian commander whom his fellow citizens sentenced to death. This is not the Callisthenes, a relative of Aristotle, who accompanied Alexander the Great.
- Amasis: Egyptian pharaoh of the sixth century BC. Aristotle retells a legend about him, introducing it with the words “they say”.
- Theodorus: A famous tragic actor of the fourth century BC.
- Alcidamas: Ancient Greek orator and teacher of eloquence of the fourth century BC, a pupil of Gorgias.
- metaphor: The transfer of a name from one thing to another by likeness, for example “spring” in the sense of “youth”.
- Aegina: An island in the gulf off the coast of Attica, not far from Athens. In the fifth century BC it competed with Athens at sea.
- Piraeus: The main harbour of Athens.
All terms
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