Aristotle's "Art of Rhetoric"

Aristotle, Robert C. Bartlett

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780226789903, 9780226591629
• eBook ISBN: 9780226591766
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Rhetoric

For more than two thousand years. Aristotle's "Art of Rhetoric" has shaped thought on the theory and practice of rhetoric, the art of persuasive speech. In three sections, Aristotle discusses what rhetoric is, as well as the three kinds of rhetoric (deliberative, judicial, and epideictic), the three rhetorical modes of persuasion, and the diction, style, and necessary parts of a successful speech. Throughout, Aristotle defends rhetoric as an art and a crucial tool for deliberative politics while also recognizing its capacity to be misused by unscrupulous politicians to mislead or illegitimately persuade others.

Here Robert C. Bartlett offers a literal, yet easily readable, new translation of Aristotle's "Art of Rhetoric," one that takes into account important alternatives in the manuscript and is fully annotated to explain historical, literary, and other allusions. Bartlett's translation is also accompanied by an outline of the argument of each book; copious indexes, including subjects, proper names, and literary citations; a glossary of key terms; and a substantial interpretive essay.
 

ARISTOTLE’S

ART OF RHETORIC

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Outline of Book 1

1. A. What is rhetoric?
   1. 1. Rhetoric, dialectic, and politics: 1.1–3
      1. a) Rhetoric and dialectic: 1.1
      2. b) Technical writers and the misuse of rhetoric
      3. c) Utility of rhetoric
      4. d) Rhetoric defined: 1.2
      5. e) Modes of persuasion (pisteis)
      6. f) Rhetoric and politics
      7. g) Example, enthymeme, and sign, both necessary and non-necessary
   2. 2. Kinds of rhetoric: 1.3
      1. a) Deliberative
      2. b) Judicial
      3. c) Epideictic
2. B. The subject matters of rhetoric and its source materials (specific topics)
   1. 1. Deliberative rhetoric: 1.4–8
      1. a) Advice regarding good and bad things: 1.4
      2. b) The five political subjects
      3. c) Happiness and its parts: 1.5
      4. d) The good as the advantageous, both agreed on and disputed: 1.6
      5. e) The greater good and the more advantageous: 1.7
      6. f) Regimes and what is advantageous to each: 1.8
   2. 2. Epideictic rhetoric: 1.9
      1. a) What is noble?
      2. b) Praise and blame
      3. c) Praise and advice
      4. d) Amplification
   3. 3. Judicial rhetoric: 1.10–15
      1. a) Injustice defined: 1.10
      2. b) Causes of injustice
      3. c) Pleasure as a motive for injustice: 1.11
      4. d) Dispositions of the unjust: 1.12
      5. e) Victims of injustice
      6. f) Unjust and just acts relative to written and unwritten laws: 1.13
      7. g) Equity
      8. h) Greater and lesser injustices: 1.14
      9. i) Non-technical modes of persuasion in trials: 1.15
         1. (1) Laws
         2. (2) Witnesses
         3. (3) Compacts
         4. (4) Evidence gained by torture
         5. (5) Oaths

Book 1

CHAPTER 1

[1354a1] Rhetoric is a counterpart of dialectic.1 For both rhetoric and dialectic are concerned with those sorts of things that are in a way commonly available to the cognizance of quite all people and that do not belong to a distinct science. Hence all people do in a way share in both rhetoric and dialectic, for everyone to some extent attempts[5] both to scrutinize an argument and to maintain one, and to speak in both self-defense and accusation. Now, some among the many2 do these things at random, others through a certain facility stemming from a characteristic habit.3 But since both ways are possible, it is clear that it would be possible also to carry out these things by means of a method. For it is possible to[10] reflect on the cause of the fact that some hit the mark as they do through a certain facility, while others do so by accident, and all would surely agree that such reflection is the task of an art.

As things stand, those who have composed arts of speeches have written of4 just a small part of it,5 for only modes of persuasion6 are a technical matter (the rest being [merely] supplementary); but about enthymemes,7 which are in fact[15] the body of a mode of persuasion, they say nothing, whereas they concern themselves to the greatest extent with what is extraneous to the matter at hand. For slander and pity and anger, and such passions of the soul, do not pertain to that matter but relate rather to the juror.8 As a result, if all judgments were rendered as they are now in some cities, at least,[20] and in the well-governed ones especially, [authors of technical treatises] would have nothing whatever to say. For quite all people suppose that the laws should make such declarations, but some even put the laws to use, and so forbid speaking about anything extraneous to the matter at hand, just as in the Areopagus9—their belief about this being correct. For one must not warp the juror by inducing anger in him[25] or envy or pity: this would be just as if someone should make crooked the measuring stick he is about to use.

Further, it is manifest that it belongs to the litigant to establish only that the matter at issue is or is not so, or did or did not happen. But whether the matter is great or small [in importance], or just or unjust—in all such cases as the legislator did not offer a clear definition,[30] it is surely the case that the juror himself must form a judgment and not be instructed by the litigants. It is especially appropriate, then, for correctly posited laws to define all those things that admit of being defined and to leave the fewest possible matters for the judges. This is so, first, because it is easier to find one person or a few people, rather than many, who[1354b] are prudent and able to legislate and adjudicate. Second, acts of legislation arise from examinations conducted over a long time, whereas judgments are offered on the spot, and the result of this is that it is difficult for judges to assign what is just and what is advantageous in a noble manner.[5] But the greatest consideration of all is that the legislator’s judgment is not partial but instead concerns future events and is universal, whereas the assemblyman and the juror judge matters that are at hand right now and are definite. In their cases, friendly feeling and hatred and private advantage have often intervened,[10] such that it is no longer possible to contemplate what is true in an adequate way. Instead, private pleasure or pain clouds their judgment. As for the other considerations, just as we are saying, one should make the judge10 authoritative over the fewest of them as possible; but as to whether something has happened or has not happened, or will or will not be, or is or is not so, this is necessarily[15] left to the judges: it is impossible for the legislator to foresee these things.

If, then, these things are so, it is manifest that all those technical writers who define other matters treat what is extraneous to the subject—for example, what the preface11 and narration [of a speech] should contain, and each of the other parts of it, for they do not concern themselves[20] in this with anything other than how to make the judge be of a certain sort—but about the technical modes of persuasion they establish nothing. Yet it is from just this that someone could become skilled in enthymemes. It is for this reason that, although the same method pertains to both spea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Overview of the Art of Rhetoric
• Bibliography
• List of Abbreviations
• Art of Rhetoric
• Interpretive Essay
• Glossary
• Key Greek Terms
• Authors and Works Cited
• Proper Names
• General Index