Aristotles definition of rhetoric

Running head : ARISTOTLE 'S DEFINITION OF RHETORIC

Aristotle 's Definition of Rhetoric

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine Aristotle 's definition of rhetoric and identify the role rhetoric plays in the judicial process Therefore , analysis focuses on origins of rhetoric , basic means of persuasion , controversy between different rhetorical schools and essence of Aristotelianism . Moreover , the findings insist on great importance of Aristotle 's rhetoric for the times we live in

The history of rhetoric is its origins . According to Corbett , Aristotle is the foundation of all future

rhetorics "With his philosophic treatise , Aristotle became the fountainhead of all later rhetorical theory (1990 ,

. 543 . Aristotle defines rhetoric as an ability , in each particular case , to see the available means of persuasion (1991 br

. 14 . First handbooks of rhetoric were published in the second quarter of the fifth century B .C . They were helpful for the Greeks , as they outlined techniques for effective public speaking in the law courts . Not only were there no professional lawyers in Greece , there were no professional judges , so litigants had to persuade the jury take the decisions they wanted with no outside help . And Aristotle wrote his Rhetoric as he thought existing handbooks were unsatisfactory , because they concentrated on judicial situations to the neglect of the other species of rhetoric (Kennedy , 1991 ,

. 9

His primary interest was in the logical side of persuasion . Aristotle identifies three basic pisteis , or means of persuasion , available to a speaker : Ethos means the character of a person , not the rhetorical presentation of that character and pathos means an emotion felt by someone , not the awakening of emotion by a speaker . Logos , however , does mean "argument " or what is said in a speech and a speech as a whole is also called a logos (1991 ,

. 8 . Rhetoric grounds itself in , at least as Aristotle conceptualized it "not with what seems probable to a given individual like Socrates or Hippias [particular] , but what seems probable to men of a given type [universal] and this is true of dialectic also (Aristotle 1954 ,

. 33-35 . This fundamental philosophical position of universality -- arising out of Platonic-Aristotelian metaphysics and cemented by the Cartesian ego cogito -- already knows what Being (Truth ) is , a knowing that obligates all aspects of life , including rhetoric , to an organized unity or system . Within it , each part of life and all aspects of its relationships get to be represented . This outcome for rhetoric is signified in the words : Proof by logos is the only true constituent of the art (Aristotle 1954 ,

. 14 . For some of the pre-Socratics (who were hysterics ) logos was , on occasion , the ambivalence /confusion of both physis and doxa . With Plato and Aristotle , however , logos is reconceived , with physis as privileged and doxa as supplement . It 's the place of a physis that has not been placed under negation , as Plato and then Aristotle have placed not only logos (as I previously discussed but also physis under negation

Applying the...