aristotle's defense of rhetoric

Southern Political Science Association

Aristotle's Defense of RhetoricAuthor(s): Mary P. NicholsSource: The Journal of Politics, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Aug., 1987), pp. 657-677Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Southern Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2131273 .

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Aristotle's Def ense of Rhetoric

Mary P. Nichols University of Delaware

In his Rhetoric, Aristotle defends rhetoric against the charges that it permits injustice and distorts truth-charges made by Aristophanes and Plato. He presents rhetoric as a bridge between private and public, passion and reason, individual interest and common good, and equity and law. Rhetoric thus appears as a means for statesmanship rather than a tool of despotism.

TIhe idea of rhetoric has fallen into disrepute. A man who uses rhetoric appears to have something to hide. He uses his talk about justice and the common good as a cloak for his selfish aims and unjust purposes. In this view, rhetoric is not a means to convey knowledge; it is rather a tool used by those who would distort the truth for their own purposes.

When charges similar to these were made in Aristotle's time, Aristotle provided a defense of rhetoric. He saw rhetoric as a means for statesmanship rather than a tool of despotism. He conceded that concepts such as justice and the common good do not admit of the precise knowledge characteristic of the sciences, but he argued that they can become objects of a kind of knowledge whose truth holds only for the most part. Rhetoric is his prime illustration of such knowledge (Nicomachean Ethics, 1094b20-28).' According to Aristotle, the statesman uses rhetoric in order to convey the ambiguous truths of political life.

In this paper, I shall first discuss the criticisms of rhetoric made by Aristotle's contemporaries, and then elaborate Aristotle's response-a response which provides a defense of rhetoric and of political life.2

I In his Rhetoric, Aristotle divides rhetoric into three kinds: deliberative rhetoric deals with the advantageous or the good, epideictic rhetoric with the noble, and forensic rhetoric with the just (I. iii. 5). Although Aristotle refers to the advantageous when he defines the end of deliberative rhetoric (I. iii. 5), he later says that "since the advantageous is good, we must consider the elements of the good and the advantageous" (I. vi. 2). He then defines the good as that which we choose for its own sake (I. vi. 2). In other words, he expands the end of deliberative rhetoric to include the good in all senses.

2 The interest in Aristotelian political science as a possible alternative, corrective, or supplement to current political science or philosophy is becoming increasingly prevalent. One can cite the following examples: Richard Bernstein, 1977; John W. Danford, 1976; Alasdair MacIntryre, 1981; Gerald Mara, 1985; Stephen Salkever, 1981; and Bernard Yak,



658 THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL. 49,1987

THE CRITICISMS OF RHETORIC

Aristotle defends rhetoric against two major attacks, the first exemplified by Aristophanes, who criticized rhetoric in the name of justice and the political community, the second by Plato, who criticized rhetoric in the name of philosophy. Aristophanes' criticism can be found in the Clouds. Its protagonist Strepsiades seeks the help of teachers of rhetoric in order to free himself from the debts he lacks the resources to pay. He wants to learn from them how to persuade the judges that he has no obligation to pay his creditors, who will surely bring him to court to collect their money. He wants to learn, in other words, how to "make the weaker argument the stronger" (Clouds, 112-115; see also Apology, 23d). A rhetoric that lets him argue either side of an issue, he hopes, will make him free of his obligations-as free as the amorphous Clouds whom the rhetoricians worship. Like the Clouds, the rhetorician can take any shape he pleases, at least in the eyes of those moved by his rhetoric. As the Unjust Speech claims, his pupil can do injustice and escape the penalty. He is free from the law (Clouds, 1071-82). Aristophanes thus accuses rhetoric of undermining justice and the laws that hold a political community together.

While Aristophanes associates the unjust rhetoric with sophists and philosophers and portrays Socrates as its teacher, the Socrates of the Platonic dialogues criticizes rhetoric just as harshly as did Aristophanes. In the Gorgias, for example, Plato has Socrates confront the respected teacher of rhetoric, Gorgias. Although Gorgias claims to be able to teach his students justice, Socrates shows that Gorgias, by his own admission, does not know what justice is (Gorg., 460e-461a). By showing that Gorgias

1985. I do not mean to suggest that these scholars share a common viewpoint or that they find the same advantages to Aristotle's approach. Nor is this list exhaustive. Aristotle's Rhetoric, on the other hand, has received very little attention as a component of his political science. Notable exceptions are Ronald Beiner's Political Judgment (1983) and Larry Arnhart's Aristotle on Political Reasoning (1981). Beiner argues that Aristotle's approach to politics, especially his concept of prudence, is a useful corrective to the political thought of Kant and of those whom Kant influenced. He uses the Rhetoric as one source for his understanding of Aristotle's notion of judgment, but he gives no detailed analysis of the work, as does Arnhart. My analysis differs from Arnhart's, in the first place, in its greater attention to the historical context of the Rhetoric, which allows me to read the Rhetoric as a defense against the charges against rhetoric current at the time, especially Plato's. Such an approach, I believe, throws light upon Aristotle's conception of the kind of knowledge rhetoric provides as well as upon the differences between Aristotle's and Plato's political thought. In the second place, I attribute to rhetoric (and to Aristotle's Rhetoric) a higher place in Aristotle's thought than does Arnhart. Whereas Arnhart analyzes the Rhetoric as a work of inferior philosophic status to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and his Politics (e.g., pp. 56-63, 72-74, 78-80, 90; cf. pp. 121-23, 128, and 129), I argue that the Rhetoric provides indispensable support for Aristotle's political science, for both its claim to knowledge and its view of the political community as an association in speech about the advantageous and the just.



ARISTOTLE'S DEFENSE OF RHETORIC 659

does not know the meaning of what he discusses, Socrates carries Aristophanes' criticism of rhetoric to philosophic grounds, arguing that rhetoric is not based on the truth. Moreover, Socrates agues not only that the rhetorician does not know what justice is, but also that he does not know what is good for his hearers. Instead of aiming at their good, he tries to give pleasure. Rhetoric is the counterpart of cookery, Socrates says, for just as cookery provides pleasure for the body with no regard for what truly benefits it, rhetoric gratifies the soul without considering its good. Consequently, rhetoric is ignoble flattery rather than art, both because it aims at the pleasant and also because it cannot give a rational account of its own activity.

The criticism of rhetoric that Socrates makes in the Gorgias, however, cannot be Socrates'-or Plato's-last word on rhetoric. Although Socrates describes rhetoric in harsh terms, he himself uses rhetoric in speaking to his interlocutors.3 Could Socrates defend rhetoric by his deeds? His use of rhetoric, at any rate, raises the question whether there is a rhetoric free of the defects which he attributes to it, a rhetoric that aims at the good rather than the pleasant, that knows the meaning of justice, and that can give an account of its own activity. That Plato saw the possibility of a defensible rhetoric is clear from his other major dialogue on rhetoric, the Phaedrus.

Although the Phaedrus also criticizes the rhetoric of the day,4 it explains what an art of rhetoric would be: the speech of the true rhetorician is based on knowledge of the soul and its different forms and of the kinds of speeches appropriate to each (271a-272b). True rhetoric must therefore

3 This claim of course implies a definition of what rhetoric is-the question that Gorgias does not answer and that Socrates answers so unfavorably to rhetoric. Referring to Socrates' statements about rhetoric, one could argue that Socrates does not use rhetoric, since he aims at the good rather than the pleasant, and since he does not speak about what he does not know as if he knew it. There is evidence, however, that Socrates' distinction between the rhetoric used by Gorgias and the dialectic (or discussion) in which he himself engages breaks down. For example, although Socrates associates dialectic with "alternate question and answer" and rhetoric with "lengthy speech" (449b), he himself speaks at length from time to time without recourse to questioning and answering, as Callicles pointedly observes (519e). More importantly, Socrates contrasts rhetoric, which praises its object, with dialectic, which reveals what its object is. But in the Gorgias, Socrates praises the nobility of justice, without saying what justice is (e.g., 474d ff. and 489a ff.). Callicles alerts us to Socrates' use of rhetoric, when he accuses him of "roistering recklessly in his speech, like the demagogue that [he is]" (482c). Plato may be suggesting in this dialogue that dialectic cannot be separated from rhetoric, as Socrates tries to do, any more than the good can be separated from the pleasant (464b-466a).

4 Socrates again criticizes public speakers for their ignorance, comparing them to a man who does not know what a horse is, but who tries to persuade men equally ignorant to buy an ass to carry them in battle against their enemies (260b-c). This argument about the ignorance of rhetoric was commonplace in Aristotle's time. See Cope, 1867.




know what is good for men and how to promote their good through speech. It is the alternative to the pleasure-seeking rhetoric described in the Gorgias. Although it is often said that Aristotle's Rhetoric carries out the proposals for rhetoric that Socrates makes in the Phaedrus, discussing different kinds of speeches and relating them to the characters and passions of men (e.g., Freese, 1926, pp. xx-xxii; and Cope, 1867, p. 7), such a statement overlooks the requirements Socrates lays down for an art of rhetoric. Because a true art of speech must give different speeches to different men, the art of rhetoric cannot be an art of public speech. The same criticism of writing that Socrates presents in the Phaedrus applies to public speech as well: like writing, speech addressed to many men, or to the city as a whole, says the same things to everyone. It does not make the proper distinctions (275e).5 Any rhetoric in the sense of public or political speech must therefore distort the truth. In its inability to comprehend the needs and ends of a variety of individuals, public speech both falls short of the truth and also is fundamentally unjust. The true art of rhetoric, according to Socrates, must be limited to private speech. It is in fact identical to philosophic speech, the art of discussion used by Socrates, who gives the appropriate speeches to each of his interlocutors. If the Platonic dialogue serves as an implicit defense of writing, a way found by Plato to give different speeches to different readers through its complex levels of meaning (Strauss, 1964, pp. 52-57), it is nevertheless not an implicit defense of public speech. The intricacy of a Platonic dialogue means that its public character is merely apparent. Although Plato wrote dialogues in the face of Socrates' criticism of writing, he did not write a treatise on public speaking. Aristotle's Rhetoric, which claims to make an art of public speech,6 is not "an expanded Phaedrus" so much as an implicit defense of public speech against the Phaedrus's attack.7

Aristotle's Rhetoric must therefore defend rhetoric from several different standpoints. Aristotle must allay the suspicions of the city about the potential injustice of rhetoric. In order to check the rhetorician's use of speech for merely private ends, he must subordinate rhetoric to what the citizens have in common, especially their commonly held opinions about what is good, noble, and just. But the rhetorician cannot merely follow common opinion, since common opinion is not homogeneous. It

5 In the Protagoras, Socrates makes explicit that another part of his criticism of writing applies to public speech as well: the speeches of rhetoricians, he claims, are like "books [which] cannot either answer a question [when asked] or ask a question on their own account" (329a).

6 The first point that Aristotle makes in the Rhetoric is that rhetoric is rightfully called an art (I. e. 1).

7 The phrase "an expanded Phaedrus" comes from Thompson's introduction, quoted by Freese (1926, p. xxi). See also Friedrich Solmsen's discussion of the extent to which Aristotle's Rhetoric is indebted to the Phaedrus (Solmsen, 1938, pp. 402-4).




is composed of a diversity of elements, which may be in contradiction with one another and which in varying degrees reflect some element of the truth. By recognizing the heterogeneity of common opinion and trying to incorporate that heterogeneity into a consistent whole, the rhetorician arrives at a comprehensive position that is both rooted in common opinion and able to go beyond common opinion. He is restrained by the individuals whom he addresses at the same time that he is able to educate them. By offering a complex rhetoric capable of addressing and comprehending the individuals who make up the community, Aristotle answers Socrates' criticism of political rhetoric's ignorance as well as his criticism of its inability to take into account the individual natures of men.

ARISTOTLE'S DEFENSE OF RHETORIC

At the beginning of the Rhetoric Aristotle repeats both Aristophanes' political attack on rhetoric and Plato's philosophic one, claiming that the rhetoric of his day is concerned only with promoting the private interests of men regardless of the truth. He will try to subordinate this private rhetoric to a public realm of discourse. He observes that previous theories of rhetoric have concentrated on forensic rhetoric, or the rhetoric used in law courts. They have provided only "a small part of the art," devoting their efforts to arousing the passions of judges (I. i. 3-4).8 By appealing to anger, envy, and pity, rhetoricians move the judges to the decision that they desire. Allowing judges to decide cases on such a basis, Aristotle says, is like "measuring something with a crooked ruler" (I. i. 5-6). For this reason, Aristotle recommends that "laws as much as possible define everything and leave as little as possible to the judges" (I. i. 7). By limiting the discretion of the judges, Aristotle's recommendation would also limit the influence of the rhetoricians. As Aristotle observes, expanding the reach of the law would leave less scope for the play of "love, hate, or private interest" (I. i. 7).

We might wonder, however, whether love, hate, and private interest do not come into play in the framing of the laws themselves. Aristotle thinks this intrusion is less likely in legislating than in judging due to the different character of the two activities. Since laws apply to the whole community and are meant to last into the future in contrast to judicial decisions, which involve particular cases in the present, the legislator has a certain distance from his deliberations that the judge lacks. Whereas the judgment of the legislator in framing the law "does not involve a particular case, but is universal and concerns the future," Aristotle writes, the judgment of a judge, applied in specific cases in the present, is often "obscured by private pleasure and pain" and "cannot consider the truth

8 Translations from the Greek are mine.




adequately" (I. i. 7). Consequently, the law, framed in general terms to last over time, should act as a restraint on how particular cases are decided. Aristotle's recommendation suggests that at least some men in the community can overcome their absorption in the particular issues immediately before them to consider what should apply to their community as a whole for the indefinite future.9 Through their participation in lawmaking, men might be aroused from their particular interests to an awareness of the public good. Aristotle makes it appear that expanding the reach of law restricts that of rhetoric, and to some extent that is true. But while there is less opportunity for rhetoric to indulge private pleasures and pains in specific cases, there is more opportunity for rhetoric to turn men's attention away from such pleasures and pains to the public or universal determinations involved in lawmaking. It is the existence of a public realm of discourse that makes man's political life more than the conflict of private interests and passions, that allows cities that come into existence for the sake of mere life to become associations in which men share speech about the advantageous and the just (see Politics, 1251a24-1253al8).

In criticizing those rhetoricians concerned primarily with forensic rhetoric, Aristotle manifests his intention of directing men to such a public realm of discourse. In contrast to his predecessors, he argues that "the practice of deliberative rhetoric is nobler and more statesmanlike than forensic, which involves [private] transactions" (I. i. 10) .O Far from looking to common or public concerns, men who bring suits or who are brought to court are involved in their private cases. They, and their rhetoric, do not usually look away from private interests to any public good. Moreover, it is in law courts, Aristotle says, that rhetorical skills of arousing passion are the most dangerous. Judges in law courts, who are not themselves affected by the decisions they render, are more malleable than legislators in the assembly, whose decisions, affecting the community as a whole, will affect themselves as well (I. i. 10). But if legislators are less malleable than judges because they are more interested, is there not less possibility in lawmaking for considerations of common interests, as opposed to private ones? Through this surprising turn of the argument, Aristotle indicates a legitimate and necessary role for private interest in lawmaking-as a useful check on the rhetorician's arbitrary arousal of

9 Aristotle warns, however, "It is easier to find one or a few prudent men than many able to legislate" (I. i. 7).

10 Aristotle here uses djmoegorikj for deliberative rhetoric, a word that means literally "speaking to the demos, or the people." Although only one or a few men may be true legislators (see previous note), they will raise the level of the political speech of the whole community. Aristotle's use of di-migoriki in this passage has none of the derogative connotations of "demagogery" often attached to the word. See, for example, Gorgias, 494d.




passion. The general or universal rules the rhetorician proposes in the assembly will fail to be accepted if they are contrary to the personal interests of the assemblymen. Paradoxically, deliberative rhetoric is nobler and more statesmanlike than forensic not only because it aims at a general or public end but also because it must address a greater variety of private interests and concerns. To the extent that in deliberating about the laws of his community the rhetorician balances public goods against particular interests, his rhetoric presents a complex vision of justice. His art is not a morally neutral skill. The forensic rhetorician, in contrast, has the impetus neither to look beyond the personal interests of the individuals concerned toward a public good nor to modify his position to accommodate the diverse interests of others. It is rather in the activity of lawmaking that we find the complex interplay of private and public concerns, of particular and universal elements that for Aristotle characterizes political life.

Concentrating on the arousal of passion in law courts, previous thinkers have ignored, Aristotle continues, what is most essential to rhetoric-the "proofs" (pisteis) available to rhetoricians (I. i. 3). Although pistis is usually translated as "proof," Aristotle means more broadly "reason for or cause of belief." The pisteis are the means of persuasion that it is the task of rhetoric to discover (I. ii. 1).1" According to Aristotle, there are three kinds of pisteis that are furnished by the rhetorician's speech: "The first lies in the character of the speaker, the second in disposing the hearer in a certain way, and the third in the speech itself, in what it proves, or appears to prove" (I. ii. 3).12 With respect to the first kind of "proof," Aristotle means that the rhetorician might reveal his good character-his prudence, and virtue, and good will (II. i. 5) -through his speech. And his character might be what persuades his audience to accept his point. Character is thus "a reason for belief"; in this sense it "proves" the truth of the rhetorician's position. With respect to the second kind of proof, Aristotle refers to the rhetorician's arousing the passions of his audience. If the rhetorician portrays a situation that arouses his audience's anger, for example, its anger might be the reason it believes him. Through its anger, he "proves" his

11 Aristotle uses pistis to refer also to the state of mind produced in the audience, its acceptance of the rhetorician's argument. For a discussion of the different uses of pistis in the Rhetoric, see Grimaldi, 1957, pp. 188-92; Wikramanayake, 1961, pp. 193-96; and Arnhart, 1981, especially pp. 34-38.

12 There are other kinds of "proofs" or "causes of belief" that lie outside the speech, such as witnesses or written agreements entered into by the parties concerned. These proofs, which are not furnished by the speaker but already exist, do not fall within the province of the art of rhetoric. Aristotle distinguishes proofs "within the art" (entechnoi) from those "outside the art" (atechnoi) at I. ii. 2. Since those "outside the art" are useful to forensic rhetoric, he concludes his discussion of forensic rhetoric with a description of them (I. xv.).




point. Aristotle's third use of proof is more familiar to us: a rhetorician might prove his case through the cogency of his reasoning-the acceptability of his premises and the logical validity of the conclusions he draws from them. Aristotle's classification of rhetoric's proofs is derived from the nature of speech: it must originate in someone (the rhetorician's character may persuade), it must follow acceptable patterns of reasoning (the speech itself, what it proves, may persuade), and it must be directed to someone (how the hearer is affected by the speech may persuade). The three proofs in rhetoric thus point to the connection between speaker and listener that speech effects. Rhetoric is communication.

The three proofs of rhetoric, moreover, are in the best case inseparable from one another.13 It is the connection between reason and passion in Aristotle's theory, for example, that distinguishes his use of passion from that of the forensic speakers he originally criticized. While their passionate appeals had little to do with the merits of the case, Aristotle links the arousal of passion to the argument of the speech itself.14 A man pities, for example, when he recognizes that someone has suffered undeserved misfortune, or he fears when he understands the potential harm that something holds (II. vii. 2 and II. v. 1). Aristotle emphasizes the rationality of the passions by analyzing each passion in terms of its objects and its grounds (II. i. 9; Fortenbaugh, 1970, pp. 211-12). As Larry Arnhart argues, the rhetorician can "reason with the passions," and change "the passions of his listeners by changing their minds" (Arnhart, 1981, pp. 114-15). The rhetorician must not merely arouse passion, he must do so by means of argument.

Moreover, the same arguments that arouse the passions of the audience also reveal the rhetorician's character. It is from his speech itself, Aristotle emphasizes, rather than from some preconceived notion of the rhetorician,

13 As Grimaldi explains, "While the rational explanation, or ethos, or pathos, may be used independently to win assent or conviction . . ., Aristotle appears to affirm clearly that their effective and proper use is by being brought together in deductive and inductive argumentation" (Grimaldi, 1972, p. 58). Although all three kinds of proofs operate in all kinds of rhetoric, however, some kinds of rhetoric will rely more on one kind of proof than another. In deliberative rhetoric, Aristotle explains, it is more useful that the rhetorician appear to be of a certain character, whereas it is more useful in forensic rhetoric that the audience should be disposed in a certain way (II. i. 4).

14 Cope writes that there are two ways of "inspiring the listeners with such feelings and sentiments as are desirable for yourself and your own case": "scientifically, through the medium of the speech itself, . . . and unscientifically, by the introduction of considerations ab extra or ab captandum." Cope argues that Aristotle advocates the former, while criticizing the latter (Cope, 1867, pp. 4-5; see also Arnhart, 1981, p. 22). Solmsen points out that Aristotle's predecessors tried to arouse passion only in a particular part of the speech, such as the peroration or epilogue. Aristotle, in contrast, "thinks of the logos as a whole and thinks of it being made pistos and becoming effective by the combined and simultaneous application of the three pisteis" (Solmsen, 1867, p. 393).




that an audience understands his character (II. ii. 4). Addressing the popular fear that the speech of a clever rhetorician might hide his ends, Aristotle calls attention to the extent that a man reveals himself in his speech. If a rhetorician is to be persuasive, he must show that his advice is advantageous to his audience, that what he is praising is noble, or that he has justice on his side. In such cases, his premises, his conclusions, and his examples all reveal his character. Moreover, although a successful rhetorician must aim at the end proper to the kind of rhetoric he is practicing, he can refer to the ends of the other kinds of rhetoric as subsidiary considerations (I. iii. 6). A deliberative speaker, for example, must always claim that what he is proposing is beneficial, but he might also show its nobility or justice, just as an epideictic speaker might refuse to separate the noble from the good (see I. ii. 6). The extent to which a speaker brings to bear such considerations further reveals his character. Although a man can hide the reasons that he is giving a particular speech, as popular opinion feared, in a broader sense he will be revealed by the kind of speech he makes.

One can see the close connections among the three kinds of proof through an examination of Aristotle's discussion of the passions. Regardless of the particular end the rhetorician aims at, he must direct arguments to the passions of his audience, and those arguments will reveal his character. Aristotle's account of anger, the first passion he discusses, illustrates that the character of the speaker, the passions he arouses, and the arguments he employs are mutually dependent. We shall therefore consider the rhetoric necessary to provoke anger in some detail.15

Anger, according to Aristotle, is a man's longing for revenge when someone appears to slight him or one of his relatives or friends and when the slight appears undeserved. Although longing is painful, pleasure accompanies anger, Aristotle says, due to the thought of revenge, which the angry man believes possible. Anger is so powerful a passion, according to this analysis, because of what provokes it: the man who is slighted is treated as if he were worthless (II. ii. 1-6). In the first place, in order to arouse anger, the rhetorician must present this treatment as outrageous, appealing to his hearer's sense of his own worth, which has been violated. His rhetoric must show the respect that the man who slighted failed to show. In doing this, he manifests a sense of justice, which is based on the worth or the integrity of human beings and which should be defended

15 See also Arnhart's analysis of anger, which points out the cognitive elements involved in the passion (1981, pp. 115-20) and Fortenbaugh's (1970, pp. 216-17). My analysis emphasizes also the extent to which the arguments that arouse anger reveal the character of the speaker, the moral ambiguity of anger, and the rhetorician's need to employ the ends of all three kinds of rhetoric-the advantageous, the noble, and the just-in his arousal of anger.




by appropriate actions. The angry man seeking revenge asserts by his actions, just as the rhetorician does by his speech, that justice must pertain to the interactions of men.

In the second place, the rhetorician arousing anger must also claim that an injury has been done that calls for redress. Anger acknowledges harm. Man is not self-sufficient, an island unto himself, upon whom the actions of others have no effect. Indeed, if the insult and revenge consume the angry man, the one who insulted remains in control. Anger undermines independence. Because of this danger, there is a certain moral ambiguity in anger and revenge.'6 Aristotle does not, however, condemn anger and revenge, precisely because man is a political animal. While man is able to benefit others and be benefited by them, he is also able to harm and be harmed. Anger is a sign of this mutual dependence.17 In analyzing gentleness, Aristotle does not include in his list of ways in which the rhetorician might calm anger any appeal to a desire to be above anger and the dependence it implies. Rather, he recommends calming anger by such means as showing that no slight has occurred, that the slight was not done willingly, or that the person who slighted is grieved for what he has done (III. iii. 17). In these cases he assumes that there are circumstances in which anger and revenge are the appropriate reactions, while he shows that such circumstances do not exist in the case at hand. There is no appeal, in other words, to human self-sufficiency. Aristotle even suggests the arousal of fear as another means of calming anger (III. iii. 10).

Finally, the rhetorician's appeal to justice and the nobility of a man's asserting his worth in the face of its denial might call upon the angry man to risk his life to obtain revenge. His rhetoric must turn his hearer from the expedient concern with his own safety to higher considerations of nobility and justice. At the same time, however, an element of prudential calculation must be present in a rhetorician's appeal to anger. If his listener thought that his act would merely recoil on himself rather than hurt the man who slighted him, he would be more inclined to fear than to anger. For anger to predominate over fear, a man must sense that he is more likely to harm than to be harmed. A rhetorician will not be persuasive unless he shows a prudential concern for the consequences of the action he is urging (on prudence, see NE, 1140a24 ff.). His rhetoric must therefore

16 Aristotle appears to acknowledge the nobility of retaliation, when listing the uses of rhetoric: "It would be strange if it were shameful not to be able to defend oneself with one's body, but not so if one couldn't defend oneself with speech" (I. i. 12). But to be able to defend oneself is not the same as doing so. Aristotle's acknowledgment of the nobility of retaliation is qualified. Could that be due to the danger to community and independence that retaliation entails?

17 This dependence underlying anger is suggested by the fact that spiritedness, which Aristotle associates with anger, is "more aroused against intimates and friends than against strangers when it considers itself slighted" (Pol., 1328b40-a3).




manifest prudence as well as appeal to justice and nobility, just as it must convey a sense of men's dignity as well as their mutual dependence. For all these reasons, the arguments he uses to arouse passion reveal his character. As the case of anger illustrates, the three pisteis cannot be separated from one another, if rhetoric is to be successful.

The rhetorician links his speech to his character and the passions of his audience by means of the syllogisms he employs, which Aristotle calls enthymemes. The enthymeme, he says, constitutes "the body of the proof" (I. i. 13).18 The word thymos, from which enthymeme is derived, traditionally meant the seat of both feeling and thought. An enthymeme, which literally suggests something originating in or assimilated by the thymos, therefore connotes, as Grimaldi points out, "something more than simple logical inference" (Grimaldi, 1972, pp. 69-70).19 "The deductive process" of Aristotle's rhetoric, he writes, "cannot be the simple scientific syllogism, the syllogism of pure reason." The goal of rhetoric, "personal conviction which will motivate personal action, . . . calls for assent of the whole person: intellect, will, emotions" (Grimaldi, 1972, p. 82). Accordingly, the enthymeme, as the body of the proof, "incorporates or embodies" all three proofs of rhetoric, "imposing form upon them so that they may be used most efficaciously in rhetorical demonstration" (Grimaldi, 1972, pp. 67-68).2O The materials from which enthymemes are constructed therefore include not only the common opinions about advantage, justice, and nobility, but also the passions of men and the elements that form character.21 It is a discussion of these materials which enthymemes must incorporate that constitutes the greater part of Aristotle's Rhetoric.

Rhetorical syllogisms are based on men's opinions about the good, the noble, and the just. Consequently, Aristotle examines "happiness and its

18 Although there is a second means, the example, that rhetoricians use to demonstrate their points, the example is clearly subordinate to the enthymeme. Rhetoricians use examples (particular cases) to illustrate some general point which they then apply to the case at hand (I. ii. 19). Examples are especially useful, Aristotle says, when they act as evidence of what syllogisms demonstrate (II. xx. 9).

19 Grimaldi provides an exhaustive analysis of the usage of enthymeme prior to Aristotle (Grimaldi, 1972, pp. 69-82).

20 Lloyd F. Bitzer provides a useful discussion of the major interpretations of the meaning of enthymeme in Aristotle's Rhetoric. Bitzer's own position is that the enthymeme is an incomplete syllogism, only because it depends upon the audience to supply its premises. Thus Bitzer emphasizes the necessary interaction between speaker and audience (Bitzer, 1959, pp. 399-408). His argument is therefore consistent with my overall interpretation of Aristotle's Rhetoric.

21 1 am indebted to Larry Arnhart's account of Aristotle's organization of Books I and II of the Rhetoric, which shows that Aristotle's discussion of character and passion in Book II is a continuation of his discussion of the materials of rhetoric in Book I (Arnhart, 1981, p. 52).



668 THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL. 49, 1987

parts" as well as the relative value of different goods that must be weighed in making choices (I. v-vii.). Because different things are good for different regimes, he also describes the regimes and their ends (I. viii.). To guide the rhetorician whose speech praises the noble and censures the base, Aristotle discusses the virtues and vices, which actions are nobler than others, and the conditions attaching to nobility (I. ix.). Aristotle's treatment of the materials of forensic arguments, in the next place, leads him to an examination of the complexity of injustice-the kinds of laws that can be violated, the reasons that men commit injustice, the situations in which injustice is likely to occur, and the relative injustice of different kinds of unjust acts (I. x-xii.) Aristotle's account of the materials from which rhetorical syllogisms are formed includes a discussion of the character of the speaker (his prudence, virtue, and good will) (II. i.), the passions (anger, gentleness, love, hate, fear, shame, benevolence, pity, indignation, envy, and jealousy) (II. ii-xii.), and the characters of men at different ages and in different walks of life (IL. xiii-xvii.). The character that men trust and the passions to which they are susceptible must be incorporated into the rhetorician's speech if he is to be persuasive.

Although Aristotle places more emphasis on the materials from which rhetoric derives its premises than the formal aspects of logical reasoning, he does discuss the latter as well (II. xx-xxvi.) (Grimaldi, 1972, pp. 129- 35 and Arnhart, 1981, pp. 141-61). Knowing how to draw conclusions from premises is not only necessary for the rhetorician's construction of his own proofs, but also useful in refuting an opponent whose "clever" speech violates logic. To show men what kinds of arguments are valid and what kinds are not, as Aristotle does, is to limit the rhetorician to logical argumentation. He cannot become as shapeless as the Clouds. Not only must he address the passions of his audience and appear worthy of trust, he must follow the patterns of reasoning that belong to speech and that all men therefore to some extent share.2 Aristotle thus indicates something universal-the rules of logic that underlie speech-which limits the speech of a rhetorician, just as the law of a political community might limit the scope of what judges decide and therefore the extent of a rhetorician's influence.

The rhetorician is limited not only by the rules of logical reasoning, but also by the common opinion of his community. The premises that he uses-the views he expresses, for example, about virtue or justice-must be comprehensible to common opinion if his arguments are to be

22 As Grimaldi says, the "common topics" (koinoi topoi) that Aristotle discusses in this section of the Rhetoric are "ways in which the mind naturally and readily reasons, and they are independent, in a way, of the subject to which they are applied, and may be said to be imposed as forms upon this material in order to clarify and determine it further" (Grimaldi, 1972, p. 134).




successful. The rhetorician, however, cannot simply follow common opinion, for common opinion is composed of different, and even contradictory, viewpoints. These different viewpoints, Aristotle demonstrates time after time in the Ethics and Politics, in different ways grasp some element of the truth (e.g., NE, 1098b9-99b8; 1101a23-24; Pol., 1283a29-42; and especially 1324a5-25b31). By examining the arguments, whether expressed or implicit, that support opposed opinions, Aristotle ascertains what is true and false in each of them. His own treatment of opinions serves as an example for the rhetorician. By incorporating the various truths embodied in common opinions into a more comprehensive point of view, the rhetorician, like Aristotle, can address the concerns of a greater number of people and possibly be persuasive to them. At the same time his position, because more comprehensive, comes closer to expressing the truth on a given subject. The common opinion to which a rhetorician must make his argument acceptable thus acts as a salutary restraint on the rhetorician.

The nature of the subjects which the rhetorician treats, moreover, usually restricts him to drawing only probable conclusions.23 Aristotle explains that we deliberate primarily about human actions-whether they have occurred, whether we should undertake them, and what characterizes them. Human actions, like the men who perform them, differ from the objects of science, for they do not exist of necessity (I. ii. 13-14). They did not have to occur, they need not occur in the future, and, more important, what characterizes them, their goodness, nobility, and justice, will vary according to the different circumstances in which they occur, circumstances created in part by chance but also in part by men's choices. Grimaldi speaks of Aristotle's "awareness that anything- particularly anything in the area of the probable which is the primary subject matter of rhetoric-may be conditioned and altered by its situation." "In other words, the time, the place, the circumstances, the character, the emotional involvement, may vitally affect the total meaning of a thing in a given situation" (Grimaldi, 1972, p. 133). As Aristotle says in the Ethics, the noble, the just, and the good "wander" in different circumstances; our knowledge of them must therefore remain imprecise (NE, 1094bl9-28; 1098a26-33).

23 Aristotle does not deny that rhetoric can sometimes deal with what is necessarily true. The materials from which enthymemes are formed, he says, are "probabilities" and "signs," some of which may be necessary (I. ii. 14). He gives the example of a woman's having milk as a necessary sign that she has given birth and the example of a man's having a fever as a necessary sign that he is ill (I. ii. 18). Although rhetoric may utilize such necessary signs, the materials from which enthymemes are derived hold "by and large (ta pleista) only for the most part" (I. ii. 14). For a discussion of the probable as the sphere of rhetoric as well as rhetoric's use of necessary and non-necessary signs, see, for example, Grimaldi, 1972, pp. 104-15, and Arnhart, 1981, pp. 43-47.




Moreover, because each human being is different and able to influence human affairs in a different way through his choices and actions, human affairs resist classification. Because men, exercising choice, generate novelty and change, universal laws do not always hold. Nature not only embraces necessity, it also allows for freedom. Consequently, any generality that the rhetorician deduces may be true only "for the most part." There will always be room for doubt. To demand strict demonstrations from a rhetorician would make as much sense as accepting probabilities from a mathematician (NE, 1094b27-28). The rhetorician's speech is merely probable because it must take into account the variety in human affairs and the individuality of men, just as it must incorporate a diversity of views found in common opinion. His rhetoric is true because it embraces the particulars through the generalities of speech. But those generalities will admit of exceptions. Aristotle is teaching rhetoricians the limitations of their speech as well as the way in which rhetorical speech reveals the truth. Rhetoric embodies a more complex vision of the world than that seen by a precise science like mathematics. Because rhetoric is grounded in diversity, it indicates at least in its highest manifestations a dimension of the truth that the precise sciences miss.

The necessary imprecision of rhetorical speech explains why Aristotle calls character the "most authoritative" (kuriotate) proof. 24 We might suppose that an audience would trust a speaker's character rather than merely rely on its judgment of the validity of his arguments due to its own limitations: unable to follow difficult chains of reasoning or to weigh the complex considerations involved, men might judge an argument primarily on the basis of their judgment of the man who makes it. We have surely experienced being favorably impressed by an argument because of our good opinion of its advocate, just as we might refuse to accept the perfectly valid reasoning of a man we distrust. Aristotle does not, however, locate the source of the authority that he attributes to the rhetorician's character solely in the audience's inability to understand a complex argument. He explains that we trust worthy people in general, but "in matters where precision is not possible and there is room for doubt, our trust is complete" (I. ii 4). But as we have seen, in matters with which rhetoric deals there will usually be room for doubt. If a man tried to teach precise knowledge of the subjects appropriate to rhetoric, he would fail to understand not merely his audience, he would fail to understand what he is talking about. From one perspective, the imprecision of rhetoric that

24 In saying this, Aristotle does not contradict his earlier statement that the enthymeme is "the most authoritative of the proofs" (I. i. 11). As Grimaldi persuasively argues, the context of this statement indicates only that "deductive reasoning by the enthymeme is superior to inductive reasoning by paradeigma [example]" (Grimaldi, 1972, p. 138). (On the example, see note 16 above.) The enthymeme incorporates all three proofs, and character is the most authoritative of these.




renders its conclusions merely probable serves as a limitation on the rhetorician; from another it serves as his opportunity. It is what, Aristotle says, makes his character the most authoritative proof. In speaking of character, Aristotle uses the word he applies to the ruling authority in a regime (I. ii. 5; see I. viii. 2). If the rhetorician proves that he is worthy of trust, manifesting his prudence, virtue, and good will through his arguments, his audience will be persuaded by his vision of man's complex ends and of the particular goals he is trying to promote.

ARISTOTLE'S DIVERGENCE FROM PLATO

Aristotle's emphasis on deliberative rhetoric distinguishes him not only from the forensic rhetoricians to whom he refers but from Plato as well. Of the three types of rhetoric that Aristotle recognizes, the type with which the Gorgias is most concerned is the forensic. There Socrates argues that the greatest use of rhetoric is for a man to accuse himself and his relatives and friends of whatever wrong they have done so that they may pay the penalty and be cured of injustice (480a-d).25 Although this rhetoric differs dramatically from that taught by Gorgias, which allows men to do wrong and escape the penalty, its end is similarly private: in Socrates' novel proposal for forensic rhetoric, the good of the soul of the rhetorician and those dear to him replaces the private pleasures that injustice permits. The private character of the rhetoric that Plato writes about can be seen also from the Phaedrus. Although the Phaedrus does include examples of deliberative rhetoric, the deliberation at issue is whether a young boy should gratify a lover or a nonlover. The speeches involve a private, even intimate, affair. Where Plato does examine political affairs, as in the Republic, Socrates does not include rhetoric in either the education of the rulers or in their natural capacities. There philosophers rule by force or deception rather than by persuasion. Far from mediating between public and private, like Aristotle's deliberative rhetorician, the philosophic rulers eliminate the private dimension of life as much as possible (464a-e). Whereas Plato's political theory offers no reconciliation between public and private concerns, Aristotle's political theory does. This is indicated in many aspects of Aristotle's political theory, from his criticism of the Republic's communism to the primacy he gives to deliberative rhetoric among the different types of rhetoric.

These differences between Plato and Aristotle are related to their different presentations of the passions. In the Republic Socrates divides

25 When Socrates describes rhetoric to Polus, he claims that it is an imitation of justice, while sophistry is an imitation of legislation (464b-c; 465c). This also suggests that in the Gorgias Socrates is criticizing the rhetoric used in law courts rather than the deliberative rhetoric employed in the assembly.




the soul into three: the calculating or rational part, the spirited part, and the desiring part. According to him, spiritedness is the ally of reason, obeying its commands and controlling the desires. In place of these three parts of the soul, Aristotle presents only two in the Nicomachean Ethics: the rational, which possesses reason simply, and the appetitive, which "possesses reason in the sense that it listens to reason as one would a father" (1103al-4). Aristotle locates both desire and spiritedness in the appetitive part of the soul. His account does not merely demote spiritedness from its special place above the desires, but it elevates the desires and brings them closer to reason (Fortenbaugh, 1970). It is because the desires in Aristotle's analysis do partake of the rational element that deliberative rhetoric can occupy the primary place in the Rhetoric. Man is a political animal, whose passions and reason allow him to engage in deliberation about private and public goods. Accordingly, there is no incommensur- ability between rulers and ruled, as there is in the city described in the Republic, where rulers correspond to one element in the soul and ruled to another. The interplay between reason and desire in Aristotle's psychology parallels that between the public and private dimensions of life in his political science.

Aristotle's different approach to politics is reflected in his answers to Socrates' criticisms of rhetoric. Implied in Socrates' charge that rhetoric is ignorant of the truth is the demand that the rhetorician have as certain and as accurate a knowledge about the good, the just, and the noble as the scientist has of those objects that exist of necessity. In the Phaedrus, for example, Socrates speaks critically of those rhetoricians who "honor probabilities more than truth" (267a). He thus wants rhetoric to be based on truth rather than on probability. Aristotle's warning that probabilities should be accepted from rhetoricians thus applies to Socrates (Cope, 1867, p. 7, n. 1; and Grimaldi, 1972, pp. 109-10). Socrates does acknowledge, however, that certain things admit of irregularity, or "wander," since different men hold different views about them, and even the same men hold different views at different times (Phdr., 263a-b). Socrates uses the same expression that Aristotle later used in the Ethics of those things that vary in different circumstances (1094bl9-28). But rather than accept the imprecision that Aristotle thought necessary, Socrates indicates that rhetorical speech about the things that "wander" should define them, criticizing Lysias' speech for its failure to do this very thing. His criticism suggests that he is looking for a rhetoric that can put a stop to "wandering." The need for simply true definitions that Socrates attributes to rhetoric could be satisfied only if nature were simple, only if it did not include human beings who exercise choice and who therefore introduce an infinite




number of circumstances into human affairs.26 It is the individuality of men that makes the just, the noble, and the good wander.27

Since Socrates was well aware of the differences among men and the complexity of a nature that includes human beings, he did not think that a public rhetoric was possible. A rhetoric based on universally valid definitions would be open to the same criticism as writing, which Socrates claimed says the same things to everyone. Both achieve a unity at the cost of ignoring or suppressing individual differences. As an alternative to such a rhetoric, as well as an alternative to writing, Socrates offered private speech that addressed itself to the individual natures of men. This he called true rhetoric, identifying rhetoric with his own philosophic activity. When Aristotle argues that the truths of rhetoric hold only for the most part, he therefore answers not only Socrates' concern about rhetoric's ignorance but also his concern that public speech abstracts from the individual natures of men. A rhetoric aware of the probable character of its conclusions, the exceptions to which its truths will inevitably be subject, is a rhetoric that allows for individual differences. It is speech that aspires to communal or general concerns but also recognizes the particular characters of men who cannot be assimilated into a class and phenomena that cannot be adequately captured by a single definition. As we have seen, Aristotle describes at the outset of the Rhetoric the beneficial limits that private interests place upon the deliberative rhetoric that proposes general laws.

Because justice demands that both the communal and the private character of men be given their due, Aristotle must qualify his initial recommendation that the scope of law be broadened as much as possible and little discretion left to the judges in particular cases. Laws may be superior to judicial decisions because they are universal rules free from the distortions of pleasure and pain that arise in individual cases. But as universal rules, they do not adequately cover all the particular cases to

26 Similarly, in the Gorgias, Socrates distinguishes two kinds of persuasion: "instruction" or "teaching" that provides knowledge, and a persuasion that offers "belief" or "trust" without knowledge (454e). Socrates uses the word for belief, pistis, with which Aristotle was to designate the proofs that rhetoric used. But whereas Socrates depreciates pistis in favor of knowledge, Aristotle treats it as the legitimate goal of rhetoric. From Aristotle's point of view, Socrates' criticism of rhetoric does not recognize the complexity of the truth and implies that the only valid rhetoric would be essentially like science. Cf., Rhetoric, I. i. 12.

27 This does not mean that no general statements about the good, the noble, and the just are true; it means rather that their truth is only probable. Individuals, and the particular circumstances in which they are involved and which they in part create, will constitute exceptions to the general rule. The general rule must then be modified to take the exception into account if it is to remain a true expression.




which they are applied. Although universal statements are necessary in framing laws, they are valid "only for the most part" (I. xiii. 13). Because fixed and unchanging laws cannot always apply to changing human affairs, they must be corrected by equity, a "justice that goes beyond the written law" in order to take into account the extenuating circumstances that bring particular cases outside the general rule (I. xiii. 13). Judging, like deliberating, involves a consideration of the relation between public and private, or universal and particular. The laws of a political community resemble the truths of rhetoric: they hold "only for the most part." Like the judge applying equity, the rhetorician continually modifies his speech as he directs it to changing circumstances. The flexibility of equity thus parallels the flexibility of speech: both take into account the variation and complexity of human life. And the generality of law resembles the universality of the logical rules which limit speech. While both are indispensable for the community of men, both are incomplete. The judge completes the law by understanding it in light of particular circumstances. So too does the rhetorician ground his speech not only in the formal rules of reasoning but also in the complex and changing materials that make his conclusions only probable-the characters, passions, and opinions of men. Just as Plato did not develop an art of rhetoric-of political speech that did justice to the individual natures of its addressees, he did not develop a concept of equity.28 Given his understanding of the dichotomy between passions and reason, and between the private and public dimensions of life, he did not think that politics, whether the speech of its rhetoricians or the justice of its law courts, could manifest the moderation necessary to make exceptions.

The importance that Aristotle gives to equity in forensic speaking brings his discussion of rhetoric full circle. At the beginning of the Rhetoric, as we have seen, he criticizes forensic rhetoric because it involves strictly private cases and claims that it is inferior to the deliberative rhetoric that leads to legislation, a rhetoric that brings private interests into contact with public ones. But although laws are based on both private and public concerns, they do not change over time. The flexibility of speech makes it superior to law, not merely because it is instrumental in framing laws, but also because it is necessary to correct them, so that they apply to

28 In the Statesman, for example, the Eleatic Stranger refers to the defect of general and inflexible laws: "The differences among men and actions and the fact that nothing in human life is ever at rest forbid any science whatsoever to promulgate any simple rule for everything and for all time" (294b). Such considerations do not, however, lead him, as they did Aristotle, to the concept of equity. Instead he recommends that the man with knowledge rule without law. But since such a statesman is not likely to exist, and since lawlessnessis more dangerous than the inflexibility of law, he recommends absolute obedience to unchanging laws as a practical political solution (200b-c). Equity, Aristotle's recommendation, might be considered a mean between inflexibility and lawlessness.




changing human affairs. Forensic rhetoric, precisely because it focuses on individual cases, is continually necessary to ensure the laws' justice. Without speech, as without equity, politics will be coercive rather than persuasive, its laws distorting particular cases to fit a universal rule. Aristotle suggests that a universal rule rigidly applied is as bad a measure as private passion. He thus shows how public speech makes politics less coercive at the same time that it directs to a political community the ethical speeches Socrates gave to men in private.

CONCLUSION

Aristotle teaches rhetoricians how to incorporate into their speeches the variety of goods that men seek, as they are revealed in their opinions and implied in their passions. Because it is based on a comprehensive understanding of human nature, their rhetoric will be persuasive. And because of that same comprehensiveness, it will be both true and just, to the extent that human affairs permit. Aristotle's account of rhetoric answers not only the ancient criticisms of rhetoric, especially Plato's, but it also constitutes a defense against rhetoric's modern detractors. To those who depreciate political speech as involving values that are not scientifically verifiable, Aristotle distinguishes between the mathematical sciences, which admit of precise knowledge, and the less precise sciences such as politics. While political knowledge is only probable, it is true to man's complexity and freedom, which the drive for more precise knowledge obscures. To those who question the legitimacy of a skill that permits men to argue on any side of an issue, Aristotle points out the limits necessary for successful persuasion-from the logical rules that underlie thought to the diverse elements of common opinion that rhetoric must accommodate. Finally, to those who see in political debate only the rationalization of subrational drives, whether psychological or economic, Aristotle indicates the extent to which rhetoric involves refining opinions and modifying desires in light of more comprehensive goods.

Although Aristotle shows rhetoricians how their rhetoric might combine success with truth and justice, he is well aware of the limits to what can be accomplished. He therefore defines the art of rhetoric not as the ability to persuade, as others had done, but as "the ability to see the possible means of persuasion in particulr cases" (I. ii. 1; cf. Gorg., 452e). The rhetorician's art does not guarantee success (Arnhart, 1981, pp. 34-35; and Cope, 1867, p. 149). Aristotle also acknowledges the potential dangers of rhetoric. The things that produce good, even those that are "the most useful" and "of the greatest benefit," he says, "can have equally harmful effects if used unjustly" (I. i. 13). He suggests the good that rhetoric can produce when he makes an observation in the Politics about man himself, similar to the one he applies to rhetoric. "Just as man is the best of animals




when perfected," he says, "he is the worst of all when sundered from law and justice" (1253a32). There Aristotle is explaining man's unique capacity for speech, which makes possible his belonging to political communities in which he pursues the advantageous and the just (1253al6-18). In writing a Rhetoric about speech that aims at the advantageous and the just, Aristotle is therefore trying to strengthen political community. This cannot be done without involving man's passions, and the ability to elevate them is also the ability to degrade them. The potential harmfulness of rhetoric is outweighed by its potential good. If rhetoric does unite men in speech about the advantageous and the just, it would promote political community. Its practitioner would resemble the man who first brought men together in a city, whom Aristotle describes as "the cause of the greatest goods" (Pol., 1253a32).

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aristotle's defense of rhetoric

Documents

forensic rhetoric

epideictic rhetoric

criticisms of rhetoric

aristotle divides rhetoric

deliberative rhetoric

end of deliberative

tihe idea of rhetoric

jstor terms