I thought reading On Rhetoric was difficult in general because I haven't read anything like this before. That said, I did enjoy the things that I could understand.
In the Introduction, I enjoyed learning about the history of Aristotle because it put his work in context. I was aware that Aristotle was a student of Plato, but I wasn't aware of his tension with the most influential teacher at that time, Isocrates. I also thought it was interesting that Aristotle's division of intellectual property was ancestor of the organization of modern university departments because I have always thought it was strange how university departments were organized. Additionally, I think that it is a little ironic that Aristotle's works that become On Rhetoric were most likely his notes for teaching class and were originally intended only for his students in Athens.
I had exceptional difficulty with Book 1, Chapter 2, but I need notice a few things. In Aristotle's discussion of syllogisms, I thought it was interesting to see that the example that he used reflected the world that he lived in. While your example in class was combining my pet is a cat and a cat is a mammal to simply say my pet is a mammal, Aristotle used the example of Dorieus wins a crown and the Olympic games have a crown as a prize to simply say that Dorieus has won the Olympic games. I also thought that Aristotle's discussion of a necessary sign in a syllogism (tekmerion) as opposed to sign (semeia) was thought provoking. This reminded me of a professor suggesting a plaintiff's tactic in litigating from the book Rules of the Road. The tactic was to come up with a rule that the defense could not refute was true, which showed wrongdoing on the defendant's part. Using tekmerion would be essential in this tactic, because the defense could otherwise just break the bond in a semeia.
I thought On Rhetoric was very dense, and it took a lot of thought to absorb everything that Aristotle is saying. It was definitely a refreshing change from reading noting but cases and text books, though.
In the introduction, I most enjoyed learning about where in history Aristotle lived. I had not realized that he lived at the same time as Alexander the Great, and even tutored him. It was also very interesting to read about Aristotle's other works, and his interaction with other great thinkers of the day.
Book 1 Chapter 2 had some very good discussion in it. I especially liked the section about the importance of showing your audience that you are fair-minded. Aristotle pointed out that the character of the speaker is the most important element in persuasion. If the audience believes you are fair-minded and trustworthy, they are far more likely to agree with you, no matter what topic you are speaking on. I've often joked about this with my friends and saying things with an “authoritative voice” and thus making the statement more believable. I liked Aristotle's description of this element of rhetoric.
I will begin by confessing that I have read Aristotle before, so I was familiar with much of the Introduction, and that, from prior classes, I have no great appreciation for formal logic.
That said, I believe Aristotle is using this section to provide how rhetoric, as an art in and of itself, interacts with the specific facts and conditions to be put forward by a presentation. Rhetoric forms the structure, the skeleton, around which are arrayed the facts to be presented—the muscles on the skeleton, to extend the analogy.
Under this view, syllogistic and enthymemetic structures serve as the connective tissue of the presentation—bringing plain statements of fact into the presentation’s larger structure and serving the purposes thereof.
However, this chapter is dealing with Ethos, and I do not believe that Ethos, showing yourself and your argument to be trustworthy, is shown by heavy reliance on syllogisms in the modern world. While a closing argument will be polysyllogistic, a single unified conclusion resulting from multiple lesser conclusions and premises, a substantial portion of that argument will not be structured around formally logical presentation, but around factually contradicting what your opponent has presented.
Another modern weakness that Aristotle fails to address is that inasmuch as closing argument may attempt to lead jurors down a line of deductive reasoning, it also asks them to make a literal judgment call, to balance one set of facts and propositions and premises against another. Formal logic cannot address such a balancing, whether one of two equally factual statements is truer and more conclusive than the other. The closest Aristotle comes is the Section 14 admission that all too frequently you will be dealing with probabilities rather than absolutely known statements, for example the statement “some of X are Y,” as compared to, “all of X are Y.” This highlights another weakness in the structure Aristotle has presented—nowhere does he provide for the necessity to counter the validity or use of intervening facts and premises that would show a probability-based syllogism to be falsely applied.
The weighing of the evidence is absolutely vital in modern jury considerations, and showing jurors that your facts are stronger than the opponent’s equally true facts is heavily dependent on persuasiveness, the art of rhetoric. A failure to account for that balancing, that need for persuasion, in the structure of the argument’s rhetoric is fatally crippling.
It makes my a post a bit long, but I think that there’s a quote very on point: “Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore-- Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.” (Ambrose Bierce, “Logic,” The Devil’s Dictionary).
Introduction The introduction was dull. I was exposed to most of the information as an undergrad. I thought more could have been done to illustrate the tension between the Sophists and Socrates/Plato/Aristotle. The fact that writings and ideas can survive for so long always astonishes me. The Iliad is a great example of a story being passed on through the decades without having been written and mass produced in the beginning. A computer breaking may result in the loss of a tremendous amount of work and is considered a great tragedy; however, these writings have survived the wrath of time.
Book 1 Chapter 2
The most annoying aspect of the reading is the footnotes. I appreciate the reason for them being there; however, it disrupts the flow of the reading. The thing that stuck me most is that Rhetoric, according to Aristotle, is essentially an art when it hasn’t been applied to anything. However, once you get fact specific, then it is no longer true rhetoric. It doesn’t seem that a speaker can ever be persuasive without application so then rhetoric is an empty art in its pure form. If it is an empty art, then the pure form is of little or no value because there is no topic on which to persuade.
When I opened On Rhetoric to begin reading, I did not know what to expect. I had taken a speech class once in college, and I can remember my professor associating Aristotle with ethos, logos, and pathos. That is about all I remember. The introduction was interesting because it captured a snapshot of Aristotle's life to give the reader a reference while reading his work. A couple of interesting facts from the introduction was that On Rhetoric is a collection of Aristotle’s lecture notes and was not a book published for sale. Also, Aristotle was a teacher to a young man who would become Alexander the Great. I did not realize that there were essentially two schools of thought: the sophists and those like Plato and Aristotle. The sophists believed in memorizing ready-made speeches and then tailoring the speeches to a specific situation. They believed their students learned through imitation. On the other hand, Plato and Aristotle believed that speech and communication should be based on knowledge of truth or sound logic. The introduction suggests that Aristotle’s main competitor and rival was a man named Isocrates, a sophist, which provided Aristotle with the motivation to teach rhetoric at Plato’s academy during afternoon lectures. I thought this was interesting because one can get a glimpse of the extent to which there was a separation between the two schools of thought.
I struggled when reading Book 1, Chapter 2. In fact, at times I had to read it aloud. Aristotle suggests that there are non-artistic aspects and artistic aspects to rhetoric. One must take the non-artistic aspects, which are preexisting and not invented by the speaker, and create the artistic aspect. This follows Professor Gloer’s example in class where he started his sermon with the Bible verse, which is preexisting and then went on to create and center his sermon on the scripture. When I began reading about premises and syllogisms in Aristotle’s work, I immediately thought of the argument section of the LSAT. I noticed how Aristotle does not spell everything out for the listener, but rather when a speaker offers premises and one is known, the listener supplies the conclusion. I liked how Aristotle went on to provide an example so that what he was saying made sense to a reader like me. Although, I did not fully understand what I was reading, I thought the broad concepts of using logic to create persuasive arguments, taking into consideration the trustworthiness of the speaker, and appealing to the audience’s emotion, provide a foundation for oral advocacy, which can still be used today.
The introduction did a good job describing what we, as readers, need to know about Aristotle, On Rhetoric, and the time in which it was written. I am glad that the introduction pointed out that this particular work came from lecture notes intended for Aristotle’s own personal use. That piece of information helped me as I was reading Book 1, Chapter 2 because instead of getting bogged down in sentence structure, I tried instead to grasp the overall ideas and examples contained within the reading. One would hope a lecturer on rhetoric would not have read to his students, verbatim, his notes on the subject, but rather would have conveyed the ideas and illustrations contained in it to his audience in a more interesting manner. I respectfully disagree with what Mr. Brennan said about Book 1, Chapter 2. I think Mr. Brennan is correct when he says the form of the argument is an art, but just because you must apply specific facts to the form in order to persuade someone of your ultimate conclusion does not make the form an empty art with little or no value. Instead, I think Aristotle means that the form of the argument is the vehicle or the packaging in which you place your specific facts. The form is the way a speaker conveys the particular facts to his audience in order to be persuasive. The persuasiveness of your fact based argument comes in large part from the form in which you place those facts- in other words, the way you present the facts to your audience plays a role in making those facts persuasive. There is rarely a set of facts so persuasive that if you lay them out to an audience by simply stating them one right after the other your audience will be convinced of your conclusion. You need form in order to organize your facts and help you persuade your audience of your conclusion. That form, according to Aristotle consists of logos, pathos, and ethos. Mr. Brennan is right if he means to say that one cannot stand up and give a speech using form without facts; however, since most facts must be stuck into a form in order to be persuasive; the art of form cannot be an empty valueless art.
I think the introduction is important to provide context for the techniques that Aristotle seeks to convey. Just as it is important to know your audience when making a persuasive argument it is also important to know the audience of the author when reading his writings. Aristotle's purpose was to teach the future leaders of the society how to make effective speeches. It will make the book easier to understand because we understand Aristotle's purposes were not to write a coherent book. The introduction makes it clear that this is a collection of teachings that he mainly wrote for himself in order to lecture over a period of several years. I am glad that George Kennedy is making us aware that the book is riddled with contradictions and is basically warning us that it will be difficult to read.
Aristotle was also teaching alongside sophists and his teachings on rhetoric were meant to provide a contradiction to that way of making speeches. He was particularly sensitive to the need to cater a speech to the occasion which I believe is one the most important aspects to creating a speech. It is mind-blowing to realize that the some of the techniques taught today were taught over 2,000 years ago.
In reading Book 1, chapter 2, Aristotle explains rhetoric as different from any other subject that can be taught because in learning about rhetoric you are learning about the character of given facts. For example, you are given set facts or evidence and have to learn to recognize the right way to talk about them. It is not like our other law school subjects where you have to learn the law through memorization and understanding. Instead you have to learn to influence those who make or apply the law. Aristotle also explains the importance of ethos which I believe is especially difficult for lawyers in a trial setting. Most jurors come into the room with knowledge of lawyers as the manipulative scumbags they see on TV. It is our job to convince them that we are trustworthy, at least more trustworthy than the other lawyer. I think many lawyers forget this aspect of persuasion and just focus on the emotional and the logic.
I have to agree with Cheryl, this was a difficult read. However, once I began to understand the ideas behind the writing, it became easier. I was really suprised at how alike Aristotle's system was to the advocacy lectures in PC. The way that one almost scientific formula could be applied to any situation is exactly what the profs taught in the Advocacy Lectures. The introduction was too long, and though it did help with context, I really got the most out of the first few paragraphs and the critique of the book at the end. I think we are going to focus mainly on the outliers of what Aristotle taught--he did not teach much on political speech, and when you close with a "safety Rule" I feel you are making a quasi-political speech. Politics is just arguing for an ideal anyway, and I think the similarities between what we are doing and what Aristotle taught are closer with political speech than anything else. Chapter 2 really breaks down the "how and what" of an argument. The credibility argument he makes in the first few pages again are very similar to the PC curriculum, especially Jim Wren's take on it. One thing I think Aristotle over looked is the importance of the argument being directed at a bigger arugment. The first stage of whether the audience is a Judge or not a Judge is misleading. In a jury setting or a church setting I think your "judge" will encompass a wide spectrum, and the argument should be eloquent enough to get a reaction from the college graduate and simple enough to be understood by the high school drop out, since both are equally important. Aristotle begins to address this when he talks about using irrefutable signs in an argument. Though this was a really difficult piece to read through, he brought up some great elements of a true argument and the overall thing I took from it is how little the system changed in the modern times.
Jumping into Aristotle is always such a task. I studied his works in Undergrad and still find it as confusing as I did then. That being said, the introduction was a nice refresher course about the nature and times of Aristotle, his ideas, his influences, and the society he was reared in. The part I particularly enjoyed was the section about how democratic the judicial system was. Being post-PC the thought of a thousand person jury just overwhelms me, but also intrigues me. Stylistically, to argue in front of such a large body of people and get them to agree to your thoughts presents many challenges. I almost find it idealistic to think that the original defendants had a fair shot at winning their cases without any type of lawyer figures and only a pre-produced booklet of legal jargon. This doesn't seem democratic to me at all! It seems as if defendants were never really given a fair shot at a defense, since the juries expected a lot from someone who was untrained in rhetorical skills.
Book 1, Chapter 2 was also interesting to me. Though dense, Aristotle presented his beliefs as to what rhetoric is and what constitutes a good use of it. I do have to say that I disagree with several of the characterizations he made, though. For brevity's sake, my main disagreement was with how Aristotle chose to characterize rhetors and their audience. He argued that authority of the speaker is not taken into account by the receiving public, the public generally will be prompted to take action based on the persuasiveness of the speaker's words. I find this hard to believe due to the fact that I feel there is more credibility in some speakers than others. In a trial setting, expert witnesses will be called to present their expert opinions and honestly I do think the juries take these opinions much more seriously than that of a lay person. I think there is something to be said to the authority vested in certain people that cannot be overlooked. Aristotle argued that if one is in a governmental office or high position of influence in society, the juries will treat them the same. I just don't think this is so.
I enjoyed reading Aristotle again and respectfully disagree with a couple of Mr. Phillips's points.
First, I agree that a large part of a modern case will frequently involve factually contradicting your opponent. However, this is not unrelated to Aristotle's reliance on induction and syllogism. Any factual scenario that a lawyer produces must logically fit together. A party in a case may provide a ridiculous or a believable set of facts. Use of paradigms and syllogisms as Aristotle suggests will make one fact scenario more believable than another. As an extreme example: consider a tort case where the plaintiff and defendant were involved in a car accident. The plaintiff claims that the defendant was negligent, ran a red light, and struck the plaintiff's vehicle. The defendant responds by claiming that he was not negligent because a raccoon jumped in his car and caused him to stomp on the gas. This is an extreme example that would probably require no help from the plaintiff for a jury to discard the defendant's story. However, the point is that the plaintiff may use paradigms (examples and comparisons to other drivers) or syllogisms (attacking a premise, such as the windows were rolled up) to attack the defendant's story. Neither of these stories are absolute truths, and both are possible, but the goal is to make one appear as close to a "tekmerion" as possible. Factually contradicting your opponent is not completely separate from the structure that Aristotle has identified. I do not see how Aristotle has failed to account for the need for persuasion since it is what almost the entirety of On Rhetoric is devoted towards and all of Book 1 Chapter 2 is devoted to it.
Second, I respectfully disagree that "[f]ormal logic cannot address such a balancing, whether one of two equally factual statements is truer and more conclusive than the other." Ignoring Aristotle's logic for the moment, I do not see how one statement is "truer" than another to begin with. I have always thought of truth as an absolute. A factual statement is either true, or it is not. If by "truer" Mr. Phillips's means "more believable to a jury," then I believe that Aristotle absolutely has addressed how logic can affect such a balancing, which relates to what I've said above, so I will not repeat myself.
Finally, I'd just like to add that it is great to be discussing something other than a case or statute for a change. These sorts of discussions and debates are what I enjoyed most about undergrad.
I thought the reading was very hard to fully digest. I hadn’t been exposed to much Aristotle before, and was not used to this type of writing. Every sentence was full of large amounts of information, and connecting the dots took me a while. I found it interesting that Aristotle broke the modes of persuasion of the spoken word down into three categories: the personal character of the speaker; putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the proof provided by the words of the speech itself. I often overlook the personal character of the speaker and the audience’s state of mind, and simply analyze persuasive speaking by the proof offered and the actual argument put forth. It’s important to remember when trying to construct any sort of persuasive speech that the words put forth and the proof offered don’t operate in a vacuum, and that many times the person saying them and the audience receiving them are just as, if not more, important.
I must too confess, as Mr. Phillips did, that I have no great appreciation for formal logic. First, formal logic fails to distinguish absolute truths from general ones. Aristotle recognizes the difference between a general truth and an absolute truth. For example, “It is hot in Texas” may be generally true it is certainly not absolutely true (as the snow this week proves). But formal logic cannot distinguish between the two. Perhaps this is what Mr. Phillips means when he says something is “truer” and it certainly seems to be why Aristotle puts such emphasis on the art of persuasion.
Second, formal logic is often unreliable. In fact, I recall one undergraduate class in particular where we took premises about God and His existence and derived conclusions. After spending about half an hour developing a proof that God must exist, we then wiped the board clean and started another proof. This time we proved both “A” and “not A” a logical impossibility that could only mean God must not exist. The logical structure can say what you want it to say. This is why Aristotle addresses the speaker’s credibility as the first part of his art of rhetoric.
As Mr. Pate points out, the goal is to appear as close to “tekemerion” as possible. Many of my professors have told me that the jurors believe there is only one truth teller in the court room. Many times the key to getting a jury to believe that you are the truth teller requires you to “prove” the truth through persuasion. Aristotle recognizes that the easiest way to do this is by keeping the truth simple. Using results of previous syllogisms to prove additional syllogisms is not as effective because it more complicated.
I think the historical aspect of the reading was very interesting. We hear about all of these logic tools like the syllogism every single day and don't think twice about them but Aristotle and his predecessors were the first to actually conceptualize these tools and present them in a coherent manner.
Initially, when reading the introduction, it stood out to me that there were several references and allusions to the problems with Aristotle's idea of rhetorical method. That made me a little uneasy and cautious on the front end about putting too much reliance on this method. I guess I will wait and see and reserve judgment though...
I thought it was hilarious when Chapter 2 made a side note about how judges are assumed to be "simple people." Over 2000 years and not much has changed ;)
Also, when the book started talking about Isocrates and his rival school, it reminded me of a villain in a comic book or something. You have your hero, you throw the letter I in the prefix of the name and boom dinosaur you have the polar opposite anti-hero. If not a comic book, then at least bizarro Jerry from Seinfeld.
First and foremost, Aristotle would be obnoxious at parties. He’s a total name dropper. He manages to mention Socrates, Hippias, and Callias in less than a paragraph. That’s like having a visitor come to your house for a dinner party and while handing you his coat he lets it slip that last week he had a meeting with Arianna Huffington, a luncheon with Rachel Ray, and a run in with someone whose name you recognize but can’t place so you nod politely in hopes it’s not apparent you don’t recall their importance. Besides the name dropping, Aristotle’s identity is clearly wrapped up in his own accomplishments (how else do you explain him mentioning his other books so often?) and that’s not only a character flaw but also incredibly annoying in real life. As his final party trick, he’s an awkward mix of arrogant and condescending when he makes statements like “Everyone’s missed this. . .” while leaving out the unspoken “Everyone but me. You’re all lucky I share my smart-ness with you”. Ugh, talk about an enthymeme. Cover me while I make a run for the guacamole and try to escape.
Incomplete proofs are not a problem to be avoided, but rather a technique to be employed well. Aristotle walks the reader down how it’s possible for Dionysus to be a despot based on his request for a body guard. In a Westernized American collegiate classroom, where the reader lacks the historical and cultural background required to understand the statement, the truth of the statement is automatically dismissed by the reader. But, Aristotle wasn’t trying to prove the validity of the characterization (Dionysus is a despot) so the reader can glance over the inconsistency between the statement’s apparent falsity and learning the idea it’s used to illustrate. However, it’s a great place to pause and evaluate the value of leading the reader through a series of statements that ends with new understanding. I am much more likely to accept new information if it’s combined with information I already identify as true.
Take for example the interview between John Stewart and Newt Gingrich on The Daily Show last week. While discussing the validity of providing the rights of the American justice system to suspected terrorists as opposed to using the military system of justice, Newt Gingrich decried the current administration affording American justice system protections to the Fruit of the Boom bomber. While correctly identifying various aspects of the conflict (Miranda rights being offered, the FBI’s involvement, the suspected terrorists method of explosives) the repartee pauses awkwardly when Stewart challenges Newt’s characterization of Miranda rights as “radical”. Stewart points out its disingenuous to call the current method radical when it’s previous use in identical situations met no such outcry – namely Richard Reid the shoe bomber. When Newt distinguishes the two individuals by pointing to Reid’s citizenship, there’s a brief awkward pause, which Stewart parlays into a commercial break. Stewart paused because Newt was wrong when he said Richard Reid was an American citizen and therefore the differences between Reid’s treatment and the butt bomber was justified, but he wasn’t 100% sure of Reid’s citizenship at the moment Newt said it. So, Newt got away with being wrong. Not for long, Stewart called him on it after the break, but in a conversation that doesn’t afford the other guy a staff of fact checkers, the careful placement of incorrect statements (or at least a suspect fact) can borrow credibility from the accuracy of the speaker’s other statements. In a broader context, a few well placed citizenship errors, can win a larger policy argument if the speaker is careful to build credibility before and after.
Although I recognize this is not a great idea for political candidates or case interpretation arguments in front of a judge, it has broad implications for the much more important task of everyday living.
I was so happy to find out it was Chapter 2 we were assigned to read after I had read Chapter 1. I can't express the level of gratitude I feel for getting that extra dose of Aristotle. This guy and I would not get along very well. I know his writing is from long ago in a land far, far away, but it's communicated in way that is too complicated for my simple mind. I'm a plain-vanilla type and this guy is peddling Rocky Road. That said, here's what I thought:
Intro: There was a lot of great information in the introduction, but I couldn't get past the names of some of the people. Speusippus, Theophrastus, Quintilian, etc. Can you imagine having to write out that bad boy and do it correctly? It's my thought that everyone had a nickname to keep things simple. Speusippus = Sippy, Theophrastus = T-phrat, and Quintilian = "Q" or The Q. In general, the intro helped introduce me to rhetoric. I knew of the elements, such as pitch, repitition, and volume, without ever having associated them with rhetoric. "[R]hetoric is a feature . . . even of animal communication." I'd never even given that any thought, but it's clear. I can tell by the pitch of my dog's howl whether he wants out to chase a squirrel or to get some water.
Chapter 1- Probably the best chapter ever written in the history of Aristotle writing. I'm glad I read it even though it wasn't assigned.
Chapter 2- The three species of pisteis in speech are what I've been taught in mock trial. In the opinion of a 3L that has never tried a case or gone through PC, persuasion is the key to overcoming any opposing fact that should deny your side from winning. If you can be likable, appear trustworthy, manipulate the jury, and sprinkle in a little truth to your claim, you can win (Carson Runge taught me that last part). I think persuasion is needed most when the truth is hard to see through the evidence available to the judge/jury. There may be truth, but it's not apparent. Another thing that stuck out to me was the last chunk on the bottom of p. 41 ending with: "for if one of these is known, it does not have to be stated, since the hearer supplies it." That's a technique I've tried to develop in trying a hypothetical case to avoid an objection but make sure the jury gets what I'm trying to show. It's like leading the jury to the bridge, but allowing them to cross it on their own.
Misc- I was able to gain a better understanding of the reading from the previous posts. They were very insightful.
P.S. I wish I could write a reflection like my man Drew Pate.
I thought the introductory material was extremely interesting and very well written. As a communications major, I was pleased to see quite a few of the things I had already studied mentioned (Oh, Gorgias), but it was good to have a brief refresher. One of the things that stood out to me, as it has done so before, was the idea of trying to persuade 1,000 or so jurors. When I think about the limited amount of trial experience I have from the mock trial team, it blows my mind to think about trying to win over 500 or so people when so far 2-3 has been enough! I guess it’s all about perspective. That being said, the thing I find most fascinating and difficult about the basic pisteis framework is how challenging it is to balance these three things. The phrase “everything in moderation” comes to mind. You cannot frame your entire case around the logic of the argument and forego the emotions of the jury or your own credibility. Likewise, you cannot disregard the facts and logic and bank your entire case on your pitiful client. While trying cases is generally about presenting the “big picture” to the jury, the subtleties and nuances of human emotions, first impressions and common sense can really make a difference when it comes down to the wire. I suppose the reason they call the “practice” of law a “practice” is because it truly takes a lifetime of working with these concepts to come even close to getting it right...if there is such a thing as "getting it right."
First, I have to wish everyone a happy Chinese New Year (it's the year of the Tiger)!
I have to confess that I’m a classics/history nerd, so I liked the historical background and the translation notes. The reading is very dense and as I’m reading I feel like I am missing something because there is so much knowledge being imparted. As I'm reading the book I can imagine students of Aristotle, like Alexander the Great, trying to study this same text and feeling overwhelmed too.
As I was reading about the Academy and the times Aristotle grew up in, this book strikes me as an amazing work. With new technologies, nations, and schools of thought, speaking still holds an important place in our society as it did in Aristotle’s. His analysis of the elements to a good orator transcends time, as does the idea of On Rhetoric. At its most basic, I believe On Rhetoric is an extension of the Greek notion that analysis can lead to teachable material that other’s naturally inclined already know. Thus, one who is not born a good speaker can work his way to becoming a good speaker through instruction.
However, instruction has its limits, because at the end it is up to the student to apply his instruction to his situation. Footnote 51 of chapter 2 (I know, I can’t believe it either that I actually read a footnote) states, “Rhetoric as an art seeks general rules; orators, or course commonly deal with the belief of specific individuals.” As future lawyers and students of rhetoric, we have to use these general rules that we have learned and then apply them appropriately to the specifics of a situation. Precision in what is said and how it is said becomes the job of the speaker. And the speaker must pick and choose what was taught to him and employ it in his speech.
After reading the introduction and skimming chapter 2, I remembered being enrolled in an undergraduate course covering the same topic. I promptly withdrew from that course after the first test—I hope this one goes a little better. The introduction included some interesting background on Aristotle and I especially liked Carol Poster’s theory of On Rhetoric as a manual on verbal self-defensive. It also made me wonder if never having read Phaedrus hurt my understanding of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. As part of a brief response to the reading in chapter 2, I’m surprised this section sparked some lengthy analysis and debate in the responses. Reading the footnotes was awful. Additionally, without a background in the topic, it was difficult to follow the allusions to dialectic arguments. Skipping the footnotes and breaking out Wikipedia made the chapter manageable. It seemed to me to be a few pages of definition and basic outlining. It's difficult to really feel anything about organization and definitions. Accordingly, this is a fairly limited response.
I was surprised by some of the aspects of Aristotle’s life that I learned about in the introduction. I never knew that he was married and had a family. I also thought it was interesting how much speaking and rhetoric played a part in Greek life. As the introduction discusses, since there were no professional lawyers, the average person who was on trial was expected to deliver a compelling argument. I think that in today’s society with the internet and social networks that this art of speaking with an emphasis on logic is possibly becoming a lost art. As for Chapter 1, Book 2, I have always found it interesting that Aristotle puts an emphasis on emotions and the role that emotions play in a logical argument. It seems at first that logic and emotions should be separate, but I agree with Aristotle that getting your audience to feel emotions is vital to any argument. I also agree with what Ms. Gee has stated regarding that the art of form is not an empty valueless art. In a court case, you can have all the facts on your side, but if you are unable to persuasively display those facts to the audience, you are not going to win. I think that is most situations, persuasion is done through form and not necessarily facts.
On Rhetoric is my first contact with Aristotle, so I spent some quality time with the Introduction. Aristotle’s upbringing and the surrounding historical context helped me appreciate the text’s importance and resiliency. I am always impressed when someone boils down a common act into basic, practical elements. For example, when a sprinting coach teaches the process of a 100M dash in terms of take-off, acceleration, top-end speed, and endurance. While the race looks like a one fluid act, it is actually built of separate parts and understanding the parts and the relationships helps improve the sprinter’s entire performance. Aristotle did this with rhetorical, persuasive speech. I always thought persuasive speaking was an inherent gift, but after considering the basics of On Rhetoric, I am convinced that it is actually a skill that anyone can learn. I enjoyed Aristotle’s classification of rhetoric as an art and not a cut and dry science. I agree because nearly any speaking style can be persuasive; there is no mold to be broken. I look forward to diving into the rhetorical cornerstones.
Like a few of y’all, I had exposure to Aristotle in high school and undergrad. I knew the highlights of his past; but what I found most helpful from the introduction was an understanding of how and why this particular esoteric work was written. There is a different light cast on this work and the way it is presented versus a generic textbook of sorts – knowing this was “a work in progress” from which he would pull excerpts to discuss with his colleagues of the day or present to a forum.
Like many of my fellow PC class, I found the excerpt from this work intriguing in how it relates to the very theories presented to us through the PC practical lessons and PC add-on classes (i.e. Advanced Trial Prep and Advanced Trial Advocacy). There was one passage that leapt of the page as a particular lesson I worked on throughout my PC experience. At the bottom of our page 41, Ari discussed the idea that an effective enthymeme / paradigm draws from as few premises as possible, even less than what is needed to complete the logic, “for if one of these is known, it does not have to be stated, since the hearer supplies it.” Professors Wren and Counseller were very instructive on the practical application of this lesson. Professor Wren explained how the most effective plaintiff’s argument focuses on the terrible bad acts of the defendant and draws the allusion of how these bad acts, if unpunished, will damage their society, their community, even their very lives. But you never say this last part; you simply walk them to the edge and allow them to make the leap. Professor Counseller gave us the infamous “button” principle. For those yet to have PC, I will not ruin the story for you – as you will easily hear the story four times throughout your PC experience. Suffice to say, the logic follows: defendant could have pushed a button that would have prevented plaintiff’s injuries, defendant didn’t push the button, plaintiff was injured, and therefore defendant caused the plaintiff to be injured. However, the argument follows: defendant could have pushed the button, he didn’t, and plaintiff was injured – never stating the painfully obvious fact that defendant was the cause of the injuries. I still continue to struggle with this in the heat of the argument, often making, what Counseller calls, the one argument too far.
PS – I concur with Ms. Finch. Ari is a horrid name dropper and self-aggrandizer. He would fit in well in the Idle Rich Pub or the MAT in Uptown Dallas.
I really enjoy reading material like On Rhetoric. I enjoy it because it is a look at how someone regarded as a master breaks down his craft. As Aristotle addresses, rhetoric is a skill that can be broken down, improved, and manipulated. The modern equivalent would be listening to Phil Jackson describe the mechanics of a jump shot (or as Mr. Bernick discussed, a track coach discussing the mechanics of a 100m race). It takes a subject of interest and puts it under a magnifying glass that allows a level of detail and understanding normally reserved exclusively for those practicing the art.
I also like Aristotle’s characterization of rhetoric as a pursuit dependant on both non-artistic and artistic elements. There is a heavy focus on the actual form of the logical argument in this chapter. However, Aristotle outlined at the beginning of the chapter that the logical form is but one aspect of rhetoric (logos). To confine rhetoric to a syllogism or an induction is akin to saying that a good apple pie must be baked. Yes, that is the truth, but without other ingredients or steps in preparation, all the baking in the world will not produce a good apple pie. It often seems that people get so caught up in proving their argument factually “right” that they forget that an argument is as much about the perception of the truth from the audience as it is about the “actual truth”. I don’t mean to say that facts are unnecessary, but the presentation of the facts is just as important. It seems that Aristotle recognized this and I hope in later chapters will expound on this idea.
As an amateur in the world of rhetoric, I view a speech or an argument and simply respond with “Wow, that was a great X…” or the negative. This part of the reading has introduced me to a far more technical understanding of persuasive speech which I think will be very beneficial in the future.
The first thing I considered when reading the Introduction was “Why did I leave the warm embrace of a liberal arts department?” Aside from that, I thought the introduction was particularly illuminative in describing the Grecian marketplace for rhetorical guides; it appears that there were a number of “Rhetoric for Dummies” treatises and lectures floating around. With this context in mind, Aristotle’s motivation for writing an authoritative treatise on persuasion is much clearer – he felt that there was a lack of emphasis on the relationship between reasoning and persuasion. What is left unclear, however, is if Aristotle felt that this topic had simply been neglected by his academic peers, or if he was moved to write in response to his own society’s overemphasis on “less essential” aspects of persuasion, or a combination of both.
As for Book I, Chapter 2, what initially struck me was how I had no idea what Aristotle is talking about. But, as he broke down the different kinds of syllogisms, eventually focusing in on rhetorical syllogisms, I think I began to understand the importance of the enthymeme in persuasion (or at least where this is going). The rhetorical power of the enthymeme would seem to be in the omitted or implied premise – that part of the logical chain that the listener must fill in to complete the sequence. I thought about how this might be used in front of a jury, specifically during the sentencing phase. “This man has stolen. Therefore this is a bad man and he ought to face consequences.” Existing within a vacuum, that’s a true statement. But we know that is not necessarily true, there are lots of qualifiers to deal with, namely that the man’s particular kind of theft is in fact bad. What about Jean Valjean stealing his loaf of bread? A bad act? Maybe. That missing or implied premise is (I think, at this point at least) persuasion’s battleground. That’s a big gap to fill when aiming to persuade. There are the facts to deal with, there is the listener's reptile brain to consider, there is the projection of your persona. In short there are dozens of considerations that shape and color the omitted/implied premise.I'm curious to see how Aristotle categorizes and explains these soft factors and whether or not he thinks they are controlling.
I was a simple Communication Major in college, but these readings, which invite hour upon hour of open-ended debate make me want some coffee, a black sweater, and a second lap through undergrad to give this stuff a shot.
In the meantime, whichever one of my fellow classmates said he was hiding from Aristotle over by the guacamole, please, save some dip and a spot for me! I actually enjoyed what Aristotle had to say, but found he presented complex things in deceptively simple ways while making very simple things deceptively complex. What do I mean? Mr. Bernick wrote that Aristotle is like the coach who informs you there are many elements to a 100M sprint. Great, but that doesn’t mean I am able to sprint any faster, only that I appreciate sprinters more.
I had lots of thoughts as I was reading and unfortunately, none of them really fit together. So instead, I will give my popcorn style impression of what I just read:
“Rhetoric goes back to 2000 B.C.E., The Instructions of Ptahhotep which gives advice about how to speak and when to keep silent if brought before a judge or ruler.”-- Wow. Even then they knew, it’s not always what you say, but what you don’t say that counts.
“As though a shoemaker were to try to teach his art by presenting his apprentice with an assortment of shoes.”—Wait, isn’t that what you are doing Aristotle? You are presenting these moving, persuasive speeches, but am I supposed to be able to later mimic that? I can admire the shoes all day, but put a tool in my hand, tell me to make a pair, and with Aristotle’s teachings, I still don’t know where to start.
Aristotle thinks poetry has “no moral force.” That at most, “one might experience a beneficial and brief psychological catharsis of pity and fear.” --This seems odd coming from the man who teaches rhetoric in its purest form stands alone as its own abstract idea. If an idea is abstract and only later directly applied to a truth, isn’t that abstract idea nothing more than “a brief psychological catharsis of pity and fear” manipulated to achieve persuasion as applied to a tangible thing?
If rhetoric is an art in itself and the most important tool in that trade is the character of the person, you have to ask yourself, are people really listening for substance and truth or are they looking for some person or some idea to believe in. Even Aristotle’s teachings focus on public forums, the root of which is politics. Even though he expressly distinguishes rhetoric from politics, you must ask yourself, are people looking for a politician to affect change or merely to arouse sentiment, relay a truth, or stir an emotion? If this is the only thing people are looking for, then how is rhetoric any different than poetry?
“Since the persuasive is persuasive to someone (and is either immediately plausible and believable in itself or seems to be shown by statements that are so)…”— This comment exemplifies that while rhetoric itself may be a pure form of art, you use plausible and believable ideas to persuade on those tangible things that may not be so easily persuadable. For example, a crowd may not immediately believe in a politician and a jury may not believe an accused murderer at first glance. But by using immediately plausible alternative means, the unbelievable suddenly becomes believable.
I thought the reading was rather difficult. I am usually good about absorbing reading on the first try, but this was definitely more challenging. I felt more comfortable with the reading when I realized it was a collection of lecture notes and not a published text. Nevertheless, I was constantly overwhelmed by the dense writing.
The introduction taught me a lot I didn't know. My exposure to Aristotle prior to this reading was non-existent. I felt the introduction was very well written and informative. It was interesting gaining perspective on why Aristotle's work has survived and remained prominent for generations. As the world changes daily, its baffling to think how little the need for persuasion has changed. The brilliance in the work can be seen from the fact that the same basic principles are applied today, generations later.
Book 1, Chapter 2 was interesting. I am sure there is a significant amount I didn't absorb. However, one area of the writing that did stand out to me was the emphasis put on character of the speaker. I do agree that people are more readily willing to be persuaded by and listen to a “good man.” However, I don't believe the opposite is completely true. In the modern world, I don’t believe someone would disregard experiences, expertise, and superior knowledge simply based on a weaker character. Because characters flaws are so readily available and prominent today, I feel like they are more easily overlooked today than during Aristotle’s time. After meeting with several jurors after two trials I assisted with this summer, the character flaws of attorneys seem to be overshadowed on a regular basis by the ability to appeal personally to the jurors. So long as an attorney was putting on a good show, how poorly he treated his staff, paralegals, co-counsels, and sometimes even the judge was disregarded because a personal connection was established. Not to say character is not important today, I just feel like it can be overshadowed and compensated for by other persuasive attributes. I don’t believe the same can be said about pathos/logos.
I was struck by Aristotle’s comment near the beginning of Chapter 2 that ethos is the most authoritative source of persuasion. More specifically, he indicates that in cases where there is not exact knowledge, but room for doubt, the perceived “fair-mindedness” of the speaker is very important. This perception seems to be of singular importance for a lawyer. In the practice of law, most jury arguments will be done when there is room for doubt. In the civil context this is necessarily the case since otherwise, the case would have already been disposed of on summary judgment. Similarly, in the criminal context, prosecutors would need to appear fair-minded in order to overcome the “beyond a reasonable doubt” hurdle since many criminal cases are far from open and shut and the defendant would have a big incentive to take a plea deal if his/her guilt were so readily apparent. Therefore, ethos is something a lawyer should take very seriously.
This was my first exposure to Aristotle's writings and found it to be pretty difficult to absorb, and I certainly did not run through it like I had anticipated. However, I did find much of the reading to be quite interesting.
First of all, I did not realize that Aristotle was Alexander the Great's professor, and I found it very interesting that he and Isocrates had such a division in their schools of thought.
In book 1 chapter 2, like Patrick said, I was certainly struck by Aristotle's characterization of ethos as the most authoritative source of persuasion. This hit home for me and I thought it probably should/will for all BLS students who study under Professors Powell and Wren, because they emphasize telling the honest story and place such value on finding the undeniable truths of your particular case. We are also taught the importance of being genuine and honest with yourself and the jury, because they will know it when you are being disingenuous and putting on a show, and therefore they will consider you untrustworthy.
Page 39, footnote 41, illustrates this idea pretty well I believe, it reads: "Unlike Isocrates, Aristotle does not include in rhetorical ethos the authority that the spealer may possess due to position in government or society, previous actions, reputation , or anything except what is actually said in the speech. Presumably, he would regard all other factors, sometimes highly important, as inartistic. One reason for Aristotle's position may be that speakers in the law courts were often ordinary people unknown tho the jury, and a relatively unknown person might speak in the assembly as well."
The last sentence about being an ordinary person in the court reminded me instantly of the lessons that Professor Wren would preach on in the court room exercises, and the idea that gaining the jury's trust was the most important thing a lawyer could do to advance his/her position.
This was a difficult read, having never once read any kind of philosophical text whatsoever. The introduction was certainly helpful, because I essentially knew nothing about Aristotle before besides that he was a philosopher. I never knew the true importance and clout he had in his time. I’m sure it was no small honor to be hand chosen as a prince’s teacher. It was also interesting to see how “justice” was done way back then – juries of sometimes a thousand people, and with no lawyers to protect the interests of each side. I can now see why treatises, speeches, and classes on rhetoric were so important. Each person had to fend for themselves and needed proper training.
The way Aristotle discusses logic makes sense to me. I consider myself a logical person, and Practice Court has taught me that working through issues to come to a logical conclusion is a very persuasive tactic. I didn’t realize that this had essentially been explained over 2000 years ago. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I learned in PC to focus on the tekmerion in structuring closing arguments. Juries like for things to make sense. It is very effective to give propositions that logically lead to an irrefutable conclusion. But, screwing it up can be extremely counterproductive – a lawyer giving propositions that do not logically to an irrefutable conclusion can be made to look foolish.
For example, we had a mini-trial where the plaintiffs were saying that since their client’s husband was murdered on our property, we should be liable. But, we (the defense) won the case by explaining to the jury the more logical and obvious proposition – the person that commits murder should be liable for the murder, not the company that merely owns the land where that murder occurred. It is straightforward. Proposition 1 – a person murders another person. Proposition 2 – murder is illegal. Conclusion – the murder should be held liable. It is much more tenuous to attempt to place the burden on the property owner.
When reading On Rhetoric I seemed to focus on the paragraphs where rhetoric was described in terms of legal argument. We learned that the Greeks were the ones to use a majority vote by a panel of other Greeks to decide someone's fate. They said that the panel could consist of over 1,000 "jurors." I thought back to a concept of "group think" and wondered how 1,000 jurors would work in our current system. I also bet that it was an honor to sit as a juror - a stark contrast to our current view where most people see it as a burden. Also, since there were not any prosecutors I would think that the view of the facts could be very distorted.
After having just gone through practice court, I was surprised when I read that Aristotle did not like the idea of "judicial rhetoric" focusing on "arousing emotions to the neglect of logical argument." This is in direct conflict with what we were taught. It is the job of any good attorney on either side to stir the emotions in their favor. I understand and applaud an ideal trial of pure logical argument but I also understand that humans ("jurors") make decision based on emotions and I need to stir those emotions in my clients favor.
I had one of the same reactions as Brad did when reading about how logical argument was preferred to emotional appeals.
I can see in my own life how often things come down not to what will be the best for me in the long run. I'm so often persuaded by the smell of that chicken-fried steak even though I know that it will be clogging arteries I'll need later in life, how great that afternoon nap will feel even though I have so much work to do. People, more often than not, make decisions on emotional bases. Ignoring this is to live in an idealistic world divorced from reality. The best advocates tailor their messages to their audiences. The human audience, in every form, requires emotional appeals.
31 comments:
I thought reading On Rhetoric was difficult in general because I haven't read anything like this before. That said, I did enjoy the things that I could understand.
In the Introduction, I enjoyed learning about the history of Aristotle because it put his work in context. I was aware that Aristotle was a student of Plato, but I wasn't aware of his tension with the most influential teacher at that time, Isocrates. I also thought it was interesting that Aristotle's division of intellectual property was ancestor of the organization of modern university departments because I have always thought it was strange how university departments were organized. Additionally, I think that it is a little ironic that Aristotle's works that become On Rhetoric were most likely his notes for teaching class and were originally intended only for his students in Athens.
I had exceptional difficulty with Book 1, Chapter 2, but I need notice a few things. In Aristotle's discussion of syllogisms, I thought it was interesting to see that the example that he used reflected the world that he lived in. While your example in class was combining my pet is a cat and a cat is a mammal to simply say my pet is a mammal, Aristotle used the example of Dorieus wins a crown and the Olympic games have a crown as a prize to simply say that Dorieus has won the Olympic games. I also thought that Aristotle's discussion of a necessary sign in a syllogism (tekmerion) as opposed to sign (semeia) was thought provoking. This reminded me of a professor suggesting a plaintiff's tactic in litigating from the book Rules of the Road. The tactic was to come up with a rule that the defense could not refute was true, which showed wrongdoing on the defendant's part. Using tekmerion would be essential in this tactic, because the defense could otherwise just break the bond in a semeia.
I thought On Rhetoric was very dense, and it took a lot of thought to absorb everything that Aristotle is saying. It was definitely a refreshing change from reading noting but cases and text books, though.
In the introduction, I most enjoyed learning about where in history Aristotle lived. I had not realized that he lived at the same time as Alexander the Great, and even tutored him. It was also very interesting to read about Aristotle's other works, and his interaction with other great thinkers of the day.
Book 1 Chapter 2 had some very good discussion in it. I especially liked the section about the importance of showing your audience that you are fair-minded. Aristotle pointed out that the character of the speaker is the most important element in persuasion. If the audience believes you are fair-minded and trustworthy, they are far more likely to agree with you, no matter what topic you are speaking on. I've often joked about this with my friends and saying things with an “authoritative voice” and thus making the statement more believable. I liked Aristotle's description of this element of rhetoric.
I will begin by confessing that I have read Aristotle before, so I was familiar with much of the Introduction, and that, from prior classes, I have no great appreciation for formal logic.
That said, I believe Aristotle is using this section to provide how rhetoric, as an art in and of itself, interacts with the specific facts and conditions to be put forward by a presentation. Rhetoric forms the structure, the skeleton, around which are arrayed the facts to be presented—the muscles on the skeleton, to extend the analogy.
Under this view, syllogistic and enthymemetic structures serve as the connective tissue of the presentation—bringing plain statements of fact into the presentation’s larger structure and serving the purposes thereof.
However, this chapter is dealing with Ethos, and I do not believe that Ethos, showing yourself and your argument to be trustworthy, is shown by heavy reliance on syllogisms in the modern world. While a closing argument will be polysyllogistic, a single unified conclusion resulting from multiple lesser conclusions and premises, a substantial portion of that argument will not be structured around formally logical presentation, but around factually contradicting what your opponent has presented.
Another modern weakness that Aristotle fails to address is that inasmuch as closing argument may attempt to lead jurors down a line of deductive reasoning, it also asks them to make a literal judgment call, to balance one set of facts and propositions and premises against another. Formal logic cannot address such a balancing, whether one of two equally factual statements is truer and more conclusive than the other. The closest Aristotle comes is the Section 14 admission that all too frequently you will be dealing with probabilities rather than absolutely known statements, for example the statement “some of X are Y,” as compared to, “all of X are Y.” This highlights another weakness in the structure Aristotle has presented—nowhere does he provide for the necessity to counter the validity or use of intervening facts and premises that would show a probability-based syllogism to be falsely applied.
The weighing of the evidence is absolutely vital in modern jury considerations, and showing jurors that your facts are stronger than the opponent’s equally true facts is heavily dependent on persuasiveness, the art of rhetoric. A failure to account for that balancing, that need for persuasion, in the structure of the argument’s rhetoric is fatally crippling.
It makes my a post a bit long, but I think that there’s a quote very on point: “Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore--
Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.” (Ambrose Bierce, “Logic,” The Devil’s Dictionary).
On Rhetoric
Introduction
The introduction was dull. I was exposed to most of the information as an undergrad. I thought more could have been done to illustrate the tension between the Sophists and Socrates/Plato/Aristotle. The fact that writings and ideas can survive for so long always astonishes me. The Iliad is a great example of a story being passed on through the decades without having been written and mass produced in the beginning. A computer breaking may result in the loss of a tremendous amount of work and is considered a great tragedy; however, these writings have survived the wrath of time.
Book 1 Chapter 2
The most annoying aspect of the reading is the footnotes. I appreciate the reason for them being there; however, it disrupts the flow of the reading. The thing that stuck me most is that Rhetoric, according to Aristotle, is essentially an art when it hasn’t been applied to anything. However, once you get fact specific, then it is no longer true rhetoric. It doesn’t seem that a speaker can ever be persuasive without application so then rhetoric is an empty art in its pure form. If it is an empty art, then the pure form is of little or no value because there is no topic on which to persuade.
When I opened On Rhetoric to begin reading, I did not know what to expect. I had taken a speech class once in college, and I can remember my professor associating Aristotle with ethos, logos, and pathos. That is about all I remember. The introduction was interesting because it captured a snapshot of Aristotle's life to give the reader a reference while reading his work. A couple of interesting facts from the introduction was that On Rhetoric is a collection of Aristotle’s lecture notes and was not a book published for sale. Also, Aristotle was a teacher to a young man who would become Alexander the Great. I did not realize that there were essentially two schools of thought: the sophists and those like Plato and Aristotle. The sophists believed in memorizing ready-made speeches and then tailoring the speeches to a specific situation. They believed their students learned through imitation. On the other hand, Plato and Aristotle believed that speech and communication should be based on knowledge of truth or sound logic. The introduction suggests that Aristotle’s main competitor and rival was a man named Isocrates, a sophist, which provided Aristotle with the motivation to teach rhetoric at Plato’s academy during afternoon lectures. I thought this was interesting because one can get a glimpse of the extent to which there was a separation between the two schools of thought.
I struggled when reading Book 1, Chapter 2. In fact, at times I had to read it aloud. Aristotle suggests that there are non-artistic aspects and artistic aspects to rhetoric. One must take the non-artistic aspects, which are preexisting and not invented by the speaker, and create the artistic aspect. This follows Professor Gloer’s example in class where he started his sermon with the Bible verse, which is preexisting and then went on to create and center his sermon on the scripture. When I began reading about premises and syllogisms in Aristotle’s work, I immediately thought of the argument section of the LSAT. I noticed how Aristotle does not spell everything out for the listener, but rather when a speaker offers premises and one is known, the listener supplies the conclusion. I liked how Aristotle went on to provide an example so that what he was saying made sense to a reader like me. Although, I did not fully understand what I was reading, I thought the broad concepts of using logic to create persuasive arguments, taking into consideration the trustworthiness of the speaker, and appealing to the audience’s emotion, provide a foundation for oral advocacy, which can still be used today.
The introduction did a good job describing what we, as readers, need to know about Aristotle, On Rhetoric, and the time in which it was written. I am glad that the introduction pointed out that this particular work came from lecture notes intended for Aristotle’s own personal use. That piece of information helped me as I was reading Book 1, Chapter 2 because instead of getting bogged down in sentence structure, I tried instead to grasp the overall ideas and examples contained within the reading. One would hope a lecturer on rhetoric would not have read to his students, verbatim, his notes on the subject, but rather would have conveyed the ideas and illustrations contained in it to his audience in a more interesting manner.
I respectfully disagree with what Mr. Brennan said about Book 1, Chapter 2. I think Mr. Brennan is correct when he says the form of the argument is an art, but just because you must apply specific facts to the form in order to persuade someone of your ultimate conclusion does not make the form an empty art with little or no value. Instead, I think Aristotle means that the form of the argument is the vehicle or the packaging in which you place your specific facts. The form is the way a speaker conveys the particular facts to his audience in order to be persuasive. The persuasiveness of your fact based argument comes in large part from the form in which you place those facts- in other words, the way you present the facts to your audience plays a role in making those facts persuasive. There is rarely a set of facts so persuasive that if you lay them out to an audience by simply stating them one right after the other your audience will be convinced of your conclusion. You need form in order to organize your facts and help you persuade your audience of your conclusion. That form, according to Aristotle consists of logos, pathos, and ethos. Mr. Brennan is right if he means to say that one cannot stand up and give a speech using form without facts; however, since most facts must be stuck into a form in order to be persuasive; the art of form cannot be an empty valueless art.
I think the introduction is important to provide context for the techniques that Aristotle seeks to convey. Just as it is important to know your audience when making a persuasive argument it is also important to know the audience of the author when reading his writings. Aristotle's purpose was to teach the future leaders of the society how to make effective speeches. It will make the book easier to understand because we understand Aristotle's purposes were not to write a coherent book. The introduction makes it clear that this is a collection of teachings that he mainly wrote for himself in order to lecture over a period of several years. I am glad that George Kennedy is making us aware that the book is riddled with contradictions and is basically warning us that it will be difficult to read.
Aristotle was also teaching alongside sophists and his teachings on rhetoric were meant to provide a contradiction to that way of making speeches. He was particularly sensitive to the need to cater a speech to the occasion which I believe is one the most important aspects to creating a speech. It is mind-blowing to realize that the some of the techniques taught today were taught over 2,000 years ago.
In reading Book 1, chapter 2, Aristotle explains rhetoric as different from any other subject that can be taught because in learning about rhetoric you are learning about the character of given facts. For example, you are given set facts or evidence and have to learn to recognize the right way to talk about them. It is not like our other law school subjects where you have to learn the law through memorization and understanding. Instead you have to learn to influence those who make or apply the law. Aristotle also explains the importance of ethos which I believe is especially difficult for lawyers in a trial setting. Most jurors come into the room with knowledge of lawyers as the manipulative scumbags they see on TV. It is our job to convince them that we are trustworthy, at least more trustworthy than the other lawyer. I think many lawyers forget this aspect of persuasion and just focus on the emotional and the logic.
I have to agree with Cheryl, this was a difficult read. However, once I began to understand the ideas behind the writing, it became easier. I was really suprised at how alike Aristotle's system was to the advocacy lectures in PC. The way that one almost scientific formula could be applied to any situation is exactly what the profs taught in the Advocacy Lectures.
The introduction was too long, and though it did help with context, I really got the most out of the first few paragraphs and the critique of the book at the end. I think we are going to focus mainly on the outliers of what Aristotle taught--he did not teach much on political speech, and when you close with a "safety Rule" I feel you are making a quasi-political speech. Politics is just arguing for an ideal anyway, and I think the similarities between what we are doing and what Aristotle taught are closer with political speech than anything else.
Chapter 2 really breaks down the "how and what" of an argument. The credibility argument he makes in the first few pages again are very similar to the PC curriculum, especially Jim Wren's take on it. One thing I think Aristotle over looked is the importance of the argument being directed at a bigger arugment. The first stage of whether the audience is a Judge or not a Judge is misleading. In a jury setting or a church setting I think your "judge" will encompass a wide spectrum, and the argument should be eloquent enough to get a reaction from the college graduate and simple enough to be understood by the high school drop out, since both are equally important. Aristotle begins to address this when he talks about using irrefutable signs in an argument. Though this was a really difficult piece to read through, he brought up some great elements of a true argument and the overall thing I took from it is how little the system changed in the modern times.
Jumping into Aristotle is always such a task. I studied his works in Undergrad and still find it as confusing as I did then. That being said, the introduction was a nice refresher course about the nature and times of Aristotle, his ideas, his influences, and the society he was reared in. The part I particularly enjoyed was the section about how democratic the judicial system was. Being post-PC the thought of a thousand person jury just overwhelms me, but also intrigues me. Stylistically, to argue in front of such a large body of people and get them to agree to your thoughts presents many challenges. I almost find it idealistic to think that the original defendants had a fair shot at winning their cases without any type of lawyer figures and only a pre-produced booklet of legal jargon. This doesn't seem democratic to me at all! It seems as if defendants were never really given a fair shot at a defense, since the juries expected a lot from someone who was untrained in rhetorical skills.
Book 1, Chapter 2 was also interesting to me. Though dense, Aristotle presented his beliefs as to what rhetoric is and what constitutes a good use of it. I do have to say that I disagree with several of the characterizations he made, though. For brevity's sake, my main disagreement was with how Aristotle chose to characterize rhetors and their audience. He argued that authority of the speaker is not taken into account by the receiving public, the public generally will be prompted to take action based on the persuasiveness of the speaker's words. I find this hard to believe due to the fact that I feel there is more credibility in some speakers than others. In a trial setting, expert witnesses will be called to present their expert opinions and honestly I do think the juries take these opinions much more seriously than that of a lay person. I think there is something to be said to the authority vested in certain people that cannot be overlooked. Aristotle argued that if one is in a governmental office or high position of influence in society, the juries will treat them the same. I just don't think this is so.
I enjoyed reading Aristotle again and respectfully disagree with a couple of Mr. Phillips's points.
First, I agree that a large part of a modern case will frequently involve factually contradicting your opponent. However, this is not unrelated to Aristotle's reliance on induction and syllogism. Any factual scenario that a lawyer produces must logically fit together. A party in a case may provide a ridiculous or a believable set of facts. Use of paradigms and syllogisms as Aristotle suggests will make one fact scenario more believable than another. As an extreme example: consider a tort case where the plaintiff and defendant were involved in a car accident. The plaintiff claims that the defendant was negligent, ran a red light, and struck the plaintiff's vehicle. The defendant responds by claiming that he was not negligent because a raccoon jumped in his car and caused him to stomp on the gas. This is an extreme example that would probably require no help from the plaintiff for a jury to discard the defendant's story. However, the point is that the plaintiff may use paradigms (examples and comparisons to other drivers) or syllogisms (attacking a premise, such as the windows were rolled up) to attack the defendant's story. Neither of these stories are absolute truths, and both are possible, but the goal is to make one appear as close to a "tekmerion" as possible. Factually contradicting your opponent is not completely separate from the structure that Aristotle has identified. I do not see how Aristotle has failed to account for the need for persuasion since it is what almost the entirety of On Rhetoric is devoted towards and all of Book 1 Chapter 2 is devoted to it.
Second, I respectfully disagree that "[f]ormal logic cannot address such a balancing, whether one of two equally factual statements is truer and more conclusive than the other." Ignoring Aristotle's logic for the moment, I do not see how one statement is "truer" than another to begin with. I have always thought of truth as an absolute. A factual statement is either true, or it is not. If by "truer" Mr. Phillips's means "more believable to a jury," then I believe that Aristotle absolutely has addressed how logic can affect such a balancing, which relates to what I've said above, so I will not repeat myself.
Finally, I'd just like to add that it is great to be discussing something other than a case or statute for a change. These sorts of discussions and debates are what I enjoyed most about undergrad.
I thought the reading was very hard to fully digest. I hadn’t been exposed to much Aristotle before, and was not used to this type of writing. Every sentence was full of large amounts of information, and connecting the dots took me a while.
I found it interesting that Aristotle broke the modes of persuasion of the spoken word down into three categories: the personal character of the speaker; putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the proof provided by the words of the speech itself. I often overlook the personal character of the speaker and the audience’s state of mind, and simply analyze persuasive speaking by the proof offered and the actual argument put forth. It’s important to remember when trying to construct any sort of persuasive speech that the words put forth and the proof offered don’t operate in a vacuum, and that many times the person saying them and the audience receiving them are just as, if not more, important.
I must too confess, as Mr. Phillips did, that I have no great appreciation for formal logic. First, formal logic fails to distinguish absolute truths from general ones. Aristotle recognizes the difference between a general truth and an absolute truth. For example, “It is hot in Texas” may be generally true it is certainly not absolutely true (as the snow this week proves). But formal logic cannot distinguish between the two. Perhaps this is what Mr. Phillips means when he says something is “truer” and it certainly seems to be why Aristotle puts such emphasis on the art of persuasion.
Second, formal logic is often unreliable. In fact, I recall one undergraduate class in particular where we took premises about God and His existence and derived conclusions. After spending about half an hour developing a proof that God must exist, we then wiped the board clean and started another proof. This time we proved both “A” and “not A” a logical impossibility that could only mean God must not exist. The logical structure can say what you want it to say. This is why Aristotle addresses the speaker’s credibility as the first part of his art of rhetoric.
As Mr. Pate points out, the goal is to appear as close to “tekemerion” as possible. Many of my professors have told me that the jurors believe there is only one truth teller in the court room. Many times the key to getting a jury to believe that you are the truth teller requires you to “prove” the truth through persuasion. Aristotle recognizes that the easiest way to do this is by keeping the truth simple. Using results of previous syllogisms to prove additional syllogisms is not as effective because it more complicated.
I think the historical aspect of the reading was very interesting. We hear about all of these logic tools like the syllogism every single day and don't think twice about them but Aristotle and his predecessors were the first to actually conceptualize these tools and present them in a coherent manner.
Initially, when reading the introduction, it stood out to me that there were several references and allusions to the problems with Aristotle's idea of rhetorical method. That made me a little uneasy and cautious on the front end about putting too much reliance on this method. I guess I will wait and see and reserve judgment though...
I thought it was hilarious when Chapter 2 made a side note about how judges are assumed to be "simple people." Over 2000 years and not much has changed ;)
Also, when the book started talking about Isocrates and his rival school, it reminded me of a villain in a comic book or something. You have your hero, you throw the letter I in the prefix of the name and boom dinosaur you have the polar opposite anti-hero. If not a comic book, then at least bizarro Jerry from Seinfeld.
First and foremost, Aristotle would be obnoxious at parties. He’s a total name dropper. He manages to mention Socrates, Hippias, and Callias in less than a paragraph. That’s like having a visitor come to your house for a dinner party and while handing you his coat he lets it slip that last week he had a meeting with Arianna Huffington, a luncheon with Rachel Ray, and a run in with someone whose name you recognize but can’t place so you nod politely in hopes it’s not apparent you don’t recall their importance. Besides the name dropping, Aristotle’s identity is clearly wrapped up in his own accomplishments (how else do you explain him mentioning his other books so often?) and that’s not only a character flaw but also incredibly annoying in real life. As his final party trick, he’s an awkward mix of arrogant and condescending when he makes statements like “Everyone’s missed this. . .” while leaving out the unspoken “Everyone but me. You’re all lucky I share my smart-ness with you”. Ugh, talk about an enthymeme. Cover me while I make a run for the guacamole and try to escape.
Incomplete proofs are not a problem to be avoided, but rather a technique to be employed well. Aristotle walks the reader down how it’s possible for Dionysus to be a despot based on his request for a body guard. In a Westernized American collegiate classroom, where the reader lacks the historical and cultural background required to understand the statement, the truth of the statement is automatically dismissed by the reader. But, Aristotle wasn’t trying to prove the validity of the characterization (Dionysus is a despot) so the reader can glance over the inconsistency between the statement’s apparent falsity and learning the idea it’s used to illustrate. However, it’s a great place to pause and evaluate the value of leading the reader through a series of statements that ends with new understanding. I am much more likely to accept new information if it’s combined with information I already identify as true.
Take for example the interview between John Stewart and Newt Gingrich on The Daily Show last week. While discussing the validity of providing the rights of the American justice system to suspected terrorists as opposed to using the military system of justice, Newt Gingrich decried the current administration affording American justice system protections to the Fruit of the Boom bomber. While correctly identifying various aspects of the conflict (Miranda rights being offered, the FBI’s involvement, the suspected terrorists method of explosives) the repartee pauses awkwardly when Stewart challenges Newt’s characterization of Miranda rights as “radical”. Stewart points out its disingenuous to call the current method radical when it’s previous use in identical situations met no such outcry – namely Richard Reid the shoe bomber. When Newt distinguishes the two individuals by pointing to Reid’s citizenship, there’s a brief awkward pause, which Stewart parlays into a commercial break. Stewart paused because Newt was wrong when he said Richard Reid was an American citizen and therefore the differences between Reid’s treatment and the butt bomber was justified, but he wasn’t 100% sure of Reid’s citizenship at the moment Newt said it. So, Newt got away with being wrong. Not for long, Stewart called him on it after the break, but in a conversation that doesn’t afford the other guy a staff of fact checkers, the careful placement of incorrect statements (or at least a suspect fact) can borrow credibility from the accuracy of the speaker’s other statements. In a broader context, a few well placed citizenship errors, can win a larger policy argument if the speaker is careful to build credibility before and after.
Although I recognize this is not a great idea for political candidates or case interpretation arguments in front of a judge, it has broad implications for the much more important task of everyday living.
I was so happy to find out it was Chapter 2 we were assigned to read after I had read Chapter 1. I can't express the level of gratitude I feel for getting that extra dose of Aristotle. This guy and I would not get along very well. I know his writing is from long ago in a land far, far away, but it's communicated in way that is too complicated for my simple mind. I'm a plain-vanilla type and this guy is peddling Rocky Road. That said, here's what I thought:
Intro: There was a lot of great information in the introduction, but I couldn't get past the names of some of the people. Speusippus, Theophrastus, Quintilian, etc. Can you imagine having to write out that bad boy and do it correctly? It's my thought that everyone had a nickname to keep things simple. Speusippus = Sippy, Theophrastus = T-phrat, and Quintilian = "Q" or The Q.
In general, the intro helped introduce me to rhetoric. I knew of the elements, such as pitch, repitition, and volume, without ever having associated them with rhetoric.
"[R]hetoric is a feature . . . even of animal communication." I'd never even given that any thought, but it's clear. I can tell by the pitch of my dog's howl whether he wants out to chase a squirrel or to get some water.
Chapter 1- Probably the best chapter ever written in the history of Aristotle writing. I'm glad I read it even though it wasn't assigned.
Chapter 2- The three species of pisteis in speech are what I've been taught in mock trial. In the opinion of a 3L that has never tried a case or gone through PC, persuasion is the key to overcoming any opposing fact that should deny your side from winning. If you can be likable, appear trustworthy, manipulate the jury, and sprinkle in a little truth to your claim, you can win (Carson Runge taught me that last part). I think persuasion is needed most when the truth is hard to see through the evidence available to the judge/jury. There may be truth, but it's not apparent.
Another thing that stuck out to me was the last chunk on the bottom of p. 41 ending with: "for if one of these is known, it does not have to be stated, since the hearer supplies it." That's a technique I've tried to develop in trying a hypothetical case to avoid an objection but make sure the jury gets what I'm trying to show. It's like leading the jury to the bridge, but allowing them to cross it on their own.
Misc- I was able to gain a better understanding of the reading from the previous posts. They were very insightful.
P.S. I wish I could write a reflection like my man Drew Pate.
I thought the introductory material was extremely interesting and very well written. As a communications major, I was pleased to see quite a few of the things I had already studied mentioned (Oh, Gorgias), but it was good to have a brief refresher. One of the things that stood out to me, as it has done so before, was the idea of trying to persuade 1,000 or so jurors. When I think about the limited amount of trial experience I have from the mock trial team, it blows my mind to think about trying to win over 500 or so people when so far 2-3 has been enough! I guess it’s all about perspective.
That being said, the thing I find most fascinating and difficult about the basic pisteis framework is how challenging it is to balance these three things. The phrase “everything in moderation” comes to mind. You cannot frame your entire case around the logic of the argument and forego the emotions of the jury or your own credibility. Likewise, you cannot disregard the facts and logic and bank your entire case on your pitiful client. While trying cases is generally about presenting the “big picture” to the jury, the subtleties and nuances of human emotions, first impressions and common sense can really make a difference when it comes down to the wire. I suppose the reason they call the “practice” of law a “practice” is because it truly takes a lifetime of working with these concepts to come even close to getting it right...if there is such a thing as "getting it right."
First, I have to wish everyone a happy Chinese New Year (it's the year of the Tiger)!
I have to confess that I’m a classics/history nerd, so I liked the historical background and the translation notes. The reading is very dense and as I’m reading I feel like I am missing something because there is so much knowledge being imparted. As I'm reading the book I can imagine students of Aristotle, like Alexander the Great, trying to study this same text and feeling overwhelmed too.
As I was reading about the Academy and the times Aristotle grew up in, this book strikes me as an amazing work. With new technologies, nations, and schools of thought, speaking still holds an important place in our society as it did in Aristotle’s. His analysis of the elements to a good orator transcends time, as does the idea of On Rhetoric. At its most basic, I believe On Rhetoric is an extension of the Greek notion that analysis can lead to teachable material that other’s naturally inclined already know. Thus, one who is not born a good speaker can work his way to becoming a good speaker through instruction.
However, instruction has its limits, because at the end it is up to the student to apply his instruction to his situation. Footnote 51 of chapter 2 (I know, I can’t believe it either that I actually read a footnote) states, “Rhetoric as an art seeks general rules; orators, or course commonly deal with the belief of specific individuals.” As future lawyers and students of rhetoric, we have to use these general rules that we have learned and then apply them appropriately to the specifics of a situation. Precision in what is said and how it is said becomes the job of the speaker. And the speaker must pick and choose what was taught to him and employ it in his speech.
After reading the introduction and skimming chapter 2, I remembered being enrolled in an undergraduate course covering the same topic. I promptly withdrew from that course after the first test—I hope this one goes a little better. The introduction included some interesting background on Aristotle and I especially liked Carol Poster’s theory of On Rhetoric as a manual on verbal self-defensive. It also made me wonder if never having read Phaedrus hurt my understanding of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
As part of a brief response to the reading in chapter 2, I’m surprised this section sparked some lengthy analysis and debate in the responses. Reading the footnotes was awful. Additionally, without a background in the topic, it was difficult to follow the allusions to dialectic arguments. Skipping the footnotes and breaking out Wikipedia made the chapter manageable. It seemed to me to be a few pages of definition and basic outlining. It's difficult to really feel anything about organization and definitions. Accordingly, this is a fairly limited response.
I was surprised by some of the aspects of Aristotle’s life that I learned about in the introduction. I never knew that he was married and had a family. I also thought it was interesting how much speaking and rhetoric played a part in Greek life. As the introduction discusses, since there were no professional lawyers, the average person who was on trial was expected to deliver a compelling argument. I think that in today’s society with the internet and social networks that this art of speaking with an emphasis on logic is possibly becoming a lost art.
As for Chapter 1, Book 2, I have always found it interesting that Aristotle puts an emphasis on emotions and the role that emotions play in a logical argument. It seems at first that logic and emotions should be separate, but I agree with Aristotle that getting your audience to feel emotions is vital to any argument. I also agree with what Ms. Gee has stated regarding that the art of form is not an empty valueless art. In a court case, you can have all the facts on your side, but if you are unable to persuasively display those facts to the audience, you are not going to win. I think that is most situations, persuasion is done through form and not necessarily facts.
On Rhetoric is my first contact with Aristotle, so I spent some quality time with the Introduction. Aristotle’s upbringing and the surrounding historical context helped me appreciate the text’s importance and resiliency. I am always impressed when someone boils down a common act into basic, practical elements. For example, when a sprinting coach teaches the process of a 100M dash in terms of take-off, acceleration, top-end speed, and endurance. While the race looks like a one fluid act, it is actually built of separate parts and understanding the parts and the relationships helps improve the sprinter’s entire performance. Aristotle did this with rhetorical, persuasive speech. I always thought persuasive speaking was an inherent gift, but after considering the basics of On Rhetoric, I am convinced that it is actually a skill that anyone can learn. I enjoyed Aristotle’s classification of rhetoric as an art and not a cut and dry science. I agree because nearly any speaking style can be persuasive; there is no mold to be broken. I look forward to diving into the rhetorical cornerstones.
Like a few of y’all, I had exposure to Aristotle in high school and undergrad. I knew the highlights of his past; but what I found most helpful from the introduction was an understanding of how and why this particular esoteric work was written. There is a different light cast on this work and the way it is presented versus a generic textbook of sorts – knowing this was “a work in progress” from which he would pull excerpts to discuss with his colleagues of the day or present to a forum.
Like many of my fellow PC class, I found the excerpt from this work intriguing in how it relates to the very theories presented to us through the PC practical lessons and PC add-on classes (i.e. Advanced Trial Prep and Advanced Trial Advocacy). There was one passage that leapt of the page as a particular lesson I worked on throughout my PC experience. At the bottom of our page 41, Ari discussed the idea that an effective enthymeme / paradigm draws from as few premises as possible, even less than what is needed to complete the logic, “for if one of these is known, it does not have to be stated, since the hearer supplies it.” Professors Wren and Counseller were very instructive on the practical application of this lesson. Professor Wren explained how the most effective plaintiff’s argument focuses on the terrible bad acts of the defendant and draws the allusion of how these bad acts, if unpunished, will damage their society, their community, even their very lives. But you never say this last part; you simply walk them to the edge and allow them to make the leap. Professor Counseller gave us the infamous “button” principle. For those yet to have PC, I will not ruin the story for you – as you will easily hear the story four times throughout your PC experience. Suffice to say, the logic follows: defendant could have pushed a button that would have prevented plaintiff’s injuries, defendant didn’t push the button, plaintiff was injured, and therefore defendant caused the plaintiff to be injured. However, the argument follows: defendant could have pushed the button, he didn’t, and plaintiff was injured – never stating the painfully obvious fact that defendant was the cause of the injuries. I still continue to struggle with this in the heat of the argument, often making, what Counseller calls, the one argument too far.
PS – I concur with Ms. Finch. Ari is a horrid name dropper and self-aggrandizer. He would fit in well in the Idle Rich Pub or the MAT in Uptown Dallas.
I really enjoy reading material like On Rhetoric. I enjoy it because it is a look at how someone regarded as a master breaks down his craft. As Aristotle addresses, rhetoric is a skill that can be broken down, improved, and manipulated. The modern equivalent would be listening to Phil Jackson describe the mechanics of a jump shot (or as Mr. Bernick discussed, a track coach discussing the mechanics of a 100m race). It takes a subject of interest and puts it under a magnifying glass that allows a level of detail and understanding normally reserved exclusively for those practicing the art.
I also like Aristotle’s characterization of rhetoric as a pursuit dependant on both non-artistic and artistic elements. There is a heavy focus on the actual form of the logical argument in this chapter. However, Aristotle outlined at the beginning of the chapter that the logical form is but one aspect of rhetoric (logos). To confine rhetoric to a syllogism or an induction is akin to saying that a good apple pie must be baked. Yes, that is the truth, but without other ingredients or steps in preparation, all the baking in the world will not produce a good apple pie. It often seems that people get so caught up in proving their argument factually “right” that they forget that an argument is as much about the perception of the truth from the audience as it is about the “actual truth”. I don’t mean to say that facts are unnecessary, but the presentation of the facts is just as important. It seems that Aristotle recognized this and I hope in later chapters will expound on this idea.
As an amateur in the world of rhetoric, I view a speech or an argument and simply respond with “Wow, that was a great X…” or the negative. This part of the reading has introduced me to a far more technical understanding of persuasive speech which I think will be very beneficial in the future.
The first thing I considered when reading the Introduction was “Why did I leave the warm embrace of a liberal arts department?” Aside from that, I thought the introduction was particularly illuminative in describing the Grecian marketplace for rhetorical guides; it appears that there were a number of “Rhetoric for Dummies” treatises and lectures floating around. With this context in mind, Aristotle’s motivation for writing an authoritative treatise on persuasion is much clearer – he felt that there was a lack of emphasis on the relationship between reasoning and persuasion. What is left unclear, however, is if Aristotle felt that this topic had simply been neglected by his academic peers, or if he was moved to write in response to his own society’s overemphasis on “less essential” aspects of persuasion, or a combination of both.
As for Book I, Chapter 2, what initially struck me was how I had no idea what Aristotle is talking about. But, as he broke down the different kinds of syllogisms, eventually focusing in on rhetorical syllogisms, I think I began to understand the importance of the enthymeme in persuasion (or at least where this is going). The rhetorical power of the enthymeme would seem to be in the omitted or implied premise – that part of the logical chain that the listener must fill in to complete the sequence. I thought about how this might be used in front of a jury, specifically during the sentencing phase. “This man has stolen. Therefore this is a bad man and he ought to face consequences.” Existing within a vacuum, that’s a true statement. But we know that is not necessarily true, there are lots of qualifiers to deal with, namely that the man’s particular kind of theft is in fact bad. What about Jean Valjean stealing his loaf of bread? A bad act? Maybe. That missing or implied premise is (I think, at this point at least) persuasion’s battleground. That’s a big gap to fill when aiming to persuade. There are the facts to deal with, there is the listener's reptile brain to consider, there is the projection of your persona. In short there are dozens of considerations that shape and color the omitted/implied premise.I'm curious to see how Aristotle categorizes and explains these soft factors and whether or not he thinks they are controlling.
Also, thanks be to Wikipedia for helping me understand this reading.
I was a simple Communication Major in college, but these readings, which invite hour upon hour of open-ended debate make me want some coffee, a black sweater, and a second lap through undergrad to give this stuff a shot.
In the meantime, whichever one of my fellow classmates said he was hiding from Aristotle over by the guacamole, please, save some dip and a spot for me! I actually enjoyed what Aristotle had to say, but found he presented complex things in deceptively simple ways while making very simple things deceptively complex. What do I mean? Mr. Bernick wrote that Aristotle is like the coach who informs you there are many elements to a 100M sprint. Great, but that doesn’t mean I am able to sprint any faster, only that I appreciate sprinters more.
I had lots of thoughts as I was reading and unfortunately, none of them really fit together. So instead, I will give my popcorn style impression of what I just read:
“Rhetoric goes back to 2000 B.C.E., The Instructions of Ptahhotep which gives advice about how to speak and when to keep silent if brought before a judge or ruler.”-- Wow. Even then they knew, it’s not always what you say, but what you don’t say that counts.
“As though a shoemaker were to try to teach his art by presenting his apprentice with an assortment of shoes.”—Wait, isn’t that what you are doing Aristotle? You are presenting these moving, persuasive speeches, but am I supposed to be able to later mimic that? I can admire the shoes all day, but put a tool in my hand, tell me to make a pair, and with Aristotle’s teachings, I still don’t know where to start.
Aristotle thinks poetry has “no moral force.” That at most, “one might experience a beneficial and brief psychological catharsis of pity and fear.” --This seems odd coming from the man who teaches rhetoric in its purest form stands alone as its own abstract idea. If an idea is abstract and only later directly applied to a truth, isn’t that abstract idea nothing more than “a brief psychological catharsis of pity and fear” manipulated to achieve persuasion as applied to a tangible thing?
If rhetoric is an art in itself and the most important tool in that trade is the character of the person, you have to ask yourself, are people really listening for substance and truth or are they looking for some person or some idea to believe in. Even Aristotle’s teachings focus on public forums, the root of which is politics. Even though he expressly distinguishes rhetoric from politics, you must ask yourself, are people looking for a politician to affect change or merely to arouse sentiment, relay a truth, or stir an emotion? If this is the only thing people are looking for, then how is rhetoric any different than poetry?
“Since the persuasive is persuasive to someone (and is either immediately plausible and believable in itself or seems to be shown by statements that are so)…”— This comment exemplifies that while rhetoric itself may be a pure form of art, you use plausible and believable ideas to persuade on those tangible things that may not be so easily persuadable. For example, a crowd may not immediately believe in a politician and a jury may not believe an accused murderer at first glance. But by using immediately plausible alternative means, the unbelievable suddenly becomes believable.
I thought the reading was rather difficult. I am usually good about absorbing reading on the first try, but this was definitely more challenging. I felt more comfortable with the reading when I realized it was a collection of lecture notes and not a published text. Nevertheless, I was constantly overwhelmed by the dense writing.
The introduction taught me a lot I didn't know. My exposure to Aristotle prior to this reading was non-existent. I felt the introduction was very well written and informative. It was interesting gaining perspective on why Aristotle's work has survived and remained prominent for generations. As the world changes daily, its baffling to think how little the need for persuasion has changed. The brilliance in the work can be seen from the fact that the same basic principles are applied today, generations later.
Book 1, Chapter 2 was interesting. I am sure there is a significant amount I didn't absorb. However, one area of the writing that did stand out to me was the emphasis put on character of the speaker. I do agree that people are more readily willing to be persuaded by and listen to a “good man.” However, I don't believe the opposite is completely true. In the modern world, I don’t believe someone would disregard experiences, expertise, and superior knowledge simply based on a weaker character. Because characters flaws are so readily available and prominent today, I feel like they are more easily overlooked today than during Aristotle’s time. After meeting with several jurors after two trials I assisted with this summer, the character flaws of attorneys seem to be overshadowed on a regular basis by the ability to appeal personally to the jurors. So long as an attorney was putting on a good show, how poorly he treated his staff, paralegals, co-counsels, and sometimes even the judge was disregarded because a personal connection was established. Not to say character is not important today, I just feel like it can be overshadowed and compensated for by other persuasive attributes. I don’t believe the same can be said about pathos/logos.
I was struck by Aristotle’s comment near the beginning of Chapter 2 that ethos is the most authoritative source of persuasion. More specifically, he indicates that in cases where there is not exact knowledge, but room for doubt, the perceived “fair-mindedness” of the speaker is very important. This perception seems to be of singular importance for a lawyer. In the practice of law, most jury arguments will be done when there is room for doubt. In the civil context this is necessarily the case since otherwise, the case would have already been disposed of on summary judgment. Similarly, in the criminal context, prosecutors would need to appear fair-minded in order to overcome the “beyond a reasonable doubt” hurdle since many criminal cases are far from open and shut and the defendant would have a big incentive to take a plea deal if his/her guilt were so readily apparent. Therefore, ethos is something a lawyer should take very seriously.
This was my first exposure to Aristotle's writings and found it to be pretty difficult to absorb, and I certainly did not run through it like I had anticipated. However, I did find much of the reading to be quite interesting.
First of all, I did not realize that Aristotle was Alexander the Great's professor, and I found it very interesting that he and Isocrates had such a division in their schools of thought.
In book 1 chapter 2, like Patrick said, I was certainly struck by Aristotle's characterization of ethos as the most authoritative source of persuasion. This hit home for me and I thought it probably should/will for all BLS students who study under Professors Powell and Wren, because they emphasize telling the honest story and place such value on finding the undeniable truths of your particular case. We are also taught the importance of being genuine and honest with yourself and the jury, because they will know it when you are being disingenuous and putting on a show, and therefore they will consider you untrustworthy.
Page 39, footnote 41, illustrates this idea pretty well I believe, it reads: "Unlike Isocrates, Aristotle does not include in rhetorical ethos the authority that the spealer may possess due to position in government or society, previous actions, reputation , or anything except what is actually said in the speech. Presumably, he would regard all other factors, sometimes highly important, as inartistic. One reason for Aristotle's position may be that speakers in the law courts were often ordinary people unknown tho the jury, and a relatively unknown person might speak in the assembly as well."
The last sentence about being an ordinary person in the court reminded me instantly of the lessons that Professor Wren would preach on in the court room exercises, and the idea that gaining the jury's trust was the most important thing a lawyer could do to advance his/her position.
This was a difficult read, having never once read any kind of philosophical text whatsoever. The introduction was certainly helpful, because I essentially knew nothing about Aristotle before besides that he was a philosopher. I never knew the true importance and clout he had in his time. I’m sure it was no small honor to be hand chosen as a prince’s teacher. It was also interesting to see how “justice” was done way back then – juries of sometimes a thousand people, and with no lawyers to protect the interests of each side. I can now see why treatises, speeches, and classes on rhetoric were so important. Each person had to fend for themselves and needed proper training.
The way Aristotle discusses logic makes sense to me. I consider myself a logical person, and Practice Court has taught me that working through issues to come to a logical conclusion is a very persuasive tactic. I didn’t realize that this had essentially been explained over 2000 years ago. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I learned in PC to focus on the tekmerion in structuring closing arguments. Juries like for things to make sense. It is very effective to give propositions that logically lead to an irrefutable conclusion. But, screwing it up can be extremely counterproductive – a lawyer giving propositions that do not logically to an irrefutable conclusion can be made to look foolish.
For example, we had a mini-trial where the plaintiffs were saying that since their client’s husband was murdered on our property, we should be liable. But, we (the defense) won the case by explaining to the jury the more logical and obvious proposition – the person that commits murder should be liable for the murder, not the company that merely owns the land where that murder occurred. It is straightforward. Proposition 1 – a person murders another person. Proposition 2 – murder is illegal. Conclusion – the murder should be held liable. It is much more tenuous to attempt to place the burden on the property owner.
When reading On Rhetoric I seemed to focus on the paragraphs where rhetoric was described in terms of legal argument. We learned that the Greeks were the ones to use a majority vote by a panel of other Greeks to decide someone's fate. They said that the panel could consist of over 1,000 "jurors." I thought back to a concept of "group think" and wondered how 1,000 jurors would work in our current system. I also bet that it was an honor to sit as a juror - a stark contrast to our current view where most people see it as a burden. Also, since there were not any prosecutors I would think that the view of the facts could be very distorted.
After having just gone through practice court, I was surprised when I read that Aristotle did not like the idea of "judicial rhetoric" focusing on "arousing emotions to the neglect of logical argument." This is in direct conflict with what we were taught. It is the job of any good attorney on either side to stir the emotions in their favor. I understand and applaud an ideal trial of pure logical argument but I also understand that humans ("jurors") make decision based on emotions and I need to stir those emotions in my clients favor.
I had one of the same reactions as Brad did when reading about how logical argument was preferred to emotional appeals.
I can see in my own life how often things come down not to what will be the best for me in the long run. I'm so often persuaded by the smell of that chicken-fried steak even though I know that it will be clogging arteries I'll need later in life, how great that afternoon nap will feel even though I have so much work to do. People, more often than not, make decisions on emotional bases. Ignoring this is to live in an idealistic world divorced from reality. The best advocates tailor their messages to their audiences. The human audience, in every form, requires emotional appeals.
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