Name : Lara Mauriza (181224066)
Class : 6-A
Subject : Rhetoric
Discussion Questions
1. What is rhetoric’s relation to dialectic, and why?
2. What is art? Is rhetoric one? What is the relation between and among persuading by
“habit,” “at random,” and through art?
3. What is wrong with contemporary rhetorics? What things are external to rhetoric, and what
things internal? What is “proof”? What is the enthymeme, and how is it related to the
syllogism? Why would Aristotle call it “the body of persuasion” (1.1.3)? What is Aristotle’s
metaphor for the deleterious effect that most “rhetoric” has upon a jury?
4. What is the relationship between the truth and that which resembles it, and, if, according to
Aristotle, both are seen by the same capacity, what is that capacity?
5. Aristotle says that “humans have a natural disposition for the true and to a large extent hit
on the truth” (1.1.11). Is that optimism warranted?
6. Aristotle argues that rhetoric is useful for five reasons. What are those reasons? Which do
you find most compelling?
7. What is the difference between the rhetor and the sophist? Why does Aristotle end the first
part of his introduction with this distinction?
8. What is rhetoric, according to Aristotle? What is the relationship between rhetoric as an
“art” and rhetoric as an “ability”? Is rhetoric a productive, a practical or a theoretical study?
9. What is the difference between the “artistic” and “inartistic” proofs? Aristotle introduces
the ethical appeal (character [êthos]) and the emotional appeal (disposition [pathos]):
Where are êthos, logos, and pathos located? Notice that he argued earlier in 1.1 that the
emotional
appeal is extrinsic, but now that it is intrinsic. Why does Aristotle appear to denigrate the
emotional appeal in 1.1, then allow for it in 1.2, taking up a good deal of Book 2 (2.2-11) to
discuss it?
10. Why does Aristotle think that rhetoric is an “offshoot” of both dialectic and
ethics/politics? For help with the latter, see his discussion of “deliberation”
Answer
1. Dialectic proceeds by questioning and answering, while rhetoric for the most part
proceeds in continuous form. Dialectic is concerned with general questions, while
rhetoric is concerned for the most part with particular topics (i.e., things about which
we cannot gain real knowledge)
2. Yes,Because Rhetoric is the art of speaking or writing effectively. And relation
between persuading by “habit,” “at random,” and through art is the ways being
possible, the subject can plainly be handled systematically, for it is possible to inquire
the reason why some speakers succeed through practice and others spontaneously;
and every one will at once agree that such an inquiry is the function of an art.
3.
4.
5. No, Because he is, the
philosophically virtuous have no excuse for not learning the art of rhetoric. Who are
the philosophically virtuous? Those who are knowledgeable and good, but who,
because of the anti-rhetorical prejudice that rhetoric is beneath them, neglect its study
and therefore fail to persuade others of truth and justice.
6.
Keep straight the difference between sophist and rhetorician and all moral problems
will evaporate. Aristotle certainly doesn't think telling them apart needs great
philosophical development or exquisite ethical judgment. Distinguishing them
requires neither phronesis nor familiarity with the Rhetoric. He gives his distinction
all the explanation he thinks it needs by saying:
In rhetoric, the person who acts in accordance with knowledge (kata ten epistemeri),
and the one who acts in accordance with purpose (kata ten prohaireseiri), are both
called rhetoricians; but in dialectic it is the purpose that makes the sophist, the
dialectician being one whose arguments rest, not on moral purpose (ou kata ten
prohairesin) but on the faculty (kata ten dynamin) (b19-22).
