The Art of Rhetoric (350 BC) | Aristotle

To be completely honest, having seen the word persuasion in the book's sleeves I had thought this was going to be like an ancient Influence by Robert Cialdini. But boy, was I wrong. This was what I always imagined a long class in philosophy might be; a long afternoon class where Philosophy and Language had a love child.

The TL:DR version is Aristotle writes that there are 3 kinds of Rhetoric; a couple ways to approach them, and how to structure and focus your messages.

If time permits, notes made are below.

Book 1 

3 divisions of Rhetoric:

1. Political - inspires to do/not do; deals with the future
2. Forensic - incites to attack/defend; deals with the past
3. Ceremonial - rouses praise/censure; deals with the present

Political Oratory dealing with economics, military and law, Aristotle lists the types of Government

• Democracy - offices ares distributed by lot; the ends of which is freedom
• Oligarchy - offices are distributed by the elites; the ends of which is wealth
• Aristocracy - offices distributed by blood; the ends of which is the maintenance of institutions
• Monarchy - one man over all which could also be Tyranny or Kingship; the ends of which is protection of the Tyrant

He also notes that a method of persuasion is to make hearers take the required view of our character, by this he lists the forms of Virtue

• Justice - virtue through which everybody enjoys his possession in accordance with the law
• Courage - virtue that disposes men to do noble deeds in situations of danger
• Temperance - virtue that disposes us to obey the law where physical pleasures are concerned
• Magnificence - virtue productive of greatness in matters involving the spending of money
• Liberality - disposes us to spend money for other's good
• Magnanimity - virtue that disposes us to do good to others on a large scale
• Prudence - virtue of understanding which enables men to come to wise decisions
• Gentleness
• Wisdom

To make a classification of just and unjust actions: Aristotle lists two kinds of Law

1. Particular - each community lays down and applies, partly written and unwritten
2. Universal - Laws of Nature

Book 2

3 things that that inspire confidence in a Orator's Character

1. Good Sense - state of mind
2. Good Moral Character - people whom they associate
3. Good Will - what grounds

What comes next are the emotions, feelings that can sway judgments

• Anger - impulse, accompanied by pain, to a conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight directed without justification towards what concerns oneself or towards what concerns one's friends. 
• Growing Calm/Calmness - settling down or quieting of anger
• Friendship - wishing for him what you believe to be good things, not for your own sake but for his, and being inclined, so far as you can, to bring these things about
• Things that cause friendship - doing kindness, doing them unasked, not proclaiming the fact when they are done.
• Fear - pain or disturbance due to a mental picture of some destructive or painful evil in the future
• Confidence - expectation associate with a mental picture of the nearness of what keeps us safe and the absence or remoteness of what is terrible
• Shame - pain or disturbance in regard to bad things which seem to invoke us in discredit; a mental picture of disgrace
• Shamelessness - contempt/indifference to the same bad things
• Kindness - helpfulness, towards some one in need not in return for anything, nor toward the advantage of the helper but that of the person helped
• Pity - pain caused by the sight of some evil, destructive or painful which befalls one who does not deserve it; unmerited distress
• Indignation - pain arising from unmerited good fortune
• Envy - pain at the sight of good fortune; we feel it towards our equals not with the idea of getting it for ourselves but because other people have it
• Emulation - pain like envy except good; makes us take steps to secure the good things in question

Types of Character (by age)

• Youthful - strong passions - lives spent in expectation than memory
• Prime - a mix of both
• Elderly - sure about nothing, under "do" everything - lives in memory than hope

Type of Character (by fortune)

• Good Birth - ancestral distinction: a nice way to describe genes
• Wealth - insolent and arrogant; prosperous fool
• Power - more ambitious; aspires to do great deeds

Oratorical Argument

• Example - could be illustrative parallel (draw a picture) or a fable (make a story)
• Enthymeme - a form of syllogism; and could either prove or disprove
• Maxims - a statement; not particular but general

(this is where it gets nose-bleedy and head-achy, defying what Aristotle mentions to not use made up words. you can skip this. in fact, i advise you to skip it. go straight down.)

Positive Proofs by Enthymemes

• upon consideration of the opposite of the thing in question
• considering some modification of the key-word
• upon correlative ideas
• a fortiori, if a quality does not in fact exist where it is more likely to exist, it clearly does not exist where it is less likely
• consideration of time
• apply to other speaker what he has said against yourself
• define your terms
• various senses of a word
• upon logical division
• upon induction
• upon some decision already pronounced
• taking separately the parts of a subject
• using consequences as a reason for urging
• things contrasted are opposites
• things people approve of openly are not those which they approve of secretly
• rational correspondence
• if two results are the same, their antecedents are also the same
• men do not always make the same choice on a later, as on an earlier occasion, but reverse their previous choice
• assertion that some possible motive for an event is the real one
• consider inducements and deterrents, and motives people have for doing or avoiding
• things which are supposed to happen and yet seem incredible
• noting any contrasts or contradictions of dates, acts or words
• show why facts are not as supposed; pointing out that there is a reason for the false impression given
• if the cause is present, the effect is present, and if absent, absent
• consider whether the accused person can take or could have taken a better course than that which he is recommending or taking, or has taken
• when contemplated action is inconsistent with any past action
• make previous mistake the grounds of accusation or defence

Enthymemes that look genuine, but are not

• making a final statement without having gone through any reasoning process
• use of similar words for different things
• assertion of the whole what is true of the parts, or of the parts what is true of the whole
• use of indignant language; painting a highly-colored picture of the situation without having proved facts of it
• using a sign; or a single instance as certain evidence which yields no proof
• representing the accidental as essential
• argument from consequence; fallacies by omission
• representing causes which are not causes, on the grounds that they happened along with or before the event in question
• leaving out any mention of time and circumstance
• confusing the absolute with the particular

Enthymemes by Objection and Refutation

• attacking your opponents own statement
• objecting from a contrary statement
• objection from a like statement
• quoting previous decisions

Enthymemes on alleged fact

• Probabilities - those which argue from what is, or is suppose to be usually true
• Examples - those which proceed by induction from one or more similar cases, arrive at a general proposition, then argue deductively to a particular inference
• Infallible signs - inevitable and invariable
• Ordinary signs - argues from some universal or particular proposition, true or false.

Book 3

If you want to be good at Speech, you need to consider the three things

1. Means of Persuasion
2. Style
3. Arrangement

Bad Taste in Language

• misuse of compound words
• employment of strange words
• use of long, unseasonable or frequent epithets
• abuse of metaphors

Good style equates to correctness in language

• proper use of connecting words
• call things by their own names by vague and general ones
• avoid ambiguities
• observe classification of nouns into male, female and inanimate
• express plurality, fewness and unity

Suggestion to impressive Language

• Describe a thing instead of naming it
• Represent things with the help of metaphors
• Use plural for singular
• Do not bracket two words under one article
• Describe a thing by mentioning attributes it does not possess

I think Aristotle means of Self Deprecation in this one

The best way to counter act any exaggeration is the well-worn device by which the speaker puts in some criticism of himself

Now talking of Prose, Aristotle notes that it must either be free-running or compact/antithetical.

Free Running meaning no natural stopping places. Antithetical meaning each of two members, one of one pair of opposites is put along with one of another pair, or the same word is used to bracket two opposites.

'to sail through the mainland and march through the sea'

Now Speech has two parts

1. State your case - statement
2. Prove It - argument

Introductions - could be a praise  or censure, advice or appeal

Arguments - attempt demonstrative proofs

Epilogue - make audience well-disposed to you, ill-disposed to your opponent; magnify or minimize facts; excite required state of emotion; refresh their memories

For Conclusions, Aristotle advises to use a disconnect style of language. 

"I have done. You have heard me. The facts are before you. I ask for your judgment"

What can you learn from all this? 

I have no particular idea what you could use this information for, but that section about emotions was interesting. Aristotle may be surprised at what some of them mean now in other contexts such as in psychology. 

This was a slog to read. Hard to refute what the guy was teaching almost 2,400 years ago. But I get an inkling that his work has been a stepping stone to the next generation's communicators. Nevertheless, I rest my case.



You might be interested in the following:

Seneca's Moral Epistles
Marcus Aurelius' Meditations
Confucius' Analects