Aristotle, in the Rhetoric, appears to claim both that emotion-arousal has no place in the essential core of rhetorical expertise and that it has an extremely important place as one of three technical kinds of proof. This paper offers an account of how this apparent contradiction can be resolved. The resolution stems from a new understanding of what Rhetoric I. I refers to - not emotions, but set-piece rhetorical devices aimed at manipulating emotions, which do not depend on the facts (...) of the case in which they are deployed. This understanding is supported by showing how it fits with evidence for how rhetoric was actually taught in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, in particular by Thrasymachus and Gorgias. The proposed interpretation fits well with Aristotle's overall view of the nature of rhetoric, the structure of rhetorical speeches, and what is and is not relevant to the pragma, the issue of the case at hand. (shrink)

En este artículo me ocupo inicialmente de la teoría de la esclavitud de Aristóteles en el libro i de la Política, con el fin de mostrar la utilización de dos procedimientos: uno dialéctico, a partir de la discusión con Platón, y otro retórico, con la utilización de metáforas y testimonios con los que configura el marco epistemológico de su teoría. Luego, me concentraré en un asunto por esclarecer: la diferencia ente los endoxa, la tesis y el testimonio. Al describir el (...) método dialéctico en los Tópicos, Aristóteles precisa el significado de los términos endoxa y tesis. Por su parte, en los libros i y ii de la Retórica, Aristóteles se ocupa del testimonio. Por consiguiente, identificaré estos dos tipos de procedimientos, los tipos de pruebas y las conclusiones en el libro i de la Política de Aristóteles, a partir de las características elaboradas en los Tópicos y en la Retórica. (shrink)

Przedstawiona propozycja badawcza dotyczy porównania sposobu komunikowania polityków polskich i polityków amerykańskich ze swoimi wyborcami. Materiałem badawczym są mowy końcowe wygłaszane przez liderów politycznych w czasie debat finałowych. Uwzględniono cykle amerykańskich debat finałowych z lat 1996–2016 i cykle debat polskich z lat 1995–2015. Mowy końcowe są tym elementem debaty, w którym następuje zmiana adresata interakcji argumentacyjnej i przekaz kierowany jest do wyborców jako głównego odbiorcy. Jest to element wieńczący starcie polityków i stanowi zarazem apel do wyborców o poparcie w głosowaniu. (...) Poddano analizie zawartość perswazyjną 24 mów amerykańskich polityków i 26 mów polskich polityków. Zastosowano metody ilościowe i jakościowe do wykazania specyfiki perswazyjnej w różnych kulturach politycznych. Ustalono zestaw powtarzających się taktyk perswazyjnych z podziałem na etos, logos, patos. Określono częstotliwość ich występowania w obydwu zestawach tekstów. (shrink)

Having discussed some political and philosophical stakes of the Greeks’ invention of the rhetorical art, the present research aims to show the great originality of Aristotle’s treatise in comparison to his precursors. Subsequently, the article illustrates the amazing scientific relevance of Aristotle’s work for the French -speaking world in the past half a century. Finally, the paper poses the question whether its underlying concepts can nowadays be of any significance from a practical point of view.

This dissertation is a collection of essays exploring the role of metaphor in Aristotle’s scientific method. Aristotle often appeals to metaphors in his scientific practice; but in the Posterior Analytics, he suggests that their use is inimical to science. Why, then, does he use them in natural science? And what does his use of metaphor in science reveal about the nature of his scientific investigations? I approach these questions by investigating the epistemic status of metaphor in Aristotelian science. In the (...) first essay, I defend an interpretation of metaphor as a type of heuristic reasoning: I claim that Aristotle uses metaphor to express conditions an explanation in natural science must meet if it is to explain regular, ordered change. These conditions specify the kinds of causes—particularly unmoved efficient causes—which the inquirer into nature is seeking. In the second essay, I look to Aristotle’s use of certain endoxa or common beliefs as explanatory principles in science, and show that his use of these principles is similar to his use of metaphor. In the final essay, I present a historical study of the analogy of art and nature, and I suggest that by looking to how the Greeks understood the role of inquiry in the arts, we can shed some light on Aristotle’s views concerning the method of inquiry he thinks the natural scientist should adopt. (shrink)

: This paper offers a new interpretation of the first chapter of Aristotle’s Rhetoric and of Aristotle’s understanding of rhetoric throughout the treatise. I defend the view that, for Aristotle, rhetoric was a skill in offering the listener ‘proofs’, that is, proper grounds for conviction. His arguments in the opening chapters of the treatise state and defend this controversial, epistemically normative view against the rival views of Gorgias, Thrasymachus and the rhetorical handbook writers, on the one hand, and against those (...) of Plato, on the other. Aristotle defends his view on the basis that rhetoric is a skill in discharging an important role in the state – the role of helping citizens to good publicly-deliberated judgements. (shrink)

The rhetorical power of emotions came to philosophers’ attention early on in the Western tradition: emotions can exert a powerful effect on what an audience comes to believe or decides to do. It is has been surprisingly neglected since, despite abundant philosophical literature on the emotions. This paper focuses on the mechanisms and propriety of emotional persuasion. Our central focus is an apparent tension between two claims. Persuasion should succeed by getting people convinced on grounds that contribute to justifying their (...) inclination to favour what the speaker proposes; and It is not required that persuasion's methods be dispassionate. They seem in tension, and yet dropping either seems unattractive. In particular, dropping ‘ANTI-AUSTERITY’ could commit us to a position that tends to elevate further in public deliberation the contributions of already privileged voices, and to marginalise the less privileged. This paper highlights what we would need to believe, in order to hold these two claims together. In order for emotions to contribute to justification, I argue, they must be capable themselves of being epistemically justified, and of transmitting that epistemic justification to the beliefs to which they help give rise. This in turn requires that emotions have representational contents, involve the subject's accepting those contents as true, be candidates for epistemic justification, and be such that their contents can properly feature as premises in inferences that justify the subject in believing their conclusions. Such are the striking philosophical implications of some everyday observations about the persuasive use of emotions. (shrink)