Rhetoric

Since the purpose of rhetoric is persuasion, this work maintains a constant awareness of the audience and the factors that could persuade them. How does Aristotle characterize the typical Athenian audience? How do his assumptions about them impact his rhetorical method?

How does the Rhetoric, as a work of persuasive argumentation itself, employ Aristotle’s principles of rhetoric in both form and content?

Writing at the end of the Greek Classical Period, Aristotle had a vast intellectual history to draw upon. How does Aristotle interact with earlier writers, thinkers, and rhetoricians throughout this work?

Of the three means of persuasion—logos/logical reasoning, ethos/character, and pathos/emotion—Aristotle prefers the first, as the purest form of argumentation. How does he feel about ethos and pathos, and what functions to they perform in his rhetorical method?

Aristotle divides (Athenian) oratory into three styles: deliberative, forensic, and epideictic. What factors distinguish each style, and how do they affect the rhetorical approach to each?

One of Aristotle’s greatest rhetorical achievements was the identification of the enthymeme. What is enthymeme, and what qualities make it superior to other forms of argumentation?

Topoi—lines of argumentation, or topics—arise frequently throughout the Rhetoric in a variety of contexts. What purpose do they serve within Aristotle’s rhetorical framework?

What is Aristotle’s ideal arrangement (taxis) for a speech? What arrangement does he recommend for practical use instead, and why does he alter it?