Aristotle

1
Aristotle

• Began his career as an Orthodox Platonist
• Later wrote his most famous work, rhetoric
• which was intended to create a systemic method
• For studying and application by his students

2
Aristotle

• He was trying to legitimize rhetoric at the
  university level
• He did this by avoiding the moralizing of Plato
  (He worshipped Plato)
• The Rhetoric was a synthesis of Platos
  critiques and the Sophists inadequate treatises

3
Aristotle

• He agrees with Plato that the Sophists
  interpretation is not sophisticated
• He says rhetoric is the counterpart of the
  dialectic
• He saw the dialectic as a logical way of debating
  issues of general interest
• beginning with widely accepted propositi0ons or
  thruths

4
Aristotle

• He saw the dialectic as a way to critically
  examine both sides of an issue
• Or testing old ideas and discovering new ones
• He saw rhetoric as the publically oriented method
  of reasoning
• ,,,whereas the dialectic was used as a private
  activity

5
Aristotle

• Rhetoric large audience
• Dialectic one-on-one or small group
• Rhetoric used to resolve specific issues
• Dialectic asked the big, abstract questions
• He saw these two forms as complimentary
• not necessarily in opposition

6
Aristotle

• His definiton of rhetoric
• The faculty of observing in any given case
• The available means of persuasion