Rereading Aristotle's Rhetoric

Preface

ix Preface Whitehead’s observation that the history of philosophy is one long footnote to Plato can for us be transferred to the Rhetoric: All subsequent rhetorical theory is but a series of responses to issues raised by that central work. But the link between philosophy and rhetoric represents more than the appropriation of a convenient trope. This volume appears at a time when philosophers are beginning to show a genuine interest in the Rhetoric. This attention is both new and welcome. Half a century ago, David Ross saw the Rhetoric as “a curious jumble of literary criticism with second-rate logic, ethics, politics, and jurisprudence, mixed with the cunning of one who knows well how the weaknesses of the human heart are to be played upon” (1949, 275).The verdict at century’s end could be just as dismissive. In 1995, Jonathan Barnes affirms that “modern philosophy does not greatly occupy itself with rhetoric” and justifies this neglect by affirming that despite all contention to the contrary, rhetoric is not an Aristotelian art (Barnes, 1995a, 259, 264). Two recent collections within philosophy, one edited by David J. Furley and Alexander Nehamas, the other by Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, are far more sympathetic . But their perspective remains, no doubt appropriately, philosophical. Amélie Rorty describes the motive behind her volume in terms that speak for both collections : “to reclaim the Rhetoric as a philosophical work, to analyze its relation to Aristotle’s ethics, politics, and poetics; his psychology and logic; his account of practical reasoning; his views on how styles of language affect persuasive arguments ” (1996, ix). The essays in both collections reflect this emphasis. For these scholars, the Rhetoric is a minor work in the Aristotelian corpus.Though no longer an embarrassment, it is not regarded as particularly significant. Their interest lies largely in showing how the Rhetoric illuminates the corpus as a whole. Their method is systematically to interpret the more philosophically oriented passages in the Rhetoric in ways that cohere best with Aristotle’s philosophy. Doctrines Aristotle advances in the Rhetoric are contrasted with those in the Ethics and Politics , or they are treasured for the light they cast on other works, such as the Topics. Where there are inconsistencies between what Aristotle says in the Rhetoric and ideas he advances in other treatises (and there are many), these latter works are given priority, and the apparent discrepancies in the Rhetoric are explained as resulting from its earlier composition or its having been written for a popular audience. The perspective of the contributors to Rereading Aristotle’s “Rhetoric,” for the most part scholars in speech communication, rhetoric, and composition, contrasts markedly with those of the philosophers featured in the other two collections. Our x theme is not that the ancient quarrel between philosophy and rhetoric has been renewed but that a healthy division of labor must be assumed: Purely rhetorical issues are genuine and must be explored. For such explorations, the Rhetoric is central. Because Aristotle situates his reflection in opposition to Platonic and Sophistic versions of rhetoric, even those who might have preferred a different starting point have tended to frame their views with reference to his positions. There is no comparable situation in any other discipline: No other discipline would claim that a single ancient text so usefully informs current deliberations on practice and theory. The essays in Rereading Aristotle’s “Rhetoric” reflect on questions basic to rhetoric as a humanistic discipline while simultaneously interpreting the meaning of its central concepts. Some essays explore how the Rhetoric can help us understand the nature of the art. On this issue, the tensions within the Rhetoric often provide a direct passageway into our own conflicts. What does it mean to say that rhetoric is generative or epistemic as distinguished from instrumental or managerial? Should we think of rhetoric as the basis for an art of civic deliberation? Within this volume, Miller’s exploration on topical invention within the Aristotelian tradition has implications for the first question; Gross’s exploration of the meaning of tekhnê for the second. What does it mean to say that rhetoric is a contextualized, culturally situated art in contrast with arts such as logic and dialectic that have made more universalistic claims? Walzer’s exploration of the special topics and Warnick’s comparison of Aristotelian topical system to Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca ’s are informed by this question and contribute to answering it. Other essays show how a rhetorical perspective is distinguished from others...