Aristotle's "Rhetoric": An Art of Character (review)

454 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:3 JULY x996 Under (~) Ebert appeals to Aristotle's Topics to show that the questioner in a dialectical discussion is not committed to views affirmed by the respondent.4 Yet to avoid the consequence that nothing in such a discussion can be attributed to Socrates (and therefore Plato?), Ebert distinguishes between two kinds of questions: (F2) questions that do not commit the questioner to a response and (FI) questions that do, such as, "Do you/we agree that p?" (43)- Ebert then shows that the above Pythagorean fallacies are stated only in (F~) questions (46, 51, 56, 77, 85)- Yet at 76d~- 3 Socrates says "tblxokoy/ioa~tev" in reference to an important step of the recollection argument. Ebert can only bizarrely assert that while "We agree that p" commits Socrates to what is said, "We agreed that p" does not (75-76, n. 66). In addition, while Ebert repeatedly maintains that we can "possibly" or "perhaps" infer something about Plato from Socrates ' commitment to a view (43, 62, 77), he never explains why we should. One can quarrel with this provocative little book, but one should not ignore it, especially if one still reads the dialogues as straightforward presentations of Platonic doctrine. FRANCISCO J. GONZALEZ Skidmore College Eugene Garver, Aristotle's "Rhetoric": An Art of Character. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1994. Pp. xxi + 325 . Cloth, $53.95- Paper, $18.95. This book is a philosophical study of Aristotle's Rhetoric. Prescinding from this work's secure place in the tradition of instruction in public speaking, Garver places the Rhetor /c in the context of Aristotle's other treatises. So viewed, it looks like nothing so much as a transcendental deduction of the possibility of a responsible art of public speaking as an instrument of political life. Part of what Garver means by saying that the Rhetoric is a philosophical work is that in it Aristotle reflects on the function of rhetoric in the city. "Politics arranges what sciences [and arts] there will be in the state," says Aristotle. "Even the most highly reputed of these capacities (dynameis), such as strategy, economics, and rhetoric are subordinate to politics" (Nicomachean Ethics ,.U.lo94a29-b54 ). Garver takes this to imply that the Rhetoric is addressed "not to rhetoricians but to legislators who need to understand the place of rhetoric in the polls" (e5). Rhetoric has such a place, it turns out, only when it restricts itself to "observing [or seeing] the available means of persuasion " (Rhetoric 1.2.1355b26-u8 ). For Garver this means that rhetoric can be the artful (technikos) actualization (energeia) of a capacity (dynamis) for speaking on either side of an issue only when speakers aim at (or are constrained by) ends internal to the art itself, instead of external ends like winning or showing off (~8). Garver's treatment of the distinction between internal and external, or as he often puts it, "guiding and 4See 40-43 . Ebert therefore criticizes the common way of reading the dialogues in which "werden Frage des Sokrates und Antwort seines Gespr~ichspartner zu einer Lehr-Meinung Platons zusammengerechnet" (42). BOOK REVIEWS 455 given" ends owes much to Alasdair MacIntyre's similar treatment of moral virtues; it is this very distinction applied to complex arts. Thus another aspect of Garver's philosophical reading of the Rhetoric is his studious application of the vocabulary of the Metaphysics to rhetorical issues, as when he says that an artful speech is an energeia since it actualizes the rhetorical dynamis, while speeches oriented to external ends are kineseis (28). Garver argues that the artful internal ends of rhetoric are limited to argument (logos) (36). It alone unifies speakers and audiences through the kind of good will (euno/a) proper to citizens. Aristotle's stress on argument does not mean, however, that character (ethos) and emotion (pathos) play no role. On the contrary, their essential roles come into view from the perspective of rational norms. The role of character, for example, is clarified by the nature of rhetorical first principles. Whereas in theoretical philosophy cognitively self-evident first principles are brought to bear on particulars by...