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| ISBN-13: | 9780253025531 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Publication date: | 04/03/2017 |
| Series: | Studies in Continental Thought |
| Pages: | 278 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
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Persuasion, Reflection, Judgment
Ancillae Vitae
By Rodolphe Gasché
Indiana University Press
Copyright © 2017 Rodolphe GaschéAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-02553-1
CHAPTER 1
A TRUTH RESEMBLING TRUTH
WHEREAS IN THE TOPICS, which is closely associated with the Rhetoric, Aristotle clearly names his addressee, namely, students of philosophy, he does not specify for whom the Rhetoric is intended. This alone is reason enough not to call this work a technical handbook for rhetoricians, as it has been, and still is by most of the commentators. I do not deny that the Rhetoric also contains advice for students about public speaking; it certainly does so. But right from the beginning, Aristotle takes issue with previous compilers of "arts" of rhetoric who have, as he argues, "provided us with only a small portion of this art" in that they have elaborated only on what is accessory to an art of rhetoric. In this way, he is also putting in question the conception of rhetoric as an art that is based on what is extraneous to rhetoric. One must distinguish, then, between the handbooks for rhetoric written by the technographers, "which chiefly devote their attention to matters outside the subject," and what Aristotle will propose in terms of an art of rhetoric (5). Even if we agree that Aristotle's Rhetoric is addressed to would-be rhetoricians, and hence is a technical handbook of sorts, this technical consideration only occupies one part of the text. Still, the distinction made between what is outside the subject of rhetoric and what is essential to it, requires Aristotle's Rhetoric to be twofold. He writes "that Rhetoric is composed of analytical science and of that branch of political science which is concerned with Ethics" (41); it must be composed of a part that deals with the human being's ability of logical (syllogistic) reasoning, and another part, on character, virtue, and the emotions (17–18). It is this analytical dimension of the work concerned with reasoning and rhetoric's argumentative dimension that I will seek to engage above all. If Aristotle's Rhetoric is an art, it is not only an art entirely different from that of his predecessors who have exclusively focused on the pathe "for the arousing of prejudice, compassion, anger, and similar emotions" (5) with the primary intent of influencing the jurors, but also, because it is based above all on the human's capability for logical reasoning, it is, for the first time, an art of logos, an art of speaking.
As also becomes clear right from the beginning of the treatise, the art of rhetoric that Aristotle will propose is not only an art distinct from all the previous so-called arts of rhetoric in that it is based on rhetorical argument, it is also the only art of the human faculty of speaking with one another that is suitable to a well-policed state. In a city, such as Athens, that is well administered, where well-enacted laws define as much as possible, and leave as little as possible to the discretion of the judges, there is nothing left for a rhetorician whose only object is to influence the jurors. Such laws require that during trials the litigant only address the subject matter and "prove that the fact in question is or is not so, that it has happened or not" they are forbidden to speak "outside the subject," as, for instance, when seeking to arouse "prejudice, compassion, anger, and similar emotions [that have] no connexion with the matter in hand, but [are] directed only to the dicast" (5), the dicast being a citizen eligible to sit as a judge — that is, the juror. In a well-administered state, rhetoric will have to be an art in Aristotle's sense, in that, in such a state, its function is limited to providing proof of whether the subject deliberated in a court happened or did not happen, is going to happen or not, or is or is not true, leaving it to the juror to decide whether this is so or not. In a well-governed state where the legislators have defined all issues as precisely as possible, such a decision by the judge as to whether a thing has happened or not, is going to happen or not, is or is not so, is the only thing left to the judge's discretion, and rhetoric consists precisely in nothing more and nothing less than providing the judge with proof, or reasons, that speak for or against what is under consideration. To accomplish this the rhetorician needs to be "a master of rhetorical argument," that is, to excel in the art of speaking as an art of argumentation (7).
Plato, in Gorgias, famously compared rhetoric to cookery: "Sophistic is to legislation what beautification is to gymnastics, and rhetoric to justice what cookery is to medicine." Consequently, when Aristotle opens his treatise with the claim that "Rhetoric is a counterpart of Dialectic," Dialectic being a discipline that subjects opinions on general issues to a rational examination, rhetoric is raised to a status not only well beyond cookery, but also beyond the accusation, in other Platonic dialogues, of being no art at all, or at best one for deceiving an audience (3). Let me recall here that the Greek term antistrophos, rendered in English as "counterpart," is a term that designates a relation of analogy. To understand in a more precise manner what the analogy between dialectic and rhetoric implies, I continue to quote from the beginning of the treatise. To his initial remark that rhetoric and dialectic are counterparts, Aristotle adds: "for both have to do with matters that are in a manner within the cognizance of all men and not confined to any special science. Hence all men in a manner have a share of both; for all, up to a certain point, endeavor to criticize or uphold an argument, to defend themselves or to accuse" (3). Aristotle stresses here only what both rhetoric and dialectic have in common, what distinguishes them from the sciences, which have their own domain, and of which only the scientists are knowledgeable, but he offers very little about their difference from one another. Both dialectic and rhetoric have this in common: they deal with matters of which all men are cognizant and thus also address a knowledge and a capability that is shared by all men. In distinction from the sciences (and philosophy) they are clearly practices of everyday life. Now, these things of which all men are cognizant, are, as we will see, everything they can have an opinion about. The way all men are cognizant of these matters is hinted at when Aristotle remarks that all men "up to a certain point, endeavor to criticize or uphold an argument, [and] to defend themselves or to accuse" (3). To speak of rhetoric as being analogous to the dialogical examination of arguments, whether in front of students or in a dispute that I have with myself about an argument, asking myself questions to which I must stand answers, is to uphold, against Plato's indictment of it as being no better than cookery, rhetoric's rational and argumentative nature. It is also to suggest from the start that rhetoric is about truth, a truth that, in distinction from the special subject domains of the sciences, pertains to those things of which all men are cognizant. Finally, although Aristotle does not explicitly address the differences between rhetoric and dialectic, the truth in question, as will become clear hereafter, is one that is a function of public deliberation.
If, apart from having the before mentioned points in common, dialectic and rhetoric are also different, it is because of a difference that concerns the way in which they dispute about issues, the nature of argumentation proper to each. The arguments that are the object of dialogical dispute are mainly arguments about general issues upheld by an opponent. Furthermore, whereas dialectic regards any issue as only probable and thus open to discussion as a sort of intellectual contest with an adversary with the goal of defeating the opponent, rhetoric deals with opinions about things that are of vital concern to the citizens in the polis and are thus discussed in public speech. Whereas dialectic argumentation could even take place, as Cope puts it, "in a man's own brain and in his own study," hence in a private way of using language, rhetoric discusses opinions on vital issues to the community and is from the start a form of public speech. It follows that to hold that dialectic and rhetoric are antistrophos is to say, I quote Brunschwig, "that the latter is to public speech (that is, to politics in a broad sense) what the former is to private speech, whether conversational or dialogical." Brunschwig adds: "The relation of antistrophy signifies precisely that rhetoric is to the spontaneous exercise of the discourse of accusation and defense what dialectics is with respect to the spontaneous discourse of examination and affirmation." In distinction from the dialogical examination (which takes place in a question and answer process), for which dialectic provides rigorous tools, the "continuous discourse" characteristic of rhetoric provides the discursive means and standards for defending oneself and accusing others, for criticizing or upholding an argument of public interest in the domain that is the polis. As opposed to the more or less private mode of speech for which dialectic proposes rules, the art of rhetoric is the art for speaking in public, the art for what I would like to call "lively speech" in the polis where, on the one hand, one has to defend oneself, account for one's words and deeds before all others, and, on the other hand, to attack others. On the basis of what all men do spontaneously in everyday life in the polis, that is, in political life in a broad sense, rhetoric provides an art, a rigorous technique for speech-related conduct within the sphere of practical life.
In his discussion of the usefulness of rhetoric, Aristotle makes one point that I would like to emphasize right from the beginning. He notes that "it would be absurd if it were considered disgraceful not to be able to defend oneself with the help of the body, but not disgraceful as far as speech is concerned, whose use is more characteristic of man than that of the body" (13). Not to be able to defend oneself by speech would mean not to be able to defend oneself by means of, and with regard to what, according to Aristotle, distinguishes the human being from the animal, namely, the fact that he is a living thing that possesses speech. Indeed, the observation about the usefulness of rhetoric is one about the vital importance of this art for the human qua human. Rhetoric is an art that concerns the very humanity of the human being; it is not only an art for this ability that the human has qua human being, namely the ability to speak, but also for the ability to defend and even secure what precisely makes him a human being. When we see that speaking, for Aristotle, is by definition speaking with others, the full thrust of this observation about the usefulness of this art becomes even more clear: it is an art for the kind of life that distinguishes human beings from all other things, namely the bios politikos.
If Aristotle takes issue with the technographers of rhetoric on the grounds that they have chiefly dealt with matters outside the subject, in particular, and sometimes exclusively, the ways of "arousing [...] prejudice, compassion, anger, and similar emotions," the ways of the pathe, in short, it is because they have neglected the only thing that can make rhetoric into an art (5). He writes: "proofs [pisteis] are the only things in [rhetoric] that come within the province of art" (3–5), and "yet [the previous compilers of "Arts" of rhetoric] say nothing about enthymemes which are the body of proof" (5). And, he adds, "they give no account of the artificial [artistic] proofs, which make a man a master of rhetorical argument" (7), skilled in enthymemes, or, as George E. Kennedy translates, "enthymematic." By centering exclusively on the emotional ways to influence the dicast, the technographers have dealt with only a small slice of speech in public life, namely with forensic, or judicial, oratory alone. In addition, they have neglected the whole argumentative character of civic discourse and the only basis on which rhetoric in civic discourse can be made into an art, that is, demonstrative proof. If, at the beginning of the first chapter (of Book I), rhetoric is said to be the analogue of dialectic, which is an art for examining the logical validity of held opinions on general subjects (for instance, the nature of justice), whose proofs have the character of dialectical syllogisms, it is because, for Aristotle, the art of rhetoric is grounded specifically in rhetorical syllogisms, called enthymemes. Considering that the syllogism, as the form of a valid deductive argument in logic, is a properly Aristotelean discovery, this also means that rhetoric, rather than being similar to the art of cooking, that is, to no art at all, is in fact a rational discipline, an art insofar as it is based on a specific mode of rational argumentation that is characteristic of public speech, of speech with one another in the everyday life of the polis.
Aristotle's emphasis in the first chapter of Book I of the Rhetoric on proof as the only thing that matters if rhetoric is to become an art, as well as his criticism of the pathe as extraneous to the art of rhetoric, has led numerous Aristotle scholars, in light of the fact that the pathe are discussed later in the work as an integral part of rhetoric, to question the consistency of Aristotle's treatise. In response, a couple of brief remarks may be warranted. Aristotle's dismissal of his predecessors for having paid attention only to the pathe despite their being extrinsic to rhetoric does not necessitate that his emphasis at the beginning of the Rhetoric on proof, and the enthymemes as the body of proof, means that proof in lively everyday speech would have to be of an exclusively logical character, and thus that his later discussion of the pathe would contradict what he establishes in the first chapter of the treatise. In the same way as the dialectical syllogism to which the rhetorical syllogism is analogous, the latter is also only "a species of the 'syllogism' in general," and in no way identical with the logical syllogism, that is, the syllogism of speculative thought and of the sciences. Indeed, the enthymeme as the implement for rhetorical proof, as William M. A. Grimaldi has argued, is not an exclusively rational structure but includes, as equiprimordially as reason, the pathe and is indissociable, as regards its persuasiveness, from the ethos of the speaker. Precisely because rhetoric concerns man's life with others and his speaking with others about all sort of things that are vital to him, that is, his life not only as a seeker of absolute truth but as "the whole man," "the enthymeme [rhetorical proof] employs both reason, emotion, ethos, and directs itself in its argumentation to the whole man." As Aristotle had noted in Nicomachean Ethics, the "intellect itself [...] moves nothing." Indeed, in the practical thought that is the domain of rhetoric, where it is always a question of making deliberate choices or decisions (prohairesis), more than just reason is involved. Emotions and character are also fundamentally involved in everything that leads up to action. But, if Aristotle objects to the technographers' sole concern with emotions as outside the subject of rhetoric, could it not also be because the feelings they elaborated upon are, according to Aristotle, not the proper pathe that can combine with reason and ethos to form the particular kind of syllogism that is the enthymeme? Could it be that the pathe on which they have focused exclusively are not the pathe for which Aristotle will make an affirmative case in the rest of his treatise?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Persuasion, Reflection, Judgment by Rodolphe Gasché. Copyright © 2017 Rodolphe Gasché. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
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Table of Contents
AcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I. Persuasion (Aristotle)1. A Truth Resembling Truth2. Probability or Necessity3. Logos, Topos, StoikheionPart II. Reflection (Heidegger) 4. Breaking with the Primacy of the Theoretical5. The Genesis of the Theoretical6. Beyond Theory: Theoria, or Watching Over What Is Still to ComePart III. Judgment (Arendt)7. The Space of Appearance8. The Wind of Thought9. A Sense of the WorldNotesBibliographyIndexWhat People are Saying About This
"Here Rodolphe Gasché is at his best: rigorous, scholarly, creative, forceful, laser focused on the issues at stake, learned, thoughtful, and original. He demands much of his readers, but reading his work is rewarding in ways that can be profoundly affecting."
Rodolphe Gasché has long been one of the most meticulous readers of texts on the philosophical scene and here he once again offers a master class in how to do philosophy through interpretation.
Here Rodolphe Gasché is at his best: rigorous, scholarly, creative, forceful, laser focused on the issues at stake, learned, thoughtful, and original. He demands much of his readers, but reading his work is rewarding in ways that can be profoundly affecting.
Rodolphe Gasché has long been one of the most meticulous readers of texts on the philosophical scene and here he once again offers a master class in how to do philosophy through interpretation.
Here Rodolphe Gasché is at his best: rigorous, scholarly, creative, forceful, laser focused on the issues at stake, learned, thoughtful, and original. He demands much of his readers, but reading his work is rewarding in ways that can be profoundly affecting.
Here Rodolphe Gasché is at his best: rigorous, scholarly, creative, forceful, laser focused on the issues at stake, learned, thoughtful, and original. He demands much of his readers, but reading his work is rewarding in ways that can be profoundly affecting.
Rodolphe Gasché has long been one of the most meticulous readers of texts on the philosophical scene and here he once again offers a master class in how to do philosophy through interpretation.