Rhetoric

Character (Greek ethos) and emotion (Greek pathos) form the other pillars of artful persuasion in Aristotle’s model, but they do not share equal status with logos. Character receives brief, if respectful, treatment in this work, while Aristotle’s use of emotion is more grudging: “[T]he man who is to judge should not have his judgment warped by speakers arousing him to anger, jealousy, or compassion” (2).

Aristotle’s depiction of both these tools is somewhat inconsistent. In the introductory chapters of the work, at the first mention of ethos, Aristotle describes it only as a method of establishing the speaker’s good character in the moment of hearing. Later, in a brief reiteration of ethos, the author expands the scope of the characterization. The speaker must now seek to establish his intelligence, character, and good will in order to appear trustworthy to the audience.

Aristotle recognizes the importance, not just of portraying these three qualities, but of actually possessing them; their absence from a speaker’s ethos is a moral failure and not a rhetorical one:

Speakers are untrustworthy in what they say or advise from one or more of the following causes. Either through want of intelligence they form wrong opinions; or [...] their rascality leads them to say what they do not think; or, while intelligent and honest enough, they are not well-disposed (92).

The worst result from a failing in these qualities is not that the speaker will “lose,” but that the speaker will successfully give poor advice. While the speaker’s ethos is extremely important to the success of a speech, Aristotle also advocates the consideration of the audience’s character. By understanding the age, good fortune, moral state, and emotional state of the listeners, a speaker can better appeal to their particular tastes. In all cases, the correct portrayal of ethos depends at least in part upon the use of emotional appeal, or pathos.

Aristotle offers a lengthy examination of all the useful emotions, and how the speaker should excite or mollify each emotion in the listener. Although emotion is clearly an important aspect of rhetoric, Aristotle disparages it from the very beginning: “Thus the arousing of prejudice, of pity, of anger, and the like feelings in the soul, does not concern the facts, but has regard to those who decide” (1). He laments the over-use of emotion in many speeches and declares later that ideally speeches would have no need for emotional appeal at all, being based purely in logic.

There is an apparent contradiction between Aristotle’s distaste for pathos and his detailed recommendations for its use in rhetoric, but it is easily reconciled. Aristotle reacts throughout this work against the overreliance on emotional appeal in other rhetoricians; for Aristotle, however, pathos is not just a necessary evil. Through judicious use, it is also a tool that can serve the stronger rhetorical means such as ethos.

Aristotle makes a distinction between the “artistic” proofs, which spring entirely from rhetorical argument, and “non-artistic” proofs, “all such as are not supplied by our own efforts, but existed beforehand” (8). The author identifies five such proofs: laws, witnesses, contracts, tortures, and oaths. All of these forms of evidence exist independently of the speech, yet can contribute to its persuasiveness.

While some are self-evident, other proofs are particular to the Athenian judicial system. Torture, for example, was the method for extracting testimony from slaves. In fact, the Athenians considered that testimony from slaves was only admissible if extracted through torture. Athenian citizens never provided testimony in this manner, since the citizen’s body was inviolate. As for oaths, either the speaker or his opponent had the right either to swear an oath himself or to challenge the other to swear an oath (or both). All parties also had the right to refuse to take the oath, and standard procedure in Athenian courts (unlike modern courts) did not involve swearing oaths.

Despite the apparently objective status of these non-artistic proofs, they are in fact open to rhetorical manipulation. Aristotle suggests many ways the speaker can frame them in order to make them appear favorable to his argument. For example, when testimony from torture runs against the speaker, he should argue that people will say anything to end the torture, regardless of truth; if the testimony is in his favor, the speaker should argue that testimony from torture is the only trustworthy form. These opposing topoi show how evasive objective truth could be in the rhetorical context.

It would be a mistake, then, to distinguish the artistic and non-artistic proofs in terms of objectivity and subjectivity. All elements of the argument are ultimately rhetorical tools, as susceptible to manipulation as the rest.