Aristotle Rhetoric

Aristotles Rhetoric is often seen as a contradiction of terms.  The first part of the book states that emotions should not be part of rhetoric and yet the remainder of the book tells the reader that the emotion of the audience is one of the three factors used to prove the art is well-defined.  This has created much discussion and much frustration, but the two apparent contradictions are really not contradictions, but both are required of rhetoric.

The article by Jamie Dow (383) divides into five sections to prove or at least to show an option that not only do the two supposed contradictory sections work together, but brings it back to prove that while the resistance to the emotional arousal in part 1 is not a contradiction at all for the remaining parts of the Rhetoric. In the first section, The Contradiction Problem and the Contradiction View, (Dow 383) Aristotle did apparently contradict himself, when he stated that oration should not be based on passions, but yet the passion of the audience affects the way in which the oration is understood.  The second part of the article, Dow differentiates between emotion or passion and activity.  He explains that Aristotle used the concepts pity, slander, anger, and other such passions as not necessarily passions or emotions but as activities (Dow 386).  Thereby the contradiction view between the first part and the remainder of the Rhetoric is shown to be more of a misunderstanding of the definitions of the activities associated with oratory. The third explanation of the article works with the concepts of ancient rhetorical set-pieces in general (Dow 391) that focus on the use of passion by other orators of the time, as a way in which to overpower the audience to their views using emotions rather than logic.  The fourth section distinguishes between the tools of the art of oration and the accessories.  The tools are used to gain logical understanding by the audience and their conviction to the topic via these tools (Dow 397).  For Aristotle, the accessories were nothing more and emotions that are used when the orator could not use logic.  The last section of the article talks about how the set-pieces, the tools of oration and the misunderstanding of emotion and activity all work together, but that others will still consider this to be a contradiction, but at least now there are other possibilities given to the interpretations of the book (Dow 398).

The article is very useful in that the explanation of the Rhetoric gives readers other options in the way they view and interpret Aristotles works.  The fact that the information is so different from other interpretations allows one to use their own logic and critical thinking to either accept or oppose the interpretations discussed in the article by Jamie Dow.  The fact is that no one really knows the interpretations of Aristotle works completely.  His perspectives and logic are bound in the 4th Century BCE and therefore, placing them within current modern day culture means that there is much assuming in the interpretations of his work which can lead to error.  By acknowledging there are other interpretations and other ways to understand this contradictive view means that more people will be able to understand Aristotle and his work in correlation to the modern world.