The Usefulness of Rhetoric

In Rhetoric, Aristotle gives four reasons why rhetoric is useful (reproduced here for the benefit of readers):

1. Things that are true and things that are just have a natural tendency to prevail over their opposites, so that if the decisions of judges are not what they ought to be, the defeat must be to the speakers themselves. (1355a)
2. Before some audiences, not even the possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. (1355a)
3. We must be able to employ persuasion, just as strict reasoning can be employed, of opposite sides of a question, not in order that we may in practice employ it in both ways (for we must not make people believe what is wrong), but in order that we may see clearly what the facts are, and that, if another man argues unfairly, we on our part may be able to confute him. (1355a)
4. Again, it is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs. But not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs. (1355a)

These reasons are equally valid for us today.  In reason one, for example, the wrong conclusion in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence in the O.J. Simpson trial was clearly due to mistakes from the prosecution team.  The current controversies over environmental issues, such as Global Warming, are another  example.

Many of us have experienced audiences, which are not swayed despite extensive logos, such as described in reason 2. Aristotle said that there were some people who could not be instructed (Herrick, 77). As any teacher can attest, not all of us absorb information at the same rate or with the same ‘receptivity’.  The comic strip series Dilbert offers many examples if one would care to look.

Reason 3 presents us with a laudable goal and life lesson.  In one of the West Wing TV series episodes[1], President Bartlett uses facts about the Old Testament to confute the extreme evangelical opinions of Dr. Jenna Jacobs to win the day.

And Reason 4 offers us the rationale for how we differ from animals: our use of speech and reason elevates us above those who have only brute strength to rely on. To those who categorize accomplished rhetors as those who “can do great harm” Aristotle says that “that is a charge which may be made in common against all things except virtue, and above all against the things that are most useful, as strength, health, generalship.” (Herrick, 78)

Rhetoric gives us the effective tools to communicate with one another.

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[1] http://videosift.com/video/West-Wing-President-quotes-bible-at-right-wing-radio-host