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Aristotle, the Action Researcher

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Marianna Papastephanou, Aristotle, the Action Researcher, Journal of Philosophy of Education , Volume 44, Issue 4, November 2010, Pages 589–595, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.2010.00752.x

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The Ways of Aristotle: Aristotelian Phronesis, Aristotelian Philosophy of Dialogue, and Action Research. Olav Eikeland. Bern, Peter Lang, 2008. Pp. 560.Pbk. £54.00.

This article discusses Olav Eikeland’s The Ways of Aristotle, a book that takes stock of a whole range of Aristotelian themes and communicates various complex Aristotelian ideas to impressive effect. What is distinctive about the book is, amongst other things, that it provides valuable exegetical material for the kind of interpretation that makes Aristotle’s significance for action research stand out most convincingly. The article approaches the material of the book with an eye to those Aristotelian ideas and connections that usually pass unacknowledged in dominant accounts. Thus, the article aspires to show that it is possible, with the aid of Eikeland’s book, to defend the relevance of Aristotle to present-day educational concerns in hitherto unexplored but henceforth fresh and fertile ways .

The Ways of Aristotle reconstructs Aristotle’s philosophy as political, educational and learning-oriented (p. 450) and deploys its significance for action research innovatively and insightfully. The intersection of the terms ‘political’, ‘educational’ and ‘learning-oriented’ makes Olav Eikeland’s approach to his material valuable for philosophy of education. This is not only because all three of them are central to the discipline, but also, and more, because politics, education and learning are nowadays often connected in a rather impoverished discourse about knowledge- and learning-societies. Thus, a book that enriches this discourse in such a reflective, methodical and masterful way is very welcome.

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The Palgrave Handbook of Educational Thinkers pp 1–14 Cite as

Frameworks of Education: Aristotle’s Legacy and the Foundations of Knowledge

• Nikola Grafnetterova 2 &
• Jocelyn A. Gutierrez 3  
• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 12 July 2023

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The foundations of modern higher education can be traced back to Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers in human history. Through the founding of his school of thought, Lyceum, Aristotle revolutionized the branches of knowledge, which in turn influenced research, teaching, and learning. This chapter outlines the influences that motivated Aristotle to address the reformation of education in society. Additionally, several of his most significant contributions to education are discussed, including (1) ways to attain knowledge; (2) development of new disciplines, logic, and terminology; (3) foundations of research; and (4) emphasis on experimental learning and lectures as teaching methods. New insights on the role of government and education in a democratic society are also provided in response to some of Aristotle’s most famous works about the relationship between education and state ( polis ). The chapter concludes with a discussion about lasting intellectual legacies of Aristotle’s philosophy that continue to be interwoven into the fabric of societies and across the world.

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Further Reading

McKeon, R. (2001). The basic works of Aristotle . Modern Library.

Shields, C. (Ed.). (2012). The Oxford handbook of Aristotle . Oxford University Press.

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Grafnetterova, N., Gutierrez, J.A. (2023). Frameworks of Education: Aristotle’s Legacy and the Foundations of Knowledge. In: Geier, B.A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Educational Thinkers . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81037-5_2-1

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Aristotle’s Rhetoric

Aristotle’s Rhetoric has had an unparalleled influence on the development of the art of rhetoric. In addition to Aristotle’s disciples and followers, the so-called Peripatetic philosophers (see Fortenbaugh/Mirhady 1994), famous Roman teachers of rhetoric, such as Cicero and Quintilian, frequently used elements stemming from Aristotle’s rhetorical theory. These latter authors, however, were not primarily interested in a meticulous interpretation of Aristotle’s writings, but were rather looking for a conceptual framework for their own manuals of rhetoric. This is one of the reasons why for two millennia the interpretation of Aristotelian rhetoric has been pursued by those concerned primarily with the history of rhetoric rather than philosophy. This association with the rhetorical rather than with the philosophical tradition is also mirrored in the fact that in the most influential manuscripts and editions, the text of Aristotle’s Rhetoric (for its transmission see Kassel 1971) was surrounded by rhetorical works and speeches written by other Greek and Latin authors, and was thus seldom interpreted in the context of Aristotle’s philosophical works. It was not until the last few decades that the philosophically salient features of the Aristotelian rhetoric have been acknowledged (e.g. in the collections Furley/Nehamas 1994 and Rorty 1996; for a more general survey of scholarship in the 20th century see Natali 1994). Most notably, scholars became aware of the fact that Aristotle’s rhetorical analysis of persuasion draws on many concepts and ideas that are also treated in his logical, ethical, political and psychological writings, so that the Rhetoric became increasingly perceived as well-integrated part of the Aristotelian oeuvre. For example, Aristotle’s Rhetoric is inextricably connected with the history of ancient logic (see Allen 2008 and, more generally, ancient logic ) and is often taken as an important inspiration for modern argumentation theory (see van Eemeren 2013 and, more generally, dialogical logic ). Some authors have stressed the Rhetoric ’s affinity to Aristotle’s ethical theory (see e.g. Woerner 1990), while others were attracted by Aristotle’s rhetorical account of metaphor (see e.g. Ricoeur 1996 and, more generally, metaphor ). Most significantly, philosophers and scholars began to turn their attention to the Rhetoric ’s account of the passions or emotions, which is not only richer than in any other Aristotelian treatise, but was also seen as manifesting an early example of cognitive, judgement-based accounts of emotions (see e.g. Nussbaum 1996, Konstan 2006 and, more generally, §5 of emotion ).

1. Aristotle’s Works on Rhetoric

2. the structure of the rhetoric, 3. rhetoric as a counterpart to dialectic, 4.1 the definition of rhetoric, 4.2 what rhetoric is useful for, 4.3 can aristotle’s rhetoric be misused, 4.4 is aristotle’s conception of rhetoric normative, 5.1 persuasion through the character of the speaker, 5.2 persuasion through the emotions of the hearer, 5.3 persuasion through the argument itself, 5.4 is there an inconsistency in aristotle’s rhetorical theory, 6.1 the concept of enthymeme, 6.2 formal requirements, 6.3 enthymemes as dialectical arguments, 6.4 the brevity of the enthymeme, 6.5 different types of enthymemes, 7.1 the (lacking) definition of ‘ topos ’, 7.2 the word ‘ topos ’ and the technique of places, 7.3 the ingredients and the function of topoi, 7.4 rhetorical topoi, 8.1 the virtue of style, 8.2 aristotelian metaphors, glossary of selected terms, translations, editions and commentaries, collections, monographs and articles, other internet resources, related entries.

• Judgemental and Non-Judgemental Accounts of Aristotelian Emotions
• The Thesis that Enthymemes are Relaxed Inferences
• The Brevity of the Enthymeme
• The Variety of Topoi in the Rhetoric

The work that has come down to us as Aristotle’s Rhetoric or Art of Rhetoric consists of three books, while the ancient catalogue of the Aristotelian works, reported e.g. by Diogenes Laertius, mentions only two books on rhetoric (probably our Rhetoric I & II), plus two further books on style (perhaps our Rhetoric III?). Whereas most modern authors agree that at least the core of Rhetoric I & II presents a coherent rhetorical theory, the two themes of Rhetoric III (style/diction and the partition of speeches) are not mentioned in the original agenda of Rhetoric I & II. The conceptual link between Rhetoric I & II and Rhetoric III is not given until the very last sentence of the second book, so the authenticity of this seeming ad hoc connection is slightly suspicious; we cannot rule out the possibility that these two parts of the Rhetoric were not put together until the first complete edition of Aristotle’s works was accomplished by Andronicus of Rhodes in the first century. In Aristotle’s Poetics (1456a33) we find a cross-reference to a work called ‘ Rhetoric ’ which obviously refers only to Rhetoric I & II, but does not seem to include the agenda of Rhetoric III, suggesting that Aristotle at this time regards Rhetoric I & II as the complete work. Regardless of such doubts, the systematic idea that links the two heterogeneous parts of the Rhetoric — Rhetoric I & II on the one hand and Rhetoric III on the other— does make good sense: it is not enough, or so the linking passage says, to have a supply of things to say (the so-called ‘thought’); one should also know how to express or formulate those things (the so-called ‘style’), so that the project of Rhetoric I & II concerning what we say (or the ‘thought’) needs to be complemented by the peculiar project of Rhetoric III (i.e. a treatise on ‘style’).

The chronological fixing of the Rhetoric has turned out to be a delicate and controversial matter. At least the core of Rhetoric I & II seems to be an early work (see e.g. Düring 1966, 118–125, Rist 1989, 85–86, Rapp 2002 I, 178–184), written during Aristotle’s first stay in Athens (it is unclear, however, which chapters belong to that core; regularly mentioned are the chapters I.4–15 and II.1–17). It is true that the Rhetoric also refers to historical events that fall in the time of Aristotle’s exile and his second stay in Athens (see § 1 of Aristotle ), but most of them can be found in just two chapters, namely chapters II.23–24, and moreover such examples could have been updated, which is especially plausible if we assume that the Rhetoric formed the basis of a lecture course held several times. However, what is most striking are its affinities to the early work Topics (for the idea that the Topics is early see e.g. Solmsen 1929, 191–195; for a discussion of Solmsen’s theses in English see Stocks 1933); if, as is widely agreed nowadays, the Topics represents a pre-syllogistic stage of Aristotelian logic, the same is likely to be true of the Rhetoric , as we actually find only few or even no hints to syllogistic inventory in it. (Indeed, the Rhetoric includes two short passages that explicitly refer to the Analytics , which presents Aristotle’s syllogistic theory: I.2, 1357a22–1358a2, II.25, 1402b13–1403a16. Some authors — e.g. Solmsen 1929, 13–31, Burnyeat 1994, 31, Allen 2001, 20–40 — take this as evidence that at least in these two passages the Rhetoric makes use of the syllogistic theory, while others — e.g. Rapp 2002, II 202–204 — object to this inference.)

It seems that Aristotle was the author not only of the Rhetoric as we know it today, but of several treatises dealing with rhetoric. According to ancient testimonies, Aristotle wrote an early dialogue on rhetoric entitled ‘ Grullos ’, in which he put forward arguments for why rhetoric cannot be an art ( technê ); and since this is precisely the position of Plato’s Gorgias (see §4 of Plato: rhetoric and poetry ), the lost dialogue Grullos has traditionally been regarded as a sign of Aristotle’s (alleged) early Platonism (see Solmsen 1929, 196–208). But the evidence for the position defended in this dialogue is too tenuous to support such strong conclusions: it also could have been a ‘dialectical’ dialogue, simply listing the pros and cons of the thesis that rhetoric is an art (see Lossau 1974). We are in a similar situation concerning another lost work on rhetoric, the so-called ‘ Technê Sunagogê ’, a collection of previous theories of rhetoric that is also ascribed to Aristotle. Cicero seems to use this collection, or at least a secondary source relying on it, as his main historical source when he gives a short survey of the history of pre-Aristotelian rhetoric in his Brutus 46–48. Finally, Aristotle once mentions a work called ‘ Theodecteia ’ which has also been supposed to be Aristotelian; but more probably he refers to the rhetorical handbook of his follower Theodectes, who was also a former pupil of Isocrates. From these lost works on rhetoric we only have a meagre collection of scattered fragments (frg. 68–69 R 3 , 114 R 3 , 125–141 R 3 : see Rose 1886).

The structure of Rhetoric I & II is determined by two tripartite divisions. The first division consists in the distinction between the three pisteis , i.e. ‘persuaders’ or ‘means of persuasion’, that are technical in the sense that they are based on the rhetorical method and are provided by the speech alone. And speech can produce persuasion either through the character ( êthos ) of the speaker, the emotional state ( pathos ) of the listener, or the argument ( logos ) itself (see below § 5 ). The second tripartite division concerns the three species or genres of public speech (see de Brauw 2008 and Pepe 2013). A speech that takes place in the assembly is defined as a deliberative speech . In this rhetorical genre, the speaker either advises the audience to do something or warns against doing something. Accordingly, the audience has to judge things that are going to happen in the future, and they have to decide whether these future events are good or bad for the city or city-state ( polis ), whether they will cause advantage or harm. A speech that takes place before a court is defined as a judicial speech . The speaker either accuses somebody or defends herself or someone else. Naturally, this kind of speech treats things that happened in the past. The audience, or rather the jury, has to judge whether a past event actually happened or not and whether it was just or unjust, i.e., whether it was in accordance with the law or contrary to the law. While the deliberative and judicial genres have their context in controversial situations in which the listener has to decide in favour of one of two opposing parties, the third genre does not aim at such a decision: an epideictic speech (e.g. funeral speeches, celebratory speeches) praises or blames somebody, and tries to describe the affairs or deeds of its subject as honourable or shameful.

The first book of the Rhetoric treats these three genres in succession. Rhetoric I.4–8 deals with the deliberative, I.9 with the epideictic, I.10–14 with the judicial genre. These chapters are understood as contributing to the argumentative mode of persuasion ( logos ) or — more precisely — to that part of argumentative persuasion that is specific to the respective genre of speech. The second part of the treatment of argumentative persuasion ( logos ) that is common to all three genres of rhetorical speech is treated in chapters II.19–26. The second means of persuasion, the one that works by evoking the emotions of the audience ( pathos ), is described in chapters II.2–11. Although the following chapters II.12–17 treat different types of character ( êthos ), these chapters do not, as one might infer, develop the first means of persuasion, i.e. the one that depends on the character of the speaker. The underlying theory of this means of persuasion is rather unfolded in a few lines of chapter II.1. The aforementioned chapters II.12–17 rather account for different types of character and their disposition to emotional response, which can be useful for speakers who want to arouse the emotions of the audience. Why the chapters on the specific (in the first book) and the common (in the second book) argumentative means of persuasion ( logos ) are separated by the treatment of emotions and character (in II.2–17) remains a riddle, especially since the chapter II.18 tries to give a link between the specific and the common aspects of argumentative persuasion — as though this chapter follows directly upon the end of Rhetoric I. Rhetoric III.1–12 discusses several questions of style (see below § 8.1 ) while Rhetoric III.13–19 is dedicated to the various parts of a speech and their arrangement.

Owing to ambiguities like these, the structuring of the Rhetoric has always been somewhat controversial, since different attempts to structure the work manifest different interpretative decisions. By and large, though, the following structure seems to capture its main topics and divisions:

• Ch. 1: Rhetoric as a counterpart to dialectic — dialectically conceived rhetoric is centred on proofs — rhetorical proofs are ‘enthymemes’ — this is neglected by previous manuals of rhetoric that focus instead on emotions, slandering and on other techniques for speaking outside the subject — “speaking outside the subject” is forbidden in states with good legislation — the benefits of rhetoric.
• Through the speaker: credibility of the speaker ( êthos )
• Through the hearer: the emotional state of the audience ( pathos )
• Through the argument: proving or seemingly proving what is true ( logos )
• Judicial (or forensic) speech deals with accusation and defence about past events — aiming at the just/unjust.
• Deliberative (or political) speech deals with exhortation and dissuasion about future events — aiming at the advantageous/harmful.
• Epideictic speech deals with praise and blame primarily with regard to the present time — aiming at the honourable/shameful.
• Ch. 4–8: Premises or topoi specific to the deliberative speech: Types of advantageous/harmful things the speaker should be familiar with (Ch. 4) — Happiness ( eudaimonia ) (Ch. 5) — what is good/advantageous (Ch. 6) — what is better/more advantageous (Ch. 7) — the various constitutions (Ch. 8).
• Ch. 9: Premises or topoi specific to the epideictic speech: virtue and vice — the honourable and the blameworthy.
• Ch. 10–14: Premises or topoi specific to the judicial speech: wrong-doing and motives for wrong-doing (Ch. 10) — pleasure (Ch. 11) — the state of mind of the wrong-doers and characteristics of their victims (Ch. 12) — kinds of just and unjust deeds, unwritten laws (Ch. 13) — degrees of wrong-doing (Ch. 14).
• Ch. 15: Artless means of persuasion (i.e. means that cannot be invented by the art, but are just given — such as contracts, laws, witnesses, oaths, torture — and need to be used in one way or the other), mostly connected with judicial speech.

Rhetoric II

• Ch. 1: Why persuasion through logos is insufficient — how persuasion through êthos and pathos is supposed to work.
• Ch. 2–11: Particular types of emotions ( pathê ) and their counterparts: anger (Ch. 2) — mildness (Ch. 3) — loving/friendly affection ( philia ) and hating (Ch. 4) — fear and confidence (Ch. 5) — shame and lack of shame (Ch. 6) — gratefulness and lack of gratefulness (Ch. 7) — pity (Ch. 8) — indignation plus two nameless emotions (Ch. 9) — envy (Ch. 10) — emulation or ambition (Ch.11).
• Ch. 12–17: Different types of character ( êthos ): the character of young people (Ch. 12), of elderly people (Ch. 13), of people in the prime of their life (Ch. 14), of people of noble birth (Ch. 15), of wealthy people (Ch. 16) and of powerful people (Ch. 18).
• Ch. 18: Transition to generally applicable aspects of persuasion through logos :
• Ch. 19–25: Generally applicable aspects of persuasion through logos : topoi about the possible/impossible, past and future facts, significance and insignificance (Ch. 19) — examples: factual (report) and fictitious (the parable and the fable) (Ch. 20) — maxims (Ch. 21) — the enthymeme (Ch. 22) — topoi for the construction of enthymemes (Ch. 23) — topoi for the construction of merely apparent (i.e. fallacious) enthymemes (Ch. 24) — refutation (Ch. 25).
• Ch. 26: Amplification — transition to Rhetoric III.

Rhetoric III , Ch. 1–12: Style ( lexis ):

• Ch. 1: Delivery of a speech and why style/diction should be considered.
• Ch. 2–3: The virtue and the vices of prose style: the excellent prose style is neither too banal nor above the due dignity, but appropriate — the choice of words — the role of metaphors (Ch. 2) — Four deterrent factors (or vices) of style (Ch. 3).
• Ch. 4–11: Particular ingredients of prose style: the simile (Ch. 4) — linguistic correctness (Ch. 5) — stylistic voluminousness and its contrary (Ch. 6) — appropriateness in style (Ch. 7) — periodic style (Ch. 8) — rhythm (Ch. 9) — urbanity, bringing before the eyes, metaphors (Ch. 10–11).
• Ch. 12: Written and oral style.

Rhetoric III , Ch. 13–19: Arrangement ( taxis ):

• Ch. 13: Only two parts of the speech are necessary, namely the statement and the proof of the main claim — contemporary authors of rhetorical manuals make futile subdivisions of the parts of speech — introduction of a quadripartite scheme of the speech: (1) proem, (2) statement of the main claim, (3) proof of the stated claim ( pistis ), (4) epilogue.
• Ch. 14–19: Particular parts of the speech: the proem in the three genres of speech (Ch. 14) — topoi for slandering (Ch. 15) — narration (Ch. 16) — proof ( pistis ) (Ch. 17) — interrogation (Ch. 18) — epilogue/conclusion (Ch. 19).

Aristotle stresses right from the beginning of his Rhetoric that rhetoric is closely related to dialectic. He offers several formulations to describe the affinity between these two disciplines: in the first line of the book Rhetoric rhetoric is said to be a ‘counterpart’ ( antistrophos ) to dialectic ( Rhet. I.1, 1354a1); in the second chapter of the first book it is also called an ‘outgrowth’ or ‘offshoot’ ( paraphues ti ) of dialectic and the study of character ( Rhet. I.2, 1356a25f.); finally, Aristotle says that rhetoric is part of dialectic and resembles it ( Rhet. I.2, 1356a30f.).

In saying that rhetoric is a counterpart to dialectic, Aristotle obviously wants to allude to Plato’s Gorgias (464bff.), where rhetoric is ironically defined as a counterpart to cookery in the soul. Since, in this passage, Plato uses the word ‘ antistrophos ’ to indicate an analogy, it is likely that Aristotle wants to express a kind of analogy too: what dialectic is for the (private or academic) practice of attacking and maintaining an argument, rhetoric is for the (public) practice of defending oneself or accusing an opponent.

The notion of ‘dialectic’ is prominent in the work of Aristotle’s teacher, Plato; Plato often labels his philosophical method, or certain parts of it, as dialectic. In his dialogue Gorgias (see §4 of Plato: rhetoric and poetry ), dialectic seems to be strictly opposed to rhetoric, the former aiming at the disclosure of truth, the latter allegedly aiming at ‘persuasion without knowledge’. In his Phaedrus Plato pictures the relation between dialectic and rhetoric in a different way (see §5.1 of Plato: rhetoric and poetry ); here he entertains the idea of a new philosophical rhetoric, quite different from the then contemporary style of speech writing, which rests upon dialectic, the genuine philosophical method, for acquiring genuine knowledge both of the subject matter of a speech and of the soul of the audience. When Aristotle speaks of dialectic, he certainly has his book Topics in mind, where he develops at some length an argumentative method for attacking and defending theses of any content (see §8 of Aristotle: logic ). Clearly, Aristotle’s dialectical method was inspired by Plato and by the debates in Plato’s Academy; however, while Plato often presents dialectic as a method for discovering and conveying truth, Aristotelian dialectic is strictly confined to examining particular claims or testing the consistency of a set of propositions (which in his view is different from establishing or proving the truth of a proposition). This is, in a nutshell, the context that must be kept in mind, when Aristotle presents — quite allusively — a new art of rhetoric by stressing its affinity to dialectic; obviously he plays upon his readers’ expectations concerning the meaning of dialectic and the relation between dialectic and rhetoric, as described by Plato. Those students of Plato’s Academy who were still suspicious about any engagement with rhetoric and public speech possibly received the opening of Aristotle’s Rhetoric with its postulated affinity between rhetoric and dialectic either as a provoction or as some sort of joke.

This purported analogy between rhetoric and dialectic (as conceived by Aristotle) can be substantiated by several common features of both disciplines:

• Both rhetoric and dialectic are concerned with things that do not belong to a definite genus or are not the object of a specific science.
• Both rhetoric and dialectic are not dependent on the established principles of specific sciences.
• Both rhetoric and dialectic have the function of providing arguments.
• Both rhetorical and dialectical arguments rely on assumptions or premises that are not established as true, but are only reputable or accepted by one group or the other ( endoxa ).
• Both rhetoric and dialectic are concerned with both sides of an opposition, dialectic by constructing arguments for and against any thesis, rhetoric by considering what is possibly persuasive in any given case.

This analogy to dialectic has extremely significant ramifications for the status of Aristotle’s supposedly new art of rhetoric. Plato argued in his Gorgias that rhetoric could not be an art ( technê ), since it is not related to a definite subject, while real arts are defined by their specific subjects, as e.g. medicine or shoemaking are defined by their products (health and shoes). By claiming that rhetoric and dialectic are similar or analogous, Aristotle suggests a quite different picture. The analogy is even meant to flesh out the thought that neither rhetoric nor dialectic are like ordinary arts ( technai ) or sciences with a limited, well-defined subject matter. However, this should not be seen as a drawback, or so the analogy suggests, since the alleged shortcoming, i.e. that they do not have such a definite subject matter, can be turned into a virtue, by entrusting to dialectic and rhetoric the practices that are common to all fields of rationality, namely the various practices of argumentation. For even though dialectic has no definite subject, it is easy to see that it nevertheless employs a consistent method (both in Plato’s and Aristotle’s understanding of dialectic), because dialectic has to grasp the ultimate reason why some arguments are valid and others are not. Now, if rhetoric is nothing but the counterpart to dialectic within the domain of public speech, it must be similarly grounded in an investigation of what is persuasive and what is not, and this, in turn, qualifies rhetoric as an art or, after all, as a discipline that is methodologically not inferior to dialectic.

As already indicated, it is crucial for both disciplines, dialectic and rhetoric, that they deal with arguments from accepted premises ( endoxa ). Dialecticians do not argue on the basis of established, scientific principles, but on the basis of only reputable assumptions, i.e. of what is accepted either by all or the many or the few experts. In a similar vein, rhetoricians or orators try to hit assumptions that are already accepted by their audience, because they want to persuade the addressees on the basis of their own convictions. Of course, owing to the different fields of application — philosophical–academic debates in the case of dialectic, mostly public speeches in the case of rhetoric — the situation is not quite the same. While e.g. the dialectician tries to test the consistency of a set of propositions, the rhetorician tries to achieve the persuasion of a given audience, and while dialectic proceeds by questioning and answering, rhetoric for the most part proceeds in continuous–monologic form. Still, and in spite of these differences, the method of both dialectic and rhetoric share the same core idea that they have to hit certain, accepted assumptions of their addressees — the dialectical disputant in order to get the explicit assent of the dialectical opponent, the rhetorician in order to base the rhetorical proofs on views the audience already finds convincing. Furthermore, just as the dialectician is interested in deductions and inductions for refuting the opponent’s claims, the rhetorician is interested in deductions and inductions that logically connect (or seem to connect) the audience’s existing convictions with certain other views that the rhetorician wishes to establish (see below § 6 ). For, indeed, Aristotle seems to think that arguments or proofs are central to any process of persuasion, for people are most or most easily persuaded, he says ( Rhet. I.1, 1355a3f.), when they suppose something to have been proven.

Hence the rhetorician who is willing to give a central place to arguments or (rhetorical) proofs — and this seems to be the peculiar approach to rhetoric that Aristotle suggests at the beginning of his Rhetoric — can base his or her method of persuasion to a significant extent on the method of dialectical argumentation, as expounded in Aristotle’s Topics (see Rapp 2016 and 2018). And since the notion of ‘dialectic’ is inextricably linked with a genuinely philosophical method, the implied message of this dialectical turn of rhetoric seems to be that philosophers, properly understood, have access to a method that is superior not only for internal academic discussions between philosophers, but also for the so-called ‘encounter with the many’ ( Rhet. I.1, 1355a29, Topics I.2, 101a35), i.e. for the purpose of addressing a mass audience with little or no education. As already indicated, Aristotle does not seem to have been the first to come up with the idea that ‘true’ rhetoric should become dialectical; however, while in Plato’s Phaedrus the dialectical turn of rhetoric remains a mere sketch, Aristotle’s Rhetoric does not hesitate to set this idea into operation, most notably by adapting most of the dialectical equipment developed elsewhere, especially in his Topics . In many particular instances he just imports technical vocabulary from his dialectic (e.g. protasis , sullogismos , topos , endoxon ); in many other instances he redefines traditional rhetorical notions by his dialectical inventory, e.g. the enthymeme is redefined as a deduction, the example is redefined as an induction, etc. Above all, the Rhetoric introduces the use of the so-called topoi (see below § 7 ) that is typical for the dialectical method and is otherwise only treated in Aristotle’s works on dialectic, i.e. in Topics and Sophistical Refutations .

4. The Nature and Purpose of Rhetoric

There are widely divergent views on the purpose of Aristotle’s Rhetoric . Ultimately, it is certainly meant to support those who are going to address a public audience in court, at assemblies of the people, or at certain festive events and who, to that end, have to compose speeches. But does this in itself render the Rhetoric a mere ‘manual’ or ‘handbook’ aiming at the persuasion of a given audience? Or does it rather aim at a specifically qualified type of persuasion (bringing about, e.g., conviction based on the best available grounds and without misunderstanding)? Influenced by the debate in the 20th century about ‘old and new rhetoric’ and by the work of authors such as I.A. Richards, Kenneth Burke and Wayne C. Booth on the one hand and Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur on the other, Aristotle scholars began to wonder whether his Rhetoric is an instruction manual offering guidance about how to change other people’s minds or has, rather, a philosophically more ambitious scope, such as e.g. human communication and discourse in general. This second approach is reflected in the statements of those contending that the “object of Aristotle’s treatise on rhetoric is ultimately an analysis of the nature of human discourse in all areas of knowledge.” (Grimaldi 1972, 1) or of those suggesting that it can be read as “a piece of philosophic inquiry, and judged by philosophic standards” (Garver 1994, 3). Others have diagnosed a most notable ambivalence in the Rhetoric (see Oates 1963, 335), as between its role as a practical handbook on the one hand and Aristotle’s attempt to connect it to his logic, ethics and politics on the other. Likewise, interpreters are divided on the questions of whether Aristotle’s Rhetoric is meant to be used for good and bad purposes alike or whether it is specifically tailored to implementing the good and virtuous goals delineated in Aristotle’s ethical and political writings; and whether, to that latter end, the speaker is entitled to deploy the whole range of persuasive devices, even manipulative and deceptive ones. In many instances, the text of Aristotle’s Rhetoric is open to several interpretations; however, it seems possible to restrict the range of plausible readings, e.g. by considering Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric and what he says about the internal and external ends of rhetoric.

Assuming that Aristotle’s Poetics gives instructions for how to compose good tragedies, shouldn’t we expect, then, that Aristotle’s Rhetoric is similarly meant to give instructions for how to compose good speeches? And does this, by the same token, render the art of rhetoric a sort of productive knowledge aiming at the fabrication of a speech (similar to the way the art of shoemaking aims at the fabrication of shoes)? This sounds plausible, as far as it goes (for a discussion of this issue see Leff 1993), and in a few passages (especially in Rhet. III: e.g. 1415b35, 1417a2, 1417a34f. and 36, 1418a10 and 12 and 39, 1420b1) Aristotle actually seems to directly address and instruct a speechwriter in the second person. However, these are rather exceptions to a broader tendency and it is striking that Aristotle never defines the art of rhetoric through the supposed product, the speech, nor the full command of the art of rhetoric through the perfection of the product, i.e. the excellent speech. Instead, Aristotle defines the rhetorician as someone who is always able to see what is persuasive ( Topics VI.12, 149b25); correspondingly, rhetoric is defined as the ability to see what is possibly persuasive in every given case ( Rhet. I.2, 1355b26f.). Indeed there are passages ( Rhet. I.1, 1355b15–17) in which the persuasive plays the same role in rhetoric as the conclusive plays in dialectic or logic. This is not to say that it is the defining function ( ergon ) of rhetoric to persuade, for the rhetoricians (the ones who possess the art of rhetoric) will not be able to convince people under all circumstances ( Rhet. I.1, 1355b10–14). Rather they are in a situation similar to that of physicians: the latter have a complete grasp of their art if and only if they neglect nothing that might heal their patients, although they are not expected to heal each and every patient. Similarly, rhetoricians have a complete grasp of their method, if and only if they are capable of seeing the available means of persuasion, although they are certainly not able to convince each and every audience — owing to factors that the art of rhetoric cannot alter (e.g. biases, partisanship, stubbornness or corruption of the audience). In light of this definition, it seems that the art ( technê ) of rhetoric is primarily concerned with the nature and the ingredients of persuasiveness and that the book Rhetoric is primarily concerned with elaborating the various ingredients of this art. It goes without saying that possessing such an art is useful for the composition of speeches, but might also be useful for other purposes, e.g. for assessing other people’s speeches, for analysing the persuasive potential of competing cases, etc.

For Aristotle, who defines rhetoric in terms of considering what is persuasive (see above § 4.1 ) and sees it as a branch of dialectic (see above § 3 ), rhetoric is clearly not a matter of finding or conveying knowledge. For Plato (see §4 of Plato: rhetoric and poetry ), by contrast, this would have been reason enough to become suspicious about the intentions of those who use rhetorical techniques. Isn’t any technique of persuasion that is negligent of knowledge useful only for those who want to outwit their audience and conceal their real aims? For, after all, someone who just wants to communicate the naked truth could be straightforward and would not need to employ rhetorical gimmicks. This, however, is not Aristotle’s point of view: Even those who are simply trying to establish what is just and true need the help of rhetoric when they are faced with a public audience. Aristotle points out that it is impossible to teach such an audience, even if the speaker has the most exact knowledge of the subject ( Rhet. I.1, 1355a24–29). Perhaps he is thinking of ordinary people attending a public speech who are not able to follow the kind of argument that, according to Aristotle’s theory of knowledge (see §6 of Aristotle: logic ), is apt to establish genuine knowledge. Moreover, he seems to doubt that the controversial, sometimes partisan and hostile, setting of political or judicial speeches is suitable for teaching and learning at all, since whoever wishes to learn has to presuppose that he or she won’t be cheated or deceived by the teacher. But why should one trust the intentions of the opposing party? This is why rhetorical arguments addressing public audiences should be taken from premises that are likely to be accepted by the given audience, from assumptions the audience is already convinced of, and not from the kind of principles (accepted mostly or only by the experts) through which one conveys and establishes knowledge.

More than that, one might wonder whether the typical subject of public speeches really allows of genuine knowledge. In court for example, the judges have to form a reasoned view about whether the accused person is guilty or not and whether the crime committed is minor or major; in political speeches the parties might contend about whether it is advantageous or not to invade the neighbour’s territory or to build a border wall (Aristotle’s examples), but none of these questions allow of precise knowledge. Aristotle says that in some questions treated in public speeches there is only amphidoxein , i.e. room for doubt and only divided opinions ( Rhet. I.2, 1356a8). From this perspective, rhetoric seems useful especially for controversies about contingent matters that cannot be fixed by appealing to what we unmistakably know, but only by appealing to widely shared convictions, to what happens (not necessarily, but) only for the most part and to what is likely to be the case (but not necessarily so). For all those reasons, affecting the decisions of juries and assemblies is a matter of persuasiveness, not of knowledge. It is true that some people manage to be persuasive either at random or by habit, but it is rhetoric that gives us a method to systematically disclose all available means of persuasion on any topic whatsoever.

When Aristotle speaks about the benefits of the art of rhetoric he also mentions that it is not only disgraceful when one is unable to defend oneself physically, but also when one is unable to defend oneself through rational speech, for rationality and speech are more peculiar to human beings than physical strength ( Rhet. I.1, 1355a38–b2). A certain familiarity with rhetoric is therefore required for sheer self-defence — in general and, perhaps, especially under the conditions of the extreme Athenian form of democracy with its huge courts of lay assessors (one of which sentenced Socrates to death) and with demagogues who would abuse the democratic rules for a coup d’état. Perhaps Aristotle is addressing fellow philosophers who find it beneath their dignity to engage with rhetoric: it is not sublime but naive and embarrassing if they do not gear up for political and legal battles. For those who are defeated in court when they try to defend what is true and just (due to the failure to speak persuasively) are to be blamed ( Rhet. I.1, 1355a20–24).

Possessing the art of rhetoric is useful then even for those whose sole intent is to defend what they take to be true and just. Still, can’t the same art of rhetoric be misused, e.g. when practised by people with malicious intentions? The short answer is: Yes, of course. Rhetoric in general and even Aristotle’s dialectic-based rhetoric can be misused depending on what people use it for what purposes. (And Aristotle himself is actually aware of the fact that demagogues of his time use a certain style of rhetoric for overthrowing the democratic order: Politics V.5, 1304b21–1305a15). The more elaborate answer that he gives is this. The art of rhetoric (if based on dialectic: see above § 3 ) is useful partly because it facilitates persuasive argument for the opposites, i.e. on either side of a question. This is first of all seen as an advantage in competence, for people who have full command of this art won’t miss any persuasive aspect of a given question, and this is also seen as a practical advantage, for it helps to detect what goes wrong in the opponent’s arguments (1355a29–38), especially if those opponents use it for objectionable purposes. That this peculiar feature of dialectic-based rhetoric opens the door for misuse is true, but this cannot be held against the art of rhetoric, since the same ambivalence (that something can be used for the better or for the worse) applies to most goods (e.g. wealth, beauty — the only non-ambivalent good is, on Aristotle’s view, virtue). Also, Aristotle downplays the risk of misuse by stressing that it is easier to convince someone of the just and good than of their opposites (especially when using the Aristotelian style of rhetoric).

Still, for many interpreters of Aristotle, from the times of the great Roman rhetoricians on, it is hard to embrace the thought that Aristotle — the famous author of the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics — who in his ethical work praises the life in accordance with human virtue, could ever endorse a rhetorical project that is not meant to promote virtue and happiness in the city-state ( polis ). Is it, in other words, possible or likely that Aristotle, whose name in the history of moral philosophy stands for an ethics based on the sustainable development of moral virtues, endorses a technique of rhetoric that does not serve the purpose of promoting virtuous goals? This is a legitimate worry. It can be addressed by distinguishing internal from external ends of rhetoric (which is, to be sure, not Aristotle’s distinction; however, he uses a similar distinction between a thing’s proper function, corresponding to the internal end, and the question what something is useful for, corresponding to the external end). The internal end, i.e. the function that defines the art of rhetoric, is to consider what is persuasive (see above § 4.1 ), and since there might be persuasive aspects on both sides of a question, the art of rhetoric as such — i.e. according to its internal end — is neutral with regard to true and false, just and unjust, noble and wicked points of view. It can be equally used for promoting good or bad positions (even though, as Aristotle says, it is easier to promote the good ones). All this follows from the dialectical character of Aristotle’s art of rhetoric (see above § 3 ). If we are interested, by contrast, in the external ends of rhetoric, i.e. the question of what it is useful for (see above § 4.2 ) or the question of how Aristotle himself wants this art to be used, then it is easy to contrive a plausible story either based on Aristotle’s ethico-political writings or on hints given in the Rhetoric itself (see e.g. Dow 2015, 64–75, for such an attempt) about the morally desirable uses of a style of rhetoric that is based on arguments (sanctioning convicted offenders, defending innocent culprits, averting political decisions that are likely to do harm to the city-state, voicing the point of view of the decent citizens, defending the rule of law, standing up to insurrectionists and demagogues, etc.).

Obviously, Aristotle’s rhetoric is not thought to be normative in the moral sense that it would only provide the means for persuading people of what is true, just and noble (but not of their opposites; see section § 4.3 above). There is however the widespread intuition that Aristotle’s rhetoric crucially differs from manuals of rhetoric that recommend doing whatever it takes to win a case. This becomes clear already in the beginning of Rhet. I.1, where Aristotle criticizes his predecessors among other things for presenting techniques that are not derived from any art ( technê ), such as slander and the arousal of pity and anger. He accuses them of dwelling on methods that instruct how to speak “outside the subject” and to distract the attention of the hearers from the subject, while good legislation, he says, requires not speaking outside the subject at all (indeed, “speaking outside the subject” was a legal term in Athenian law of Aristotle’s time). This immediately suggests two senses in which Aristotle’s rhetoric is normative and does not advocate an ‘anything goes’-approach to persuasion: first, the rhetorical devices are required to flow from the art or method of rhetoric and, second, they must not be “outside the subject”. As for the first criterion, Aristotle requires that art-based means of persuasion must be provided by the speech alone and must rely on the systematic analysis of what is persuasive in a given case (see the definition of rhetoric in § 4.1 above). As for the second criterion, it is striking that Aristotle refers to judges or jurors who just “surrender to one of the litigants without really judging” ( Rhet. I.1, 1354b34–1355a1), which might be taken to mean that those people cast their votes in favour of the party they side with, but that their votes are not based on a judgement that really considers the case at hand. This formulates a minimally normative criterion for what the rhetorical art aims at, namely the formation of a judgement in the audience that deserves to be called a ‘judgement’, i.e. that it judges something , namely what the judges or jurors are asked to judge. And it seems that in rhetorical persuasion the use of rhetorical devices that are based on the art and are related to the case at hand are more apt to bring about judgements in this genuine sense of the word.

By all appearances, it seems then that Aristotle’s rhetoric is not indifferent with regard to the persuasive means deployed. The effect that speakers using the Aristotelian style of rhetoric can bring about in the audience is thus qualified by the limited range of techniques (based on the art of rhetoric) they use, which means that they do not try to bring the audience over to their side at any cost, but only on the basis of an argumentation that actually addresses the point at issue. In this sense one might say that Aristotle’s rhetorical method aims at something like ‘persuasion based on arguments’, ‘reasonable persuasion’ or a ‘reasoned judgment’ on the audience’s part.

Even if this much is agreed upon, there remains a lot of room for scholarly disagreement on what exactly this normative approach to rhetoric is meant to imply. Is this normativity grounded in the requirements of the art ( technê ) alone, e.g. what can and what cannot be achieved in a methodical way, or does it hinge on an envisaged effect, e.g. the best possible judgement on the hearer’s part? And which methods are approved by this normative approach and which definitely excluded? Does Aristotle’s art of rhetoric require, above all, that persuasion be centred on arguments and proofs (that are related to the thing at issue and are, thus, pertinent), while other art-based means of persuasion (see below § 5 ) are mostly thought to offer support to get one’s arguments through (see e.g. Rapp 2012)? Or does the art aim at enhancing only “well-founded” judgements or judgements that are “formed on the basis of good grounds for conviction”, requiring that each particular means of persuasion provide such a good ground for conviction (see Dow 2014 and Dow 2015)?

5. The Three Means of Persuasion

The methodical core of Aristotle’s Rhetoric is the theorem that there are three ‘technical’ pisteis , i.e. ‘persuaders’ or ‘means of persuasion’. Persuasion comes about either through the character ( êthos ) of the speaker, the emotional state ( pathos ) of the hearer, or the argument ( logos ) itself. The structure of Rhetoric I & II & is determined by this tripartition (see § 2 above). The attribute ‘technical’ seems to imply several things: (i) Technical persuasion must rest on a method or art ( technê ), and this, in turn, is to say that we must know the reason why some things are persuasive and some are not. (ii) Further, technical persuasion must rest on a complete analysis of what is possibly persuasive (see above § 4.1 ), and not on the random use of scattered persuasive factors. (iii) Technical means of persuasion must be provided by the speakers themselves and through the speech, whereas pre-existing facts, such as oaths, witnesses, testimonies, etc. are non-technical, since they cannot be brought about by the speaker. (iv) Given that Aristotle criticizes his predecessors, because they deal with non-technical persuasive devices instructing how to speak “outside the subject” (see section § 4.4 above), one might speculate whether the technical means of persuasion are required, vice versa, to actually address the things at issue .

Why just these three? And why only these three? Aristotle does not give an elaborate defence of this tripartition. However, he says in a different context that a speech consists of three things: the speaker, the subject that is treated in the speech, and the listener to whom the speech is addressed ( Rhet. I.3, 1358a37ff.). Probably, he thinks that each of these three ingredients of a speech contributes to persuasion in a specific way, in that persuasion either flows from the person of speaker, namely that he or she comes across as credible, or from the condition of the hearer, i.e. whether they are in an emotional state and which emotional state they are in or from the subject that is treated in the speech, i.e. from the arguments or proofs that are meant to support a suggested point of view. Summarizing the account of the three pisteis in a later section of the book, Aristotle actually insists that there can be no other technical means of persuasion:

It has already been spoken about the means of persuasion ( pisteis ), from how many things they are, namely that they are from three things, and what kind of things these are, and why there are only these three; for all people who are casting judgements are persuaded either because they themselves are affected, or because they assume that the speakers are a certain kind of person or because something has been proven. ( Rhet. III.1, 1403b10–13)

With regard to the speaker, persuasion is accomplished whenever the speech is held in such a way as to render the speaker worthy of credence. How is it exactly that the credibility of the speaker contributes to persuasion? Aristotle is not overly explicit on this issue. However, he says that people follow the trustworthy speaker more easily and more quickly on almost all subjects and completely so in affairs in which there are not exact criteria (to decide the case), but only wavering opinions ( Rhet. I.2, 1356a6–8). This might be taken to mean that in the absence of other criteria to decide a case, the audience will form the second-order judgment that suggestions put forward by a credible speaker are themselves received as trustworthy and acceptable. Also, according to this remark, the impact of what seems to be the speaker’s character comes in degrees; it is most important, if the point of issue is such that it leaves room for doubt and cannot be decided by conclusive proofs.

But how does the speaker manage to appear a credible person? Even though Aristotle says that the speaker’s character can have the greatest impact on the hearers’ judgement (especially in deliberative speeches that are about future states of affairs), he dedicates only fifteen lines to this question. ( Rhet. II.1, 1378a6–20). Speakers, he says, must display (i) practical intelligence, prudence or competence ( phronêsis ), (ii) a virtuous character, and (iii) good will; for, if they displayed none of them, the audience would doubt that they are able to give good advice at all. Again, if they displayed (i) without (ii) and (iii), the audience could doubt whether their aims or intentions are good. Finally, if he displayed (i) and (ii) without (iii), the audience could still doubt whether they are giving the best suggestion or whether they keep the best available suggestion for themselves due to their lack of benevolence. However, if they display all of them, Aristotle concludes, it cannot rationally be doubted that their suggestions are trustworthy. It should be stressed that the speakers must accomplish these effects by what they say in the speech; it is not necessary that they are actually virtuous persons: on the contrary, a pre-existing good character cannot be part of the technical means of persuasion. Also, even a person with outstandingly virtuous character would have to present herself as virtuous by what she says in the speech.

With regard to the hearer, persuasion comes about whenever the hearers are led by the speech to feel a certain emotion or passion that, in turn, has an impact on the judgement they are going to make. The underlying assumption of this persuasive technique is that people’s emotional states broadly conceived — i.e. whether they actually undergo an episode of emotion or not and what kind of emotion they feel — makes a difference for the formation of the judgement they are about to pass. Indeed, Aristotle even introduces the emotions or passions ( pathê ) in an important passage ( Rhet. II.1, 1378a20–30) by saying that they are “those things due to which people, by undergoing a change, differ in their judgements ...”. He illustrates this general assumption by pointing out that we do not judge in the same way when we grieve and rejoice or when we are friendly and hostile. It therefore seems that the speaker has to arouse emotions exactly because emotions have the power to modify our judgments: e.g. to a juror or judge who is in a friendly mood, the person about whom he or she is going to judge seems not to do wrong or only in a small way; but to the juror or judge who is in an angry mood, the same person will seem to do the opposite (see Rhet. II.1, 1378a1ff.). Since rhetoric aims at steering the hearers’ judgement and since emotions, thus, have a significant impact on the formation of judgements (on the various ways how emotions, according to Aristotle, can alter our judgements see Leighton 1982), the rhetorical method requires to address the emotional states of the hearers, if only in order to calm down adverse feelings or emotions that are likely to prevent the jurors or judges from forming their judgement in accordance with the presented evidence and arguments.

Some scholars writing on the rhetorical use of emotions take it to be significant that emotions also play a crucial role in Aristotle’s moral philosophy, for Aristotle defines the virtuous person not only by performing the right actions, but also by having and by being motivated through the appropriate sort of emotions. Applying this to the rhetorical situation, one might wonder whether in Aristotle’s art of rhetoric the speaker tries to arouse emotions, in order (i) to motivate the audience (e.g. motivate them to act in accordance with the judgement they pass) or (ii) to turn them into better persons (e.g. by providing and making them familiar with the appropriate emotions that are definitory of the virtuous persons). However, both options are not backed by the evidence given in the text of the Rhetoric . With regard to (i), it seems crucial to note that the aim of rhetorical persuasion is a certain judgement ( krisis ), not an action or practical decision ( prohairesis ), which would intrinsically involve a specific sort of desire and motivation (see e.g. Kontos 2021, 20–31). While the practical decision that Aristotle discusses in his ethical writings is always about things the agents themselves are able to do, the judgements of the hearers of a public speech are often about things to be done by other agents or about actions that took place in the past. With regard to (ii), one might be reluctant to accept that moral education might be the direct purpose of the kind of public speeches Aristotle has in mind. At least, no such moral purpose is mentioned when Aristotle addresses the purpose and use of rhetoric (see above § 4 ). It is also significant that the appropriateness of the aroused emotions (in accordance with Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean) is nowhere discussed in the Rhetoric . More than that, Aristotle seems to think that moral education requires individual habituation and habituation is a matter of gradually adjusting a person’s attitudes and hedonic responses, while the uneducated ones are not really responsive to disciplinary allocutions. For all these reasons, he is not too optimistic with regard to the pedagogical effect of public speeches: “Now if speeches were in themselves enough to make men good, they would justly, as Theognis says, have won very great rewards, and such rewards should have been provided; but as things are … they are not able to encourage the many to nobility and goodness” ( EN X.9, 1179b4–10).

But how is it possible for the orator, in the first place, to lead the audience to feel a certain emotion? After all, the technical means of persuasion are restricted to what the speakers say in a speech. It is remarkable that Aristotle’s treatment of several types of emotions in Chapters 2–11 of Rhet. II is based on the definition of each type of emotion. Even though Aristotle mostly leaves it to the reader to infer how these definitions are useful for arousing a particular type of emotion, it seems safe to conclude that these definitions are meant to offer the key to the methodical arousal of emotions in the audience. Let, for example, anger be defined as “desire, accompanied with pain, for conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight that was directed against oneself or those near to one, when such a slight is undeserved.” ( Rhet . II.2 1378a31–33). According to such a definition, someone who takes it to be the case that he or she has suffered a slight from a person who is not entitled to do so, etc., will, all other things being equal, become angry. Obviously, this presupposes an account of emotions according to which emotions are closely related to what people think or take to be the case. Unfortunately and owing to the overall nature of Aristotle’s Rhetoric , this underlying account of emotion is nowhere explicitly unfolded and defended. What we can infer though is that Aristotle assumes at least a covariance between someone’s thought or opinion that she has been slighted undeservedly and her feeling of anger. If that much is granted and if the speakers have access to such definitions of each type of emotions, it is possible to deduce conditions under which a person is likely to feel this particular type of emotion. And if the speakers manage to make the hearers think — by what they say — that these conditions are given, it is likely, as far as this method goes, that the hearers will feel the corresponding emotion. Aristotle himself suggests the following example. If we take the above-mentioned definition of anger for granted, it is possible to deduce circumstances in which a person will become angry; most notably, we can deduce (i) in what state of mind people are angry and (ii) against whom they are angry and (iii) for what sorts of reason. If we want to make an audience angry, we have to address all three factors, making the hearers think (ii) that there are people who deserve their anger, (iii) that there is a reason for being angry (a slight, an insult, a belittlement, etc.) and (i) by bringing them into a state of mind in which they are prone to anger. Aristotle himself shows how to deduce these three factors for each particular type of emotion throughout chapters II.2–11. With this equipment, the speaker will be able, for example, to highlight such characteristics of a case as are likely to provoke anger in the audience. In comparison with the tricks of former rhetoricians (which, Aristotle thinks, are bound to speak “outside the subject”), this method of arousing emotions has a striking advantage: The speaker who wants to arouse emotions need not even speak “outside the subject” or distract from the thing at issue; it is sufficient to detect aspects of a given subject that are connected with the intended emotion and to make the addressee think that certain emotion-provoking aspects, in accordance with the three factors mentioned above, are given.

Supplement on Judgemental and Non-Judgemental Accounts of Aristotelian Emotions

With regard to the subject the speech is about, persuasion comes about through arguments, i.e. by proving (or seemingly proving) that something is the case. Most probably, this is meant to take up the idea mentioned above, i.e. that people are most or most easily persuaded, when they suppose something to have been proven ( Rhet. I.1, 1355a3f.). This third means of persuasion ( pistis ) is distinguished from the other two means of persuasion through being the only probative ( apodeiktikos ) device of persuasion; due to its argument-like structure, involving premises and a conclusion, it can directly argue for the point of view that the speaker wishes to establish. It does so by inferentially connecting the suggested conclusion with facts that are evident or with convictions already held by the audience. Probative persuasion is essential, since, at the end of the day, each speech necessarily involves a claim (i.e. the point of view the speaker suggests) plus the proofs that are given in support of this claim ( Rhet. III.13, 1414a30–36). For Aristotle, there are two species of arguments: inductions and deductions ( Posterior Analytics I.1, 71a5ff.). Induction ( epagôgê ) is defined as the proceeding from particulars up to a universal ( Topics I.12, 105a13ff.). A deduction ( sullogismos ) is an argument in which, certain things having been supposed, something different from the suppositions results of necessity through them ( Topics I.1, 100a25ff.) or because of their being true ( Prior Analytics I.2, 24b18–20). The inductive argument in rhetoric is the example ( paradeigma ); unlike other inductive arguments, it does not proceed from many particular cases to one universal case, but from one particular to a similar particular if both particulars fall under the same genus ( Rhet. I.2, 1357b25ff.). The deductive argument in rhetoric is the enthymeme (see below § 6 ). Indeed, most of Rhet. I & II is dedicated to the treatment of this third probative means of persuasion: After the second part of the long chapter Rhet. I.2 has introduced basic distinctions within the probative mode of persuasion, chapters Rhet. I.4–15 unfold argumentative devices that are specific to the three genres of speech, while chapters Rhet. II.4–26 discuss generally applicable aspects of proofs or arguments (see above § 2 ).

Aristotle repeatedly says that these rhetorical arguments persuade people either by proving or by (merely) seeming to prove ( Rhet. I.2, 1356a3–4 and I.2, 1356a19–20); accordingly, he lists topoi for real ( Rhet. II.23) and merely apparent enthymemes ( Rhet. II.24) (see below § 7 ). Obviously, Aristotle refers here to fallacious or deceptive arguments, for these arguments have a similar persuasive effect, if the fallacy or deception goes unnoticed by the audience (for people will think , i.e. take it to be the case, that something has been proven). One might wonder whether the inclusion of only seemingly probative arguments is compatible with Aristotle’s general tendency to base rhetorical persuasion on (real) proofs. However, the treatment of fallacious rhetorical arguments is strictly parallel to what happens in the case of dialectic. For dialectic too, includes a part dealing with sound or valid arguments (namely in Topics II–VII) and a part that analyses fallacious arguments (namely in the Sophistical Refutations ). It is part of the rhetorician’s competence also to know about fallacious arguments, if only in order to detect them, when they are used by opponents.

One of the most notorious debates about Aristotle’s Rhetoric concerns the second means of persuasion ( pistis ) that is said to proceed through the emotions of the hearer (see above § 5.2 ), for it seems to involve a major inconsistency in Aristotle’s approach to rhetorical persuasion: While in Rhetoric I.2 Aristotle is happy to accept emotions or the arousal of emotions as one of the three ‘technical’ pisteis , it seems that he has a much more reserved or even repudiating attitude to the rhetorical use of emotions in Rhetoric I.1. There, in the very first chapter of the book, Aristotle claims that the previous authors of rhetorical manuals have only covered a small part of the art of persuasion, for while only the proofs or means of persuasion ( pisteis ), such as the enthymeme, are a matter of technê , those authors mostly dealt with rhetorical devices that are merely supplementary and involve “speaking outside the subject”. Aristotle exemplifies this alleged tendency of his predecessors by adding that “slander, pity, anger and suchlike passions of the soul” are not about the things at issue, but are directed at the person of the juror or judge (1354a11–18). Briefly afterwards he adds that one “should not distort the juror or judge by arousing anger, fear or pity in him”, which, he says, would be like making the standard or yardstick crooked before using it (1354a24–26). Apart from the fact that Rhetoric I.2 endorses the rhetorical use of emotions, while Rhetoric I.1 seems to dismiss them, the remarks in Rhetoric I.1 seems to imply that the arousal of emotions is not or cannot be ‘technical’, while Rhetoric I.2 unequivocally introduces persuasion through the emotions of the hearer as one of three ‘technical’ means of persuasion.

Various strategies have been contrived to deal with this seeming inconsistency. In the early 20th century there was the tendency to think that the two chapters are simply incompatible and that either one of these two chapters was written by a different author (Marx 1900) or that the two chapters were put together by an inept editor (Kantelhardt 1911; in a similar vein, Barnes (1995, 262) argues that the two chapters are doublets, one of them originally written to supplant the other) or that the two chapters represent different stages in Aristotle’s philosophical development (Solmsen 1929). Even though Solmen’s developmental account has gone out of fashion, there are more recent authors who emphasize the alleged ‘Platonic’ character of Rhetoric I.1 (see e.g. Fortenbaugh 1986, 248 and Schuetrumpf 1994, 106f.), thus implying that Aristotle, when writing this chapter, was still under the influence of Plato, from which he gradually emancipated himself. However, one might wonder whether some of the strategies mentioned tend to exaggerate the alleged inconsistency of the two chapters, since, after all, it is obvious that the two chapters have different agendas (see above § 2 ) and that some of the differences might be due to these different agendas. Also, in the later chapter Aristotle is happy to refer back to the treatment of emotions in the previous chapter (1356a16–17), which indicates (provided that this back-reference is authentic) that he himself was not aware of any inconsistency. It has hence been suggested e.g. that the seeming inconsistency can be fixed just by identifying different meanings of the word pistis for the two chapters (Grimaldi 1957), which would solve the problem that in one chapter emotions are said to be a pistis in the ‘technical’ sense, while in the other chapter they are opposed to ‘technical’ pisteis . Sprute 1994 and, similarly, Schuetrumpf 1994 argue that the chapters are not inconsistent, but envisage different settings, in that Rhetoric I.1 considers the kind of rhetoric that is apt for a well-ordered city, while Rhetoric I.2 moves on to the style of rhetoric that is required and practiced under less ideal political circumstances. Rapp 2002 (I 364, II 32f., 109, 112) proposes that what Aristotle primarily criticizes in Rhetoric I.1 is not that those predecessors deal with emotions at all, but that they mostly deal with emotions and the like, which are merely supplementary, instead of dealing with the main point, i.e. the enthymeme, and that they use pre-fabricated formulae for the arousal of emotions, by which they are bound to speak outside the things at issue. Dow 2007 uses a similar idea of set-piece rhetorical devices, going however beyond the previous suggestion by saying that the critique of Rhetoric I.1 does not, as it may seem, refer to emotions strictly speaking, but only to such set-piece rhetorical devices aimed at manipulating emotions. On these accounts it is possible, at least, to reconcile the claims that there is a ‘technical’ and innocent (or, perhaps, even beneficial) use of emotions within the art-based process of persuasion, as maintained in Rhetoric I.2, and that there are non-‘technical’ uses of emotions in rhetoric with the potential to distort the judgement, as emphasized in Rhetoric I.1.

6. The Enthymeme

For Aristotle, an enthymeme is what has the function of a proof or demonstration in the domain of public speech. Since a demonstration is a kind of sullogismos , the enthymeme is said to be a sullogismos too (on the enthymeme and its relation to syllogistic theory see also Raphael 1974). The word ‘ enthymeme ’ (from ‘ enthumeisthai —to consider’) had already been coined by Aristotle’s predecessors and originally designated clever sayings, bon mots, and short arguments involving a paradox or contradiction. The concepts ‘proof’ ( apodeixis ) and ‘ sullogismos ’ play a crucial role in Aristotle’s logical-dialectical theory. In applying them to a term of conventional rhetoric, Aristotle appeals to a well-known rhetorical technique, but, at the same time, codifies and redefines the original meaning of ‘enthymeme’: properly understood, what people call ‘enthymeme’ should have the form of a sullogismos , i.e., a deductive argument.

A major scholarly debate concerns the question of whether the enthymeme is actually meant to be a genuine sullogismos , i.e. a deductive argument, or whether it is only a ‘ sullogismos of a kind’, i.e. a sullogismos in an attenuated sense, which would amount to saying that Aristotelian enthymemes, even though they are introduced as sullogismoi , are or include ‘relaxed inferences’, i.e. inferences that are not logically valid (see Burnyeat 1994, 1996). This suggestion has been widely accepted, presumably because it helps to solve the alleged paradox that, although Aristotle defines the enthymeme as a sullogismos , the logical form of the enthymemes that are actually given as examples in the Rhetoric does not seem to conform to that of the categorical syllogisms that we know from his Prior Analytics (a problem that, by the way, might also be addressed by assuming that the enthymeme corresponds to the form of deductive arguments we find in the Topics , not to the ones familiar from the Prior Analytics ). Others accepted this suggestion primarily in order to accommodate the non-necessary sign arguments from Rhetoric I.2 (see § 6.5 ), which are treated as a type of enthymeme (without being flagged as merely ‘seeming enthymeme’), but are said not to yield a sullogismos (see e.g. Allen 2001).

Supplement on the Thesis that Enthymemes are Relaxed Inferences

In general, Aristotle regards deductive arguments as a set of propositions in which some sentences are premises and one is the conclusion, and the inference from the premises to the conclusion is guaranteed by the premises alone. Since enthymemes in the proper sense are expected to be deductive arguments, the minimal requirement for the formulation of enthymemes is that they have to display the premise-conclusion structure of deductive arguments. This is why enthymemes have to include a statement as well as a kind of reason for the given statement. Typically this reason is given in a conditional ‘if’-clause or a causal ‘since’- or ‘for’-clause. Examples of the former, conditional type are: “If not even the gods know everything, human beings can hardly do so.” “If the war is the cause of present evils, things should be set right by making peace.” Examples of the latter, causal type are: “One should not be educated, for one ought not be envied (and educated people are usually envied).” “She has given birth, for she has milk.” Aristotle stresses that the proposition “There is no man among us who is free” taken by itself is a maxim, but becomes an enthymeme as soon as it is used together with a reason such as “for all are slaves of money or of chance (and no slave of money or chance is free).” Sometimes the required reason may even be implicit, as e.g. in the proposition “As a mortal, do not cherish immortal anger” the reason why one should not cherish mortal anger is implicitly given in the term “immortal,” which alludes to the rule that it is not appropriate for mortal beings to have such an attitude.

Aristotle calls the enthymeme the “body of persuasion”, implying that everything else is only an addition or accident to the core of the persuasive process. The reason why the enthymeme, as the rhetorical kind of proof or demonstration, should be regarded as central to the rhetorical process of persuasion is that we are most easily persuaded when we think that something has been demonstrated. Hence, the basic idea of a rhetorical demonstration seems to be this: In order to make a target group believe that q , the orator must first select a proposition p or some propositions p 1 … p n that are already accepted by the target group; secondly he has to show that q can be derived from p or p 1 … p n , using p or p 1 … p n as premises. Given that the target persons form their beliefs in accordance with rational standards, they will accept q as soon as they understand that q can be demonstrated on the basis of their own opinions.

Consequently, the construction of enthymemes is primarily a matter of deducing from accepted opinions ( endoxa ). Of course, it is also possible to use premises that are not commonly accepted by themselves, but can be derived from commonly accepted opinions; other premises are only accepted since the speaker is held to be credible; still other enthymemes are built from signs: see § 6.5 . That a deduction is made from accepted opinions—as opposed to deductions from first and true sentences or principles—is the defining feature of dialectical argumentation in the Aristotelian sense. Thus, the formulation of enthymemes is a matter of dialectic, and the dialectician has the competence that is needed for the construction of enthymemes. If enthymemes are a subclass of dialectical arguments, then it is natural to expect a specific difference by which one can tell enthymemes apart from all other kinds of dialectical arguments (traditionally, commentators regarded logical incompleteness as such a difference; for some objections against the traditional view, see § 6.4 ). Nevertheless, this expectation is somehow misguided: The enthymeme is different from other kinds of dialectical arguments insofar as it is used in the rhetorical context of public speech (and rhetorical arguments are called ‘enthymemes’); thus, no further formal or qualitative differences are needed.

However, in the rhetorical context there are two factors that the dialectician has to keep in mind if she wants to become a rhetorician too, and if the dialectical argument is to become a successful enthymeme. First, the typical subjects of public speech do not—like the subjects of dialectic and theoretical philosophy—belong to the things that are necessarily the case, but are among those things that are the goal of practical deliberation and can also be otherwise. Second, as opposed to well-trained dialecticians, the audience of a public speech is characterized by an intellectual insufficiency; above all, the members of a jury or assembly are not accustomed to following a longer chain of inferences. Therefore, enthymemes must not be as precise as a scientific demonstration and should be shorter than ordinary dialectical arguments. This, however, is not to say that the enthymeme is defined by incompleteness and brevity. Rather, it is a sign of a well-executed enthymeme that the content and the number of its premises are adjusted to the intellectual capacities of the public audience; but even an enthymeme that failed to incorporate these qualities would still be an enthymeme.

In a well-known passage ( Rhet. I.2, 1357a7–18; similar: Rhet. II.22, 1395b24–26), Aristotle says that the enthymeme often has few or even fewer premises than some other deductions ( sullogismoi) . Since most interpreters refer the word ‘ sullogismos ’ to the syllogistic theory (see the entry on Aristotle: logic ), according to which a proper deduction has exactly two premises, those lines have led to the widespread understanding that Aristotle defines the enthymeme as a sullogismos in which one of two premises has been suppressed, i.e., as an abbreviated, incomplete syllogism. But certainly the passages mentioned do not attempt to give a definition of the enthymeme, nor does the word ‘ sullogismos ’ necessarily refer to deductions with exactly two premises. Properly understood, both passages are about the selection of appropriate premises, not about logical incompleteness. The remark that enthymemes often have few or fewer premises concludes the discussion of two possible mistakes the orator could make ( Rhet . I.2, 1357a7–10): One can draw conclusions from things that have previously been deduced or from things that have not been deduced yet. The latter method is unpersuasive, for the premises are not accepted, nor have they been introduced. The former method is problematic, too: if the orator has to introduce the needed premises by another deduction, and the premises of this pre-deduction too, etc., one will end up with a long chain of deductions. Arguments with several deductive steps are common in dialectical practice, but one cannot expect the audience of a public speech to follow such long arguments. This is why Aristotle says that the enthymeme is and should be from fewer premises.

Supplement on The Brevity of the Enthymeme

Just as there is a difference between real and apparent or fallacious deductions in dialectic, we have to distinguish between real and apparent or fallacious enthymemes in rhetoric. The topoi for real enthymemes are given in chapter II.23, for fallacious enthymemes in chapter II.24. The fallacious enthymeme pretends to include a valid deduction, while it actually rests on a fallacious inference.

Further, Aristotle distinguishes between enthymemes taken from probable ( eikos ) premises and enthymemes taken from signs ( sêmeia ). ( Rhet . I.2, 1357a32–33). In a different context, he says that enthymemes are based on probabilities, examples, tekmêria (i.e., proofs, evidences), and signs ( Rhet . II.25, 1402b12–14). Since the so-called tekmêria are a subclass of signs and the examples are used to establish general premises, this is only an extension of the former classification. (Note that neither classification interferes with the idea that premises have to be accepted opinions: with respect to the signs, the audience must believe that they exist and accept that they indicate the existence of something else, and with respect to the probabilities, people must accept that something is likely to happen.) However, it is not clear whether this is meant to be an exhaustive typology. That most of the rhetorical arguments are taken from probable premises (“For the most part it is true that …” “It is likely that …”) is due to the typical subjects of public speech, which are rarely necessary. When using a sign-argument or sign-enthymeme we do not try to explain a given fact; we just indicate that something exists or is the case: “… anything such that when it is another thing is, or when it has come into being, the other has come into being before or after, is a sign of the other’s being or having come into being.” ( Prior Analytics II.27, 70a7ff.). But there are several types of sign-arguments too; Aristotle offers the following examples:

Sign-arguments of type (i) and (iii) can always be refuted, even if the premises are true; that is to say that they do not include a valid deduction ( sullogismos ); Aristotle calls them asullogistos (non-deductive). Sign-arguments of type (ii) can never be refuted if the premise is true, since, for example, it is not possible that someone has fever without being ill, or that someone has milk without having given birth, etc. This latter type of sign-enthymemes is necessary and is also called tekmêrion (proof, evidence). Now, if some sign-enthymemes are valid deductions and some are not, it is tempting to ask whether Aristotle regarded the non-necessary sign-enthymemes as apparent or fallacious arguments. However, there seems to be a more attractive reading: We accept a fallacious argument only if we are deceived about its logical form. But we could regard, for example, the inference “She is pregnant, since she is pale” as a good and informative argument, even if we know that it does not include a logically necessary inference. So it seems as if Aristotle didn’t regard all non-necessary sign-arguments as fallacious or deceptive; but even if this is true, it is difficult for Aristotle to determine the sense in which non-necessary sign-enthymemes are valid arguments, since he is bound to the alternatives of deduction and induction, and neither class seems appropriate for non-necessary sign-arguments.

7. The Topoi

Generally speaking, an Aristotelian topos (‘place’, ‘location’) is an argumentative scheme that enables a dialectician or rhetorician to construe an argument for a given conclusion. The first comprehensive and systematic collection of topoi is given in Aristotle’s treatise Topics . Still, the use of so-called topoi or ‘ loci communes ’ can be traced back to early rhetoricians such as Protagoras, Gorgias (cp. Cicero, Brutus , 46–48) and Isocrates. But while in earlier rhetoric a topos was mostly understood as a complete, pre-fabricated pattern or formula that can be mentioned at a certain stage of the speech to produce a certain effect, most of the Aristotelian topoi , in particular most of the dialectical topoi of the Topics , are general instructions saying that a conclusion of a certain form can be derived from premises of a certain form; and because of this ‘formal’, ‘semi-formal’ or, at least topic-neutral character of Aristotle’s dialectical topoi , one topos can be used to construe several different arguments or arguments about different contents. Aristotle’s treatise Topics lists some hundred topoi for the construction of dialectical arguments. These lists of topoi form the core of the method by which the dialectician should be able to formulate deductions on any problem that could be proposed. Most of the instructions that the Rhetoric gives for the composition of enthymemes are also organized as lists of topoi ; especially the first book of the Rhetoric essentially consists of topoi concerning the subjects of the three genres of public speech (See Rhet. I.5–14), while chapters 23–24 of the second book of the Rhetoric provide lists of generally applicable topoi .

It is striking that the work that is almost exclusively dedicated to the collection of topoi , the book Topics , does not even make an attempt to define the concept of topos . At any rate the Rhetoric gives a sort of defining characterization: “I call the same thing element and topos ; for an element or a topos is a heading under which many enthymemes fall” ( Rhet. 1403a18–19). By ‘element’ Aristotle does not mean a proper part of the enthymeme, but rather a general scheme under which many concrete enthymemes of the same type can be subsumed. According to this definition, the topos is a general argumentative scheme or pattern, and the concrete arguments are instantiations of the general topos . That the topos is a general instruction from which several arguments can be derived is crucial for Aristotle’s understanding of an artful method of argumentation; for a teacher of rhetoric who makes his pupils learn ready samples of arguments would not be imparting the art itself to them, but only the products of this art, just as if someone pretending to teach the art of shoe-making only gave samples of already made shoes to his pupils (see Sophistical Refutations 183b36ff.).

The word ‘ topos ’ (place, location) most probably is derived from an ancient method of memorizing a great number of items on a list by associating them with successive places one is acquainted with, say the houses along a street. By recalling the houses along the street we can also remember the associated items (on this mnemonic technique see Sorabji 2004, 22–34). Full descriptions of this technique from antiquity can be found in Cicero, De Oratore II 86–88, 351–360, Auctor ad Herennium III 16–24, 29–40 and in Quintilian, Institutio XI 2, 11–33. In Topics 163b28–32, Aristotle seems to allude to this technique: “For just as in the art of remembering, the mere mention of the places instantly makes us recall the things, so these will make us more apt at deductions through looking to these defined premises in order of enumeration.” Aristotle also alludes to this technique in On the soul 427b18–20, On Memory 452a12–16, and On Dreams 458b20–22.

But although the name ‘ topos ’ may be derived from this mnemotechnical context, Aristotle’s use of topoi does not rely on the technique of places. At least within the system of the book Topics , every given problem must be analyzed in terms of certain linguistic, semantic or logical criteria: Does the predicate of the sentence in question ascribe a genus or a definition or peculiar or accidental properties to the subject? Does the sentence express a sort of opposition, either contradiction or contrariety, etc.? Does the sentence express that something is more or less the case? Does it maintain identity or diversity? Are the words used linguistically derived from words that are part of an accepted premise? Depending on such criteria of the analyzed sentence one has to refer to a fitting topos . For this reason, the succession of topoi in the book Topics is organized in accordance with their salient linguistic, semantic or logical criteria; above all topoi presented in Books II–VII of this treatise are structured in accordance with the four so-called ‘predicables’, i.e. whether a predicate signifies the genus, an accident, a proprium (peculiar attribute) or the definition of the subject. This structure suggests that no additional mnemotechnique is essentially involved. Besides all this, there is at least one passage in which the use of the word ‘ topos ’ can be explained without referring to the previously mentioned mnemotechnique: In Topics VIII.1, 155b4–5 Aristotle says: “we must find the location ( topos ) from which to attack”, where the word ‘ topos ’ is obviously used to mean a starting point for attacking the theses of the opponents.

More or less the same might apply to the Rhetoric —except that most of its lists of topoi are structured by certain contents and not by linguistic, semantic or logical criteria; moreover, the system of the four ‘predicables’ that structured the topoi in the Topics is absent from the Rhetoric (see below § 7.4 ).

A typical topos in Aristotle’s dialectic runs as follows: “Again, if the accident of a thing has a contrary, see whether it belongs to the subject to which the accident in question has been declared to belong: for if the latter belongs, the former could not belong; for it is impossible that contrary predicates should belong at the same time to the same thing” ( Topics 113a20–24). Like most topoi , it includes (i) a sort of general instruction (“see, whether …”); further it mentions (ii) an argumentative scheme—in the given example, the scheme ‘if the accidental predicate p belongs to the subject s , then the opposed P * cannot belong to s too’. Finally, the topos refers to (iii) a general rule or principle (“for it is impossible, …”) which justifies the given scheme. Other topoi often include the discussion of (iv) examples; still other topoi suggest (v) how to apply the given schemes.—Though these are elements that regularly occur in Aristotelian topoi , there is nothing like a standard form with which all topoi conform. Often Aristotle is very brief and leaves it to the reader to add the missing elements.

In a nutshell, the function of a topos can be explained as follows. First of all, one has to select an apt topos for a given conclusion. The conclusion is either a thesis of the opponent that someone wishes to refute, or it is the assertion someone wishes to establish or defend. Accordingly, there are two uses of topoi : they can either prove or disprove a given sentence; some can be used for both purposes, others for only one of them. In Aristotle’s dialectic, most topoi are topic-neutral and need hence be selected by certain linguistic, semantic or logical features of the given conclusion; if, for example, the conclusion maintains a definition, one has to select a topos from a list of topoi pertaining to definitions, etc. Once the dialectician or rhetorician has selected a topos that is appropriate for a given conclusion, the topos can be used to construe a premise from which the given conclusion can be derived. If for example the argumentative scheme is ‘If a predicate is generally true of a genus, then the predicate is also true of any species of that genus’, we can derive the conclusion ‘the capacity of nutrition belongs to plants’ using the premise ‘the capacity of nutrition belongs to all living things’, since ‘living thing’ is the genus of the species ‘plants’. If the construed premise is accepted, either by the opponent in a dialectical debate or by the audience of a public speech, we can draw the intended conclusion. In the Rhetoric though the situation is slightly different (see below § 7.4 ), because here the topic-neutral type of topoi that was prevalent in the Topics seems to play a secondary role. Many topoi of the Rhetoric seem to be rather ‘material’ in the sense that they are only useful for establishing conclusions of a certain content; this is why the appropriate topos here cannot be selected by formal criteria, but must be chosen in accordance with the content of the envisaged conclusion—whether, for example, something is said to be useful or honourable or just, etc.

It has been disputed whether the topos (or, more precisely, the ‘if …, then …’ scheme that is included in a topos ) that we use to construe an argument must itself be regarded as a further premise of the argument. It could be either, as some say, the premise of a propositional scheme such as the modus ponens, or, as others assume, as the conditional premise of a hypothetical syllogism. Aristotle himself does not favour one of these interpretations explicitly. But even if he regarded the topoi as additional premises in a dialectical or rhetorical argument, it is beyond any doubt that he did not use them as premises that must be explicitly mentioned or even approved by the opponent or audience.

Even though there are good reasons for thinking that the nature and use of topoi in Aristotle’s Rhetoric are based on his elaborate account of dialectical topoi in the Topics (see above § 7.2 and § 7.3 ), commentators are faced with the difficulty that the use of the word ‘ topos ’ in Aristotle’s Rhetoric is much more heterogeneous than in the Topics . Beside topoi which do perfectly comply with the description given in the Topics , there is an important group of topoi in the Rhetoric that are not topic-neutral and hence do not contain instructions for arguments of a certain logical form, but rather with a certain predicate (for example, that something is good, or honourable, or just, or contributes to happiness, etc.). While those latter ‘material’ topoi so to speak are, after all, used to construe arguments, there are also mentions of so-called ‘ topoi ’ in the context of the non-argumentative means of persuasion, which might be taken as procedural instructions, but no longer seem to be concerned with the construction of arguments, which was the one and only function of dialectical topoi .

Supplement on the Variety of Topoi in the Rhetoric

In addition to the more heterogenous use of the word ‘ topos ’ in the Rhetoric (which might originate from Aristotle’s attempt to combine his own dialectical use of the term with more traditional rhetorical uses), there is the problem of the controversial distinction in Rhet. I.2, 1358a2–35 between topoi (which are understood to be general/common) on the one hand and certain specific devices ( idia ) on the other. While Aristotle seems inclined to call the general or common topoi simply ‘ topoi ’, he uses several names for the opposing, specific items (e.g. idiai protaseis , idia , eidê ). This distinction has a major impact on the structure of the Rhetoric as a whole (see above § 2 ), in that it is responsible for the occurence of ‘specific’ instructions, premises, ‘ topoi ’ or whatever in the bulk of the first book and the occurence of ‘common’ topoi in the second part of the second book. Traditionally, this distinction has been understood as a division between general/common topoi on the one hand and specific topoi on the other (the traditional view has been defended among others by Cope 1877 and Rapp 2002). However, it is unclear (i) what the opposition between general/common and specific refers to, (ii) where in the Rhetoric the common topoi can be found and (iii) whether the distinction is meant to be a distinction between topoi in the first place, since even though Aristotle distinguishes topoi that are common from specific ( idia ) rhetorical devices, he never explicitly uses the phrase ‘specific topoi ’, as one might expect on the traditional reading.

As for (i), Aristotle points out in Rhet. I.2 that some things are specific to physics, others to ethics, etc. This seems to suggest a distinction between topoi (or other building blocks of arguments) that are peculiar to the different sciences on the one hand and other topoi that are not, but are instead applicable to all sciences and fields of knowledge alike—just as (most of) the dialectical topoi of the Topics are. However, from Rhet. I.3 on, Aristotle makes the readers think, by contrast, that ‘specific’ refers to the different genres of rhetoric, so that some topoi are specific to deliberative, others to epideictic, and still others to juridical speech. Correspondingly, this would require a sense of being‘common’ that boils down to saying that they are not specific to one single species of speech, but that does not amount to the topic-neutrality of the dialectical topoi .

With regard to (ii), it is generally agreed that the specific topoi can be found in the first book of the Rhetoric and the common topoi in the second. Most commentators assume that all common topoi are listed in chapters II.23–24 (real enthymemes in II.23, fallacious enthymemes in II.24). However, it is less common to count the items listed in II.19 (about the possible/impossible, past and future facts, significance and insignificance) as common topoi , which might be due to the controversy mentioned in (i) about the required sense of being ‘common’, for the topoi in II.19 are applicable to all genres of speech, but are most probably not common in the way the dialectical topoi are. In addition, it is important to notice that even chapter II.23, which is undisputedly dedicated to common topoi , is a mixed bag, for it includes some topoi , especially in the first third of the chapter, that, being topic-neutral, thoroughly correspond to dialectical topoi and even might be generally applicable as the dialectical topoi are, while some other topoi mentioned in II.23 are quite different in style, as they are taken from extant historical speeches.

The most difficult debates are posed by (iii), as the traditional interpretation is based on some fragile assumptions. Not only does Aristotle never call the specific items ‘ topoi ’ by name, it is also significant that the specific items that are listed in Rhet. I.5-15 often have the form of mere propositions or premises rather than of topoi as we know them from the Topics (see above § 7.3 ). This is why several authors insist that the distinction between topoi , which are thought to be common, and idia is not a distinction between different types of topoi , but between topoi and something else, most notably premises, commonly accepted premises or premises established by the arts. This objection comes in several versions. (a) Several authors subscribed to the view of Solmsen 1929 that there are two types of enthymemes, respresenting different stages in the development of Aristotle’s logical thinking insofar as some are taken from topoi (deriving from Aristotle’s early- pre-syllogistic logic) and some are built from premises through the figures of the syllogism (thus presupposing syllogistic logic), not from topoi . According to this view, the specific topoi given in the first book of the Rhetoric are the premises of the latter type of enthymemes, and the enthymemes of the former type are taken only from common topoi . From this point of view, only common topoi would be topoi in the proper sense, while specific topoi would be, strictly speaking, nothing but premises. Accordingly, one would expect to find propositions of the form “All F are just/noble/good” in the first book of the Rhetoric ; with such propositions one could construe syllogisms like “All F are just/noble/good—This particular x is F —This particular x is just/noble/good.” Against Solmsen it has been objected that what one actually gets in the first book hardly fits Solmsen’s model. In some sense one finds more than the required premises in that Aristotle gives here not only isolated propositions, but also certain propositions together with a reason or a justification. Furthermore, chapters I.6–7 of the Rhetoric offer topoi which can also be found in the third book of Topics ; in the Topics they are clearly called ‘ topoi ’, so that there is less pressure to think that they are premises rather than topoi . (b) Grimaldi 1958 requires that in order to build a rhetorical argument one needs the logical form of an argument provided by the topoi plus the material (content) provided by the specific premises or idia . A more refined version of this ‘complementarity’-view has been suggested by Rubinelli 2009, who, however, also allows of the possibility that some enthymemes are taken only from the topoi , while others are only taken from the idia . Against Grimaldi’s view it is has been objected that many of the common topoi listed in chapters II.23–24 are not based on linguistic, semantic or logical categories as the topic-neutral topoi of the Topics are. Some of them only offer strategic advice, for example, to turn what has been said against oneself upon the one who said it. For this reason, it would be misleading to interpret the common topoi of the Rhetoric as providing logical schemes of inference. (c) Havrda 2019 has attacked the presuppositions of the traditional view, but does not settle for the alternatives suggested by Solmsen, Grimaldi or Rubinelli either. According to him, Aristotle never distinguishes between common and specific topoi . Rather, he distinguishes between two different sources of rhetorical deductions; one source, the dialectical one, uses topoi , while the other, which is based on definitions provided by arts and sciences, does not.

8. Style: How to Say Things with Words

Rhet. III.1–12 introduces the topic of lexis , usually translated as ‘style’. This topic was not announced until the final passage of Rhetoric II, so that most scholars have come to think of this section as a more or less self-contained treatise. The insertion of this treatise into the Rhetoric is motivated by the claim that, while Rhetoric I & II dealt with thought (dianoia), i.e., about what the orator should say, it remains to inquire into the various ways of saying or formulating one and the same thing. In the course of Rhetoric III.1–12 it turns out that Aristotle tackles this task by using some quite heterogeneous approaches. After an initial exploration of the field of delivery and style (III.1) Aristotle tries to determine what good prose style consists in; for this purpose he has to go into the differentiation and the selection of various kinds of nouns, one of which is defined as metaphor (III.2). The following chapters III.3–6 feature topics that are at best loosely connected with the theme of good prose style; among these topics is the opposite of good style, namely frigid or deterring style ( psuchron ) (III.3), the simile, which turns out to be connected with the metaphor (III.4), the issue of correct Greek (III.5), the appropriateness (III.7) and the means by which one’s style becomes long-winded and dignified (III.6). Chapters III.8–9 introduce two new approaches to the issue of style, which seem to be unrelated to everything that has been said so far: These are the topics of the rhythmical shaping of prose style and of periodic and non-periodic flow of speech. Chapters III.10–11 are dedicated to how the orator can ‘bring things before one’s eyes’, which amounts to something like making the style more vivid. Again metaphors are shown to play a crucial role for that purpose, so that the topic of metaphor is taken up again and deepened by extended lists of examples. Chapter III.12 seems to make a new start by distinguishing between oral and written style and assessing their suitability for the three genres of speech (see above §2 ). The philosophical core of Aristotle’s treatise on style in Rhetoric III.1–12 seems to be included in the discussion of the good prose style (see below §8.1 ), however it is the topic of metaphor (see below §8.2 ) that has attracted the most attention in the later reception up to the present day.

Originally the discussion of style belongs to the art of poetry rather than to rhetoric; the poets were the first, as Aristotle observes, to give an impulse for the study of style. Nevertheless he admits that questions of style or, more precisely, of different ways to formulate the same subject, may have an impact on the degree of clarity: “What concerns the topic of lexis , however, has some small necessary place in all teaching; for to speak in one way rather than another makes some difference in regard to clarity; although not a great difference…” ( Rhet. III.1, 1404a8–10). Clarity again matters for comprehension and comprehensibility contributes to persuasiveness. Indeed Aristotle even claims that the virtue or excellence ( aretê ) of prose style ultimately depends on clarity, because it is the genuine purpose of a speech is to make something clear. In prose speeches, the good formulation of a state of affairs must therefore be a clear one. However, saying this is not yet enough to account for the best or excellent prose style, since clear linguistic expressions tend to be banal or flat, while good style should avoid such banality. If the language becomes too banal it will not be able to attract the attention of the audience. The orator can avoid this tendency of banality by the use of dignified or elevated expressions and in general by all formulations that deviate from common usage. On the one hand, uncommon vocabulary has the advantage of evoking the curiosity of an audience. On the other hand the use of such elevated vocabulary bears a serious risk: Whenever the orator makes excessive use of it, the speech might become unclear, thus failing to meet the default requirement of prose speech, namely clarity. Moreover, if the vocabulary becomes too sublime or dignified in relation to prose’s subject matter (Aristotle assumes it is mostly everyday affairs), the audience will notice that the orator uses his words with a certain intention and will become suspicious about the orator and his intentions. Hitting upon the right wording is therefore a matter of being clear, but not too banal; In trying not to be too banal, one must use uncommon, dignified words and phrases, but one must be careful not to use them excessively or inappropriately in relation to prose style and the typical subject matter of prose speeches.

Bringing all these considerations together, Aristotle defines the good prose style, i.e. the virtue of prose style, as follows: “Let the virtue of linguistic form be defined as being clear, for since the logos is a (linguistic, sc.) sign, it would fail to bring about its proper function, whenever it does not make clear (whatever it is the sign of, sc.)—and neither banal/mean/flat ( tapeinên ) nor above the deserved dignity, but appropriate ( prepon )” ( Rhet. III.2, 1404b1–4; similar at III.12, 1414a22–26). According to this definition, the virtue of prose style has to avoid two opposed tendencies, both of which are excessive and therefore fallacious: The good style is clear in a way that is neither too banal nor too dignified, but appropriate (in proportion to the subject matter of prose speech). In this respect the definition of stylistic virtue follows the same scheme as the definition of ethical virtues in Aristotle’s ethical writings, insofar as both the stylistic virtue and the virtue of character are defined in terms of a mean that lies between two opposed excesses. If the virtue of style is defined as a mean between the banality involving form of clarity and overly dignified (and hence inappropriate) speech, it is with good reason that Aristotle speaks of only one virtue of prose style, and not of clarity, ornament (by dignified expressions) and appropriateness as three distinct virtues of style. However, from the times of Cicero and Quintilianus on, these three, along with the correctness of Greek or Latin, became the canonical four virtues of speech ( virtutes dicendi ). Reading Aristotle through the spectacles of the Roman art of rhetoric, scholars often try to identify two, three or four virtues of style in his Rhetoric .

Finally, if the virtue of style is about finding a balance between banal clarity, which is dull, and attractive dignity, which is inappropriate in public speeches, how can the orator manage to control the different degrees of clarity and dignity? For this purpose Aristotle equips the orator with a classification of words (more or less the same classification can also be found in Poetics chapter 21): First of all Aristotle distinguishes between the kuria onamata , the standard expressions, and the glôtta , the borrowed words, idioms or vernacular expressions. Most examples that Aristotle gives of this latter class are taken from the different Greek dialects, and most examples of this type are in turn taken from the language of the Homeric epos. Further classes are defined by metaphors and by several expressions that are somehow altered or modified, e.g., newly coined expressions ( pepoiêmena ), composite expressions (especially new or unusual compositions ( ta dipla )), and lengthened, shortened or otherwise altered expressions. Sometimes Aristotle also uses the term kosmos under which he collects all epithets and otherwise ornamental expressions. These different types of words differ in accordance with their familiarity. Most familiar are the usual or current words, the least familiar words are the glôtta or words that are newly coined. The metaphors are also unknown and unusual, because a usual, well-known word is used to designate something other than its usual designation (see below §8.2 ). The best established words, the kuria , make their subject clear, but do not excite the audience’s curiosity, whereas all other types of words are not established, and hence have the sort of attraction that alien or foreign things used to have. Since remote things are admirable ( thaumaston ) and the admirable is pleasant, Aristotle says, one should make the speech admirable and pleasant by the use of such unfamiliar words. However one has to be careful not to use inappropriately dignified or poetic words in prose speech. Thus the virtue of style is accomplished by the selection and balanced use of these various types of words: Fundamental for prose speech is the use of usual and therefore clear words. In order to make the speech pleasant and dignified and in order to avoid banality the orator must make moderate use of non-familiar elements. Metaphor plays an important role for prose style, since metaphors contribute, as Aristotle says, clarity as well as the unfamiliar, surprising effect that avoids banality and tediousness.

According to Aristotle Poetics 21, 1457b9–16 and 20–22, a metaphor is “the application of an alien name by transference either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or by analogy, that is, proportion”. These four types are exemplified as follows:

Most of the examples Aristotle offers for types (i) to (iii) would not be regarded as metaphors in the modern sense; rather they would fall under the headings of metonomy or synecdoche. The examples offered for type (iv) are more like modern metaphors. Aristotle himself regards the metaphors of group (iv), which are built from analogy, as the most important type of enthymemes. An analogy is given if the second term is to the first as the fourth to the third. Correspondingly, an analogous metaphor uses the fourth term for the second or the second for the fourth. This principle can be illustrated by the following Aristotelian examples:

Examples (a) and (b) obey the optional instruction that metaphors can be qualified by adding the term to which the proper word is relative (cp. “the shield of Ares ,” “the evening of life ”). In example (c), there is no proper name for the thing that the metaphor refers to. In example (d) the relation of analogy is not, as in the other cases, indicated by the domain to which an item is referred to, but by a certain negation (for example “without name”); the negations make clear that the term is not used in its usual sense.

Metaphors are closely related to similes; but as opposed to the later tradition, Aristotle does not define the metaphor as an abbreviated simile, but, the other way around, the simile as a metaphor. The simile differs from the metaphor in the form of expression: while in the metaphor something is identified or substituted, the simile compares two things with each other, using words as “like,” “as”, etc. For example, “He rushed as a lion” is, according to Aristotle, a simile, but “The lion rushed” is a metaphor.

While in the later tradition the use of metaphors has been seen as a matter of mere decoration, which has to delight the hearer, Aristotle stresses the cognitive function of metaphors. Metaphors, he says, bring about learning ( Rhet. III.10, 1410b14f.). In order to understand a metaphor, the hearer has to find something common between the metaphor and the thing the metaphor refers to. For example, if someone calls the old age “stubble”, we have to find a common genus to which old age and stubble belong; we do not grasp the very sense of the metaphor until we find that both, old age and stubble, have lost their bloom. Thus, a metaphor not only refers to a thing, but simultaneously describes the thing in a certain respect. This is why Aristotle says that the metaphor brings about learning: as soon as we understand why someone uses the metaphor “stubble” to refer to old age, we have learned at least one characteristic of old age.

• Accepted opinions: endoxa
• Argument: logos
• Art: technê
• Character: êthos
• Counterpart: antistrophos
• Credible: axiopistos
• Decision (practical): prohairesis
• Deduction: sullogismos
• Emotions: pathê
• Enthymeme: enthumêma
• Example: paradeigma
• For the most part: hôs epi to polu
• Induction ( epagôgê )
• Judgement: krisis
• Location: topos (an argumentative scheme)
• Maxim: gnômê
• Means of persuasion: pistis (in pre-Aristotelian use this word also designates a certain part of the speech)
• Metaphor: metaphora
• Persuasive: pithanon
• Place: topos (an argumentative scheme)
• Practical intelligence: phronêsis
• Premise: protasis (can also mean ‘sentence’, statement’)
• Probable: eikos
• Proof: apodeixis (in the sense of ‘demonstrative argument, demonstration’)
• Proof: tekmêrion (i.e. a necessary sign or sign argument)
• Sign: sêmeion (can also mean ‘sign argument’)
• Style: lexis
• Specific topoi : idioi topoi (Aristotle refers to them also by ‘ idiai protaseis ’ or ‘ eidê ’)
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• Leff, Michael C., 1993. “The Uses of Aristotle’s Rhetoric ,” Argumentation , 7: 313–327.
• Lossau, Manfred J., 1974. “Der Aristotelische Gryllos antilogisch,” Philologus , 118: 12–21.
• Leighton, Stephen, 1982. “Aristotle and the Emotions,” Phronesis , 27: 144–174.
• –––, 2009. “Passions and Persuasion,” in G. Anagnostopoulos (ed.), A Companion to Aristotle , Oxford: Blackwell, 597–611.
• Madden, Edward H., 1952. “The Enthymeme. Crossroads of Logic, Rhetoric and Metaphysics,” Philosophical Review , 61: 368–376.
• Marx, Friedrich, 1900. Aristoteles Rhetorik (= Berichte der koeniglich saechsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig , Volume 52), Leipzig.
• McBurney, James H., 1936. “The Place of the Enthymeme in Rhetorical Theory,” Speech Monographs , 3: 49–74.
• Miller, Arthur B., and Bee, John D., 1972. “Enthymemes: Body and Soul,” in Philosophy and Rhetoric , 5: 201–214.
• Moss, Jessica, 2012. Aristotle on the Apparent Good. Perception, Phantasia, Thought, and Desire , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Natali, Carlo, 1990. “Due modi di trattare le opinioni notevole. La nozione di felicità in Aristotele, Retorica I 5,” Methexis , 3: 51–63.
• –––, 1994. “La ‘Retorica’ di Aristotele negli studi europei più recenti,” in W.W. Fortenbaugh and D.C. Mirhady (eds.), Peripatetic Rhetoric after Aristotle , New Brunswick: Transaction, 365–382.
• Nussbaum, Martha C., 1996. “Aristotle on Emotions and Rational Persuasion,” in Amelie O. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Rhetoric , Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 303–323.
• Pearson, Giles, 2014. “Aristotle and the Cognitive Component of Emotions,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy , 46: 165–211.
• Pepe, Cristina, 2013. The Genres of Rhetorical Speeches in Greek and Roman Antiquity , Leiden: Brill.
• Primavesi, Oliver, 1996. Die aristotelische Topik , Munich: C. H. Beck.
• Rambourg. Camille, 2014. Topos. Les Premières Méthodes D’Argumentation Dans La Rhètorique Grecque des Ve–IVe Siècles , Paris: Vrin.
• Raphael, Sally, 1974. “Rhetoric, Dialectic and Syllogistic Argument: Aristotle’s Position in Rhetoric I-II,” Phronesis , 19: 153–167.
• Rapp, Christof, 2009. “The Nature and Goals of Rhetoric,” in G. Anagnostopoulos (ed.), A Companion to Aristotle , Oxford: Blackwell, 579–596.
• –––, 2011. “Aristotelische Grundbegriffe in der Theorie der juridischen Argumentation,” Rechtstheorie , 42: 383–415.
• –––, 2012. “Aristotle on the Moral Psychology of Persuasion,” in Ch. Shields (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 589–611.
• –––, 2013. “Fallacious Arguments in Ancient Philosophy,” in Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy , 15: 122–158.
• –––, 2016. “Dialectic and Logic from a Rhetorical Point of View,” in J.B. Gourinat and J. Lemaire (eds.), Logique et dialectique dans l’Antiquité , Paris: Vrin, 161–192.
• –––, 2018. “Aristotle and the Dialectical Turn of Rhetoric,” in Demetra Sfendoni-Mentzou (ed.), Aristotle — Contemporary Perspectives on his Thought. On the 2400th Anniversary of Aristotle’s Birth , Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter 223–236.
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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

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Aristotle Research Paper Topics

This page provides a comprehensive list of Aristotle research paper topics divided into ten distinct categories, each offering a deep dive into different aspects of Aristotle’s vast body of work and philosophical principles. Aristotle’s philosophies, spanning from metaphysics and ethics to politics and rhetoric, have profoundly influenced various facets of human existence and intellectual thought. This article serves as a thorough guide, highlighting the importance of Aristotle and the multitude of research paper topics encompassed by his legacy. Additionally, we will introduce iResearchNet’s writing services, a crucial resource for students wishing to commission a custom research paper on any topic related to Aristotle. With features such as expert degree-holding writers, in-depth research, custom formatting, and a money-back guarantee, iResearchNet stands as a trusted and user-friendly solution for students’ academic needs.

100 Aristotle Research Paper Topics

The vast range of Aristotle’s contributions to various fields of knowledge, from philosophy and science to arts and politics, makes him a fascinating subject for academic research. This page provides a comprehensive list of Aristotle research paper topics divided into ten distinct categories, each offering a deep dive into different aspects of Aristotle’s thoughts and influences.

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• The concept of substance in Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
• Aristotle’s theory of potentiality and actuality.
• The role of the unmoved mover in Aristotle’s metaphysical framework.
• Aristotle on the nature of reality: Being and becoming.
• A comparison of Aristotle’s and Plato’s metaphysics.
• The concept of form and matter in Aristotle.
• Aristotle’s views on the existence of God.
• The role of teleology in Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
• Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s theory of forms.
• The concept of change in Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
• The concept of the golden mean in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
• Aristotle’s view on the nature of happiness.
• The role of virtue in Aristotle’s ethical theory.
• Aristotle’s views on the relationship between ethics and politics.
• A comparison of Aristotle’s and Kant’s ethical theories.
• The concept of phronesis (practical wisdom) in Aristotle’s ethics.
• Aristotle on the nature of moral responsibility.
• The role of friendship in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
• Aristotle’s views on the nature of the good life.
• The concept of eudaimonia in Aristotle’s ethical theory.
• Aristotle’s view on the role of the citizen in the state.
• The concept of the best government according to Aristotle.
• Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s Republic.
• The role of the middle class in Aristotle’s political theory.
• Aristotle’s views on slavery and its role in society.
• The concept of justice in Aristotle’s Politics.
• Aristotle’s views on the nature of law and its role in society.
• The role of education in Aristotle’s political theory.
• Aristotle’s views on the relationship between the individual and the state.
• A comparison of Aristotle’s and Machiavelli’s political theories.
• The role of ethos, pathos, and logos in Aristotle’s Rhetoric.
• Aristotle’s views on the nature of tragedy in his Poetics.
• The concept of catharsis in Aristotle’s theory of tragedy.
• Aristotle’s influence on later rhetoricians and literary theorists.
• A comparison of Aristotle’s and Plato’s views on poetry.
• The role of imitation (mimesis) in Aristotle’s Poetics.
• Aristotle’s views on the role of the artist in society.
• The concept of the tragic hero in Aristotle’s Poetics.
• Aristotle’s influence on Renaissance rhetoric and poetics.
• The role of plot (mythos) in Aristotle’s theory of tragedy.
• Aristotle’s contributions to biology and its influence on later science.
• Aristotle’s views on the nature of the universe in his Physics.
• The concept of the four causes in Aristotle’s natural philosophy.
• Aristotle’s contributions to the development of logic.
• The influence of Aristotle’s scientific writings on medieval science.
• Aristotle’s views on the nature of time and space.
• The role of observation and experience in Aristotle’s scientific method.
• Aristotle’s influence on the development of medieval astronomy.
• A comparison of Aristotle’s and Galileo’s views on physics.
• Aristotle’s views on the nature of life and its origins.
• Aristotle’s views on the nature of the soul in his De Anima.
• The concept of nous (intellect) in Aristotle’s philosophy of mind.
• Aristotle’s views on perception and its role in knowledge.
• The concept of the active intellect in Aristotle’s philosophy of mind.
• A comparison of Aristotle’s and Descartes’ views on the mind-body problem.
• Aristotle’s views on the nature of consciousness.
• The role of imagination in Aristotle’s philosophy of mind.
• Aristotle’s views on the nature of thought and its relationship to language.
• The influence of Aristotle’s philosophy of mind on later philosophers.
• Aristotle’s views on the nature of mental states and their causes.
• Aristotle’s influence on Thomas Aquinas and medieval scholasticism.
• The reception of Aristotle’s works in the Islamic world.
• Aristotle’s influence on the development of Renaissance philosophy.
• The role of Aristotle in the development of modern science.
• A comparison of Aristotle’s and Hegel’s dialectical methods.
• Aristotle’s influence on the development of modern ethics.
• The reception of Aristotle’s works in the 19th and 20th centuries.
• Aristotle’s influence on the development of modern logic.
• The role of Aristotle in the development of analytic philosophy.
• Aristotle’s influence on contemporary philosophy.
• A comparison of Aristotle’s and Plato’s views on the nature of reality.
• The influence of Plato on Aristotle’s thought.
• A comparison of Aristotle’s and Plato’s views on ethics.
• The influence of Aristotle’s works on later Platonic philosophers.
• A comparison of Aristotle’s and Plato’s views on politics.
• The influence of Aristotle on the development of Neoplatonism.
• Aristotle’s views on Plato’s philosophy of mind.
• A comparison of Aristotle’s and Plato’s views on art and beauty.
• The influence of Aristotle’s rhetoric on Plato’s dialogues.
• The concept of the beautiful in Aristotle’s philosophy.
• Aristotle’s views on the role of art in society.
• The concept of imitation (mimesis) in Aristotle’s aesthetics.
• Aristotle’s views on the nature of music and its effects on the soul.
• The concept of catharsis in Aristotle’s aesthetics.
• A comparison of Aristotle’s and Kant’s views on aesthetics.
• Aristotle’s influence on later theories of art and beauty.
• The role of tragedy in Aristotle’s aesthetics.
• Aristotle’s views on the nature of comedy.
• The influence of Aristotle’s aesthetics on Renaissance art.
• The relevance of Aristotle’s ethics in the modern world.
• Aristotle’s influence on contemporary theories of virtue ethics.
• The relevance of Aristotle’s political theory in the contemporary world.
• Aristotle’s influence on modern theories of rhetoric and communication.
• The relevance of Aristotle’s philosophy of mind in the contemporary philosophy of mind.
• Aristotle’s influence on contemporary theories of metaphysics.
• The relevance of Aristotle’s scientific method in modern science.
• Aristotle’s influence on contemporary theories of aesthetics.
• The relevance of Aristotle’s views on education in the contemporary world.
• Aristotle’s influence on modern theories of law and justice.

Aristotle’s works have left an indelible mark on the intellectual history of the Western world and continue to be influential in a variety of fields, from philosophy and science to politics and the arts. The plethora of Aristotle research paper topics listed above showcases the depth and breadth of his thought and its ongoing relevance in the modern world. Whether you are interested in his contributions to metaphysics, ethics, politics, science, art, or his influence on later thinkers, there is a wealth of research topics to explore. And remember, this is just a starting point – the world of Aristotle research paper topics is as vast and varied as the philosopher’s own works.

The Range of Aristotle Research Paper Topics

Aristotle, born in 384 BCE in Stagira, a Greek colony in Macedonia, is undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in the history of Western philosophy. A student of Plato and the tutor of Alexander the Great, Aristotle’s contributions spanned across various fields, including metaphysics, ethics, politics, science, and aesthetics. His comprehensive system of thought laid the foundation for much of Western philosophy and science for nearly two millennia. The prolific nature of his works and the broad spectrum of topics he covered make Aristotle research paper topics incredibly varied and relevant even in contemporary discourse.

Aristotle’s Significance in Philosophy

Aristotle’s significance in philosophy is monumental. His work in metaphysics, which involves the study of the nature of existence and reality, is foundational. His concept of ‘substance,’ and distinctions between ‘form’ and ‘matter,’ ‘potentiality’ and ‘actuality,’ are fundamental to metaphysical inquiry. His ethical thought, centered around the concept of ‘eudaimonia’ or flourishing, has played a significant role in the development of ethical theory. In politics, his analysis of different forms of government, the role of the citizen, and the importance of a well-rounded education are still discussed and debated today. His work in the natural sciences, though largely outdated by modern standards, laid the groundwork for empirical observation and classification. In the realm of aesthetics, his analysis of tragedy in ‘Poetics’ is a foundational text that continues to be studied by students of literature and drama. This vast array of contributions means that Aristotle research paper topics can range from the deeply philosophical to the practically applied.

Broad Range of Aristotle Research Paper Topics

The broad range of research paper topics that Aristotle offers is a testament to his comprehensive approach to understanding the world and human existence. In metaphysics, Aristotle research paper topics could delve into his concept of substance, his argument for the existence of a prime mover, or his critique of Plato’s theory of forms. Aristotle’s ethics offers a wealth of research topics, from his concept of the golden mean to his views on friendship and its role in a flourishing life. Aristotle’s politics provides a fertile ground for research on topics such as his views on the best form of government, the role of the middle class, and the relationship between ethics and politics.

In the realm of rhetoric and poetics, Aristotle research paper topics could explore his concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos, his theory of tragedy, or his views on imitation and its role in art. Aristotle’s contributions to science provide a historical perspective on the development of scientific thought, with research topics including his classification of living beings, his views on the nature of the universe, or his contributions to the development of logic. Aristotle’s philosophy of mind offers a rich array of research topics, from his views on the nature of the soul to his theories on perception and consciousness. The influence of Aristotle on later philosophers is another area ripe for exploration, with research topics including his impact on medieval scholasticism, the reception of his works in the Islamic world, or his influence on modern philosophy.

In the area of art and beauty, topics could range from Aristotle’s views on the nature of beauty, the role of art in society, or the concept of catharsis in his theory of tragedy. Finally, modern interpretations and applications of Aristotle’s ideas provide a wealth of research topics, from the relevance of his ethics in the modern world to his influence on contemporary theories of rhetoric, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, aesthetics, or law and justice. The broad range of Aristotle research paper topics showcases the depth and breadth of his thought and its ongoing relevance in the modern world.

Aristotle’s contributions to various fields of knowledge are incredibly vast and have left a lasting impact on Western thought. His works have influenced numerous disciplines, from philosophy and science to politics, art, and more. This broad spectrum of influence provides a wide array of Aristotle research paper topics that are not only historically significant but also relevant to contemporary debates and discussions. Whether you are interested in delving into the intricacies of his metaphysical concepts, exploring his views on ethics and politics, analyzing his contributions to rhetoric and poetics, or examining his influence on later philosophers and contemporary thought, there is a wealth of Aristotle research paper topics to choose from.

In conclusion, the importance of Aristotle in the history of philosophy and the wide range of potential research areas he offers cannot be overstated. His comprehensive approach to understanding the world and human existence has left a lasting legacy that continues to be explored and debated by scholars and students alike. Therefore, selecting an Aristotle research paper topic offers an opportunity to engage with the works of one of the most influential thinkers in human history and to contribute to the ongoing discourse surrounding his ideas.

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60 Aristotelian (Classical) Argument Model

Aristotelian argument.

The Aristotelian or classical argument is a style of argument developed by the famous Greek philosopher and rhetorician,  Aristotle . In this style of argument, your goal as a writer is to convince your audience of something. The goal is to use a series of strategies to persuade your audience to adopt your side of the issue. Although  ethos ,  pathos , and  logos  play a role in any argument, this style of argument utilizes them in the most persuasive ways possible.

Of course, your professor may require some variations, but here is the basic format for an Aristotelian, or classical, argumentative essay:

• Introduce your issue.  At the end of your introduction, most professors will ask you to present your thesis. The idea is to present your readers with your main point and then dig into it.
• Present your case  by explaining the issue in detail and why something must be done or a way of thinking is not working. This will take place over several paragraphs.
• Address the opposition.  Use a few paragraphs to explain the other side. Refute the opposition one point at a time.
• Provide your proof.  After you address the other side, you’ll want to provide clear evidence that your side is the best side.
• Present your conclusion.  In your conclusion, you should remind your readers of your main point or thesis and summarize the key points of your argument. If you are arguing for some kind of change, this is a good place to give your audience a call to action. Tell them what they could do to make a change.

For a visual representation of this type of argument, check out the Aristotelian infographic below:

Introduction to Aristotelian Argument

The Aristotelian or classical argument is a style of argument developed by the famous Greek philosopher and rhetorician, Aristotle. In this style of argument, the writer’s goal is to be convincing and to persuade your audience to your side of the issue through a series of strategies.

Start here!

Before you begin, review your assignment and ask yourself questions about what you might want to write about.

Use prewriting activities, such as brainstorming or listing, to help develop ideas for topics and angles.

Do your research! Find credible sources to help you build your argument.

But there’s more! There are some important concepts you need to learn about.

Modes of Persuasion

Ethos=credibility

Pathos=emotions

Logos=logic

Know Your Audience!

When writing a classical or Aristotelian argument, think about how you are going to be convincing to your audience!

Things to remember along the way…

Clear thesis

Support thesis

Opposing views

Cite sources

Sample Essay

For a sample essay written in the Aristotelian model, click here .

Aristotelian (Classical) Argument Model Copyright © 2020 by Liza Long; Amy Minervini; and Joel Gladd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Why Aristotle is considered the “Father of Rhetoric”

Related Papers

The Nature and Goal of Aristotle's Rhetoric

Christof Rapp

The Purpose of Aristotle's Rhetoric and the different approachescombined within this work. “The Nature and Goals of Rhetoric”, in: G. Anagnostopoulos (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Aristotle, Blackwell, Oxford 2009, 579-595

Julian Fernando Trujillo Amaya

Eugene Garver

Markos Ioannis Polakis

This paper examines the political implications of Aristotle's Rhetoric, from an epistemological point of view. In short, I argue that the transition from Plato's concept of rhetoric to Aristotle's art of rhetoric, exceeds a mere change of standpoints as Aristotle provides for an independent and intrinsically political art. In particular, with a threefold line of argument Aristotle reexamines and substitutes the methodological premises of platonic origin for the concepts of “τέχνη”, “λόγος” and “πιθανόν”. This methodological transformation that takes place in the first chapter allows the same pivotal concepts, untouched in name, to rearrange, in an altogether new conceptual system, on basis of which rhetoric can claim the status of an independent art. Consequently, my interpretation underlines the transitive character of the first chapter of Rhetoric that concludes with a novel definition of the task of rhetoric. Since this definition encompasses a tense relation between “λόγος” and “πιθανόν”, it appears paradoxical from the point of view of the platonic tradition. However, from this new vantage point, rhetoric surmounts the deadlock and its epistemological interest is broadened and amplified. Thus, the transition to an art of rhetoric can be seen -as A. Baltas would put it- as a grammatically non linear while epistemologically progressive process. People are capable under the custody of reason to decide on the nature of an issue in hand, even if they do not possess “true” knowledge. In other words, Aristotle's theoretical venture elevates rhetoric as a rational political instrument, accessible to every citizen of the “polis”. Rhetoric appears no longer as a tool or a danger. On the contrary, its independence serves the judgment and confirms the freedom of the public space.

Syayid Sandi Sukandi

Plato and Aristotle are key figures in the study of rhetoric. Classical period had been known as the era where rhetoric emerged as the influential language existence. Experts on rhetoric had discussed deeply about the history of rhetoric from the classical period up to the renaissance. In this writing, the focus of the discussion is in the classical period. The reviews being discussed in this writing are mainly derived from ongoing discussion on rhetoric.

L. Gregory Bloomquist

Plato is often understood to be merely an outspoken critic of rhetoric and Aristotle a systematizer of rhetoric. The reality is more complex. Plato’s criticism is not of rhetoric per se but of a particular (Sophistic) kind of rhetoric; his work actually evidences a keen desire to enshrine a true rhetoric, one that will enable instruction in truth to happen. Nor is Aristotle a critic of Plato; rather, Aristotle provides a systematic approach to political discourse and human language as it is in practice. Aristotle thus establishes both the foundations for analysis of democratic political discourse and the analytical groundwork for the much later analysis of “ordinary language.”

Interpretation

Christine J Boor (née Basil)

Gregory Sadler

"A set of passages in 1354-1359 of the Rhetoric contain Aristotle’s most explicit discussions of how he conceived the relationships between the different disciplines of rhetoric, politics, dialectic, and ethics. These discussions, while explicit, are brief, and their brevity renders them susceptible to reductive schematization. In this paper, my goal is to elaborate these fertile discussions through three means: close reading of these methodological passages in the Rhetoric; reference to relevant discussions from Aristotle’s other works; and reflection on the dialectical character of Aristotle’s practical philosophy. My main argument is that Aristotle’s practical philosophy, and these passages in particular, offer to and require of his readers a dialectical engagement with the content of the texts (granting that “dialectic” is an equivocal term, I will offer a fuller description in the full paper). I consider four topics more specifically: 1) the relationship between rhetoric and dialectic, as capacities for providing arguments; 2) the ways the discipline of rhetoric shifts into the allied disciplines of politics and ethics; 3) the reasons why rhetoric is always unavoidable in both politics and ethics; 4) how politics and ethics can reciprocally inform rhetoric"

European Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

'Goke Akinboye

The need for the persuasion is often informed by a dire or grave situation which one needs to wriggle out from. Persuasion may also be necessitated by a person’s disposition to a subject, development, or topic in view. The art of persuasion through speech is what scholars, ancient and modern, call rhetoric or oratory. The Greek traditional theorists, who invented rhetoric, divided the art into three types: the judicial (dicanic or forensic), the deliberative (symbouleutic) and the demonstrative (epideictic). Broadly, Greek rhetoric also has a tripartite part: invention, arrangement and style. Similarly, by Aristotelian theory, rhetoric is the art of persuasion which functions by three means: by appeal to people’s reason (logos); by the appeal to their emotions (pathos) and by the appeal of the speaker’s personality or character (ethos). What exactly did the Greeks and, indeed, Aristotle mean by these terms and their functions? This paper, while highlighting the general conception of the Greek rhetoric and its three-way nature, surveys the Aristotelian tripartite division and functionality of rhetoric through a simple method of content analysis of selected ancient and modern texts. It submits that a rhetor (rhetorician/orator) is not firm in his trade if he does not artfully possess and execute the Aristotelian three modes of persuasion in contexts of necessity or grave situations. Keywords: Greek rhetoric, oratory, Aristotle, ethos, pathos, logs.

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Aristotelian Argument

The Aristotelian or classical argument is a style of argument developed by the famous Greek philosopher and rhetorician, Aristotle. In this style of argument, your goal as a writer is to convince your audience of something. The goal is to use a series of strategies to persuade your audience to adopt your side of the issue. Although ethos, pathos, and logos play a role in any argument, this style of argument utilizes them in the most persuasive ways possible.

Of course, your professor may require some variations, but here is the basic format for an Aristotelian, or classical, argumentative essay:

• Introduce your issue. At the end of your introduction, most professors will ask you to present your thesis. The idea is to present your readers with your main point and then dig into it.
• Present your case by explaining the issue in detail and why something must be done or a way of thinking is not working. This will take place over several paragraphs.
• Address the opposition. Use a few paragraphs to explain the other side. Refute the opposition one point at a time.
• Provide your proof. After you address the other side, you’ll want to provide clear evidence that your side is the best side.
• Present your conclusion. In your conclusion, you should remind your readers of your main point or thesis and summarize the key points of your argument. If you are arguing for some kind of change, this is a good place to give your audience a call to action. Tell them what they could do to make a change.

Aristotelian Infographic

Introduction to Aristotelian Argument 

The Aristotelian or classical argument is a style of argument developed by the famous Greek philosopher and rhetorician, Aristotle. In this style of argument, the writer’s goal is to be convincing and to persuade your audience to your side of the issue through a series of strategies.

Start here!

Before you begin, review your assignment and ask yourself questions about what you might want to write about.

Use prewriting activities, such as brainstorming or listing, to help develop ideas for topics and angles.

Do your research! Find credible sources to help you build your argument.

But there’s more! There are some important concepts you need to learn about.

Modes of Persuasion

Ethos=credibility

Pathos=emotions

Logos=logic

Know Your Audience!

When writing a classical or Aristotelian argument, think about how you are going to be convincing to your audience!

Things to remember along the way…

Clear thesis

Support thesis

Opposing views

Cite sources

Sample Aristotelian Argument

Now that you have had the chance to learn about Aristotle and a classical style of argument, it’s time to see what an Aristotelian argument might look like. Below, you’ll see a sample argumentative essay, written according to APA 7th edition guidelines, with a particular emphasis on Aristotelian elements.

Download here the sample paper. In the sample, the strategies and techniques the author used have been noted for you.

This content was originally created by Excelsior Online Writing Lab (OWL) and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-4.0 International License . You are free to use, adapt, and/or share this material as long as you properly attribute. Please keep this information on materials you use, adapt, and/or share for attribution purposes. 

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• 25 March 2024
• Correction 27 March 2024

Weird new electron behaviour in stacked graphene thrills physicists

• Dan Garisto

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Electrons in stacked sheets of staggered graphene collectively act as though they have fractional charges at ultralow temperatures. Credit: Ramon Andrade 3DCiencia/Science Photo Library

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Last May, a team led by physicists at the University of Washington in Seattle observed something peculiar. When the scientists ran an electrical current across two atom-thin sheets of molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe 2 ), the electrons acted in concert, like particles with fractional charges. Resistance measurements showed that, rather than the usual charge of –1, the electrons behaved similar to particles with charges of –2/3 or –3/5, for instance. What was truly odd was that the electrons did this entirely because of the innate properties of the material, without any external magnetic field coaxing them. The researchers published the results a few months later, in August 1 .

Strange topological materials are popping up everywhere physicists look

The same month, this phenomenon, known as the fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect (FQAHE), was also observed in a completely different material. Researchers led by Long Ju, a condensed-matter physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, saw the effect when they sandwiched five layers of graphene between sheets of boron nitride. They published their results in February this year 2 — and physicists are still buzzing about it.

At the American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting, held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from 3 to 8 March, Ju presented the team’s findings, which haven’t yet been replicated by other researchers. Attendees, including Raquel Queiroz, a theoretical physicist at Columbia University in New York City, said that they thought the results were convincing, but were scratching their heads over the discovery. “There is a lot we don’t understand,” Queiroz says. Figuring out the exact mechanism of the FQAHE in the layered graphene will be “a lot of work ahead of theorists”, she adds.

Although the FQAHE might have practical applications down the line — fractionally charged particles are a key requirement for a certain type of quantum computer — the findings are capturing physicists’ imagination because they are fundamentally new discoveries about how electrons behave.

“I don’t know anyone who’s not excited about this,” says Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, a condensed-matter physicist at MIT who was not involved with the studies. “I think the question is whether you’re so excited that you switch all your research and start working on it, or if you’re just very excited.”

Strange maths

Strange behaviour by electrons isn’t new.

In some materials, usually at temperatures near absolute zero, electrical resistance becomes quantized. Specifically, it’s the material’s transverse resistance that does this. (An electrical current encounters opposition to its flow in both the same direction as the current — called longitudinal resistance — and in the perpendicular direction — what’s called transverse resistance.)

Quantized ‘steps’ in the transverse resistance occur at integer multiples of electron charge: 1, 2, 3 and so on. These plateaus are the result of a strange phenomenon: the electrons maintain the same transverse resistance even as charge density increases. That’s a little like vehicles on a road moving at the same speed, even with more traffic. This is known as the quantum Hall effect.

In a different set of materials, with less disorder, the transverse resistance can even display plateaus at fractions of electron charge: 2/5, 3/7 and 4/9, for example. The plateaus take these values because the electrons collectively act like particles with fractional charges — hence the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE).

Key to both phenomena is a strong external magnetic field, which prevents electrons from crashing into each other and enables them to interact.

(Left to right) Long Ju, Zhengguang Lu, Yuxuan Yao and Tonghang Han are all part of the team at MIT that demonstrated the fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect in layered graphene. Credit: Jixiang Yang

The FQHE, discovered in 1982, revealed the richness of electron behaviour. No longer could physicists think of electrons as single particles; in delicate quantum arrangements, the electrons could lose their individuality and act together to create fractionally charged particles. “I think people don’t appreciate how different [the fractional] is from the integer quantum Hall effect,” says Ashvin Vishwanath, a theoretical physicist at Harvard University in Cambridge. “It’s a new world.”

Over the next few decades, theoretical physicists came up with models to explain the FQHE and predict its effects. During their exploration, a tantalizing possibility appeared: perhaps a material could exhibit resistance plateaus without any external magnetic field. The effect, now dubbed the quantum anomalous Hall effect — ‘anomalous’, for the lack of a magnetic field — was finally observed in thin ferromagnetic films by a team at Tsinghua University in Beijing, in 2012 3 .

Carbon copy

Roughly a decade later, the University of Washington team reported the FQAHE for the first time 1 , in a specially designed 2D material: two sheets of MoTe 2 stacked on top of one another and offset by a twist.

This arrangement of MoTe 2 is known as a moiré material. Originally used to refer to a patterned textile, the term has been appropriated by physicists to describe the patterns in 2D materials created from atom-thin lattices when they are stacked and then twisted, or staggered atop one another. The slight offset between atoms in different layers of the material shifts the hills and valleys of its electric potential. And it effectively acts like a powerful magnetic field, taking the place of the one needed in the quantum Hall effect and the FQHE.

Xiaodong Xu, a condensed-matter physicist at the University of Washington, talked about the MoTe 2 discovery at the APS meeting. Theory hinted that the FQAHE would appear in the material at about a 1.4º twist angle. “We spent a year on it, and we didn’t see anything,” Xu told Nature .

Source: Adapted from Ref. 2.

Then, the researchers tried a larger angle — a twist of about 4º. Immediately, they began seeing signs of the effect. Eventually, they measured the electrical resistance and spotted the signature plateaus of the FQAHE. Soon afterwards, a team led by researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China replicated the results 4 .

Meanwhile, at MIT, Ju was perfecting his technique, sandwiching graphene between layers of boron nitride. Similar to graphene, the sheets of boron nitride that Ju’s team used were a mesh of atoms linked together in a hexagonal pattern. The material’s lattice has a slightly different size from graphene’s; the mismatch creates a moiré pattern (see ‘Anomalous behaviour’).

Last month, Ju published a report 2 about seeing the characteristic plateaus. “It is a really amazing result,” Xu says. “I'm very happy to see there’s a second system.” Since then, Ju says, he’s also seen the effect when using four and six layers of graphene.

Both moiré systems have their pros and cons. MoTe 2 exhibited the effect at a few kelvin, as opposed to 0.1 kelvin for the layered graphene sandwich. (Low temperatures are required to minimize disorder in the systems.) But graphene is a cleaner and higher-quality material that is easier to measure. Experimentalists are now trying to replicate the results in graphene and find other materials that behave similarly.

Moiré than bargained for

Theorists are relatively comfortable with the MoTe 2 results, for which the FQAHE was partly predicted. But Ju’s layered graphene moiré was a shock to the community, and researchers are still struggling to explain how the effect happens. “There’s no universal consensus on what the correct theory is,” Vishwanath says. “But they all agree that it’s not the standard mechanism.” Vishwanath and his colleagues posted a preprint proposing a theory that the moiré pattern might not be that important to the FQAHE 5 .

Welcome anyons! Physicists find best evidence yet for long-sought 2D structures

One reason to doubt the importance of the moiré is the location of the electrons in the material: most of the activity is in the topmost layer of graphene, far away from the moiré pattern between the graphene and boron nitride at the bottom of the sandwich that is supposed to most strongly influence the electrons. But B. Andrei Bernevig, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University in New Jersey, and a co-author of another preprint proposing a mechanism for the FQAHE in the layered graphene 6 , urges caution about theory-based calculations, because they rely on currently unverified assumptions. He says that the moiré pattern probably matters, but less than it does in MoTe 2 .

For theorists, the uncertainty is exciting. “There are people who would say that everything has been seen in the quantum Hall effect,” Vishwanath says. But these experiments, especially the one using the layered graphene moiré, show that there are still more mysteries to uncover.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00832-z

Updates & Corrections

Correction 27 March 2024 : An earlier version of this story spelled researcher Tonghang Han’s name incorrectly in the photo caption.

Park, H. et al. Nature 622 , 74–79 (2023).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Lu, Z. et al. Nature 626 , 759–764 (2024).

Chang, C.-Z. et al. Science 340 , 167–170 (2013).

Xu, F. et al. Phys. Rev. X 13 , 031037 (2023).

Article   Google Scholar  

Dong, J. et al. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2311.05568 (2023).

Kwan, Y. H. et al. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2312.11617 (2023).

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Distribution of Market Power, Endogenous Growth, and Monetary Policy

Yumeng Gu, Sanjay R. Singh

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2024-09 | March 28, 2024

We incorporate incumbent innovation in a Keynesian growth framework to generate an endogenous distribution of market power across firms. Existing firms increase markups over time through successful innovation. Entrant innovation disrupts the accumulation of market power by incumbents. Using this environment, we highlight a novel misallocation channel for monetary policy. A contractionary monetary policy shock causes an increase in markup dispersion across firms by discouraging entrant innovation relative to incumbent innovation. We characterize the circumstances when contractionary monetary policy may increase misallocation.

Article Citation

Gu, Yumeng, and Sanjay R. Singh. 2024. “Distribution of Market Power, Endogenous Growth, and Monetary Policy,” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Working Paper 2024-09. Available at https://doi.org/10.24148/wp2024-09

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Title: aios: llm agent operating system.

Abstract: The integration and deployment of large language model (LLM)-based intelligent agents have been fraught with challenges that compromise their efficiency and efficacy. Among these issues are sub-optimal scheduling and resource allocation of agent requests over the LLM, the difficulties in maintaining context during interactions between agent and LLM, and the complexities inherent in integrating heterogeneous agents with different capabilities and specializations. The rapid increase of agent quantity and complexity further exacerbates these issues, often leading to bottlenecks and sub-optimal utilization of resources. Inspired by these challenges, this paper presents AIOS, an LLM agent operating system, which embeds large language model into operating systems (OS) as the brain of the OS, enabling an operating system "with soul" -- an important step towards AGI. Specifically, AIOS is designed to optimize resource allocation, facilitate context switch across agents, enable concurrent execution of agents, provide tool service for agents, and maintain access control for agents. We present the architecture of such an operating system, outline the core challenges it aims to resolve, and provide the basic design and implementation of the AIOS. Our experiments on concurrent execution of multiple agents demonstrate the reliability and efficiency of our AIOS modules. Through this, we aim to not only improve the performance and efficiency of LLM agents but also to pioneer for better development and deployment of the AIOS ecosystem in the future. The project is open-source at this https URL .

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New Research Reveals Full Diversity of Killer Whales as Two Species Come into View on Pacific Coast

March 27, 2024

Long viewed as one worldwide species, killer whale diversity now merits more. Southern Resident Connections - Post 35

Scientists have resolved one of the outstanding questions about one of the world’s most recognizable creatures, identifying two well-known killer whales in the North Pacific Ocean as separate species.

Killer whales are one of the most widespread animals on Earth. They have long been considered one worldwide species known scientifically as Orcinus orca , with different forms in various regions known as “ecotypes.”

However, biologists have increasingly recognized the differences between resident and Bigg’s killer whales. Resident killer whales maintain tight-knit family pods and prey on salmon and other marine fish. Bigg’s killer whales roam in smaller groups, preying on other marine mammals such as seals and whales. (Killer whales actually belong to the dolphin family.) Bigg’s killer whales, sometimes called transients, are named for Canadian scientist Michael Bigg, the first to describe telltale differences between the two types.

He noted in the 1970s that the two animals did not mix with each other even when they occupied many of the same coastal waters. This is often a sign of different species.

The finding recognizes the accuracy of the listing of Southern Resident killer whales as a Distinct Population Segment warranting protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2005. At the time, NOAA described the distinct population segment as part of an unnamed subspecies of resident killer whales in the North Pacific.

Now a team of scientists from NOAA Fisheries and universities have assembled genetic, physical, and behavioral evidence. The data distinguish two of the killer whale ecotypes of the North Pacific Coast—residents and Bigg’s—as separate species.

“We started to ask this question 20 years ago, but we didn’t have much data, and we did not have the tools that we do now,” said Phil Morin, an evolutionary geneticist at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center and lead author of the new paper . “Now we have more of both, and the weight of the evidence says these are different species.”

Genetic data from previous studies revealed that the two species likely diverged more than 300,000 years ago and come from opposite ends of the killer whale family tree. That makes them about as genetically different as any killer whale ecotypes around the globe. Subsequent studies of genomic data confirm that they have evolved as genetically and culturally distinct groups, which occupy different niches in the same Northwest marine ecosystem.

“They’re the most different killer whales in the world, and they live right next to each other and see each other all the time,” said Barbara Taylor, a former NOAA Fisheries marine mammal biologist who was part of the science panel that assessed the status of Southern Residents. “They just do not mix.”

Recognizing New Species

The Taxonomy Committee of the Society of Marine Mammalogy will determine whether to recognize the new species in its official list of marine mammal species . The committee will likely determine whether to accept the new designations at its next annual review this summer.

The scientists proposed scientific names for the new species based on their earliest published descriptions in the 1800s. Neither will keep the ubiquitous worldwide moniker, orca . The team proposed to call resident killer whales Orcinus ater , a Latin reference to their dominant black coloring. Bigg’s killer whales would be called Orcinus rectipinnus , a combination of Latin words for erect wing, probably referring to their tall, sharp dorsal fin.

Both species names were originally published in 1869 by Edward Drinker Cope, a Pennsylvania scientist known more for unearthing dinosaurs than studying marine mammals. He was working from a manuscript that California whaling captain Charles Melville Scammon had sent to the Smithsonian Institution describing West Coast marine mammals, including the two killer whales. While Cope credited Scammon for the descriptions, Scammon took issue with Cope for editing and publishing Scammon’s work without telling him. (See accompanying story .)

The Smithsonian Institution had shared Scammon’s work with Cope, and a Smithsonian official later apologized to Scammon for what he called “Cope’s absurd blunder.”

Species Reflect Ecosystem

The contested question of whether Southern Residents were distinct enough to merit endangered species protections initially drove much of the research that helped differentiate the two species, said Eric Archer, who leads the Marine Mammal Genetics Program at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center and is a coauthor of the new research paper. The increasing processing power of computers has made it possible to examine killer whale DNA in ever finer detail. He said the findings not only validate protection for the animals themselves, but also help reveal different components of the marine ecosystems the whales depend on.

“As we better understand what makes these species special, we learn more about how they use the ecosystems they inhabit and what makes those environments special, too,” he said.

The new research synthesizes the earliest accounts of killer whales on the Pacific Coast with modern data on physical characteristics. The team also use aerial imaging (called photogrammetry ), and measurement and genetic testing of museum specimens at the Smithsonian and elsewhere. While the two species look similar to the untrained eye, the evidence demonstrates they are very different species. The two species use different ecological niches, such as specializing in different prey, said Kim Parsons, a geneticist at the NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle and coauthor of the new research.

Recent research with drones that collect precise aerial photos has helped differentiate Bigg’s killer whales as longer and larger. This might better equip them to go after large marine mammal prey. The smaller size of residents is likely better suited to deep dives after their salmon prey, said John Durban, an associate professor at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute. His killer whale drone research is done collaboratively with Holly Fearnbach, a researcher at SR³.

The different prey of the two species may also help explain their different trajectories. Southern Residents are listed as endangered in part because of the scarcity of their salmon prey. Bigg’s killer whales, by contrast, have multiplied while feeding on plentiful marine mammals, including California sea lions.

While killer whales represent some of the most efficient predators the world has ever seen, Durban said science is still unraveling the diversity among them. The identification of additional killer whale species is likely to follow. One leading candidate may be “Type D” killer whales identified in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica.

Other killer whales in Antarctic waters also look very different from the best-known black and white killer whales. This reflects a wider diversity within the species, said Durban, who has used drones to study killer whales around the world. “The more we learn,” he said, “the clearer it becomes to me that at least some of these types will be recognized as different species in due course.”

Southern Resident Connections

Southern Resident killer whales are icons of a vibrant but struggling marine ecosystem that is important to us all. Join us in exploring the ecological connections that tie this system together, and the ways we are protecting and working to recover the whales we all care so much about.

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More Information

• New Research Reveals Two Species of Killer Whale
• How Scientists Chose Names for Newly Identified Killer Whale Species
• Two Species of Killer Whale Infographic
• Marine Mammal Genetics Research
• 2004 Status Review of Southern Resident Killer Whales
• Saving the Southern Resident Killer Whales
• Listing of Southern Resident Killer Whale Under the ESA
• Killer Whale Ecotypes Poster

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