Rediscovering the “Rhetoric”: Aristotle’s field manual for the battlefield of ideas

On the battlefield of ideas we need to be soldiers for truth. In this battlefield, rhetoric is our weapon. Aristotle, updated with a little modern psychology, provides our field manual. Successful political, forensic and character speeches appeal to pathos, logos and ethos by telling a simple story connecting objects with a powerful hold over our attention to build on ideas at the core of our personality without contradicting them.

There is a wonderful quote from Pope that it is well worth quoting at length:

“I am inclined to think that both the writers of books, and the readers of them, are generally not a little unreasonable in their expectations. The first seem to fancy that the world must approve whatever they produce, and the latter to imagine that authors are obliged to please them at any rate. Methinks, as on the one hand, no single man is born with a right of controlling the opinions of all the rest; so on the other, the world has no title to demand, that the whole care and time of any particular person should be sacrificed to its entertainment. Therefore I cannot but believe that writers and readers are under equal obligations, for as much fame, or pleasure, as each affords the other.”

As a writer myself, I have to take it as given that the world needs not approve of whatever I produce, and that I am under an obligation to please it, or accept I shall not be afforded the “fame” I might desire. As an academic, the vast majority of my days are spent battling feelings of impotent rage that my ideas aren’t given the “fame” due the profundity I’m sure they have which drives me always to be “friendly” to my reader, as my old Doctoral advisor put it.

In these days of “post-factual democracy” I’ve found that my frustration isn’t particularly unique. Many bemoan that well-crafted narratives about, say, the “hoax” that is climate change seem to overwhelm the “facts” of the matter. Their frustration spills over and becomes, when stripped of all obfuscations, a yearning for a Closed Society where one is only allowed to speak if one meets certain credentials laid out by The Guardians of “fact” and “truth”.

But really, “no single man is born with a right of controlling the opinions of all the rest”. This is as it should be, for as I’ve written elsewhere, the Open Society is the means by which we avert political violence. But this is not is not a costless gain.

The price of living in an Open Society is that everyone may promulgate their opinion without restriction, and everyone is free to “afford fame” to whatever opinion they so choose. In a free public sphere where ideas are allowed to be raised and compete without restriction, only those ideas which are “fit” for the competition in the way an animal is “fit” for survival will be promoted.

What is “fit” for the competition of ideas is not the same as what is “true”. The truth is always complex, containing the words “if, but, except, unless”. Falsehoods can afford to be simple, expressing absolutes, because they do not need to recognise reality is always contingent. Therefore:

Question: If the public sphere is a battlefield, an evolutionary system in which ideas compete, how is one to ensure the truth prevails? How do we design an idea espousing truth (as we see it) to survive the competition, win the battle and persuade?

Answer: By becoming a soldier for truth. By reading Aristotle in light of modern psychology and learning to use the weapon that is Rhetoric.

Rediscovering Aristotle’s Rhetoric: the political speech, the forensic speech, the character speech and the enthymeme

Sometime in the fourth century BC Aristotle gave a series of lectures which would become his Rhetoric. The topic must surely have been controversial for his contemporaries. It wasn’t about justice, or love, or nature, or truth. Aristotle’s lectures sought an answer to a simple question: how does one design a speech to be persuasive?

He wouldn’t be entirely successful, but what he did achieve was an immeasurable service.

First, Aristotle defines a speech by reference to what it aims to promote: an enthymeme. This word is derived from the ancient Greek words “En” (“within”) and “thumos” (mind). An enthymeme is an idea which a speech tries to put into the mind of the audience. A speech is an effort to persuade people of an idea, to have them accept it and incorporate it into their minds.

Aristotle elaborates that enthymemes, ideas, are syllogisms. They set out arguments for a particular conclusion about past, present or future. They persuade through logic, cajole through reason and exhort through argument. He then elaborates that there are three kinds of speech corresponding to the three kinds of enthymemes the speaker aims to promote: the political speech, the forensic speech and the character speech.

The first category of speech is the political speech. The political speech seeks to change the future. The political speech aims to inspire action.

The political speech seeks to promote an enthymeme, an idea, which lays out arguments for a particular course of action to be taken. Aristotle is perspicacious in realising, two thousand years before Freud, that action must be driven. The political speech must create an idea which drives behaviour.

Hence the political speech must appeal to pathos. Pathos translated literally means “suffering”, which is interesting because Aristotle is implying that the political speech aims to have us by our actions rectify a wrong and thus make the future “better”. In general, the political speech appeals to emotion, it stirs the passions in the human breast and seeks to harness them toward changing the future. It is fickle and dangerous to make a political speech, because it is easy to stir the wrong passions from the point of view of the speaker, but it is essential to try.

Here is an example drawn from Thucydides’ recounting of the speech to the demos of the vicious Nicias during the Peloponnesian war:

The aim of policy is the glory of Athens and the crushing of our enemies. Victory over Spartan interests in Syracuse will promote the glory of Athens and the crushing of our enemies, and therefore we must mount an expedition to invade Syracuse.

The second category of speech is the forensic speech. The forensic speech seeks to narrate the past. It seeks to promote an enthymeme, an idea, which lays out arguments for a particular vision of the past. The forensic speech must convince us, in modern parlance, of a particular historical narrative.

The forensic speech must appeal to logos. It must not arouse passions (these hamper one’s ability to persuade in this regard) but rather seek to convince us by means of reason and argument. Aristotle was wise to realise, again two thousand years but this time before Leon Festinger, the dangers of unnecessarily evoking emotions when they may be dissonant with the narrative of the past one is trying to promote through reason and argument.

Here is an example drawn from Herodotus’ analysis of the naval battle of Salamis during the Persian wars:

The battle of Salamis was the turning point in the Persian wars. While Xerxes’ land forces were untouched, Themistocles’ strategy of drawing the Persian fleet into the Salamis straits where superior Greek tactics could prevail was devastating for Xerxes’ naval power. Xerxes’ confidence was so shaken by Greek cunning and valour he withdrew the bulk of his forces from danger.

The final category of speech is the character speech. This is a subtle form of speech which seeks to shape character. It aims to promote an enthymeme, an idea, about how we ought Be. It seeks to promote a particular ethics by developing individual morals.

The character speech must appeal to ethos. Ethos is our sense of right and wrong upon which our character is based. How we view the world, and how we should think and act in it is based on our sense of ethos. The character speech must build up a view of how it is Right to cultivate certain attitudes and beliefs to guide our actions.

Here is an example drawn from Homer’s Illiad:

It is right to act with honour, courage and duty as the Gods command, Hector does so even knowing he goes to his death and surrounded by the horror of war. Troy worshipped him as a hero and the Gods exalt him even in death by preventing Achilles from soiling him. You are to cultivate the spirit of Hector within yourself.

To summarise, when constructing an enthymeme, one must know what speech one is trying to construct so as to know what to appeal to:

· The political speech: aims to change the future - appeal to pathos (emotion).

· The forensic speech: aims to narrate the past - appeal to logos (reason).

· The character speech: aims to shape individual character - appeal to ethos (ethics).

Skip forward some two thousand years, and in 1984 George Orwell reveals the interplay between these kinds of speech: who controls the present controls the past, who controls the past controls the future. Hence the utter necessity of promoting a good character in the present, so as to be able to promote a vision of the past which seeks truth, and promote a vision of the future which is consonant with the truth of human flourishing.

The courage of Aristotle: in defence of truth

Aristotle’s courage in writing all this is not to be underestimated. Rhetoric was considered by his contemporaries to be the practice which defined the despicable Sophist, and the vile art of persuasion regardless of truth. In short, everything philosophy was against.

Plato especially never got over his hurt at the death of Socrates at the hands of an Athenian demos legendarily susceptible to sophistry. Truth is mighty and will prevail was the unqualified belief of the philosophers.

Aristotle realised a more subtle and critically important interpretation. Truth is vulnerable without defenders, for it is complex, subtle, and never simple (“thou shalt not steal … except when it’s necessary, under these circumstances”). And yet it is powerful in the hands of its defenders, because insofar as what is persuasive is part of the truth, it itself gives us the means of its defence.

Aristotle’s courage was to realise that if we want truth to prevail, we need to be soldiers for truth, and that on the battlefield of ideas, rhetoric is our weapon.

Some more modern lessons: sculpting the enthymeme

Aristotle gave many examples and specific guidances as to details of how to construct the political, forensic and character speeches, and how to appeal to pathos, logos, and ethos. But the reader of his manual is left a little dissatisfied for one doesn’t really feel left with a “how-to” guide for sculpting one’s enthymeme to be as persuasive as can be.

My own recent work, extending Aristotle’s Rhetoric in light of modern psychology and evolutionary science, seeks to do exactly this by making use of a mathematical result called the “Made to Stick” theorem. To make it more likely you will assent (to use Grammar Newman’s wonderful phrase) to an enthymeme, an idea, and have you incorporate it into your mind I can make use of five factors (which can also be found in my earlier essay):

1. The simpler an idea, the less I have to get you to accept, the more likely it is you’ll accept this idea.

2. The more of an idea already in your mind, the less I have to get you to accept, the more likely it is you’ll accept the idea.

3. The more I express the idea in a way which connects objects with a powerful hold over your attention (for instance your emotions and your experiences), the more likely it is you’ll notice the idea, the more likely you’ll accept the idea.

4. Personality psychology tells us that there is resistance to change at the “core” of our personality. The more an idea would change the “core” of your personality, the less likely it is you’ll accept the idea.

5. Cognitive dissonance psychology tells us that there is resistance to accept things which contradict our existing worldview. The more an idea contradicts the ideas you subscribe to, the less likely it is you’ll accept the idea.

These become guides in how to literally shape an enthymeme, an idea. Each of these concepts actually has a mathematical form, a geometric form even, for an idea is a logical object which takes a certain shape.

Together (when we realise that stories are progressions of events which are ultimately consonant) the five factors in persuasiveness imply the following dictum for the persuasiveness of an idea:

Tell a simple story connecting objects with a powerful hold over the individual’s attention to build on ideas at the core of the individual’s personality without contradicting them.

The speech which convinces, which persuades, which proposes an idea that is “fit” in the competition of ideas is one in which the enthymeme is constructed by reference to this dictum.

To follow this dictum in developing the political, the forensic, and the character speech appealing respectively to pathos, logos and ethos is to wield the weapon of rhetoric. It is to wield the weapon of rhetoric in defence of truth on the battlefield of ideas.

Soldiers wielding rhetoric in defence of truth

The Irish statesman and writer John Curran said:

“It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance”

The Open Society averts political violence, but comes at a cost. Complicated truth is vulnerable to the promulgation of simple falsehoods by the “active”.

Those seeking the promotion of truth cannot be indolent and “fancy that the world must approve whatever they produce” as Pope said. The benefits of the Open Society mean that we must be soldiers for truth, willing to defend it with the weapon it gives us: the art of rhetoric.