








































© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2008, Unit 6, The Village, 101 Amies Street, London SW11 2JW

[Expositions 2.2 (2008) 163–188] Expositions (print) ISSN 1747-5368  
doi:10.1558/expo.v2i2.163 Expositions (online) ISSN 1747-5376 

Preliminary Reflections on the Rhetoric of Aristotle’s 
Rhetoric1

BryAN-PAUL FroSt

Department of Political Science  
University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Perhaps the first question anyone would ask when reading a book whose 
theme is rhetoric is the following: What sort of rhetoric is the author going 
to employ in this work? to rephrase this in somewhat more cynical terms: 
Where, when, and how is the author going to attempt to pull the wool over 
my eyes? No serious author can be unaware that his readers will likely raise 
this question, especially when the author under consideration is universally 
acknowledged to have written the foundational work on the subject: Aristo-
tle’s Rhetoric. In the words of Alan G. Gross and Arthur E. Walzer (2000, ix), 
“Whitehead’s observation that the history of philosophy is one long footnote 
to Plato can for us be transferred to the Rhetoric: All subsequent rhetorical 
theory is but a series of responses to issues raised by that central work.”2 Giv-
en the obviousness of this question, one would expect that the scholar who 
wished to investigate this topic would have to wade through a veritable sea of 
secondary literature in order to set one’s bearings. But this is surprisingly not 
the case, at least in political science. Although there has been a sort of “mini-
renaissance” of the Rhetoric in the last decade or so,3 the book—let alone this 
question—has largely been ignored by contemporary political theorists.4

Before beginning to answer this question, however, it may be worthwhile 
to take a moment and reflect upon why it is even important to address this 
subject matter at all: is there any vital reason today to turn to Aristotle’s 
Rhetoric for guidance on pressing social or political issues, on everything from 
participatory democracy to civic education? or should conclusions from a  
serious study of the Rhetoric be justly confined to the musty halls of academia? 
After all, it is really beyond question that “rhetoric” has a terrible reputation 
today: the word is hardly ever used except in a pejorative sense, and most 
students who are enrolled in debate or public speech courses would consider 
it an insult to be called rhetoricians. Most persons think that there is some-
thing dubious or even sinister about someone who is a clever speaker; we are 
suspicious of someone who can speak persuasively on both sides of an issue. 



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And such a suspicion is not at all unfounded, nor is it unique to this century. 
to say nothing of the reputation many lawyers and politicians have today, 
one need only recall that one of the reasons Socrates was tried and executed 
was because he could make “the weaker speech [appear] the stronger” (Apol-
ogy 18b).5

But while rhetoric has always been considered with a certain amount of 
unease or caution, it was clearly more highly venerated in antiquity than 
it is today—and this precisely because of antiquity’s rich understanding of 
politics. For classical republicanism, citizenship meant active and direct par-
ticipation in the life of a small, self-sufficient community. The entire citizen 
body had the awesome responsibility of self-government, and this meant that 
they had to articulate their own political goals and aspirations, and to develop 
policies and institutions that would best attain them. It is no wonder, then, 
that at the core of civic education according to the classics was a training 
in rhetoric—in how to communicate effectively with other citizens in the 
political arena. Citizens not only had to be able to persuade others of the 
nobility, advantages, or justice of one course of action over another, but they 
also had to be ready to unmask those corrupt and rapacious individuals who 
only masqueraded as selfless servants of the city. In sum, it would not be an 
exaggeration to say that rhetoric was the civic art.6

It might immediately be objected, however, that regardless of how theo-
retically rich Aristotle’s treatment of rhetoric is, he was writing primarily for 
an audience that was wholly different from our own: unlike the citizens of 
the Greek polis, we do not participate directly in national government but 
through our elected representatives; our citizen class is open and inclusive 
while theirs was closed and restrictive; and our state is large, liberal, and  
focused primarily on economics. All of this is undeniable—but to claim that 
we therefore have very little to learn from Aristotle is simply fallacious. While 
it is true that very few of us participate directly in national government, local 
and state associations afford us a multitudinous array of such opportunities; 
and these associations, from the local PtA to a state-wide ballot initiative or 
campaign, often have a much more immediate and personal impact upon 
our lives than what occurs at the national level. Moreover, we must keep in 
mind that an understanding of rhetoric is not only useful for persuading oth-
ers (whether at the national, state, or local level), but it also helps us to see 
when others are trying to deceive us and advance their own special interests. 
At a time when citizens are bombarded by literally thousands of sound bites 
and advertisements, it is all the more imperative to understand the character 
of political discourse—both how to communicate effectively with others as 



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well as how to recognize and unmask potential demagogues and flatterers. 
Indeed, given the destructive ways modern communications, propaganda, 
and technology have been manipulated in the twentieth century, one could 
very easily make the case that we need theoretical clarity about rhetoric more 
than the Greeks ever did.

Let us restate the above ideas in the following way. If democratic politics is 
to consist of more than force and fraud—if it is to be a genuinely ennobling 
activity—then it will have to be based, at least in part, on reasoned discourse 
between and among the electorate and their representatives. The citizens of a 
democracy, therefore, must be instructed in the nature or character of public 
discourse if they are ever to distinguish between being manipulated by propa-
ganda and listening to thoughtful arguments on opposing sides of an issue. 
But as is clear from the past success of such bankrupt ideologies as Stalinism, 
Maoism, and Fascism, such instruction is not at all easily taught or acquired. 
Now one of the best ways to gain theoretical clarity on this subject is to be 
willing to step outside our own liberal and democratic framework in order to 
see how these ideas were addressed and debated in other times and places; and 
it can hardly be doubted that Aristotle engaged in one of the most rigorous, 
insightful, and compelling investigations into the nature of rhetoric. A return 
to Aristotle, in particular, and classical antiquity, in general, for guidance on 
these questions is not an attempt to satisfy some conservative nostalgia for 
times of old; rather, Aristotle is the very one who may be able to teach us 
modern liberal democrats the most. As Aristotle is a critic of both liberalism 
and democracy, he is more likely to ask questions and make arguments that 
we would likely overlook, disregard, or even find offensive. As we take our 
political bearings from the Enlightenment, such questions and arguments are 
particularly important for us to raise and seriously address; for we often have 
unrealistic expectations about what politics can accomplish, and we tend to 
overestimate what even the most well-crafted civic education can achieve. In 
sum, by returning to Aristotle’s Rhetoric, we will begin to attain greater clarity 
about the theoretical and practical nature of civic discourse, as well as to see 
what role instruction in rhetoric should have in current debates surround-
ing the revamping of civic education. We are certainly not obliged to copy 
everything the classics recommend and to place rhetoric at the center of civic 
education; but by returning to a time when debates about the character and 
power of rhetoric were of vital public concern, we might profitably listen to 
and learn from Aristotle’s sober discussion.

 It is hoped that the aforementioned arguments and the following set of 
reflections might contribute in some small way to the modest but apparently 



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growing interest in the Rhetoric. At all events, let us now turn to Aristotle’s 
treatise itself and address what might be considered the natural starting point 
for any political or philosophical study of the work: What is the rhetoric of 
the Rhetoric? In other words, to whom is it addressed and what did Aristotle 
hope to convey or teach by composing this book?7

The Anti-rhetorical Opening of the Rhetoric
If one turns to the Rhetoric in order to learn how to outwit a clever opponent, 
or to acquit a dubious client, or to learn how to promote self-interested poli-
cies while simultaneously appearing to be a selfless servant of the regime, the 
opening chapter of the work is likely to disappoint. Aristotle begins the trea-
tise with what can only be described as a blistering attack against rhetoric as 
it is generally taught and practiced. Aristotle complains that previous authors 
of “arts of speech” have completely ignored enthymemes (which are initially  
described as the “body of persuasion”) and have concentrated on only a “small 
part” of rhetoric, namely appealing to the emotions of judges. But arousing 
the anger or pity or envy of a jury is hardly germane to the proceedings in a 
courtroom, and in well-governed cities, such appeals are (or would be) for-
bidden by the law: arousing the passions of a jury in this way is like making 
a “straightedge rule crooked before using it.” Well-governed cities require 
speakers to stick to proving the facts of the case (e.g., did something hap-
pen or not, or is something true or not), and Aristotle exhorts the would-be 
rhetorician to do nothing but support truth and justice (1.1.3–6,12).8 The 
rhetoric that Aristotle describes in Book 1, chapter 1 is clearly not the rheto-
ric with which we are familiar, and it is certainly not the rhetoric that many 
politically ambitious students would want to study. In other words, the rhet-
oric that is here described is purged of almost all of its “rhetorical” elements, 
and surely many prospective students, after hearing or reading how Aristotle 
purifies both the means and ends of rhetoric in the introduction, might look 
elsewhere for such advice. At this early point in the work, Aristotle seems 
in close agreement with Socrates in the Gorgias (463b–66a): rhetoric as it is 
normally taught and practiced resembles flattery, and it would seem to have 
very little that is noble or endearing about it.

But does all of this mean that Aristotle believes that those judging the case 
are any wiser or better than those arguing it, and that they should have the 
authority to determine whether something is “important or unimportant, 
or just or unjust”? This is exceedingly doubtful. Immediately after making 
the above remarks, Aristotle launches into a discussion as to why well-craft-
ed laws leave as little as possible to the discretion of the jury: regardless of 



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whether speakers make emotional appeals, the judges themselves are simply 
too likely to be partial to one side or another. only in those cases when the 
law cannot or does not specify certain things should the jury decide on these 
matters; otherwise, they should confine themselves to determining whether 
or not the event or action did or did not occur (1.1.1–8). It would seem that 
neither the people nor the speakers should have much latitude when judg-
ing cases: the latter are prone to distort the facts of a case by appealing to the 
jury’s emotions unless prevented from doing so by the law; and the former, 
even in the absence of such appeals, are still liable to be partial to either the 
plaintiff or defendant.9

What does Aristotle hope to achieve or convey through this two-fold  
depreciation of both the rhetorician and his audience in the opening chap-
ter—in other words, what is Aristotle’s rhetorical strategy here at the out-
set? Three possible answers present themselves when we look at the effect 
this might have on Aristotle’s most likely or obvious audience: potential or 
practicing statesmen. In the first place, Aristotle seems intent on appealing 
to the high-mindedness or nobility of his readers. By planting firmly and  
immediately in a statesman’s mind what might be called an “idealized” ver-
sion of rhetoric, and the political order that would support it, Aristotle dis-
courages any attempt to use rhetoric to manipulate others: the persuasive 
power of rhetoric must be limited to supporting what is true and just, and 
not to advancing one’s own selfish interests (1.1.12–13). of course, there will 
inevitably be some individuals who will not heed Aristotle’s advice, and this 
is why he shows his readers, in the second place, that well-crafted laws should 
regulate or control rhetoric. Unless the city asserts its supremacy over rheto-
ric—unless rhetoricians are kept on a “tight leash”—clever speakers will have 
the opportunity to create enormous havoc politically; for if human beings 
are susceptible to making biased decisions in even the best of circumstances, 
how much more erroneous and harmful will their decisions be once they are 
whipped up into a frenzy by an artful rhetorician. one might say that the 
relative health of a regime can be gauged by the character of the rhetoric in 
vogue in the courts: the better the regime, the less it will tolerate rhetoric 
as it is ordinarily understood and practiced. And finally, in the third place, 
even in the very best of regimes, Aristotle never says that a statesman can do 
away with rhetoric. An uncorrupted multitude is still a multitude, and as  
Aristotle maintains, even if a statesman had the most exact knowledge, it 
is not always possible to instruct or teach a crowd (1.1.11): persuasion will 
always be necessary. Aristotle offers a sober reminder that although politics 
involves rational discourse, citizens are not always amenable to reason.10 By 



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learning how, or what it means, to communicate with a crowd, the future 
statesman will also begin to understand the disposition or character of most 
political multitudes. In sum, the opening chapter not only encourages the 
reader to pursue and promote what is true and just, but it also indicates 
how rhetoric should be regulated, and why it is necessary, even in the very 
best regime. Aristotle promotes the civically responsible use of rhetoric, but a 
rhetoric that is as rational or deliberative as possible.

Clever but Decent: The Subordination of Rhetoric to  
Political Science
Given the rather high-minded or moral tone of the opening chapter, it comes 
as quite a surprise that Aristotle very quickly changes his own rhetoric in 
the chapters that follow—so much so that many scholars see irreconcilable 
tensions between chapter 1 and the rest of the book.11 And one cannot ex-
plain away these discrepancies by claiming that chapter 1 is an early (or late)  
addition to the book, and that Aristotle changed his mind as to the nature of 
rhetoric while composing the treatise.12 to say nothing of the fact that Aris-
totle could easily have “deleted” what he wrote, a very similar set of remarks 
are made at the beginning of Book 3, almost as if Aristotle wants to remind 
his readers of what was said in Book 1, chapter 1.13

After the opening chapter, Aristotle now begins to treat and discuss rhetoric 
as it is more commonly understood and practiced; and the practical advice he 
gives his readers on how to be persuasive can at best be described as “amoral.” 
For example, Aristotle instructs his students on how to stretch the truth when 
it comes to claiming that a person actually has a particular virtue or not 
(1.9.28–32); he tells them that they should urge a judge to follow the written 
law when the facts of a case are in their favor, but dissuade him from doing 
so when the facts are against them (1.15.3–12 and the chapter as a whole); 
he states that they should use maxims that conform to and even flatter the 
opinions and assumptions of their audience in order to enhance their own 
moral character (2.21.15–16); and finally, Aristotle articulates a long list of 
apparent or fallacious enthymemes, and there is no suggestion in the chapter 
that students must avoid using them in order to win their case (2.24). Not-
withstanding this advice, Aristotle never openly encourages his readers to act 
wickedly or viciously, or to win a case at any and all costs: in fact, he some-
times states the reverse, as when he claims that

the true and the just are by nature stronger than their opposites . . . [and that] 
… one should be able to argue persuasively as to opposites, just as in the use 



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of syllogisms, not that we may actually do both (for one should not persuade 
what is debased), but in order that it may not escape our notice what the real 
state of the case is, and that we may be able to refute if another person uses 
speeches unjustly. (1.1.12)

Nevertheless, the “moral” remarks are far less numerous than those that 
seem “amoral,” and it is hard not to come away with the conclusion that 
Aristotle is more interested in teaching his students how to be successful 
(rather than strictly just) rhetoricians, even if they have to use an occasional 
underhanded technique in order to win their case.14

In order to defend Aristotle against the charge that his advice arms the 
wicked with the weapons needed to cause great mischief in politics, one could 
say (as Aristotle explicitly states above [1.1.12]) that the virtuous must know 
how the wicked will argue and act if they are to defeat them. Larry Arnhart 
(1981, 27), who uses this argument to defend Aristotle, offers the following 
quote from richard Whately’s Elements of Rhetoric (1963, xxxix) to back up 
his claim. Whately writes:

With respect to what are commonly called rhetorical Artifices—contrivances 
for “making the worse appear the better reason,”—it would have savoured of 
pedantic morality to give solemn admonitions against employing them, or to 
enter a formal disclaimer of dishonest intention; since, after all, the generality 
will, according to their respective characters, make what use of a book they 
think fit, without waiting for the Author’s permission. But what I have endeav-
ored to do, is clearly to set forth, as far as I could, (as Bacon does in his Essay on 
Cunning,) these sophistical tricks of the Art; and as far as I may have succeeded 
in this, I shall have been providing the only effectual check to the employment 
of them. The adulterators of food or of drugs, and the coiners of base money, 
keep their processes a secret, and dread no one so much as him who detects, de-
scribes, and proclaims their contrivances, and thus puts men on their guard.

Without doubt, Arnhart and Whately bring up a weighty reason why  
Aristotle’s practical advice has such an “amoral” character—but there could 
be another reason as well. Aristotle may refuse to pepper his audience with 
moral admonitions against using rhetoric in a wicked manner because such 
admonitions, when read by the virtuous, might have the unintended conse-
quence of disarming the virtuous with the very weapons they need to succeed 
in politics. In other words, the problem with the virtuous is not that they 
will resort to such clever rhetorical devices, but rather that they will fail to 
resort to them often enough in order to defeat the political machinations of 
others. repeated moral admonitions of the kind Arnhart and Whately speak 
about might prevent, or make more difficult, the virtuous from seeing all 



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those rhetorical ruses they might have to employ in order to convince others 
to adopt policies that are truly just, and reject those that are in reality un-
just. The particular problem with the high-minded is that they are prone to  
imagine that other persons are similar to themselves—that they act from 
and respond to the same motivations—and that persons would therefore be 
unlikely to resort to such underhanded techniques. to borrow a line from 
Machiavelli, the problem with the virtuous is that they are liable to be “too 
good” in a world of bad men; realizing this, Aristotle very quickly drops the 
high moral tone he had adopted in the opening chapter, candidly showing 
his serious reader all the devices that will have to be used in the rough-and-
tumble world of politics. Politics is simply too unpredictable and violent to 
rely solely upon decent and just tactics; statesmen must employ what seem to 
be “vicious” or “immoral” means in order to secure just and reasonable ends 
(see also 1.15.26).

If the above idea is correct, then it also helps us make better sense of an-
other prominent feature of the Rhetoric once one moves beyond the open-
ing chapter: the clear subordination of rhetoric to politics and political sci-
ence. Now the subordinate status of rhetoric to political science is already 
adumbrated in the opening chapter. Aristotle diminishes the attractiveness 
of rhetoric as a career or way of life by claiming that the rhetoric used in the 
courts is inferior to—or less “noble” than—deliberative rhetoric. Previous 
teachers of rhetoric concentrate almost exclusively on judicial rhetoric, which 
Aristotle argues deals solely with “private transactions”; these same authors 
have very little to say about deliberative rhetoric, which is far more important 
to the political community as a whole (1.1.9–10).15 The depreciation of judi-
cial rhetoric prepares the reader for what Aristotle says at the beginning and 
end of his discussion of deliberative rhetoric. Here, Aristotle is unambiguous: 
the knowledge a speaker most needs is that concerning the regime. Delibera-
tion concerns what is advantageous and/or harmful to a political community, 
and what is advantageous and/or harmful is always defined in respect to the  
regime (1.4.4–7,12–13; 1.8.1–7). And it is not just deliberative rhetoric 
that requires this knowledge: epideictic and judicial rhetoric would seem to  
require it as well. Not only is epideictic rhetoric discussed in terms of de-
liberative rhetoric (1.9.35–37), but to know what to praise and blame one 
must understand what is honored and dishonored in the regime (compare 
1.9.26,30); similarly, to know about crime and punishment, and justice and 
injustice, one must know the laws of that regime (see also 1.10.3; 1.13.1–8). 
Unfortunately, it is precisely this specific knowledge of politics that rhetoric 
does not and cannot provide to an ambitious student of the Rhetoric (compare 



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1.4.13). to the extent that such an individual wishes to become a genuinely 
fine statesman, he will necessarily have to study a “more profound and true” 
subject (1.4.4), namely political science, and therefore turn to such works 
as the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics (see 1.8.7). Knowledge of rhetoric is 
clearly important for political leaders; but a future statesman must not think 
that by becoming a consummate rhetorician he has thereby mastered the 
architectonic science of politics. Aristotle would here seem to agree in large 
measure with Socrates’ conclusion in the Phaedrus (Plato Phaedrus 271d–
72b): the genuine rhetorician needs to study the science of the soul—political 
science.

Let us conclude this section by restating what Aristotle is trying to  
accomplishment rhetorically in the movement from chapter 1 to the center 
of the book. After appealing to the nobility and justice of his readers, and 
after showing them what rhetoric would look like in a well-constituted politi-
cal order, Aristotle adopts a sober, hard-headed attitude about rhetoric and 
politics. And he needs to make this change in attitude or approach precisely 
because the very persons who would be attracted to his initial appeal are also 
those who might be hesitant about using “underhanded” rhetorical methods 
in order to plead their cause and win their case. The virtuous are liable to 
think that the praise and blame which moves them (i.e., their concern for 
genuine honor) is also what motivates others, and that just as they would not 
demean themselves by using rhetorical ruses on a crowd, neither would their 
opponents. But the problem is more complex than this: not only are people 
susceptible to the wiles of rhetoric, but speech itself can only accomplish so 
much in politics. Aristotle’s repeated insistence in the Rhetoric that rhetori-
cians should turn to political science is the obverse of his statement at the end 
of the Nicomachean Ethics that politics cannot be reduced to rhetoric (as the 
sophists maintain). Politics requires more than reasoned or persuasive or even 
clever (and perhaps deceptive) speech—it requires knowledge of regimes as 
well as what goes into making a regime work, and this inevitably means the 
use of force. The potential statesman who turns to rhetoric might be suscep-
tible to the same sort of error of which Aristotle accuses the sophists, an error 
which Aristotle alerts his readers to in both books. We might say that part 
of Aristotle’s rhetoric in the Rhetoric is to make his readers see that rhetoric 
must be understood as a prolegomena to political science, and the ambitious 
student must be pointed to the Politics in order to receive the fullest and most 
complete training in statesmanship.16



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Rhetoric and Philosophy, Endoxa and Truth

We have suggested that the rhetoric of the Rhetoric is intended, at the very least, 
to discourage and defeat the efforts of manipulative speakers, and at the very 
most, to indicate to the potential statesman that the study of rhetoric must 
be understood as a prolegomena to political science. But is this all Aristotle 
intended? to rephrase the question using the language of Leo Strauss (1952, 
36), does the Rhetoric contain any teaching from the mature philosopher Aris-
totle to the “puppies of his race,” i.e., the young potential philosopher?

to see that there is such a teaching, we can begin by making the following 
observation. Throughout the Rhetoric, Aristotle repeatedly makes what can 
only be described as disparaging (but perhaps true) remarks concerning the 
audience for whom rhetorical speeches are composed. Most people, Aristotle 
states, cannot follow a long train of arguments and have rather simple or 
even weak minds (1.2.12–13; 2.21.15; 3.18.4), and this is why rhetorical 
enthymemes should not be elaborate and drawn out (2.22.3; 3.17.6–7). Even 
though the delivery of rhetorical speeches is fundamentally a “vulgar matter 
when rightly understood,” it must nevertheless be learned due to the moral 
corruption of the audience: sadly, most people are moved by the “outward 
show” of a speech rather than by its internal substance (3.1.5–7; 3.14.8). And 
if this were not enough, Aristotle seems to lay it all on the line when he states 
that “the many are rather bad, slaves of profitmaking, and cowardly in dan-
ger” and that “human beings usually do wrong when they can” (2.5.7–8).17 
The question these passages raise is the following: if this is the character of 
most audiences, and if the telos of a speech relates to the audience (1.3.1, 
see also 2.1.2; 2.18.1), then what is the philosopher Aristotle getting out of 
teaching this subject? If philosophy is the highest way of life, and if rhetoric 
is about persuasion and not about learning or instruction (1.1.12; compare 
3.1.5), then how is Aristotle as a thinker being satisfied through such an ex-
tended study of this subject? to put this question in Platonic language: why 
would Aristotle want to descend into the cave and teach people how to be 
persuasive and successful? Therefore, if rhetoric is important to Aristotle—as 
it clearly is—then Aristotle himself must be getting something out of this 
study beyond correcting his predecessors and teaching the ambitious how 
to move a crowd. to see the possible philosophical value or teaching of the 
Rhetoric, we must once again return to the opening chapter, and in particular 
the very first line.

Aristotle opens the Rhetoric with what is probably the most famous—as 
well as most puzzling—line in the entire book: “rhetoric is a counterpart 



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[antistrophos] of dialectic.”18 What Aristotle intended precisely by using the 
word antistrophos in this context is not at all apparent, although several pos-
sibilities suggest themselves. First, Aristotle could be throwing down the 
“gauntlet” (McCabe 1994, 139) at the feet of both Socrates and Isocrates, 
the former who claimed that rhetoric was the antistrophos of cookery (Plato 
Gorgias 465c–466a) and the latter who said it was the counterpart in the 
soul of gymnastics in the body (Isocrates Antidosis 181–182).19 or again, 
second, Aristotle could be thinking of the strophe and antistrophe of a Greek 
chorus, the idea being that rhetoric is similar to dialectic, although it moves 
in the opposite direction (Arnhart 1981, 13–21). Third and finally, Aristotle 
may be using the word the way it is used in the Analytics and Topics: in these 
works, something is the antistrophos of something else if it can be converted 
into that very thing, i.e., if the relationship between the two terms is one of 
“reciprocity and reversibility.”20 These last two suggestions—and in particular 
the third—are intriguing; for if rhetoric resembles or can even somehow be 
“converted” into dialectic, and if dialectic is the philosophical method par 
excellence, then this might reveal at least one reason why Aristotle is interested 
in the subject.

Throughout the opening pages, Aristotle highlights the numerous ways in 
which rhetoric and dialectic are similar. For example, both are concerned with 
things which can be known by most everyone and belong to no separate science 
(1.1.1,14; 1.2.7); both reason about opposite things (1.1.12), supply words 
or arguments (1.2.7), and use inductive and deductive methods of reasoning 
(1.2.8; see also 2.22.14); both use topics applicable or common to many dif-
ferent subjects (1.2.21), and both are a mental faculty rather than a specific 
science (1.4.6); and finally, both use endoxa (or reputable common opinions) 
(1.1.11–12; 1.2.11,13; compare 1.1.1) and deal with what seems true to cer-
tain kinds of people (1.2.11).21 The differences between rhetoric and dialectic, 
however, are no less important, and these too are also emphasized by Aristotle 
in the opening chapters. Although rhetoric is supposed to be universally appli-
cable to any subject, it tends to deal with particular or given situations, most 
of which are ethical-political in nature (1.2.1,7,12,22; 1.4.3–7). rhetoric 
aims at persuasion, not instruction (1.1.12,14; 1.2.1,8–13), and the audience 
is a simple-minded one that cannot follow a long train of arguments (1.1.12; 
1.2.12–13). And finally, rhetoric uses enthymemes and paradigms (rather than 
syllogisms and induction), and generally the premises of enthymemes are not 
universally true (1.1.11; 1.2.8–9,13–14,20). Given the above similarities and 
differences, I would suggest that rhetoric is a counterpart of dialectic in the 
sense that a rhetorician can become a dialectician once he moves from a desire 



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to persuade the audience to a desire to instruct or teach his interlocutor(s) 
(and perhaps himself ). In other words, rhetoric can be “converted” to dialectic 
once the ends of rhetoric change from persuasion to instruction.

In order to support this contention, it is important to note the following 
broad points. In the first place, the means that rhetoric and dialectic use 
to achieve their respective ends of persuasion and instruction are largely (or 
formally) one and the same. Both use, or start from, endoxa in order to con-
struct their arguments; and while it is true that rhetoric concentrates almost 
exclusively on ethical-political endoxa, it is not the case that the dialectician is 
uninterested in these sorts of opinions: the difference would seem to be that 
the dialectician deals with a much wider array of such opinions (e.g., those 
concerning nature or the cosmos), which rarely form the material or content 
of rhetorical persuasion (see 1.2.11–12,21). Furthermore, although rhetori-
cal demonstration is called enthymeme and paradigm, and dialectical proof 
syllogism and induction, Aristotle repeatedly points out the syllogistic nature 
of enthymemes throughout the treatise. Enthymemes are said to be a “kind 
of syllogism,”22 and just as a dialectician should be able to discern a true from 
an apparent syllogism so too must a rhetorician be able to see the difference 
between a true and an apparent enthymeme (1.1.11,14; 1.2.6,8–9). In fact, 
to the extent that dialectical syllogisms also employ endoxa, it would seem 
that their conclusions (like the conclusions of enthymemes) would be proba-
bilistic in character as well (see also 1.2.13–22).23

In the second place, once a rhetorician turned from persuasion to instruc-
tion, several other differences between the two faculties would seem to col-
lapse. If someone were primarily interested in instruction, then it is doubtful 
that he would address himself to a crowd, but more likely to a smaller and 
more serious audience. This is not to say that a dialectician would converse 
solely with other dialecticians; but it does suggest that his interlocutors would 
frequently be capable of instruction, something which does not seem to be 
the case with the typical audience of the rhetorician. Moreover, once the rhet-
orician turned to instruction, the importance of such things as appealing to 
the emotions of a crowd, trying to appear to be a certain type of person, and 
concentrating on delivery, would rapidly decrease as they add little or noth-
ing to the content of a serious conversation (compare 3.1.5–7; 3.14.7–8).  
Indeed, a rhetorician turned dialectician would not be interested in the dif-
ference between a true and an apparent enthymeme for the sake of defeating 
an opponent or gaining the audience to his side but to make certain that the 
syllogisms being examined were in fact true, and that an error had not inad-
vertently made its way into the conversation.



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And finally, in the third place, Aristotle states in the Topics (100a18–101b5; 
Kennedy 1991, 290–292) that the only way to reach the first principles of all 
sciences or methods is by working through, or dialectically transcending, the 
endoxa of “all people or most people or the wise—and in the latter case all the 
wise or most of them or those best known and generally accepted.” The art of 
dialectics, Aristotle avers, is useful in the “philosophical sciences”

because if we are able to raise difficulties on both sides of an issue, we shall 
more easily see in each case what is true and what false. It [dialectics] has a 
further use in relation to the first premises in each science; for it is impossible 
to say anything about them on the basis of the specific first principles of each 
proposed science, since the principles are primary in all cases, and it is neces-
sary to discuss them on the basis of generally accepted opinions in each case. 
This is specific or most proper to dialectic; for since it is investigative, it leads 
the way to the first principles of all methods.

Aristotle does not elaborate upon this stupendous claim, and it is not  
immediately clear how dialectical inquiry can ultimately provide the ground 
for all the sciences. Nevertheless, we can suggest that if Aristotelian dialectics 
resembles Socratic dialectics, then one prominent theme of this method of 
investigation will be the “ethical virtues,” or the “whatness” of justice and  
nobility (Aristotle Metaphysics 1078b18–30); and it is precisely the articula-
tion of these ethical-political endoxa that form the bulk of Books 1 and 2 of 
the Rhetoric. of course, the most obvious reason why such a large part of the 
Rhetoric is dedicated to articulating ethical-political endoxa is so that a rheto-
rician will know the opinions and premises he might use or appeal to when 
speaking before various audiences. But it could equally be the case that Aristo-
tle is presenting a sort of dialectical raw material for potential philosophers—
i.e., the ethical-political endoxa that students must confront and dialectically 
transcend in order to see the tensions and contradictions that lie at the heart of 
our common opinions about the just and noble things. In sum, what emerges 
from this comparison is that rhetoric, because it too deals with ethical-political 
endoxa, may be a sort of prolegomena to genuine philosophical dialectic, and 
that the treatise could be intended, in part, to attract such potential philoso-
phers. As Aristotle states in the opening chapter of the Rhetoric (1.1.11):

[F]or it belongs to the same capacity both to see the true and what resembles 
the true, and at the same time human beings have a natural disposition for the 
true and to a large extent hit on the truth; thus an ability to aim at endoxa is a 
characteristic of one who also has a similar ability in regard to the truth.24

Although it is beyond the scope of this essay to engage in a detailed com-
parison of the endoxa of the Rhetoric with those of Aristotle’s other writings, 



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let us conclude this section with the following observation. Almost everyone 
who has studied the Rhetoric has wondered if, or to what extent, Aristotle’s 
discussions of happiness, virtue, the good, the passions, and so on, differ from 
his other works.25 Needless to say, conclusions vary widely; but where there 
is at least some measure of agreement is that the various endoxa articulated in 
the Rhetoric seem to be more preliminary, or less developed, than the endoxa 
in Aristotle’s other works—in other words, the endoxa in the Rhetoric have 
not been dialectically compared with one another in order to see the extent 
to which they are true. to offer a single (and all-too-brief ) example, one 
can compare the way Aristotle describes the relationship between happiness, 
self-sacrifice, and virtue in the Rhetoric and Nicomachean Ethics. In Book 1, 
chapter 9 of the Rhetoric, the virtues are objects of praise precisely because 
they are directed towards the good of others and involve self-sacrifice: in 
fact, the praiseworthiness of an action seems proportional to the self-sacrifice 
involved, and actions that benefit no one or the actor himself are much less 
praiseworthy, if at all (1.9; compare 1.3.6). But Aristotle also says four chap-
ters earlier (1.5) that everyone acts for the sake of happiness. If this is true, 
then it is hard to see how the virtues can be examples of genuine self-sacrifice, 
and therefore objects of praise. In the Ethics, however, these difficulties are 
not immediately apparent. Happiness is defined in terms of virtue, and the 
virtuous person does not sacrifice his happiness by acting virtuously: virtue 
may indeed confer benefits upon others, but this is not the sake for which the 
virtuous person acts.26 It appears that the puzzles or tensions in the relation-
ship between happiness, self-sacrifice, and virtue articulated in the Rhetoric 
have been worked out or perhaps even resolved in the Ethics. This is not to 
say that some of the endoxa articulated in the Rhetoric should be dismissed 
as irrelevant, puerile, or ridiculous: we often say that people act for the sake 
of their happiness and that virtue involves genuine self-sacrifice.27 rather, 
it would seem that Aristotle has dialectically compared and transcended 
the various contradictions within and between these common opinions in 
the Ethics and his other works. If this is true, then we might say that what 
Aristotle presents in the Rhetoric is a sort of raw material for the potential 
philosopher—the endoxa that the rhetorician might use to persuade a crowd 
one way or another are also the endoxa that the dialectician must first study 
and work through if he is going to aim at the truth of ethical-political things. 
Thus, rhetoric becomes more like dialectic—is its “counterpart”—when the 
rhetorician uses the endoxa not to persuade but to instruct and seek the truth: 
both dialectic and rhetoric have access to ethical-political endoxa, but they 
employ them for different purposes. In sum, the endoxa expressed in everyday 



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life and which the rhetorician utilizes as the material for persuasion—this is 
where a potential philosopher should begin his study of the “human things,” 
perhaps moving from rhetoric to ethics and then to the architectonic science 
of politics (Ethics 1094a18–b12; 1179b1–81b23).28

The Independent Status of Rhetoric
to the extent that Aristotle’s Rhetoric is a prolegomena of sorts to both philoso-
phy and politics, one can certainly wonder what the status of rhetoric is on its 
own—is the rhetorician himself caught in a sort of halfway house between the 
more ennobling ways of life of politics and philosophy? or does rhetoric enjoy 
an independent—and therefore fulfilling and satisfying—status of its own?

Now Aristotle defines rhetoric as the “ability, in each particular case, of see-
ing the available means of persuasion. This is the function of no other art; for 
each of the others is instructive and persuasive about its own subject” (1.2.1). 
rhetoric does not aim at the truth or the good or even virtue but at the per-
suasive—but what is so attractive about persuasion per se? Aristotle himself 
seems to rank rhetoric lower than the other arts in the above definition; for 
while the other arts are “instructive and persuasive” about their subject mat-
ter, Aristotle does not say that rhetoric is instructive about anything.29 Aristo-
tle repeatedly mentions that rhetoric does not give the rhetorician knowledge 
about any particular subject, and those rhetoricians who claim to possess 
knowledge about politics are either boastful or ignorant (1.2.7,21; 1.4.4–7; 
see also 3.1.5). This is not to deny that rhetoric may be useful and indeed 
necessary politically; but simply because something is useful and necessary 
does not mean that it is therefore a choiceworthy way of life. of course, 
we could also mention here the themes that were discussed above (e.g., that 
the rhetorician’s audience is generally simple, ignorant, and/or morally cor-
rupt, and that so many things normally associated with rhetoric—such as 
delivery—are fundamentally vulgar or irrelevant), but the point seems clear: 
Aristotle has very little positive to say about rhetoric as a way of life on its own 
in the opening chapters, and Aristotle’s most serious and attentive readers 
would likely be dissuaded from becoming rhetoricians.

But it is not only in Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric that the art of speaking is 
quietly downgraded in importance: it is also suggested that rhetoric will always 
have something sophistical about it. Near the end of chapter 1, Aristotle states 
that the difference between a dialectician and a sophist is that the former has 
knowledge about how to distinguish syllogisms and apparent syllogisms, while 
the latter deliberately chooses to employ fallacious arguments. In the case of 
rhetoric, however, the same word is used for the person with knowledge of true 



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and apparent enthymemes and the one who deliberately chooses to employ 
fallacious enthymemes (1.1.14). What is puzzling about this statement is that 
Aristotle does not thereafter distinguish between what we might call a “true” 
rhetorician (the counterpart of the dialectician) from a “sham” rhetorician (the 
counterpart of the sophist), and then continue the treatise with this distinc-
tion in mind. Perhaps Aristotle is trying to indicate that at the end of the day, 
it is really not possible to distinguish between a “sophistical” and “dialectical” 
rhetorician: to the extent that the rhetorician aims at persuasion and not the 
truth, there will always be something suspicious, and therefore “sophistical,” 
about him (see also 1.4.5; 2.24.11). The life of the rhetorician—of an itinerant 
teacher and speaker like Gorgias or Protagoras or Thrasymachus—simply may 
not be choice-worthy in and of itself. rhetoric would then remain a prolegom-
ena to two different activities: it is a prolegomena to dialectics in that it is able 
to deal with any subject matter, but above all ethical-political endoxa; and it is 
a prolegomena to politics in that it instructs the future statesman on the char-
acter of, and how to communicate with, political multitudes.

Conclusion: Rhetoric and Civic Education
This essay has attempted to limn Aristotle’s apparent rhetorical strategy in the 
Rhetoric, that is, to whom the book is addressed and what he hoped to con-
vey or teach. We may conclude by saying a few words concerning how this 
discussion might contribute to a deeper and more thoroughgoing reflection 
on contemporary public policy issues ranging from participatory democracy 
to civic education—and in particular the latter.

We must never forget that the audience that Aristotle has called simple,  
ignorant, and often morally corrupt is the audience of which we liberal dem-
ocrats are a part: we are part of an the audience that is susceptible to the 
artful but unjust speeches of clever rhetoricians (see 3.15.10). But to the 
extent that we lack knowledge about the nature of pubic discourse, we are 
both the people who need that instruction the most and, unfortunately, those 
who are the most difficult to instruct. Now Aristotle was keenly aware of the 
vital importance of civic education for all regimes. As he states in the Politics 
(1310a12–14; see also 1337a7–31):

But the greatest of all things that have been mentioned with a view to making 
regimes lasting—though it is now slighted by all—is education relative to the 
regimes. For there is no benefit in the most beneficial laws, even when these 
have been approved by all those engaging in politics, if they are not going 
to be habituated and educated in the regime—if the laws are popular, in a 
popular spirit, if oligarchic, in an oligarchic spirit.



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Although the proper place of public discourse in civic education must be 
tailored to the sort of regime we believe we have, or hope to have, both con-
servatives and liberals would certainly agree that all citizens need some sort 
of instruction in this subject. Now the Rhetoric is not written with any par-
ticular regime in mind, and the general instruction offered therein seems just 
as applicable to democracies as it does to oligarchies. Similar to the Politics, 
which tries to mediate between various regimes—and especially between the 
extreme forms (and vices) of democracy and oligarchy—the Rhetoric teaches 
citizens of any and all regimes in what persuasive speaking consists, and con-
sequently how to distinguish between a good speech and a bad one. Per-
haps Aristotle’s Rhetoric might also have a third audience in mind above and  
beyond potential philosophers and statesmen, namely the multitude of us 
citizens; and if this is the case, then this treatise will make manifest the genu-
ine public spiritedness of Aristotelian political philosophy.

Notes

1. The author wishes to thank the Spencer Foundation for supporting this research 
as well as the constructive comments of the anonymous reviewers. It should go 
without saying that the views expressed herein are solely the responsibility of the 
author.

2. See also the representative examples cited by Kennedy (1991, x) in the “Prooemi-
on” to his translation of Aristotle’s On Rhetoric.

3. For example, there have been two new translations of the Rhetoric, the one by 
Kennedy (1991) cited above and another by Lawson-tancred (1991); at least 
four recent studies on the origins and history of rhetoric, by Cole (1991), Conley 
(1990), Kennedy (1994), and Schiappa (1999); several collections of essays,  
including Furley and Nehamas (1994), Fortenbaugh and Mirhady (1994), rorty 
(1996), and the collection edited by Gross and Walzer (2000) cited above; and 
at least two book length studies, by Garver (1994) and Wörner (1990). For a 
concise statement of the reasons for the past neglect of, and recent interest in, 
the Rhetoric, see Nehamas (1994a, xi–xv). For a review of some of the recent 
literature, see Moss (1997, 635–646). Erickson (1975) provides a comprehensive 
bibliography until the date of publication.

4. Notable exceptions include Arnhart (1981), Lord (1981), Nichols (1987), tri-
adafilopoulos (1999).

5. Wardy (1996, 56) puts the matter this way: “Nowadays the term ‘rhetoric’ and its 
etymological kin in the romance languages tend to suggest, in ordinary parlance, 
no more than the dissembling, manipulative abuse of linguistic resources for self-
serving ends; outside certain antiquarian and literary critical coteries, the word is 



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unfailingly pejorative.” Wardy then goes on to note: “Not that the mere mention 
of ‘rhetoric’ in fourth-century B.C. Athens would have failed to evoke a host of 
similar, and similarly sinister, associations; rather, Aristotle was the immediate 
inheritor of the violent controversy over the nature and power of persuasion initi-
ated by Gorgias and given enduring form by Plato in his Gorgias.”

6. It is perhaps for this reason that Kennedy (1991) subtitled his translation of the 
Rhetoric, A Theory of Civic Discourse. See also Garver (1994, 21, 39, 51–52, 76, 
104, 108, 128).

7. Lord (1981, 327, 336–338) rightly draws attention to the importance of these 
latter questions: “Why did Aristotle write a Rhetoric? This question is so elemen-
tary that it is rarely asked; yet the answer is by no means self-evident. It is not 
sufficient to say that the subject interested him. Aristotle was not in the habit of 
producing technical treatises or handbooks.” Lord’s own answer is that Aristotle’s 
“ultimate intention” is “not so much to transform the practice of rhetoric as to 
transform the theoretical or conceptual understanding of rhetoric by political 
men. Aristotle is concerned above all to show rhetoric can become an instrument 
of political prudence or of a political science which educates to prudence.” While 
Aristotle does not ignore those elements of rhetoric that are “low and potentially 
dangerous,” he does highlight the “logical or intellectual component of rhetoric,” 
conferring upon it “a dignity capable of engaging the attention of men of intel-
lectual and moral seriousness.” rhetoric then becomes subordinate to political 
science, and not vice-versa, thereby enabling rhetoric to become “an instrument 
of responsible and prudent statesmanship.” While I do not disagree with Lord’s 
overall assessment, I focus much more on the possible philosophical reasons why 
Aristotle was interested in rhetoric.

8. All references to Aristotle’s Rhetoric are to the edition translated by Kennedy 
(1991). In general I have followed this translation, although I have sometimes 
altered it to make it more strictly literal. The most recent critical edition of the 
text is that of Kassel (1976). Grimaldi (1980–1988) has provided an invaluable 
commentary on the text as whole, the first such commentary to appear since 
Cope’s (1970 [originally 1877]) three volume effort over one hundred years ago.

9. It would seem that the only thing that escapes censure in this opening sec-
tion is well-crafted law—but a moment’s reflection indicates that rule by law is  
emphatically not a perfect or complete solution to the difficulties Aristotle has 
just outlined. Although Aristotle suggests some inherent limitations to lawmak-
ing in the Rhetoric (e.g., that law cannot foresee all possibilities or outcomes in the 
future), in the final chapters of Book 3 of the Politics, Aristotle gives a much more 
comprehensive appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of rule by law (especially 
when it is compared to rule by a single virtuous individual [1286a6–9]). Aristotle 
does praise certain aspects of law (e.g., that it is not swayed by passion, and that 
rulers should have available to them written rules [1286a16–19, 1287a28–40]), 
and he does recommend the rule of law (especially in a democracy [1282b1–6, 



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1286a35–37]); but he also shows the reader that law is neither a panacea nor is it 
even the best possible solution to the question of “who should rule?” As laws are 
made by and with a view to a particular regime, the goodness or badness of law 
decisively depends on the goodness or badness of the regime and the lawmakers 
(1282b6–13). Moreover, when someone arises in a regime who eclipses everyone 
else in virtue, Aristotle’s final word on the matter is that this person should be 
obeyed and have authority over all matters simply (1288a26–29). We might say 
that law is a sort of compromise solution: when great virtue is lacking in a politi-
cal order, well-crafted law might restrain our worst proclivities were we to govern 
ourselves in the absence of fixed legal rules. of course, the problem still remains 
who is to interpret the law in those instances when the law does not seem to apply 
to a particular case or is not set down correctly (see also 1286a20–b7).

10. Aristotle quietly emphasizes this fact at the beginning of Book 2, where the first 
passion treated is anger. Aristotle may be suggesting that anger is the most com-
mon or frequent passion of the multitude; at all events, only anger and pity are 
twice mentioned in the opening chapter of Book 1 as passions to which rhetori-
cians appeal. The extent to which the multitude is reasonable might depend upon 
the extent to which anger is reasonable.

11. Even a scholar as sympathetic to Aristotle as Kennedy (1991, 27–28), remarks 
that “[c]hapter 1 creates acute problems for the unity of the treatise,” and that in 
the final analysis “it is probably better to acknowledge frankly that chapter 1 is  
inconsistent with what follows.” Arnhart (1981, 13–53), Cooper (1994, 
194–196), and Grimaldi (1972, 18–52), all try to demonstrate, by contrast, that 
any inconsistencies between chapter 1 and the rest of the treatise are only super-
ficial and can be resolved.

12. See, for example, Solmsen (1929) and Fortenbaugh (1986, 247–248), who also 
makes the same claim about the introductory chapter to Book 3.

13. The above claim would be even stronger if we accept the testimony of Diogenes 
Laertius (Lives of Eminent Philosophers 5.24), whose catalogue of Aristotle’s works 
includes an Art of Rhetoric in two books (presumably the first two books of the 
treatise we now have) and another work, On Lexis, also in two books (perhaps 
Book 3 of the treatise). Both of these works were presumably joined together by 
the grammarian tyrannio or Andronicus of rhodes. If this were the case, then 
Aristotle would have unmistakably wanted to begin both works with a purged or 
purified version of rhetoric before going on to treat the subject as it was normally 
understood and practiced. on conjectures and speculations when and where 
the Rhetoric was written, as well as how it was preserved, see Kennedy (1991, 
299–312), Erickson (1975, 1–18), and Brandes (1989, 1–7).

14. For a sampling of the various perspectives on the morality, amorality, or even  
immorality of the Rhetoric, see olian (1968), ryan (1972), Johnstone (1980), 
Hill (1981), Sprute (1994), Engberg-Pedersen (1996), and Wardy (1996).



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15. As to whether this is Aristotle’s final judgment concerning the nature of judicial 
rhetoric and the courts, see Politics, 1300b18–1301a15.

16. In the Anabasis (II.vi.16–27), Xenophon gives a vivid illustration of these ideas 
in the persons of Proxenus and Meno. Proxenus (who was a student of Gorgias) 
could command gentlemen through the use of praise and blame because they 
were motivated (as he was) by a keen sense of justice and honor; he could not 
command the common soldiers. Meno, on the other hand, thought that a person 
who was not corrupted was also uneducated, and he ridiculed and plotted against 
individuals who were pious or virtuous. We might say that Aristotle is trying 
to show the likes of Proxenus all of the tools they will need to succeed against 
the likes of Meno: in other words, Aristotle is trying to educate clever but de-
cent statesmen, those who see that politics necessarily involves a certain degree of  
deception and coercive violence. See Strauss (1964, 22–23).

17. rowell (1932, 226) makes the following telling remark: Aristotle “even appears 
to suggest that rhetoric is needed in the world only because people are not all 
adequately rational beings.” Indeed!

18. For a discussion of the early history of the translation of the word antistrophos—
and how the translation of this word both shapes and is shaped by a commenta-
tor’s understanding of the text and Aristotle as a whole—see Green (1990).

19. See also Schütrumpf (1994), who not only points out similarities between the 
Rhetoric and the Gorgias, but also the Phaedrus, the Republic, and the Laws. This 
article also contains a number of helpful insights concerning the opening chapter.

20. Green (1990, 9–10), suggests this very idea, and it is worth quoting him at 
length: “Antistrophos appears in the Analytics and in the Topics more than 150 
times. In every instance the word indicates a transformation which is recipro-
cal and reversible, and in which one part of a two-part relationship necessarily  
implies the second part by virtue of such reciprocity and reversibility. These trans-
formations can be performed on elements such as sentences, propositions, terms, 
relations, and even on arguments. In general, the transformation either follows 
Aristotle’s principles of logical conversion detailed in the Prior Analytics, or the 
transformation negates the original element. In the former case, if certain logical 
operations can be performed on element X to yield element y, or on element y 
to yield element X, then X and y are convertible with one another. In the latter 
case, either element can always be converted to its opposite. In one of Aristotle’s 
illustrations of conversion (antistrophein, A.Pr. 1.25a6), the statement ‘no man is 
an animal’ transforms into the statement ‘no animal is a man,’ while ‘every man 
is an animal’ transforms into ‘some animal is a man.’ Thus X and y always imply 
one another, and can be transformed into one another, without actually being 
one another…. If this reading from the Analytics and Topics were at all permis-
sible in the context of the Rhetoric, then the problematic use of the word in the 
declaration ‘rhetoric is the antistrophos of dialectic’ would indicate that rhetoric 



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and dialectic could somehow be converted so that they could be understood as 
one another (reciprocally and reversibly), and that they do not merely resemble 
one another in a vague manner.” Green’s reading seems all the more permissible if 
we recall that the Alexandrian and Arabic philosophers included the Rhetoric (and 
Poetics) in Aristotle’s Organon (Black 1990, 1–16). Green goes on to state that he 
explores this possible reading in another study, but I have been unable to locate 
it. For other interpretations, see Brunschwig (1996).

21. See Gaines (1986, 198). Aristotle also states that rhetoric is a “sort of offshoot” 
of dialectic as well as “a sort of part and likeness” of it (1.2.7; see also 1.4.5). Al-
though it is unclear whether these remarks are intended to correct or supplement 
the claim that rhetoric is a counterpart of dialectic, they obviously highlight the 
similarity between the two faculties.

22. or “a sullogismos of a kind” according to Burnyeat (1996, 105).
23. Arnhart (1981) makes perhaps the strongest case for the rational, or syllogistic, 

nature of enthymemes. For further discussions of what the enthymeme is (and is 
not), see Seaton (1914), Madden (1952), Conley (1984), and Burnyeat (1994). 
Conley and Burnyeat give historical overviews of what others have claimed the 
enthymeme is.

24. For general discussions of the relation between rhetoric and dialectic, and the 
endoxa and ethical-political concerns, see Cooper (1994), Engberg-Pedersen 
(1996), and Halliwell (1994).

25. See, for example, Arnhart (1981), Most (1994), Nehamas (1994b), and Irwin (1996).
26. Burks (1966) claims that both the Rhetoric and Ethics have an essentially egoistic 

understanding of human motivation, by which he means that human beings act 
for the sake of their own self-actualization. But Burks glosses over Book 1, chapter 
9 of the Rhetoric far too quickly (see especially 406), and therefore does not see how 
the work exposes (without resolving) the genuine tensions mentioned above.

27. Nor is this to say that the tensions mentioned above are in fact solved in the Eth-
ics. By privileging and developing one side of this puzzle over the other (i.e., by 
claiming that the core of happiness consists in acting virtuously), Aristotle may 
actually be magnifying and deepening the problem of the relationship between 
virtue, happiness, and self-sacrifice for the serious reader (a problem that is only 
suggested or hinted at in the Rhetoric).

28. See also Miller (1977, 303–9, 312–4, and especially 330) as well as Irwin (1996, 
168–169).

29. Indeed, Chroust (1973, 2: 29–42) suggests that Aristotle’s (now lost) dialogue 
Gryllus (or On Rhetoric) may have argued that rhetoric was not an art after all.



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