Aristotle Rhetoric 1.1

John Henry Freese (Translator)

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Rhetoric. Aristotle. John Henry Freese (Translator). London. 1926.

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Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

Current edition Perseus

The "Art" of Rhetoric (English) (Aristotle. The "Art" of Rhetoric. Freese, John Henry, translator. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1926 (printing).)

Editions (1)
Ῥητορική Perseus (Aristotle. Aristotelis Ars Rhetorica. Ross, William David, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press,1959 (printing).) — 1.1 focus
Translations (1)
Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric (Theodore Alois Buckley) (OCR draft) Experimental (Theodore Alois Buckley's English translation, first published in 1850 and represented from the Henry G. Bohn 1857 printing; corrected against a second OCR of the same printing.) — 1 focus

Notes on the current edition

Rhetoric

1. Not an exact copy, but making a kind of pair with it, and corresponding to it as the antistrophe to the strophe in a choral ode.
2. Or and they (Rhetoric and Dialectic) are not confined.
3. The special characteristic of an art is the discovery of a system or method, as distinguished from mere knack ( ἐμπειρία).
4. Manuals or handbooks treating of the rules of any art or science.
5. His functions were a combination of those of the modern judge and juryman.
6. That is, forbid speaking of matters that have nothing to do with the case.
7. Systematic logical proofs (enthymeme, for example), including testimony as to character and appeals to the emotions (2.3), which the rhetorician has to invent ( εὑρεῖν, inventio) for use in particular cases. They are contrasted with inartificial proofs, which have nothing to do with the rules of the art, but are already in existence, and only need to be made use of. The former are dealt with in chs. 4-14, the latter in ch. 15 of this book.
8. κοινότερον: or, more intelligible to the ordinary man.
9. The case as a rule being a matter of personal indifference, the judges are likely to be led away by the arguments which seem most plausible.
10. Exact scientific proof ( ἀπόδειξις), which probable proof ( πίστις) only to a certain extent resembles.
11. Dialectic here apparently includes logic generally, the part being either the Analytica Priori, which deals with the syllogism, or the Sophistici Elenchi, on Fallacies.
12. ἔνδοξα, resting on opinion; defined in the Topics (1.1) as things generally admitted by all, or by most men, or by the wise, and by all or most of these, or by the most notable and esteemed.
13. διότι either = ὅτι, that; or, (it is clear) why.
14. Almost equivalent to demonstration or strictly logical proof.
15. 1.2. The Topics is a treatise in eight books on Dialectic and drawing conclusions from probabilities.
16. The early sophistical definition was the art of persuasion.
17. The essence of sophistry consists in the moral purpose, the deliberate use of fallacious arguments. In Dialectic, the dialectician has the power or faculty of making use of them when he pleases; when he does so deliberately, he is called a sophist. In Rhetoric, this distinction does not exist; he who uses sound arguments as well as he who uses false ones are both known as rhetoricians.