Aristotle

Aristotle was born in an area of Greece near the Macedonian border. His family served the royal class, so he was educated from a young age and even studied at Plato’s Academy in Athens. He is considered the grandfather of classical Western rhetoric because his work, Rhetoric, was the first time--at least of the surviving records we have--a respected philosopher saw it as a legitimate practice and not just dangerous means of manipulation. In particular, Aristotle differentiates between rhetoric and dialectic. The latter is what philosophers use as a kind of structured and rigorous critical thinking to get to the most precise understanding of an issue. Dialectic may not get us to an infallible, eternal truth, but it will get us as close as possible without more tangible proof. Rhetoric, on the other hand, is about convincing an audience. In fact, Aristotle’s famous definition of rhetoric highlights it as an art of learning different ways to persuade an audience in any given situation. 

One of the reasons Aristotle remains so influential and is the first person many people encounter in the study of rhetoric is that his book also lays it out as a series of organized structures and tactics. For example, he explains three different kinds of public speech: one aimed at what is good/bad in the present (epideictic), one aimed at proving the right/wrong of past events (judicial/forensic), and one aimed at deciding courses of action for the future (deliberative/political). He talks about different kinds of artful appeals aimed at how we rationalize, how we feel, and how we perceive the credibility of the speaker. And he catalogs dozens of different strategies for designing a speech as specific ways to make it enticing for the audience. 

Although Aristotle’s views didn’t necessarily align with other great philosophers of the time--including Plato--he was still highly respected as a thinker and educator. His many works, including Rhetoric, have informed countless other people throughout millennia and into the twenty-first century. Terms he used, including ethos, pathos, and logos, are still some of the first terms we learn about when discussing rhetoric today.