Deception in Aristotle's rhetoric: How to tell the rhetorician from the sophist, and which one to bet on

Eugene Garver

doi:10.1080/02773949409391007

Rhetoric Society Quarterly Jul 1994

Deception in Aristotle's rhetoric: How to tell the rhetorician from the sophist, and which one to bet on

Eugene Garver Saint John's University

Abstract

Whenever I give a talk about the Rhetoric, audiences ask about rhetorical deception and fraud, about the morality of rhetoric, and about how to tell a good rhetorician from a sophist. The first and most important thing to say about the Rhetoric in connection with such questions of the morality of rhetoric is that Aristotle has very little to say about them, and, as far as I can tell, very little interest in them. Contemporary readers of the Rhetoric see people constantly duped by slick commercial and political advertisements, and hope that the Rhetoric can help them become conscious of hidden persuasion, or to make more morally based discriminations between decent appeals, which they should trust, and immoral ones, which they should reject. Rhetoric is often promoted today as an equivalent to defensive driving. It is worth asking why these questions have so little interest for Aristotle.

Journal: Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published: 1994-07-01
DOI: 10.1080/02773949409391007
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Topics: classical rhetoric rhetorical criticism argument
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Deception in Aristotle's rhetoric: How to tell the rhetorician from the sophist, and which one to bet on

Abstract

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References (9)

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