1.4. Defining the Persuasive Processes
It is plain also that each of these types of oratory has its advantages. Types of oratory, I say, for what has been said in the Methodics applies equally well here; in some oratorical styles examples prevail, in others enthymemes, and in like manner, some orators are better at the former and some at the latter. Speeches that rely on examples are as persuasive as the other kind, but those which rely on enthymemes excite the louder applause. The sources of examples and enthymemes, and their proper uses, we will discuss later. Our next step is to define the processes themselves more clearly.
A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly self-evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that are so. In either case it is persuasive because there is somebody whom it persuades. But none of the arts theorize about individual cases. Medicine, for instance, does not theorize about what will help to cure Socrates or Callias, but only about what will help to cure any or all of a given class of patients. This alone is its business: individual cases are so infinitely various that no systematic knowledge of them is possible.
In the same way the theory of rhetoric is concerned not with what seems probable to a given individual like Socrates or Hippias, but with what seems probable to men of a given type. This is true of dialectic also. Dialectic does not construct its syllogisms out of any haphazard materials, such as the fancies of crazy people, but out of materials that call for discussion. Rhetoric, too, draws upon the regular subjects of debate. The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument, or follow a long chain of reasoning. The subjects of our deliberation are such as seem to present us with alternative possibilities. About things that could not have been, and cannot now or in the future be, other than they are, nobody who takes them to be of this nature wastes his time in deliberation.
It is possible to form syllogisms and draw conclusions from the results of previous syllogisms, or, on the other hand, from premises which have not been thus proved, and at the same time are so little accepted that they call for proof. Reasonings of the former kind will necessarily be hard to follow owing to their length, for we assume an audience of untrained thinkers; those of the latter kind will fail to win assent, because they are based on premises that are not generally admitted or believed.
The enthymeme and the example must, then, deal with what is in the main contingent, the example being an induction, and the enthymeme a syllogism, about such matters. The enthymeme must consist of few propositions, fewer often than those which make up the normal syllogism. For if any of these propositions is a familiar fact, there is no need even to mention it; the hearer adds it himself. Thus, to show that Dorieus has been victor in a contest for which the prize is a crown, it is enough to say “For he has been victor in the Olympic games,” without adding “And in the Olympic games the prize is a crown,” a fact which everybody knows.
There are few facts of the “necessary” type that can form the basis of rhetorical syllogisms. Most of the things about which we make decisions, and into which therefore we inquire, present us with alternative possibilities. For it is about our actions that we deliberate and inquire, and all our actions have a contingent character; hardly any of them are determined by necessity.
Again, conclusions that state what is merely usual or possible must be drawn from premises that do the same, just as “necessary” conclusions must be drawn from “necessary” premises; this too is clear to us from the Analytics. It is evident, therefore, that the propositions forming the basis of enthymemes, though some of them may be “necessary”, will most of them be only usually true.
Now, the materials of enthymemes are Probabilities and Signs, which we can see must correspond respectively with the propositions that are generally and those that are necessarily true. A Probability is a thing that usually happens; not, however, as some definitions would suggest, anything whatever that usually happens, but only if it belongs to the class of the “contingent” or “variable”. It bears the same relation to that in respect of which it is probable as the universal bears to the particular. Of Signs, one kind bears the same relation to the statement it supports as the particular bears to the universal, the other the same as the universal bears to the particular.
The infallible kind is a “complete proof” (tekmērion); the fallible kind has no specific name. By infallible signs I mean those on which syllogisms proper may be based, and this shows us why this kind of Sign is called “complete proof”. When people think that what they have said cannot be refuted, they then think that they are bringing forward a “complete proof”, meaning that the matter has now been demonstrated and completed (peperasmenon), for the word peras has the same meaning (of “end” or “boundary”) as the word tekmar in the ancient tongue.
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