Reaching Pleasant Conclusions

While I was reading the Aristotle text, a section that really stood out to me was his theology regarding pleasantness of activities. Aristotle said, “there are many things that are not pleasant by nature that people do with pleasure because they are so accustomed to them” (170). True to sophist style, he truly noted the dualism of experiences. I was especially intrigued when he noted how bad events could have good memories thus making the experience pleasant because it is no longer being endured. “It is truly pleasant to remember troubles after one is saved from them” (172).  

This was extremely prevalent in The Funeral Oration of Pericles. The timing of this speech is evidence of the accuracy of Aristotle’s words aforementioned. The speech was given several days after the conclusion of the first battles of the Peloponnesian War. In a sense, the peoples’ “troubles” were momentarily over; thus, making it easy for Pericles to be so optimistic in his manner of presentation. In hindsight, it was easy to say that those who had fallen fell because they had a true understanding of patriotism and wanted to die for their country. However, I personally don’t believe this. I think it is much more likely that those fallen soldiers were not entirely sure what is was they were dying for. They didn’t know their last battles would actually be the first of many in a war. Maybe they showed up because of their understanding of gender roles, maybe all those in their immediate circle supported the war efforts, or maybe in fact they had an understanding of glory and honor if they died and they excitedly sought such an end. Whatever the true intentions were, Pericles at the conclusion of those troubles was able to paint a picture of good, pleasant, and noble causes which motivated them to die.

We are guilty of this today. We do it when we write in journals, retell stories, and give talks in church. Even if our initial motives are not noble at all, we often seek to connect and claim righteous motives and outlooks so that even bad events have an empowering spiritual context. Contemplation of events and time to ponder them lead to such conclusions.

Assignment: Aristotle and Codifying Ancient Greek Rhetoric

An important turning point in ancient Greek culture comes about when the powers of language move from practice to theory; that is, when oratory becomes rhetoric.

Oratory (speech making) preceded rhetoric (an awareness of the powers of speech and the effort to use these powers artfully). Thus, powerful examples of speaking are found in Homer's epics, but no real analysis of that speaking occurs, just the general appreciation of oratorical powers. Similarly, the powers of language are evident in Greek drama and poetry, where those powers are respected, but not inspected with any rigor or method.

Pragmatic and professional rhetoric came along in the 5th century BCE via "logographers" or "sophists" who offered to compose speeches for clients or to train them in speaking. Corax and Tisias were seen as representative of the earliest efforts to write handbooks to help with this.

A handbook is one thing, but systematic rhetoric is another. It was not until Plato's student, Aristotle (384-322 BCE), that rhetoric as a systematic study came into being.  Aristotle did more than make lists of possible approaches one might use to win an argument; he theorized rhetoric (much as he did other subjects like biology, physics, and poetry).

When consulting a comprehensive reference to rhetoric such as Silva Rhetoricae, the Forest of Rhetoric, one is viewing the results not of the sophists, but of the systematizers like Aristotle and others who created a taxonomy of terms so that rhetoric could truly be an art: something that could be rationally understood and mastered in practice.

I'd like my students to read from the first book of Aristotle's Rhetoric while simultaneously referring to Silva Rhetoricae for the key concepts from this section of the treatise. Then, returning either to the Encomium of Helen by Gorgias or to the Funeral Oration of Pericles, they are  to analyze one of these speeches for evidence of the terms or methods discussed by Aristotle (in a post of 300-400 words).

A guide to reading Aristotle's Rhetoric follows