Exam 4: Aristotle on Rhetoric

Provide the term for the following definitions: -The kind of speaking characteristic of public ceremonies such as funerals or events commemorating war heroes.

What is your response to Aristotle's having defined rhetoric as an art of observation rather than as the practice of public speaking?

Briefly describe Aristotle's concept of the enthymeme.

What is an enthymeme?

Provide the term for the following definitions: -The Greek term for human well-being or happiness, the goal of deliberative oratory.

One function of epideictic address, which was oratory that took place at ceremonies, was to shape and cultivate the basic codes of value and belief by which the society and culture lived.

Provide the term for the following definitions: -Virtue, discussed as one component of ethos.

Briefly describe each of the three artistic proofs of rhetoric as described by Aristotle.

Explain Aristotle's distinction between special and universal topics or lines of argument as discussed by Aristotle in Rhetoric.

Provide a brief overview of the distinguishing characteristics of deliberative, epideictic, and forensic oratory, and the settings in which each occurs, as discussed by Aristotle in Rhetoric.

Which type of oratory does Aristotle say deals with issues of praise and blame, sought to demonstrate what is honorable, and characterized public ceremonies such as funerals.

"All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, so Socrates is mortal" is an example of a _______________, which is a deductive argument that moves from a general premise to a specific and necessary conclusion.

Provide the term for the following definitions: -Proofs taught specifically by the art of rhetoric-logos, pathos, and ethos.

Provide the term for the following definitions: -The Greek term for Aristotle's universal lines of argument or common topics; arguments and strategies useful in any of the three types of oratorical settings.

Many Greeks of Aristotle's day believed that good character (ethos) was a more reliable form of proof than was physical evidence. The reasoning behind this preference, apparently, was that it is much easier to fake physical evidence than it is good character. What do you think of this view of the relative reliability of physical evidence and good character?

Aristotle says rhetoric is the counterpart of ________________, which he outlines as a method of reasoning from common opinions, directed by established principles of reasoning to probable conclusions.

Which of the following is not a component of the artistic proof of ethos?

Provide the term for the following definitions: -The study of arguments, one of Aristotle's three artistic proofs.

When Aristotle discusses lines of argument, he has divided them into two categories. The first is eidei topoi or special topics, while the second category is ________________, a Greek term that meant common topics, or arguments that would be useful in any rhetorical setting.

Aristotle defines rhetoric as "the counterpart of dialectic," and later as "the faculty of discovering in any situation the available means of persuasion." Expand on his apparent meaning in each of these definitions.