Aristotle and his take
Just as Plato was a student of the great Socrates, Aristotle was a student of Plato at his Academy. Aristotle was an observer and a writer, and his texts led to a very prominant shift in the way that we think philosophically (63). While he was a student of Plato, he did not necessarily agree with his view of the world, and he knew rhetoric was essential and could be taught (64). According to Aristotle, truth could be achieved through sense data, or scientific facts. Aritotle is a blender, as in he takes pieces from the Sophists and Plato alike, while also being an Empiricist. Like the Sophists, Aristotle believed in probable truths, which we gain through rhetoric. So if we want absolute truth, it's through science, and if we want probably truth, it's through rhetoric... simple enough, right?
As an EWM major you're going to hear this phrase a lot, so why not get to know where it comes from. The "appeals" are Logos, Pathos, and Ethos. The first, logos, applies to using logic to achieve effective rhetoric, including tools such as deductive and inductive reasoning, and maxims. Ethos, or the appeal to character and credibility, can be broken down into three types, Eunoia, or good will, Phronesis, or wisdom and knowledge, and Arete, character and virtue. Pathos, the appeal to emotion, deals the most with the descriptive language used in a rhetorical situation to appeal to the audiences emotions.
Not only did Aristotle create the appeals, but he also made three speech genres, Epidictic, Forensic, and Deliberative. Epidictic is a speech intended to praise or to blame. A Forensic speech is legal evidence, usually looking for innocence or guilt, whereas a Deliberative speech is usually used in political rhetoric and is looking to the future (63-68).
Aristotle was innovative in that he was able to take two previous schools of thought, the Platonist and Sophist schools, and brings the ideas of Plato from the noumenl world into ours and brings the idea of partial truths from the Sophists. Aristotle broke every element of his theories down into categories, or empiricle data, so that we might be able to have a slight chance at gaining absolute truth. With the help of this data and dialectic we could obtain absolute truth and possibly even share it.
Third Times the Charm
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