Philosophers are no different from scientists in that they like to take something and break it down into its various constituents, even if they have to invent some. This post will deal with philosophers and the something that is broken down into its constituents is rhetoric and its effect on political speeches. Rhetoric is generally defined as skill in the effective use of speech. The effect usually sought in rhetoric is persuasion or conversion to an idea or position held by the speaker or writer. Rhetoric can refer to what is spoken or written, but this post will focus on spoken rhetoric.
Socrates made use of rhetoric. He did it in the form of asking questions in order to lead the one being asked to the truth of an issue. Aristotle turned rhetoric into an art form and gave it some constituent parts. His writing on the subject is simply called Rhetoric and was developed from 367–347 BC when he was with Plato in the Academy and from 335–322 BC when he was head of the Lyceum.
Aristotle had broken philosophy down into three key elements—logic, dialectic, and rhetoric. For him, logic has to do with reasoning to reach certainty. Dialectic and rhetoric were concerned with probability, with dialectic being philosophical and rhetoric being more practical and used to persuade based on probable knowledge. For Aristotle, the goal of rhetoric is persuasion calling it “the art of persuasion.”
In his Rhetoric, Books I and II, Aristotle deals with modes of persuasion or devices in rhetoric that classify the speaker’s appeal to the audience. In Book I, he writes:
Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. […] Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. […] Secondly, persuasion may come through the hearers, when the speech stirs their emotions. […] Thirdly, persuasion is effected through the speech itself when we have proved a truth or an apparent truth by means of the persuasive arguments suitable to the case in question.
The speaker’s personal character is called ethos. It refers to status, moral nature, sentiment, or guiding beliefs. A speaker’s ethos is expressed by being a notable figure, perceived expert or authority, and speaking as such. The appeal to the audience’s emotions is called pathos. Pathos can be expressed by talking about justice and condemning what the speaker sees as unjust, by figures of speech, or by the speaker identifying with the underlying values or feelings of the audience. Pathos is also used to appeal to the audience’s fear or hope for a bright future if they accept the speaker’s proposed actions. The third mode of persuasion is called logos. It refers to the logic or reasonableness of the speaker’s presentation of his attempt to persuade the audience to agree with him. The speakers can quote data as facts and figures, the results of surveys, or in any way that makes the speaker appear knowledgeable. If you listen to speeches made by the politicians/statesmen of the U.S. and U.K. before the mid-twentieth century, you will find these three modes of persuasion present. Things began to change after 1950.
The introduction and growth of postmodern philosophy had a great influence on rhetoric as an art and the modes used in it. Due to the new philosophy of language of Ludwig Wittgenstein and others, rhetoricians shifted their emphasis from the ethos and logos of the speaker to the pathos of the audience, giving rise to a new rhetoric. The new rhetoric is defined as “a theory of argumentation that has as its object the study of discursive techniques that aim to provoke or increase the audience of men’s minds to the theses that are presented for their assent.” In other words, rhetoric has become no more than the art of argumentation that tries to convince the hearers that the speaker is right in all that is articulated and proposed. The speaker plays upon the emotions of the hearers in such a way that the speaker’s character or expertise is ignored and logic and reasoning are not used. Fiery rhetoric can make the audience’s feelings and emotions raw which can cause reactions in the speaker’s direction. New rhetoric has taken over and revised politics so that políticos can get people to act without thinking.
New rhetoric appeals to the flesh and bypasses the mind. New rhetoric is used, not to persuade based on evidence, but to convince the minds of the hearers to accept a position ignoring the ethos and logos and concentrating on pathos. If you pay attention to most political speeches made in the past sixty years, you will hear a lot of repetition in the hope that if people hear something often enough they will believe it. I find that if I listen to the first five minutes or the last five minutes of a political speech, I will have heard all the speaker really had to say. That is if they had anything to say. Most politicians now have speechwriters that can write down their arguments much more eloquently than the politicians can say them, hopefully, to make it more persuasive. Speeches of the new rhetoric are read rather than spoken directly from the mind or heart of the speaker.
Thus, rhetoric has been tainted by new rhetoric to the extent that rhetoric today is defined as “language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect, but which is often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content.” The British dictionaries were the first to recognize the change defining rhetoric as “speech or writing that is intended to influence people, but that is not completely honest or sincere” (Oxford English Dictionary). Could that be because the British politicians were the first to use rhetoric in that new way? Anyway, rhetoric today is a long way from the rhetoric of Aristotle and the world suffers for it.
Politicians and everyone who speaks would do well to adhere to what the Bible says about speaking:
Let your speech always be with grace [ethos], seasoned with salt [logos]. (Col. 4:6)
Sound speech [logos] that cannot be condemned [pathos], that one who is an opponent may be ashamed [pathos], having nothing evil to say of you [ethos] (Titus 2:8)
And finally, the words of Jesus:
But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. (Matt. 12: 36–37)