Rhetoric is the use of speech for persuasion. Different theorists of rhetoric have differing views of the nature of persuasive argument. Aristotle had a particular view of the art of rhetoric which he espoused in his Rhetoric, and it involves a differentiation in the types of argument offered, the purpose of that argument, and how effective the argument may be given its nature and the elements that constitute it. Aristotle's approach to the rhetorical situation and to the nature of rhetoric can be applied to a particular text, in this case the advertising campaign set into motion by and centering on Magic Johnson, the athlete who announced that he had contracted the AIDS virus and who then appeared in television spots and other advertising media in commercials which tried to educate and make the public aware of the problem of AIDS, the means for controlling the disease, and the importance of accepting those who have AIDS as human beings.
The Rhetoric of Aristotle has been highly influential through the ages. It is predominantly a manual to a practical art, but it also has an interesting philosophical orientation, in effect answering the call in Plato's Phaedrus for a truly philosophical rhetoric to replace the shallow sophistical doctrines that characterized existing schools of rhetoric. Aristotle affirmed that rhetoric is a subject to be studied systematically and not a random collection of common sense rules. It is an art of general scope that is applicable to all fields of human concern. Aristotle offered a systematic rhetoric and defined rhetoric as the art of discovering the means of persuasion available for any subject. The rhetor must investigate systematically both the situation with which he is presented and his own inner resources for dealing with it. Speech itself comes in different types according to its purpose in the rhetorical situation. The first of these is deliberative or political oratory, and this typ...