Probability in Aristotle's Rhetoric & Poetics

The purpose of this research is to examine the issue of probability in Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics, with a view toward showing how or to what extent Aristotle's analysis has relevance to the contemporary culture. The plan of the research will be to set forth the fundamental concepts informing Aristotle's discussion of these disciplines, and then to discuss the consistency with which he develops his analysis of their principal attributes.

At the outset, it is important to note that Aristotle makes certain assumptions about the character of the universe. In particular, he assumes that man is a social being, that civilized man lives in a political community, and that he addresses remarks to members of an ordinary, rational, commonsense civilized society. The audience for the Rhetoric and the Poetics is rational, has language, can discriminate in some basic ways; this may be taken as a contract between the philosopher and his students. It is important to recognize this with regard to relevance for Aristotelian rhetoric in contemporary society because of the claims that may be made on behalf of unthinking or nonthinking man, the primitive, or what Aristotle might call the barbarian. To make rational assumptions about the broad character of the philosophical audience appears to have been itself an achievement of western civilization, and therefore the persistently ethical aspect of Aristotle's philosophy of rhetoric and poetic art appears to lay some claim to cont

Related Essays

Theatre and Drama .... fran(aise, which supported Scudery: "[A]s in music .... What Aristotle refers to as the "vivid" emotional .... of Trating Tragedy According to Probability or Necessity .... (3224 13 )

Animal Experimentation .... do not embrace the philosophies of Aristotle, St .... The probability is that the characterizations by each side .... 27 July 1992, 8. Hoffheimer, Lawrence S., and Morgan .... (4534 18 )

EVOLUTION OF PSYCHOLOGY Introduction Present .... Plato, Aristotle, and other scholars struggled with today's .... Harry S. Sullivan's interpersonal psychiatry included the .... of a need, the probability will increase .... (3533 14 )

Animal Experimentation: An Ethical Assessment .... welfare activists do not embrace the philosophies of Aristotle, St. .... The probability is that the characterizations by each side contain a .... Zak, S. (1989, 3 March .... (3550 14 )

Animal Rights .... rights activists do not embrace the philosophies of Aristotle, St. .... The probability is that the characterizations by each side contain a .... Zak, S. (1989, March). .... (3826 15 )

Machiavelli and Hobbes .... Hobbes (1994) rejected Aristotle's teleological view of the universe .... far more realistic about the probability that men .... it is Machiavelli (1998)'s description of .... (1829 7 )

people do or how they behave as they develop their ideas. Thus, with the second idea, that drama portrays action, we are immediately back to ethics. The actions of the characters in the play determine what the audience thinks of them and of their ideas. The artist's imaginative faculty creates characters and shows actions, but the content of such actions are nonethelessor for that very reasonas susceptible to logical or rhetorical examination as any straightforward political or logical proposition. Profound philosophical, ethical, and indeed rhetorical complexity is embedded therefore into the definition of tragedy, for to the degree the serious poetic creation is a set piece, it is presumed to have an important philosophical purpose, the conception and resolution of which are contained in its pattern of ideas. To the degree the completion or workingout of contingent action is aesthetically, rationally, or logically satisfactory, the pattern of an action's probabilities, as well as the ethical judgment of the actions themselves, can be defended. To the degree the pattern of contingent action fails the test of probability, it can be attacked. "A likely impossibility," explains Aristotle, "is always preferable to an unc

Category: Philosophy - P