Aristotelovo filozofsko zasnivanje retoričkog fenomena

Abstract

Aristotle's Rhetoric is of ambivalent character. While reading it, we feel a certain vacillation between scientific and theoretical insistence on essential elements in the constitution of a rhetorical phenomenon, on the one hand, and very detailed descriptions that go beyond the domain of philosophy and dilute Aristotle's already extensive text, on the other. The task of this paper is to separate those elements of his treatise which treat the problem philosophically. For this purpose the author analyzes Aristotle's definition of rhetoric, its position among other technai and the meanings of the cardinal rhetorical concept - the pistis. From this analysis one can conclude that Aristotle's conception of rhetoric cannot be reduced to the technical rules of argumentation and a considerable knowledge of the subject, because it lays claim to the entire man, not only to his intellectual but also to his emotional and ethical world. The orator ought to be skilled in constructing entymeme, but he should also have sensibility for practical judgement, which tends to find a way out when no learned knowledge of the correct procedure helps.