Founding Speech: Aristotle's Rhetoric as Political Philosophy

There is notoriously little agreement in the literature on Aristotle's Rhetoric. While disputes about most every aspect of Aristotle's argument abound, most scholars tend to agree on one general point. That is, most read the work as an attempt at discovering and describing the nature of rhetorical persuasion. The present study takes a different view: it maintains that the Rhetoric is better understood as an attempt at replacing the existing teaching and practice of rhetoric with one that is better suited for use within the deliberative institutions of political society. The Rhetoric, on this reading, is a work with a political project. This dissertation contributes to the literature in three distinct ways. First, it attempts to show that there is a significant rhetorical component to some of Aristotle's most prominent arguments. It argues, among other things, that the first chapter of the work and the taxonomy of rhetoric presented in chapters two and three should not be taken at face value. Second, this study illustrates the extent to which concerns about legislation figure into Aristotle's attempts at articulating an art of speech. Most readings conceptualize the problem of rhetoric as consisting in the relationship between rhetoric and collective judgment, taking the view that Aristotle's solution lies in liberating judgment from a rhetorical practice that enmeshes it in some incongruous or inappropriate way. This study suggests that preserving the rule of law, protecting a state's legislative institutions, and cultivating civic virtue, are among Aristotle's chief concerns. Third, the present work also locates, what it considers to be, Aristotle's non-rhetorical teaching about the nature of rhetorical persuasion.