Aristotle is typing…. Aristotle says: BRB AFK

My friend made this for me. I think it's
the greatest thing there ever was. 

Lunsford and Ede claim that Aristotle’s Rhetoric is not so different from the modern rhetorics of Burke and Richards. To do so, the authors contend that Rhetoric is often reductively read and oversimplified. The major problems with these reductivist readings, the authors note, is a misunderstanding of enthymeme and pisteis and a modern failure to link Aristotle’s other philosophies with Rhetoric. Most interesting to me is the problem of the pisteis. My final project this semester focuses on the relationship between pathos and ethos, emotion and ethics, in delivery. This project came out of some reading I did that I felt vastly minimized, if not eliminated, the work of pathos in activism and spokesman-ship. As I continued the project, I found that ethos, pathos, and logos were not so easily divisible in analysis or practice. If we’re being honest, though, anyone who has taught rhetorical analysis to freshmen knows that the appeals simply aren’t that easily distinguished. Often times, whole pieces of a composition will slip between the cracks of logos and ethos. Students are often more apt to recognize pathos poorly executed because of the effect it has on a rhetor’s ethos.

I’m inclined to agree with Lunsford and Ede’s claim that reading Aristotle’s Rhetoric requires depth and nuance – the same courtesies we afford more modern theorists. However, I wonder how we might read Rhetoric without Burke’s influence. Is it Burke that allows us to see the complexities and interconnectedness of Aristotle or was it there all along? Moreover, the authors’ assertion that Aristotle’s Rhetoric must be read in the context of his other theories is a bit concerning to me. Aristotle was a man with many ideas – some of which tend toward the misogynistic.

I wrote in my reflection at length about my own reductive definition of rhetoric that saw audience and rhetor clearly divided. I even scapegoated Aristotle for the idea. However, reading Lunsford and Ede’s discussion of Aristotle’s position of rhetor and audience, I see that I can’t really hold him responsible (my bad, Ari). This more porous understanding of the boundary between rhetor and audience and ethos, pathos, and logos is useful in the digital turn as well. As Zappan indicates, digital technologies ask us to rethink some of the ways in which we establish our identities, communicative networks, and language patterns. In order to investigate these patterns, rhetoricians can continue to benefit from an Aristotelian framework. However, like any terministic screen, that framework may be more useful in analyzing or exploring methods of production than for exploring effectiveness or constructiveness.