In the information age, where the contest of ideas is paramount, being able to get others to accept your idea is what counts between success and failure. Yet the art of persuasion was refined 2000 years ago in the Lyceum of Ancient Greece. There Aristotle, the master of rhetoric, taught the timeless secrets of ethos, logos and pathos. A modern master of communication, Peter Thompson, rediscovers those secrets and presents them to you in Persuading Aristotle. Principles that you can use day in and day out, every time you face someone who you need to see things your way. Thompson shows you how to draw upon the logic of your argument, your empathy with your audience, your imagination and your credibility, and how to best persuade different types of listeners. Thompson's simple and elegant style, enlightening examples and practical insights will change the way you think about getting your message across>in presentations, negotiations and the media. You'll be a more confident, strategic persuader, capable of persuading Aristotle himself.

Introductory book on rhetoric

A “singularly accurate, readable, and elegant translation [of] this much-neglected foundational text of political philosophy” (Peter Ahrensdorf, Davidson College). For more than two thousand years, Aristotle’s“Art of Rhetoric” has shaped thought on the theory and practice of persuasive speech. In three sections, Aristotle defines three kinds of rhetoric (deliberative, judicial, and epideictic); discusses three rhetorical modes of persuasion; and describes the diction, style, and necessary parts of a successful speech. Throughout, Aristotle defends rhetoric as an art and a crucial tool for deliberative politics while also recognizing its capacity to be misused by unscrupulous politicians to mislead or illegitimately persuade others. Here Robert C. Bartlett offers an authoritative yet accessible new translation of Aristotle’s “Art of Rhetoric,” one that takes into account important alternatives in the manuscript and is fully annotated to explain historical, literary, and other allusions. Bartlett’s translation is also accompanied by an outline of the argument of each book; copious indexes, including subjects, proper names, and literary citations; a glossary of key terms; and a substantial interpretive essay.

In The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle demonstrates the purpose of rhetoric—the ability to convince people using your skill as a speaker rather than the validity or logic of your arguments—and outlines its many forms and techniques. Defining important philosophical terms like ethos, pathos, and logos, Aristotle establishes the earliest foundations of modern understanding of rhetoric, while providing insight into its historic role in ancient Greek culture. Aristotle’s work, which dates from the fourth century B.C., was written while the author lived in Athens, remains one of the most influential pillars of philosophy and has been studied for centuries by orators, public figures, and politicians alike. HarperTorch brings great works of non-fiction and the dramatic arts to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperTorch collection to build your digital library.

For Aristotle, arousing the passions of others can amount to giving them proper grounds for conviction. On that basis a skill in doing so can be something valuable, an appropriate constituent of the kind of expertise in rhetoric that deserves to be cultivated and given expression in a well-organised state. Such are Jamie Dow's principal claims in Passions and Persuasion in Aristotle's Rhetoric. He attributes to Aristotle a normative view of rhetoric and its role in the state, and ascribes to him a particular view of the kinds of cognitions involved in the passions. In the first sustained treatment of these issues, and the first major monograph on Aristotle's Rhetoric in twenty years, Dow argues that Aristotle held distinctive and philosophically interesting views of both rhetoric and the nature of the passions. In Aristotle's view, he argues, rhetoric is exercised solely in the provision of proper grounds for conviction (pisteis). This is rhetoric's valuable contribution to the proper functioning of the state. Dow explores, through careful examination of the text of the Rhetoric, what normative standards must be met for something to qualify in Aristotle's view as 'proper grounds for conviction', and how he supposed these standards could be met by each of his trio of 'technical proofs' (entechnoi pisteis)—those using reason, character and emotion. In the case of the passions, Dow suggests, meeting these standards is a matter of arousing passions that constitute the reasonable acceptance of premises in arguments supporting the speaker's conclusion. Dow then seeks to show that Aristotle's view of the passions is compatible with this role in rhetorical expertise. This involves taking a stand on a number of controversial issues in Aristotle studies. In Passions and Persuasion, Dow rejects the view that Aristotle's Rhetoric expresses inconsistent views on emotion-arousal. Aristotle's treatment of the passions in the Rhetoric is, he argues, best understood as expressing a substantive theory of the passions as pleasures and pains. This is supported by a new representationalist reading of Aristotle's account of pleasure (and pain) in Rhetoric 1. Dow also defends a distinctive understanding of how Aristotle understood the contribution of phantasia ('appearance') to the cognitive component of the passions. On this interpretation, Aristotelian passions must involve the subject's affirming things to be the way that they are represented. Thus understood, the passions of an emotionally-engaged audience can constitute a part of their reasonable acceptance of a speaker's argument.

As one of the most respected voices of Continental philosophy today, Rodolphe Gasché pulls together Aristotle's conception of rhetoric, Martin Heidegger's debate with theory, and Hannah Arendt's conception of judgment in a single work on the centrality of these themes as fundamental to human flourishing in public and political life. Gasché's readings address the distinctively human space of the public square and the actions that occur there, and his valorization of persuasion, reflection, and judgment reveals new insight into how the philosophical tradition distinguishes thinking from other faculties of the human mind.

Rhetoric gives our words the power to inspire. But it's not just for politicians: it's all around us, whether you're buttering up a key client or persuading your children to eat their greens. You have been using rhetoric yourself, all your life. After all, you know what a rhetorical question is, don't you? In this updated edition of his classic guide, Sam Leith traces the art of argument from ancient Greece down to its many modern mutations. He introduces verbal villains from Hitler to Donald Trump - and the three musketeers: ethos, pathos and logos. He explains how rhetoric works in speeches from Cicero to Richard Nixon, and pays tribute to the rhetorical brilliance of AC/DC's "Back In Black". Before you know it, you'll be confident in chiasmus and proud of your panegyrics - because rhetoric is useful, relevant and absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

This fascinating and practical book explores persuasive techniques in the English language, and is the ideal introduction for students and others with a professional interest in persuasion. Using a wide range of lively and accessible illustrative material, Robert Cockcroft and Susan Cockcroft unpick the complexities of persuasive language - both written and spoken - and enable readers to develop and enhance their rhetorical skills. Now thoroughly revised and expanded, the second edition of this successful text includes: - Developed application of cognitive linguistic theory, which sheds new light on the emotional and logical powers of persuasion - Extended and updated examples of rhetoric in action - Clear pointers for further study to allow readers to continue their exploration into rhetorical theory and practice - A new final chapter which invites readers to practice their skills using updated versions of traditional rhetorical exercises

"In this major contribution to philosophy and rhetoric, Eugene Garver shows how Aristotle integrates logic and virtue in the Rhetoric. Garver raises and answers a central question: can there be a civic art of rhetoric, an art that forms the character of citizens? By demonstrating the importance of the Rhetoric for understanding current philosophical problems of practical reason, virtue, and character, Garver has written the first work to treat the Rhetoric as philosophy and to connect its themes with parallel problems in Aristotle's Ethics and Politics. This groundbreaking study will help put rhetoric at the center of investigations of practice and practical reason."--Page 4 of cover.

In today's increasingly polarized political landscape it seems that fewer and fewer citizens hold out hope of persuading one another. Even among those who have not given up on persuasion, few will admit to practicing the art of persuasion known as rhetoric. To describe political speech as "rhetoric" today is to accuse it of being superficial or manipulative. In Saving Persuasion, Bryan Garsten uncovers the early modern origins of this suspicious attitude toward rhetoric and seeks to loosen its grip on contemporary political theory. Revealing how deeply concerns about rhetorical speech shaped both ancient and modern political thought, he argues that the artful practice of persuasion ought to be viewed as a crucial part of democratic politics. He provocatively suggests that the aspects of rhetoric that seem most dangerous--the appeals to emotion, religious values, and the concrete commitments and identities of particular communities--are also those which can draw out citizens' capacity for good judgment. Against theorists who advocate a rationalized ideal of deliberation aimed at consensus, Garsten argues that a controversial politics of partiality and passion can produce a more engaged and more deliberative kind of democratic discourse.