_Aristotle On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse

Let me admit from the outset that what follows is the work of a composition-studies journeyman, not a classical-studies scholar. What I know about ancient Greek would scarcely fill a thimble. And so, in reviewing George Kennedy's new translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric for JAC readers, I won't embarrass myself by making claims about its fidelity, its artistry, or its significance for our colleagues in classics, history, foreign language, and philosophy. Others—many, no doubt—will comment elsewhere on such things over the course of the next year or so. What I will claim, though, and without hesitation, is that for those of us in composition studies who have long depended primarily on Lane Cooper's 1932 translation for our upper-division and graduate courses in rhetorical theory, Kennedy's new translation of the Rhetoric is nothing short of cause for celebration. I used the new translation for the first time in my classical rhetoric seminar this past spring, and I can report at least four reasons why I believe Kennedy has done us an enormous service.

First is Kennedy's approach to the Aristotelian keywords—the important terms like antistrophos, dynamis, and pisteis. As many JAC readers know, Cooper robs such words of their complexity when he translates them as "counterpart," "faculty," and "proofs." Kennedy, in contrast, takes another approach. He loans the original words from Greek to English, and then explores the concepts embedded in them with elaborate explanatory and bibliographic footnotes. Here, for example, is his discursive footnote on the pivotal statement, "Rhetoric is an antistrophos to dialectic":

Antistrophos is commonly translated "counterpart." Other possibilities include "correlative" and "coordinate." The word can mean "converse." In Greek choral lyric, the metrical pattern of a strophe, or stanza, is repeated with different words in the antistrophe. Aristotle is, however, probably thinking of, and rejecting, the analogy of the true and false arts elaborated by Socrates in the Gorgias, where justice is said to be an antistrophos to medicine (464b8) and rhetoric, the false form of justice, is compared to cookery, the false form of medicine (465c1-3). Isocrates (Antidosis 182) speaks of the arts of the soul (called philosophy, but essentially political rhetoric) and the arts of the body (gymnastic) as antistrophoi. This view is equally unacceptable to Aristotle, for whom rhetoric is a tool, like dialectic, though its subject matter is derived from some other discipline, such as ethics or politics; see Rhetoric 1.2.7. Aristotle thus avoids the fallacy of Plato's Gorgias where Socrates is obsessed with finding some kind of knowledge specific to rhetoric. On later interpretations of antistrophos see Green 1990. (28-29)

Here, similarly, is an excerpt from Kennedy's explanatory footnote on his choice of the word "ability" in translating Aristotle's definition of rhetoric as "an ability, in each [particular] case, to see the available means of persuasion":

He identifies the genus to which rhetoric belongs as dynamis: "ability, capacity, faculty." In his philosophical writing dynamis is the regular word for "potentiality" in matter or form that is "actualized" by an efficient cause. The actuality produced by the potentiality of rhetoric is not the written or oral text of a speech, or even persuasion but the art of "seeing" how persuasion may be effected. . . . Art is thus for him not the product of artistic skill, but the skill itself. (36)

For years, a good deal of any classroom discussion of Aristotle's Rhetoric has had to focus on amplifying key terms in pivotal definition-statements. The first great strength of Kennedy's new translation, then, is that it amplifies most of those key terms for us.

A second strength is Kennedy's much improved treatment of the rhetorical pisteis (ethos, pathos, and logos). Most notable is his choice of the words "atechnic" and "entechnic" for characterizing their forms. "Atechnic" and "entechnic" are enormous improvements over Cooper's (and others) familiar but amorphous "nonartistic" and "artistic," which Kennedy maintains but relegates to secondary status: "Of the pisteis, some are atechnic ["nonartistic"], some entechnic ["embodied in the art, artistic"]. I call atechnic those that are not provided by us . . . but are preexisting: . . . and artistic whatever can be prepared by method . . . ; thus, one must use the former and invent the latter." And as for the whole notion of "atechnic ethos" in Aristotelian rhetorical theory, Kennedy has this to say in a footnote: "Aristotle thus does not include in rhetorical ethos the authority that a speaker may possess due to his position in government or society, previous actions, reputation for wisdom, or anything except what is actually contained in the speech and the character it reveals. Presumably, he would regard all other factors, sometimes highly important in the success of rhetoric, as inartistic; but he never says so." Admittedly, it takes some time before Kennedy's language rolls off the tongue as automatically as Cooper's. (I, at least, am still in a state of terminological transition.) But based on my first experience using the new words and phrases in class, I'm sold: "atechnic and entechnic pisteis" is much sharper, clearer, and richer than "artistic and inartistic modes of proof." It's a little thing, but it makes a big difference.

A third great strength of Kennedy's new translation is the life it brings to Book 3 (in which Aristotle focuses on delivery, style, and arrangement issues), which has always struck me as being particularly flat—no, outright dull—in Cooper. Kennedy's version simply does a much better job of capturing the profound audience-consciousness at the core of Aristotelian rheorical theory. For example:

Remarks aimed at the audience derive from an effort to make them well disposed and sometimes to make them attentive or the opposite; for it is not always useful to make them attentive, which is why many speakers try to induce laughter. All sorts of things will lead the audience to receptivity if the speaker wants, including his seeming to be a reasonable person. They pay more attention to these people. And they are attentive to great things that concern themselves, marvels, and pleasures. As a result, one should imply that the speech is concerned with such things. If they are not attentive, it is because the subject is unimportant, means nothing to them personally. (263)

To my thinking, Kennedy's invigorated Book 3 will especially help us in composition studies to implode the unfortunate but longstanding "misreading" of Aristotle as a "logic-chopping automaton."

A final strength of the new version is the collection of introductory and supplementary essays which accompany the translation itself. Sections B and C of Kennedy's introduction, "Rhetoric Before Aristotle" and "Aristotle's View of Rhetoric," and Supplementary Essay C, "The Strengths and Limitations of the Rhetoric," are especially excellent for our purposes in composition studies. Read them; youll be pleased.

Downsides? Well, as Kennedy himself noted in a talk at the Rhetoric Society of America conference in Minneapolis this past May, his new translation does eliminate the need for many of our (even his, he admitted) standard classroom explications and xeroxed-coursepak favorites like Larry Green's Rhetorica essay on the multidimensional meanings of the word antistrophos. If you use Kennedy's new translation once, you'll soon realize that your syllabus, lectures, and supplementary materials need adjusting.

I don't know what the classical-studies scholars will say, but for teachers like me and students like mine the new translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric is wonderful. I think the world of composition owes George Kennedy an enormous thank you.

JAC Volume 13 Issue 1

Aristotle On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, Newly Translated, with Introduction, Notes, and Appendices by George A. Kennedy (New York: Oxford UP, 1991, 335 pages).

Book Review by Fred Reynolds, Old Dominion University