Aristotle (Rhetoric, Epistemology)

Front 1

What is Rhetoric

Back 1

Aristotle’s approach to the subject of rhetoric emphasizes the importance of the rhetorician being attuned to the way her audience is affectively disposed toward her, as well as the way that she appears to be affectively disposed toward them.

Front 2

What is the reciprocal relation of affective disposednes?

Back 2

In addition to the logical or discursive content of the encounter between speaker and audience, there is a reciprocal relation of affective disposedness (dikeisthai) that constitutively shapes and colors the sense and persuasiveness of what is said.

Front 3

What are Emotions (Pathos)?

Back 3

Definition: “Emotions are those things which, by undergoing change, people come to differ in their judgments and which are accompanied by pain and pleasure.”
(Rhetoric 2.1.8; 1378a)

Front 4

What are the Three ontological features of emotion?

Back 4

(1) State of mind: disposedness, affectedness, situatedness; the experiential aspect of the emotion
(2) Emotional object: the person or thing toward which the emotion is customarily directed
(3) Reason or cause: that which produces the emotion

Front 5

What is Anger?

Back 5

Definition: “Anger is a desire, accompanied by mental and physical distress, for apparent retaliation, because of an apparent slight that was directed, without justification, against oneself or one’s own.”

(Rhetoric 2.2.1; 1378a)

Front 6

Who is anger directed towards?

Back 6

Anger is necessarily directed toward someone or group in particular, for example, at Cleon, but not at an unidentified human being.

(Rhetoric 2.2.1)

Front 7

Is anger directed toward a particular group of individuals?

Back 7

Thus, according to Aristotle it would not be accurate to say that one is “angry at the world.” Strictly speaking, this is would not be anger (i.e., an emotion) but irascibility (i.e., an abiding disposition).

Front 8

What is character?

Back 8

Emotion is a transient state; it is distinct from character, which is an abiding disposition. Though, as we shall see, one’s character, which is largely a product of socialization, predisposes one to certain emotional responses.

Front 9

What makes a person angry?

Back 9

“[A person is easily stirred to anger] if he happened to be expecting the opposite [treatment]; for the quite unexpected hurts more, just as the quite unexpected also delights if what is desired comes to pass.”
(Rhetoric 2.2.11)

Front 10

What do angry people want?

Back 10

“People do not vent their anger on others who are not aware of it nor [do they] continue to vent their anger against the dead, since the dead have suffered the ultimate and will not suffer nor will they have perception, which is what angry people want.”
(Rhetoric 2.3.16)

Front 11

Angry people desire vengeance or retribution

Back 11

Angry people want the one at whom they’re angry to perceive their anger, i.e., they desire recognition of their anger.

“A kind of pleasure follows all experience of anger from the hope of getting retaliation […] and also because people dwell in their minds on retaliating, the image that occurs produces pleasure”
(Rhetoric 2.2.2).

Front 12

What is the opposite of anger?

Back 12

Calmness (praotês) :The opposite of anger; a serenity and equanimity that disposes one toward a tolerant understanding of a situation.
(Rhetoric 2.3)

Front 13

Toward whom does one feel calmness?

Back 13

Those who are humble toward them
Those who are serious with them when they are serious
Those who have done greater kindness in the past than any passing affront
Those toward whom they feel pity

Front 14

What is the Friendly Feeling (philia)?

Back 14

Wanting for someone what one thinks are good things for him or her, not what one thinks benefits oneself, and wanting what is potentially productive of those things.
(Rhetoric 2.4)

Front 15

What do friends do?

Back 15

Friendly feeling is felt in a relationship thought to exist mutually.Friends share one another’s pleasure in good things; and they share one another’s distress in grievous things, for no other reason than that they are friends.

Front 16

What is difference between anger and hate?

Back 16

Whereas anger is always directed at particulars, hate is directed at types. For example: liars, thieves, sycophants (i.e., suck-ups).
Whereas anger is curable in time, hatred of types is incurable. That is, the negative feeling toward the class is permanent, but identification of an individual with the class is subject to change.
Whereas anger is the desire that the other feel pain, hatred is the desire that the other suffer evil.

Front 17

Is hatred accompanied by pain?

Back 17

Whereas anger is also accompanied by pain to the one who feels anger, hatred is not accompanied by pain

Whereas one who is angry wants the one she is angry at to suffer, the one who hates ultimately wants the detested class of persons not to exist

Front 18

What is Fear (phobos)?

Back 18

Fear is a sort of pain and agitation derived from the appearance/imagination (phantasias) of an impending bad thing, either destructive or painful… [only those things that] do not appear far off, but near, so that they are about to happen; for what is far off is not feared.
[e.g.]: all know that they will die, but unless it is near at hand they take no thought of it.

Front 19

Are physical reactions objects of fear?

Back 19

An evil that causes one’s heart to leap and race is not an object of fear.

Front 20

What are the objects of fear?

Back 20

An event that seems capable of causing great pain, agony, and destruction

A calamity that seems to be impending

An evil that one seems powerless to prevent

An agony from which one has some hope of being saved

Front 21

What are fearless people?

Back 21

Those who think they have already suffered all dreadful things possible and have become coldly indifferent to the future are fearless.

Front 22

What is deliberation?

Back 22

Fear motivates/inclines people toward deliberation. Courageous people do not act from deliberation.

Front 23

What is shame?

Back 23

Shame is a sort of pain and agitation concerning the class of evils (whether present, past, or future) that seem to bring a person into disrespect, dishonor, or disgrace. Shame is imagination [phantasia] about a loss of reputation… among those whose opinion one takes account of.

Front 24

Shameful actions that stem from vice

Back 24

Non-Virtuous Characters:

cowardice

licentiousness (lacking in sexual restraint)

stinginess obsequiousness (showing servile deference)

small-mindedness

meanness

arrogance

Front 25

Do you feel shame towards babies or small animals?

Back 25

Aristotle claims that one does not feel shame before those without the capacity or without a reputation for telling the truth. So one does not feel shame before babies and small animals.

Front 26

What is pity (eleos)?

Back 26

Pity is a certain pain at an apparently destructive or painful event happening to one who does not deserve it and which a person might expect himself or one of his own to suffer.

Front 27

TRUE OR FALSE
According to Aristotle, humans acquire virtue primarily through rational instruction

Back 27

FALSE

Humans acquire virtue through habituation.

Front 28

TRUE OR FALSE
According to Aristotle’s ethics, anger and other emotional agitations should be extirpated

Back 28

FALSE

Anger and other emotional agitations should me moderated.

Front 29

How should emotions be moderated?

Back 29

It is possible on occasion to be affected by fear, boldness, appetite, anger, pity, and pleasure and distress in general both too much and too little, and neither is good; but to be affected when one should, at the things one should, in relation to the people one should, for the reasons one should, and in the way one should, is both intermediate and best, which is what belongs to [moral] excellence.

Front 30

TRUE OR FALSE

Aristotle claims that anger is necessarily directed at particular individuals or groups of individuals, not at general states of affairs (e.g., the world, the weather, a chair, the existence of tyranny)

Back 30

TRUE

Anger is necessarily directed toward someone or group in particular. According to Aristotle it would not be accurate to say that one is “angry at the world.” Strictly speaking, this would not be anger (an emotion) but irascibility (an abiding disposition).Emotion is a transient state; it is distinct from character, which is an abiding disposition. One’s character, which is largely a product of socialization, predisposes one to certain emotional responses.Emotions are also intentional – i.e., they are directed toward individuated objects.

Front 31

Aristotle argues that people who do not get angry under any circumstance:

Back 31

are weak in spirit or insensate and do not feel pain

Front 32

Aristotle argues that people who are excessively fearful are cowardly (Ethics, 1115b35) and those who are fearless:

Back 32

are psychotic or extemely unintelligent

Front 33

What are some claims Aristotle makes regarding courage?

Back 33

The “liquid courage” that drunk people often get is not authentic courage
Angry people who act boldly are not necessarily courageous
Courageous people act from disposition rather than deliberation

Front 34

What is moral virtue?

Back 34

Moral virtue/excellence is a stable, stochastic disposition, acquired through habituation, whereby one is able to properly evaluate particular situations, and hit upon the mean/intermediate between excessive and deficient emotional and behavioral responses.