Chapter 3 Reaction

It is amazing that it’s been around 2300 years but Aristotle’s ideas and teachings still play a bug part of contemporary rhetorical studies. Aristotle saw that there isn’t just one approach to persuasion, but rather every situation depends on its context and the persuader must adapt differently to the different contexts. Aristotle proposed that the best thing a persuader can say to the audience is something that will bring happiness and speak against those that destroy happiness. Maxims is another popular technique used by Aristotle, and is still used today. I feel that a maxim or saying is effective because it is something that stands out therefore something that will remain in the audience’s memory.

In his book Rhetoric, Aristotle focused on what he called artistic proofs. He basically broke it down to three types of proof which I believe are very much relevant in our modern time. First is called ethos, which is an imagery the audience has of the speaker, particularly to body type, height, complexion, movements, clothing, grooming, and so on. The second is pathos, which describes emotions that come into play and to which the audience holds a connecting to. Evoking fear is a very powerful tool that falls under pathos. And finally, logos is what appeals to the intellect or rational side of humans.
In Plato’s dialogic approach, Plato is not so concerned with finding the truth, but instead states that truth is something we do not directly see, but rather truth is indirect images, glimpses, or shadows of the truth. He says absolute certain truths exist, but are obscured from our direct view.
According to Scott’s epistemic approach, truth is never certain, whether it’s concerned with science or public affairs. For him, truth is seen as moments in “human, creative processes” (p. 59).
Communication theorist Walter Fisher’s theories of rational world paradigm and narrative paradigm suggest that humans are “as much valuing as they are reasoning animals” (p. 60). The rational world paradigm basically states that rational individuals base their decisions on the quality of arguments and evidence. This I must agree with, because the higher the quality of evidence, the higher quality of the argument, and vice versa. Narrative paradigm suggests that human communication must be argumentative in form and evaluated in standards of formal logic. This then includes the theory of rational world paradigm.
In conclusion, I feel the general thing to say about persuasion, after reading this chapter, would be that people need to pay more attention to the topic of persuasion, particularly to the power struggle that is going on here. The greater attention should be paid to those smaller interest groups who are completely being ignored by the powerful ones.