Aristotle Entry

Well, I found the first part of the Aristotle hard to digest and can only imagine what I will be in for when I being his work, Rhetoric.  For now, I will stick to the first part of the reading.

It was nice to get an overview of Aristotle's beginnings and the array of subjects he both studied and taught. 

Here is a brief overview (skipping all of the components of anti-Macedonian feelings and such); 

Aristotle studied and later taught at Plato's Academy in Athens - a rather prestigious start to his career. Later, Aristotle went on to tutor Alexander the Great (son of Philip of Macedonia). Aristotle then started his own school in Athens.

This was the most easily digestible part of the reading. I waded through the various theories concerning rhetoric and tried as best I could to reach an understanding of it through Aristotle's views. To make this journal entry easier to read I will give a run down of what I thought were some of the key points...

A) Only scientific demonstration and formal logic can arrive at transcendent truth (144)

1. plato calls this "knowledge"
2. Rhetoric and Dialectic deal with subject of which no "true knowledge" can be reached

B) Aristotle divides rhetoric into two major categories 

1. Artistic Proofs- for which rhetoricians contruct the material (145)
1. ethos, pathos, logos
2. Inartistic Proofs- for which rhetoricians interpret exisitng material (145)

C) Ethos, Pathos, Logos

1. Logos - Logic...stresses the reasonableness of the rhetoricians argument (146)
2. Pathos - Pathetic...raises emotions favorable to rhetoricians position (146)
3. Ethos - Ethical...raises emotions favorable to rhetoricians moral character (146)

D) Logic is divided by Aristotle into 3 categories

1. Enthymeme - deductive argument 
2. Example - inductive 
3. Maxim - piece of received wisdom

Ugh. This is all i can extract at this moment without my brain exploding.