Green L. D., Aristotelean Rhetoric, Dialectic, and The Traditions of Antistrofos, Rhetorica" 8.1 (1990), S. 5-27.

Aristotelian Rhetoric, Dialectic, and the Traditions of Author(s): Lawrence D.
Green Source: Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Winter 1990), pp. 5-27 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/rh.1990.8.1.5 . Accessed: 07/10/2013 05:12
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LAWRENCE D . G R E E N
Aristotelian Rhetoric, Dialectic, and the Traditions of 'AvTLaTQO(l)og
ny attempt to understand Aristotle's Rhetoric requires taking a stand on the issue of the relationship he proposes between rhetoric and dialectic, even if the stand is merely a provisional one. Certainly the relationship was important to Aristotle himself: the opening line of his treatise declares that "Rhetoric is the dvTioTQOc|)og of dialectic" (1354al), and within his treatise the cross-references to his dialectical works are so extensive that it often seems as though Aristotle is defining rhetoric and dialectic in terms of one another. Yet the precise nature of their relationship has puzzled commentators and interpreters from classical times to the present, assuming more and less importance in different eras. In the Renaissance theorists and practitioners alike were increasingly self-conscious about their own roots in Aristotelian thinking, and the relations they discerned between the two disciplines affected educational practices, approaches to literacy, and even practices in some vernacular literatures.' But if scholars in the Renaissance were particularly feverish in their pursuit of this matter, they were hardly unique in realizing the centrality of it. To the extent that the two disciplines define one another, understanding that
'See Cesare Vasoli, La dialettica e la retorica dell'Umanesimo: "Invenzione" e "Metodo'- nella cultura del XV e XVI secolo (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1968). The International Society for the History of Rhetoric Rhetorica, Volume VllI, Number 1 (Winter 1990)
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relationship has some import for how we understand AristoteHan rhetoric. The history of interpretation and commentary over the centuries provides eloquent testimony to the difficulty people have had, and continue to have, in sorting out this relationship. The problem nags at commentators and refuses to stay solved; no matter how elaborate an analysis one commentator offers, the next commentator often feels compelled to reconsider the entire problem again, often with no perceptible advance in the argument. Moreover, the major positions are difficult to reconcile with one another, and yet so many commentators in their rehearsals either gloss over the disagreements as though they do not matter or do not exist, or else they simply dismiss the positions they do not like without trying to come to grips with them. Finally, the issue reached an impasse by the end of the Renaissance, and the arguments have not advanced significantly in four hundred years; all of the major positions were already spelled out by the sixteenth century, and subsequent scholarship has done little more than choose sides. One of the greatest difficulties in the long history of commentary has been the very heritage of commentary itself. Medieval and Renaissance scholars often failed to appreciate why an earlier scholar said what he said, and so misunderstood the genesis of that scholar's position, the extent to which it answered his own local concerns and arguments, and the inherent limitations of that position. Our modern understandings on this subject, in turn, have been shaped by the history of trying to understand the subject, and we have valorized positions which were first developed in the context of historical concerns which are not our own, and concerns which we in all probability do not share. In what follows I will outline the development of some of these positions by focusing on Aristotle's use of the word dvTi;oTQO(t)05 in the opening line of the Rhetoric. It is precisely at this point in his treatise that commentators historically have joined battle, and here that they established the premises about Aristotelian rhetoric and dialectic which would guide the rest of their enterprise. Moreover, the decisions made at this crux are nearly always shaped by the commentator's or interpreter's larger understanding of the Rhetoric as a whole, often by an understanding of Aristotle's dialectical treatises, and sometimes by a reading of other Aristotelian works. My focus in what follows will be principally historical, rather than philosophical, insofar as I will be less concerned with Aristotle than with the attempts by commentators to understand Aristotle. As one commentator said, speaking
Aristotelian Rhetoric
in the sixteenth century, "There are as many interpretations of this i little word as there are interpreters.'" Aristotle himself does not provide much help within the immediate context of the Rhetoric. He uses dvxL0TQ0<})05 and dvxioTQo4)r| orJy three times in the entire treatise, and two of these instancesboth in book 3refer explicitly to technical aspects of Greek choric strophe and antistrophe. The single most important use of dvTiOTQoct)og is in the opening line. The matter is complicated by Aristotle having also characterized the relationship between rhetoric and dialectic by using the words oiov na0a(j)us5 ("somewhat like an offshoot" 1356a25), [xoQiov xi ("some kind of a part" 1356a31), and 6[xoia)(xa ("similar" 1356a30); none of these is specific enough to argue any particular relation with certainty. The first two are both offered as heavily qualified statements, while the third can mean anything, so that reliance upon these references forces commentary to find its least common denominator in the simplest and vaguest explanation. The two passing references to poetic dvxiox0O(t)Ti in book 3 have invited commentators over the centuries to try to import notions of choric strophe and antistrophe into the discussion. In the first instance, Aristotle refers to xaig xwv dg/ailcov jroirixcov dvxLOTQ6<t)OL5 (3.9.1409a26), "the antistrophes of the ancient poets," and in the second to a poet who composed dvxl xdjv dvxio96<j)a)v dvaPoXdg (3.9.1409b27), "rambling odes instead of antistrophes." In both instances Aristotle has poetic antistrophe in mind as a model for the kind of periodic style he urges for the orator at this point. Periods help an audience to sense the local shape of the discourse before it comes and so make sense of things more readily, and the astute orator will want to take advantage of his audience's desire for such sense. The strophic correspondence of poetic antistrophe provides Aristotle a model for periodic style insofar as the pattern for the first strophe, once an audience discerns it, will provide a pattern for anticipating the shape of the answering strophe, and the fwo strophes together will have a sense that can be readily grasped. And Aristotle's way of referring to poetic antistrophe here is consistent with his references elsewhere (e.g.. Problems 15.918bl3,19,27).
^"Huius vocabuli quot sunt interpretes, tot interpretahones"; Lawrence D. Green (ed. and trans.), lohn Rainolds's Oxford Lectures on Aristotle's "Rhetoric" (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 1986), 104.1.
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A commonplace of Aristotelian criticism is that dialectic and rhetoric relate to one another as do choric strophe and antistrophe, but this explanation raises more problems than it solves, as Aristotie's brief reference to "ancient poets" suggests. In some circular dithyrambs (although probably not in tragedy) the chorus sang the strophe while dancing to the right, the antistrophe while dancing to the left, and the epode while standing still.^ In Pindar's Olympian 1 all the lines of the strophe are in Aiolic rhythm, with each line complexly different from the line before.* The following antistrophe has the same number of lines as the strophe, and each antistrophic line repeats the rhythm of the corresponding strophic line. The epode is also Aiolic, but nowhere is it identical metrically to the first two stanzas. The structure of Olympian 1 is a series of triads in which each strophe is followed by a matching antistrophe, while all the epodes are identical among themselves. At this point, the parallels between ancient Greek choral practice and Aristotle's use of dvxioxQocjjog at 1354al fall apart. The very notion of an "antistrophe" is not created by the earlier strophe, but instead by the existence of the epode. Without the epode, the choral antistrophe would merely be a second stanza repeating the formal metrics of the first, and there would be nothing inherent in the structure of the ode to prevent a third, fourth, and fifth repeating stanza. In such a case the notion of "antistrophe" would become meaningless, and the stanza would be just one more ramble in the potentially endless dvaPoXr| which Aristotle explicitly warns the orator to avoid at 1409b27. Such successive stanzas may correspond to one another in one way or another, but it is the dance and, in particular, the "standstill" of the epode which together turn the first stanza inside out and make it an antistrophe. The parallels between two verses or, in the case of the Rhetoric, between two disciphnes are not enough to make their relationship antistrophic, even if the parallels are exact. Something more is needed to turn the verse or discipline back upon itself. In ancient verse, the epode and dance served
^See Lillian L. Lawler, The Dance of the Ancient Greek Theatre (Iowa City: Univ. of Iowa Press, 1964), 11-14. For a statement of the older view, see Walther Kranz, Stasimon: Untersuchungen zu Form und Gehalt der Griechischen Tragodie (Berlin: Weidmannsch Buchhandlung, 1933), 115 ff. 'Frank Nisetich, Pindar's Victory Odes (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1980), 34-35; for an analysis of the metrics of Olympian 1, see Alexander Turyn, Pindari Carmina cum Fragmentis (Krakow: Academia Polona Litterarum et Scientiarum, 1948), 1.
this function. But the history of Aristotelian commentary is devoid of elements serving any such function for rhetoric and dialectic. The seeming precision of references to Greek strophe and antistrophe for clarifying Aristotie's ideas at 1354al is illusory. But if the word dvxLOXQO(j)og is unusual within the context of the Rhetoric, it is very common in Aristotle's other works, and the word almost always has a very technical meaning. 'AvxLox0oct)O5 appears in the Analytics and in the Topics more than 150 times. In every instance the word indicates a transformation which is reciprocal and reversible, and in which one part of a two-part relationship necessarily implies the second part by virtue of such reciprocity and reversibility. These transformations can be performed on elements such as sentences, propositions, terms, relations, and even on arguments. In general, the transformation either follows Aristotle's principles of logical conversion detailed in the Prior Analytics, or the transformation negates the original element. In the former case, if certain logical operations can be performed on element X to yield element Y, or on element Y to yield element X, then X and Y are convertible with one another. In the latter case, either element can always be converted to its opposite. In one of Aristotle's illustrations of conversion (dvxiOTQe({)LV, A.Pr 1.25a6), the statement "no man is an animal" transforms into the statement "no animal is a man," while "every man is an animal" transforms into "some animal is a man." Thus X and Y always imply one another, and can be transformed into one another, without actually being one another.^ In each instance of the word dvxL0X90(()05 in the dialectical treatises, the word conveys more than what is suggested by an inaccurate translation such as "correspondence," or "analogue," or "correlative," or "identity." If this reading from the Analytics and Topics were at all permissible in the context of the Rhetoric, then the problematic use of the word in the declaration "Rhetoric is the dvxi;oxQO(j)05 of dialectic" would indicate that rhetoric and dialectic could somehow be converted so that they could be understood as one another (recipro^ h e r e are nuances within this general description, and those nuances have been largely understood throughout the commentary tradition, since Aristotle's discussions clarify the sense of the word in almost all cases. W. D. Ross summarizes those nuances in Aristotle's Prior and Posterior Analytics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), A.Pr. 25a6, although scholars have taken issue with aspects of his analysis, e.g., Robin Smith, "Some Studies of Logical Transformations in the Prior Analytics," History and Philosophy of Logic 2 (1981): 1-9.
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cally and reversibly), and that they do not merely resemble one another in a vague manner. But in the history of Aristotelian commentary this is not the path that has been followed.* Most of modern thinking about the problems of dvxiox0O(j)O5 in the Rhetoric can be traced back to what Renaissance interpreters and commentators had to say. Their thinking, in turn, relied upon a relatively small number of earher scholars and studies. We can think of those earlier and influential studies in terms of three independent traditions; one emerges out of Peripatetic philosophy of the third century, another from Arabic philosophy in the twelfth century, and a third from Scholastic concerns of the thirteenth century. From the Renaissance point of view, these three traditions seemed to converge, and if scholars within each tradition did not actually say the same things about Aristotle's dvxioxQocjjog, at least their positions seemed intelligible in terms of one another. But in fact they are not, and what seems similar in their positions is really different because the reasons for holding those positions are different. This difficulty leads to two problems which trouble the history of commentary from the Renaissance onward; similar explanations about dvxioxQo4>05 mask real differences in understanding, and, conversely, seeming differences in explanation obscure areas of critical agreement. The critical position with the oldest heritage is that of the Peripatetic commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias in the third century. Alexander briefly considers the question of dvxioxQO(t)og in his study of Aristotle's Topics, and while he does not actually reject the notion of antistrophic convertibility, still he discusses the matter in such a way as to lead centuries of subsequent commentators to dismiss such a reading as inapplicable to the Rhetoric.^ Alexander claims that dvxCoxQO(j)05 originally meant the same as io6ax0O(})O5, and that Aristotle's line in the Rhetoric signifies that rhetoric and dialectic, despite their differences, engage in the same activities
In another study 1 explore the possibilities and problems of just this suggestion. Alexander Aphrodisiensis, In Aristotelis topicorum libros octo commentaria, ed. Maximillian Wallies (Beriin: Georg Reimer, 1841), 1.4. Numerous manuscripts of Alexander survive, and his commentary became widely available after the Aldine edition (Venice, 1513).
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and discuss the same things.* Alexander delineates four principal resemblances between rhetoric and dialectic: 1. Neither art has a subject matter of its own, and in theory either art can address any topic whatsoever; 2. Neither has the kind of general organizing principle or generating principle which is necessary for the definition of a particular science, although both have recourse to principles common to any kind of reasoning; 3. Both use probable reasons, rather than tiue, certain, or demonstrable reasons, and both aim at conclusions which can be no more than probable; and 4. Both can argue either side of a question, whereas a true demonstiation can have but one conclusion. Alexander's first two points imply one another, while his fourth point follows from his third, so that Alexander's resemblances are actually fewer than his diffuse discussion suggests. But the major differences which Alexander perceives between the two arts are more pronounced than these resemblances: 1. Dialectic in practice deals with any subject, while rhetoric in practice deals only with civil affairs; 2. Dialectic proceeds by question and answer, while rhetoric in practice is more expansive and proceeds in such order as it chooses; and 3. Dialectic usually aims at conclusions of general or universal import, while rhetoric in practice aims at particular conclusions, often involving individuals or discernible parties. As Alexander's discussion makes clear, the resemblances between rhetoric and dialectic are all on a theoretical level, while the differences are all on the level of practical application. In his view, both arts are practical rather than theoretical enterprises, and as a result the practical differences matter more to Alexander than do the theoretical resemblances. What poses the greatest difficulty with this passage in Alexander is that he is not really thinking about rhetoric. What does
"Sextus Empiricus, who is roughly contemporaneous with Alexander, has a similar understanding of (ivTioxeo(J)05 in Adversus Mathematicus 7.6. These two thirdcentury writers are the principal authorities for attributing this reading to Aristotle's avTioTQO(t)og.
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concern him is how to determine which of the competing definitions of "dialectic" is appropriate as a starting point for his commentary on Aristotle's Topics. His remarks about rhetoric are the last in a series which first ranges across Platonic method in philosophy. Stoic dialectic, Aristotelian categories and demonstration, and the nature of probable statements. The remarks themselves are sandwiched in between these early distinctions and the major discussion of syllogistic proceeding and topical reasoning which follows. Both the overall structure of his discussion and the very remarks themselves demonstrate that Alexander is primarily interested in the similarities and differences between rhetoric and dialectic insofar as they clarify for him the issue of syllogizing from probabilities. Commentators during the Renaissance struggled valiantly to make sense of Alexander's remarks, with mixed success. Marc Antoine Muret, in an influential Latin tianslation of Alexander, understood him to say that the two disciplines were coequal with one another ("eam esse a.vTioTQO<pog hoc est aequivalentem rhetoricae"),' as did Danielo Barbaro ("parem est") in a commentary on Aristotle's Rhetoric, although Barbaro was more equivocal than Muret ("Alexander huic accedens, iodorgocpog, quasi parem exposuit").'" Guilelmo Dorotheo in a competing translation of Alexander thought that the two disciplines merely dealt with the same material." The magisterial Aristotelian scholar Pietro Vettori thought that rhetoric and dialectic were similar as disciplines, and in his massive commentary on the Rhetoric he quoted and translated Alexander's comments about dvxLox0oct)O5 and La6axQO({)05 ("uersatur circa easdem res, & in illis tractandis tota occupatur")." But by the nineteenth century, E. M. Cope, who relied heavily upon Alexander's account here and upon Vettori's commentary, did not even try to make sense of Alexander's philological explanation about lo6axQO(t)05, witich he dismissed as "a very extraordinary account. "^^
'Marcus Antonius Muretus, Alexander Aphrodisiensis in octo libros Topicorum Aristotelis explicatio [1544?] (Venice, 1554), 2'b. '"Danielus Barbarus, Aristotelis Rhetoricorum libri tres, Hermolao Barbaro Patricio Veneto interprete. Danielis Barbari in eosdem libros Commentarii [1540] (Basel, 1545), 12. Guilelmus Dorotheas Venetus, Alexandri Aphrodisei svmmi peripatetici, in octo libros topicorum, vel de locis sedeque argumentorum Aristotelis commentatio lucidissima [1538?] (Venice, 1541). Petrus Victorius, Commentarii in tres libros Aristotelis de arte dicendi [1547] (Florence, 1548), 1. "E[dward] M[eredith] Cope, The Rhetoric of Aristotle, with a Commentary, ed. J. E. Sandys (Cambridge; At the University Press, 1877), 1.3. Cope's summary of
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A different and independent line of thinking comes through the Arabic tradition, through Al-Farabi and Averroes. Averroes incorporated Aristotelian rhetoric, poetics, dialectic, demonstration, and sophistic all into a larger art of what he thought of as logic. What was not clear to medieval and Renaissance commentators was that Averroes was maintaining his own polemic within the Arabic world. Other Arabic commentators had argued that rhetoric was to be viewed merely as a component of style. Averroes rescued rhetoric from its subordination to poetics by instead subsuming both rhetoric and poetics alike under logic." Rhetoric again is linked to dialectic, as it is for Alexander, by its efficacy in gaining assent through syllogistic practice, but Averroes offers an interesting difference. Dialectic recognizes that two contrary positions are available with any given question, and it tries to ignore or destroy one of them; rhetoric, on the other hand, tries to keep both possibilities in sight.^^ Thus the two disciplines touch upon one another within Averroes' overarching discipline of logic, and his paraphrase of Aristotle's Rhetoric is consonant with his perception. Abramo de Balmo translated that paraphrase into Latin as "Ars quidem Rhetoricae affinis est artis Topicae," in which Aristotle's xfj 8LaX.eixixfj at 1354al is understood as a reference to the Topics, and not to the Analytics or to a broader notion of dialectic." Averroes' focus on the Topics makes it unnecessary for him to ponder the definitions of dialectic which motivated Alexander's remarks, but the different contexts of the two commentators' concerns would lead to confusion when later writers tried to compare their respective positions. Yet a third line of thinking comes through the Scholastic tradition. William of Moerbeke [ca. 1270], the Dominican confrere of St. Thomas Aquinas, was another interpreter who tried to make sense of Aristotle's difficult line, but he caused as much difficulty as he solved. He rendered this line as "Rhetorica assecutiva dialectice est,"'^ so that rhetoric apparently rivals dialectic, or aspires to
Alexander should be used with cauhon, since Cope adds his own crihcal commentary without clearly differentiating it from what Alexander actually says. "Charles E. Butterworth, ed. and trans., Averroes' Three Short Commentaries on Aristotle's "Topics," "Rhetoric," and "Poetics" (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1977), 21. 'Âverroes, The Book of Dialectic, para. 2, in Butterworth, 47. "Averroes, In libros rhetoricorum Aristotelis paraphrases. Abramo de Balmes interprete [1515], in Aristotelis opera cum Averrois commentariis, vol. 2 (Venice, 1562), 69. "Translatio Guillelmi de Moerbeka, in Aristoteles Latinus XXXI,l-2: Rhetorica:
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be like it, or is an extension of it, or perhaps is subsequent to it. But other understandings of assecutiva are possible, and Giles of Rome [ca. 1290], a disciple of St. Thomas, puzzles his way through several of them in his very extensive commentary on Moerbeke's translation.^* Giles argues against positions advanced by Al-Farabi in the eighth century, saying that rhetoric is not a part of logic; that dialectical opinion has no more human force than does rhetorical creduhty; and that either discipline can deal with particulars. For Giles, rhetoric is a kind of imitation of dialectic ("quaedem imitatio"), the equal of dialectic in some respects ("aequatur ilh"), and deficient in others. Rhetoric serves the practical intellect, dialectic the speculative intellect, but bothin Thomist fashionmake the universe more knowable." According to Giles, understanding Aristotie's opening line (that is, Moerbeke's translation of it) requires a larger understanding of the differences and similarities between rhetoric and dialectic. Rhetoric and dialectic are alike in that both are rational activities that deal with acts of reason, neither uses the inexorable reasoning which compels the mind in logic, and the reasoning which each uses deals with aspects of universal being itself. The two differ in that rhetoric tends to deal with particular moral matters among unsophisticated auditors, and employs the inferior logic of enthymemes and examples, while dialectic tends to deal with universal speculative matters among subtle auditors, and employs the superior logic of syllogisms and inductions. The most important distinction between them for Giles is that rhetoric arouses the passions and seeks to produce credulity, while dialectic eschews the passions and seeks to produce opinion. In Giles's Scholastic perception, the passions require both material and organism, and thus the passions cannot be found in the lower vegetative soul, or in the higher rational soul, but only in the sensitive soul.^" There, the passions must be either cognitive (which
Translatio Anonyma sive Vetus et Translatio Guillelmi de Moerbeka, ed. Bernd Schneider (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), 159 (cited hereafter as Aristoteles Latinus). For discussion, see Bernd Schneider, Die mittelalterlichen griechisch-lateinischen Ubersetzungen der aristotelischen Rhetorik (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1971). "Aegidius Romanus (Egidio Colonna, Giles of Rome), Expositio super tribus libris rhetoricorum [ca. 1290] (Venice, 1515), l'a-2'a. "Brother S. Robert, F. S. C , "Rhetoric and Dialectic: According to the First Latin Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle," New Scholasticism 31 (1957): 484-98. ^"james Jerome Murphy, "The Scholastic Condemnation of Rhetoric in the Commentary of Giles of Rome on the Rhetoric of Aristotle," Arts Liberaux et Philosophic au Moyen Age (Montreal: Institute d'Etudes Medievales, 1969), 833-41.
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they cannot be) or else appetitive. When the sensitive appetite affects the intellect, the result is human choice; credulity is an intellective assent driven by the appetite, and it leads to action in this world.^' But action in this world, even good action, is not the greatest happiness; that happiness is reserved for reasoning that seeks the truth, and which requires neither choice nor action. That higher happiness is the goal of dialectic, which arouses no passions and is not affected by appetite. In dialectic, nothing moves the intellect but that which is proper to it, while in rhetoric the intellect answers to the appetite. In Giles's Commentary, the most significant differences between rhetoric and dialectic, and the resultant hierarchy between the two disciplines, turn on the issue of the appetitive intellect. This helps explain his understanding of Moerbeke's assecutiva, but even so, it is difficult for modern translations to capture fully Giles's sense, and we have "Rhetoric reaches to dialectic"^ along with "Rhetoric follows upon dialectic."^ An altogether different problem is whether Giles's complex position really reflects Moerbeke's understanding of Aristotle's dvxioxQocjJog. I have so far touched upon three commentary traditions: Peripatetic, Arabic, and Scholastic. In each tradition commentators have come to similar understandings of Aristotle's dvxioxQO(t)og, but they have done so for very different reasons, and what looks like agreement is in fact nothing of the sort. These three traditions, and the superficial sense of agreement among them, continue into the Renaissance. When Pietro Vettori offers a translation of Aristotle's Une at 1354al, he closely follows Alexander's language with "Rhetorica versatur in iisdem rebus, in quibus dialectica,"^* and others then follow Vettori's influential lead. Averroes also finds many echoes. Jacques Brocard, who usually wrote on theological matters, offers a popular paraphrase of the Rhetoric which declares that "rhetoricae est cum dialectica affinitas."^^ Marco Antonio Riccoboni
^'For Giles, rhetoric occupies a medial position between dialechc, on the one hand, and both ethics and polihcs on the other; see Gerardo Bruni, "The De differentia rhetoricae, ethicae et politicae of Aegidius Romanus," New Scholasticism 6 (1932): 1-18. ^Robert, 488. ^Murphy, 840. ^Victorius, Commentarii in tres libros Aristotelis de arte dicendi (Florence, 1579), in Aristoteles Latinus, 356. ^Jacobus Brocardus, Aristotelis de arte rhetorica paraphrasis (Paris, 1549), 36: "Ea
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adopts a similariy Averroist point of view when he writes "Rhetorica convenientiam habet cum Dialectica,"^* and his language is preserved as late as the Cambridge Edition of 1728. The complex Scholastic position of Giles is adopted by Augustino Nifo, who is more commonly known for his philosophical studies of Aristotle. In his commentary and interpretation, Nifo finally adopts Giles's intricate position, but only after first despairing that "dvxiaxQ0(f)05 8ia>iEXXLKfj: non parua difficultas est." Nifo is certain that Giles had never countenanced antistrophic convertibility as it is found in the Analytics, and he toys with the word "subalterna" to render what he thought Giles meant before he finally setfles for the vaguer "Rhetorica est vicaria dialectice."^^ But for many other commentators, the magisterial Guillaume Bude settles the entire philological issue by declaring in his widely adopted lexicon that dvxL0XQ0(t)05 designates avakoyoq, "an analogue which corresponds proportionately to something else. "^^ His position has the virtue of encompassing three divergent traditions which have only an apparent similarity, and many commentators and interpreters, both in the Renaissance and since, have found Bude's solution attractive. But three converging traditions are not the same as a consensus; the Renaissance had its dissenters, and they took Cicero for their authority. In the Orator (32.114) Cicero had translated Aristotle's troublesome line as "quasi ex altera parte respondere dialecticae." Today many scholars choose to translate Cicero's interpretation in Orator by using the English word counterpart,^^ which conceivably means an analogue. But Pietro Vettori and other Renaissance commentators thought that Cicero had just the opposite in mind, that Cicero perceived contrariety, and that he saw the two Aristotelian disciplines of rhetoric and dialectic as opposed to one another, contra and e regione.^ Carlo Sigonio adopts this position and shortens Cicero's qualified statement to a very simple "Rhetorica respondet diaigitur rhetoricae est cum dialechca affinitas, ac cognatio, ut re eadem nitens, habitum ilium orationes induat, qui formis disserendi dialecticis respondeat, similique; quadam facultate poUeat vtraque." ''M. Antonius Riccobonus, Aristotelis artis rhetoricae libri tres (Venice, 1579), in Aristoteles Latinus, 358. Augustinus Niphus, Expositio atque interpretatio lucida in libros artis rhetorice Aristotelis (Venice, 1538), fol. 2' seq. "^Gulielmus Budaeus, Commentarii linguae Graecae, rev. ed. (Paris, 1548), 629. ^'See, for example, H. M. Hubbell, Cicero: Orator, Loeb Classical Library (London: W. Heinemann Ltd., 1939). ^Victorius, Commentarii (1548), 1-2.
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lecticae."^^ Sigonio's simple opposition is directly repeated by others, as in Giovanni Strazelli's interpretation "Rhetorica respondet dialecticae."^^ The movement, however, is not all in one direction, and where some interpreters shorten Cicero's statement in order to translate Rhetoric 1354al, others take the same statement and instead elaborately expand it, as in Johann Sturm's "Ars dicendi, quasi in choro e regione disserendi respicit."^'' Not surprisingly, not all Renaissance critics were convinced by this approach; some thought this was a misreading of Cicero, others thought that Cicero had misread Aristotle, and some Renaissance critics of Cicero's approach, such as Pietro Vettori himself, saw no room for compromise.** As far as they were concerned, the possibility that dvTioxQocjjog could be read as analogue never occurred to Cicero, and in this conviction they were aided by the Renaissance love for philological analysis. John Rainolds, who lectured on the Rhetoric at Oxford University during the early 1570s, summarizes for his students the state of the debate: The word is composed of avti and 0TQC|)CO. But the word itself has many meanings, and the same authors use it differently at different times. This complexity causes disagreement among interpreters, and makes this passage obscure. So, in order to come to a better decision, let us see what avxi means by itself and what it means conjoined with the word aTQi<^w, from which dvTiaxQ0(j)05 is formed. 'Avxi means opposite, as in avxixSoves [people of the southern hemisphere], ayxLnobei; [Antipodes], avxtvonia [conflict of laws], and dvxaextLXog [antarctic]. Next, it means instead of and as if in place of another, as in avxiSeiJivo; [taking another's place at dinner], dvxicrcQdxTiYOS [acting commander], dvBiiJtaxo? [proconsul], and dvxiXuxQOv [ransom offered in place of a person]. The massive Greek Thesaurus from the Estienne press in the late sbcteenth century provided an enormous number of examples of both uses.^* From the point of view of such critics, AristoteUan commentators had to choose one path or the other for dvxi combined with axqi^w, pro or contra, "instead of" or "opposite."
"Carolus Sigonius, De arte rhetorica libri tres [1557] (Bologna, 1565), 9. ^^loannis Strazellius (d. 1558), Harburg MS I.l, in Aristoteles Latinus, 349. "Joannes Sturmius, Aristoteles rhetoricorum libri III (Strasbourg, 1570), 1'. ^Victorius, Commentarii (1548), 1-3; see also Rainolds, Lectures, 106. '^Rainolds, Lectures, 105. '^Henricus Stephanus, rioaueog xfjg a>.T)vixfi5 YXcboor)?, Thesaurus Graecae linguae, 5 vols. (Paris, 1572), 3:1089G.
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Other Renaissance commentators considered such variations m translation to be distinctions without a difference. The noted humanist (and Ciceronian) Ermolao Barbaro, for example, was clearly Ciceronian when he translated Aristofle as "Ars Rhetorica dialecticae tanquam ex altera parte respondet." But his translation was not published for several decades, when his nephew Danielo Barbaro coupled it with his own extended commentary based on his uncle's translation. Danielo glossed Ermolao's sentence in Averroist fashion by saying "Rhetoricam & Dialecticam similes esse," referred to the two disciplines as affinis, and made it clear that he thought Aristofle here intended the Topics.^'' Danielo draws some distinctions in an effort to reconcile these positions, pro and contra. He says that Alexander of Aphrodisias and Averroes both saw similarity by virtue of looking at the material of the two disciplines, while Cicero saw contrariety (opponi) by looking at the form. Thus, for Danielo, it's all a matter of how one chooses to look at the problem, and he declares that he and Ermolao both side with Cicero. A number of commentators found Danielo's solution persuasive.^' If Danielo was being judicious, there were, at the same time, commentators who were perfectly happy to have it both ways. Marco Antonio Maioragio translates Aristotle with "Rhetorica Dialecticae affinis est, et quasi ex altera parte respondet."^' A shghtly different case is presented by Muret, one of the translators of Alexander whom I discussed earlier, and who clearly knows the tradition descending from Alexander. When Muret later offered his own translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric he adopted the Ciceroruan "Rhetorice dialecticae altera ex parte respondet.'"" Muret apparently concluded that Alexander and Cicero were not at all in conflict. Muret, in fact, appears so secure that he even drops the equivocation of Cicero's original sentence, an equivocation which most Ciceronians had been careful to preserve with the qualifiers quasi or tanquam.*^ Thus we see that similarities in expression can obscure or mask
^'Barbarus, Commentarii, 8, 9-14. Such as Franciscus Portus, Commentarii in tres Aristotelis rhetoricae (Speyer, 1598), 5-6. Maioragius, In tres Aristotelis libros, de arte rhetorica (Venice, 1572), fol. Pa. Maioragio continues in his commentary with an extended attack upon the scholarship of Vettori, with regard both to Aristotle and Cicero. "Muretus, Aristotelis Rhetoricorum libri duo (Rome, 1585), 1. " As does Jakob Gorski in his dialectical studies; Jacobus Gorscius, Commentariorum artis dialecticae libri decern (Leipzig, 1563), 9.
Aristotelian lyietoric
19
real differences in interpretation. But the converse is true as well, and seeming differences in language can mask a sameness in understanding. The anonymous medieval Vetus Translatio, for centuries the principal source in the West for the Rhetoric, boldly translates Aristotle's line as "Rhetorica est convertibihs dialetice,"^ but it is clear from other parts of the translation that the writer does not intend the kind of antistrophic convertibility which prevails in the Analytics. Aristotle is here thought to be saying that rhetoric and dialectic are interchangeable. William of Moerbeke's translation, as I mentioned eariier, makes the two disciplines touch upon one another, but in at least two manuscripts of Moerbeke, dating from the thirteenth century, a variant on his coequal "assecutiva" is the phrase "vice versabilis,"*^ "interchangeable," suggesting that the careful discriminations offered by Giles of Rome did not prevail everywhere. George of Trebizond, one of the earliest humanist interpreters of the Rhetoric [1443], translates Aristotle as "Rhetorica cum dialectica convertitur,"^ which at first looks like a divergence from the tiadition. But his own scholia on this point make it clear that here he intends similarity, not convertibility.*^ And yet, an anonymous reviser of George rewrote this line as "Rhetorica dialecticae aequipoUet,"** introducing an interesting problem. Aequipollet can yield the sense of similarity and equality between the two disciplines, but it is also a technical term in medieval scholastic logic which means, roughly, antistrophic convertibility.*^ Alesandro Piccolomini, however, provides some evidence that this latter possibility had already dropped out of the tradition; he too offers "Rhetorica dialecticae aequipollet," but his Italian paraphrase of the line rules out antistrophic conversion: "La retorica con assai somiglianza, &
^Translatio Anonyma sive Vetus, in Aristoteles Latinus, 5. ""Wolfenbiittel MS. 488 Helmstadt, fols. 182'-219"; and Vienna, Nationalbibliothek MS. 125. See Schneider, 165, and Aristoteles Latinus, xxxviii-xlii, 159n. "Georgius Trapezuntius, Aristotelis rhetoricorum liber III (Paris, 1475); Aristoteles Latinus, 344. ^John Monfasani, ed.. Collectanea Trapezuntiana: Texts, Documents, and Bibliographies of George of Trebizond (Binghampton, N. Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Shidies, 1984), 465. "^Trapezuntius, Aristotelis rhetoricorum ad Theodecten libri tres, in Aristotelis . . . opera quae quidem extant omnia (Basel, 1538), vol. 2, 242. ""Alexander Broadie, Introduction to Medieval Logic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).
20
RHETORICA
gran conformita, & quasi affinita riguarda la Dialetica."*' Marco Antonio Riccoboni acknowledges in his extensive commentary that some writers have tried to see antistrophic conversion, but he will not accept the argument: "Dialecticae Rhetorica sit simihs, hanc tamen cum ilia non conuerti." Are these all distinctions without a difference? I do not think so, certainly the medieval and Renaissance commentators who worried the question did not think so, and the long fine of scholars since the Renaissance who have looked at this question continue to be puzzled by the problem.^" Even after we allow for the uncertainties of medieval and Renaissance distinctions between dialectic and analytics, for the unsteadiness of language over the centuries, for the unevenness of individual scholarship, and for the vagaries of elegant variation, we are left with fundamental differences about
" M . Alesandro Piccolomini, Copiosissima parafrase nel primo libro delta Retorica d'Aristotele (Venice, 1565), 13. "Riccobonus, Paraphrasis in Rhetorica [1556] (Hanover, 1606), 14. Many more interpreters and commentators than I have mentioned here have puzzled over this problem, including Borrhaus (Basel, 1551); Bernardus (Bologna, 1595); Kramer (Wittenberg, 1597); Bernardus (Venice, 1599); Goulston (London, 1619; Cambridge, 1696); Schrader (Helmstadt, 1648); Schrader (Helmstadt, 1674); "H. C." (London, 1686); Holwel (Oxford, 1759); Buhl (Oxford, 1826); and a host of others whom I have examined. Some studies are unusual, such as that by Cyllenius (Venice, 1571), who published diagrams of the entire Rhetoric, and there are rhymed versions as well (Whitchurch, 1840): In several points, which need must strike. Logic and Rhetoric are alike; They're both employ'd on common things. Which all men know, from slaves to kings; But neither art nor science teach. As matters far beyond their reach; That is, they're matters separate quite. From art or science definite; Thus men, we see, of all conditions. Chop Logic or turn Rhetoricians; And all to skill make some pretence. In accusation and defence. There are also numerous specialized studies and addresses, outside of the commentary tradition itself, which grapple with this problem; e.g., Korberi (Helmstadt, 1686); Schmidt (Leipzig, 1764); Spengel (Leipzig, 1867); Kalisher (Halle, 1869); Dittmeyer (Munich, 1883); Kantelhardt (Gottingen, 1911); usw., as well as the everincreasing number of studies in this century. Many critical editions of the Rhetoric, such as Kassel (Berlin, 1976), also include discussions of dvtioxQocjjog.
21
how to make sense of Aristotle's dvxioxQO(l)05 and the relationship he proposes between rhetoric and dialectic. It is the very energy of this dispute that has been obscured for us today, or perhaps "resolved" for us today, by the modern consensus to translate this word as counterpart. But this modern consensus is a reluctant one, and each commentator or translator puzzles whether correlative or analogue might better express what Aristotle intended.^^ The puzzlement itself is part of the problematic critical heritage of dvxioxQOclJog, and the early history of counterpart suggests that the consensus is an evasion, not a solution. Two English tianslations appeared in 1823, and both took a hard line on dialectic with "Rhetoric is the counterpart of logic. "^^ One of these translations had immense influence on English acceptance of the word counterpart, since the translation went through more than twenty editions during the next century, and was canonized in Bohn's Classical Library.^' The notes and marginalia for both of these modern tianslations make it clear the interpreters mean "Rhetoric corresponds to Logic," as did the mysterious and often reprinted "Graduate in Honours" who explained that "Rhetoric is a corresponding science to Logic" and "Rhetoric agrees with Logic."" The English use of counterpart, in fact, continues the earlier EngUsh tradition which offered "Rhetoric and Logic are near of kin the one to the other," and which glossed this kinship with a misstatement of Alexander's position (by now no longer even attributed to him) that "Rhetoric and Logic treat of the same Subject"; the translators of this early Enghsh version identified themselves only as the same
^'Cope, Commentary (1877), 1:1-3; John Henry Freese, Aristotle: The "Art" of Rhetoric, Loeb Classical Library (London: W. Heinemann, Ltd., 1926), 2-3; W. Rhys Roberts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924); Lane Cooper, The Rhetoric of Aristotle (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1932); William M. A. Grimaldi, S. J., Aristotle, "Rhetoric" I: A Commentary (New York: Fordham University Press, 1980), 1-3. ^^John Gillies, A New Translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric (London: T. Cadell, 1823), 152; for the second, see next note. "Aristotle's treatise on rhetoric, literally translated from the Greek; with notes. By a graduate of the university. To which is added an analysis of Aristotle's Rhetoric, by Thomas Hobbes ofMalmsbury (Oxford, T. A. Talboys, 1823). Reprinted 1833, 1847, 1850, 1851, 1853, 1857, 1869, 1872, 1878, 1880, 1883, 1888, 1890, 1894, 1900, 1903, 1906, 1910, 1914. ^"A Graduate in Honours," Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric (Oxford: C. Richards, 1849), 1, 159.
22
RHETORICA
people who had recently translated Arnauld's L'Art de Penser, suggesting a French parallel in this tradition. If modern English translators and commentators are uneasy about the use of counterpart, they share their uneasiness with others, since the unsteadiness of this consensus is not a trick of the Enghsh language. Recent efforts in German provide "Gegenstiick" and "korrespondierende Gegenstiick."^ In French this uneasy consensus provides "correlatif," "correspondant," and "analogue, "^^ preserving the earlier and traditional uncertainty of "fait le pendant"'* and "La rhetorique a du rapport avec la dialectique."'' Spanish offers "paralelo,"'" while Italian still follows the Renaissance "corrispondente,"'^ which seems to have been preferred even in Tuscan," along with the Latinate "similitudine."" The great advantage of the word counterpart is that it can mean whatever each of us needs it to mean; it provides the lowest common denominator among competing interpretations of dvxioxQO<J)05 in the Rhetoric, allowing for each without committing to any. It can mean (1) that X is a mirror-image of Y, or (2) that X is the proportional
^Âristotle's Rhetoric: Or the True Grounds and Principles of Oratory: Shewing the Right Art of Pleading and Speaking in full Assemblies and Courts of fudicature. Made English by the Translators of the Art of Thinking (London, 1686), 1. *'Paul Gohlke, Aristoteles: Rhetorik (Paderborn; E Schoningh, 1959), 27; Franz G. Sieveke, Aristoteles: Rhetorik (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1980), 7, 226-27. ^'Andre Wartelle, Lexique de la "Rhetorique" d'Aristote (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1982); Mederic Dufour, Aristote. Rhetorique (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1932, 1960); correspondante is found as early as Robert Estienne, La Rhetoriqve d'Aristote (Paris, 1630). Êrnest Havet, Etude sur la Rhetorique d'Aristote (Paris: Jules Delalain, 1846), 21, based on Havet's thesis De la Rhetorique d'Aristote (Paris: Crapelet, 1843), 24-26. The phrase is taken up again by A.-Ed. Chaignet, La Rhetorique et son Histoire (Paris: E. Bouillon et E. Vieweg, 1888; Frankfurt/Main: Minerva, 1982), 83: "c'est-a-dire qu'avec des differences et des oppositions, elle remplit une fonchon analogue." ^''M. E. Gros, La Rhetorique d'Aristote, Grec-Frangais (Paris: A. Bobee, 1822), 1, but found as early as Francois Cassandre, La Rhetorique d'Aristote (Paris, 1654). ""E. Ignacio Granero, Aristoteles El Arte de la Retorica (Mendoza: Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, 1951). Granero explains that "la Retorica no depende de la Dialectica, sino que esta a la par de ella" (44) and cites as support Silvester Maurus's earlier "Rhetorica est affinis Dialecticae ac proportionaliter illi ex altera veluti parte respondet." ^'AS in Felice Figliucci, Tradottione antica de la rettorica D'Aristotile, nvovamente trovata (Padua, 1548). "Ânnibal Caro, Rettorica D'Aristotile, Fatta in Lingva Toscana (Venice, 1570), and reprinted as a fresh copy as late as 1827 (Milan: Nicolo Bettoni). "^Bernardo Segni, Rettorica, et Poetica D'Aristotile Trodotte di Greco In Lingua Vulgare Fiorentina (Florence, 1549), 1.
23
opposite of Y, or (3) that X is an exact parallel of Y, or (4) that X-in-itscontext is the same as Y-in-its-context, or (5) that X and Y (Uke yin and yang) fit together in such a way as to make a whole, and so forth. Earlier commentators, whatever their success, tried to be more precise about the relationship Aristofle proposed, and their efforts at precision accentuated the differences which today we no longer emphasize. When modern commentators do take a stand on this issue, they generally side with those who view Aristotie's dvxiôxQocjJog as analogue, indicating only a "general" or "larger correspondence."" This may finally be the most defensible position, but if so, Aristotie's choice of language is odd. In the entire tradition of this problem in the Rhetoric, one thing that has never been questioned is the authority of the word itself, and no one has ever suggested dvdXoyog as a better reading. If modern commentators are right, then we have one of those rare instances in which Aristotle does not follow his usual procedure and start with a declaration, or a definition, or a classification (the notable exceptions are the Eudemian Ethics and the Problems, both of which are probably spurious works). Instead, he apparently starts with a misleading and vague hint. There are other problems for those who view dvxioxQO<t)05 as analogue. Aristotle, in the course of his writing, uses the word dvdXoyog about five times as frequently as he uses the word dvxicn;QO(()oc;, an increase of 500 percent. Clearly he did not shy away from using the word when he meant it. It is true that there are cases in which Aristotle uses dvxioxQO())05 to indicate a simple analogue or a general correspondence, but in each of those cases the actual phrase is WQJTEQ dvxioxQ6(t)og, where the notion of antistrophe is explicitly and immediately qualified by "as it were, so to speak."'' This qualified use of dvxCoxgottiog is weak support for then reading
" E . M . Cope, An Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric (London and Cambridge; Macmillan and Co., 1867), 91, and now Grimaldi, 2. See also Manfred Joachim Lossau, riQog Kpioiv Tiva IToXtTixTiv: Untersuchungen zur aristotelischen Rhetorik (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1981), 5-20. ''See, for example. Part. An. 661a27 and Pol. 1292b7, both of which have been cited as instances of analogue since the early Renaissance. Theodore Waitz cites the former as analogue in his influential Aristotelis Organon Graece (Leipzig: Hahn, 1844), An.Pr. 25a6, and Waltz's view is relied upon as late as Grimaldi (1980). The story is much the same with the latter instance, but the medieval William of Moerbeke scrupulously translates waneg d.vziaxQ6<i)0(; here as sicut convertibilis; see Aristotelis Politicorum Libri Octo, ed. Franz Susemihl (Leipzig, 1872).
24
RHETORICA
an unqualified occurrence of the word as analogue, and may actually be evidence to the contrary. The most celebrated unqualified instance of the word, other than that at Rhetoric 1354al, and cited by Barbaro, Vettori, Muret, and on up into the present, occurs in the Politics (1293a33): x6 XExagxov 1605 xfjg oXtyaQxiag xoiix' EOXIV, dvxiox90(})ov xo) Tskevxaiw xfjg 81^.0x90x105 ("this is the fourth sort of ohgarchy, and it is the dvTiOTgo<))og to the last sort of democracy"). But this frequently cited support for analogue is in fact much closer to Aristotie's technical sense of antistrophic convertibihty as used in the Analytics. Aristotie first discusses this "Democracy # 4 " at 1293a9, and "Oligarchy # 4 " at 1293a30, before bringing them together in the problematic sentence. There is, of course, a general analogy between the two in that, in democracy and ohgarchy alike, it is men who rule and not laws. But Aristotle's discussion goes further and indicates a converse relationship, in that the men are (1) many and poor (Democracy #4), or (2) few and rich (Ohgarchy #4). Not surprisingly, the history of interpretation and commentary at Politics 1293a33 parallels that at Rhetoric 1354al. Modern translations have included "analogous,"** "counterpart,"*^ and "corresponding,"*^ although the medieval William of Moerbeke was perhaps closer to Aristotle with his simple and unqualified '"convertibilis."*' The case is similar with dvxLaxQ0(t)05 at Politics 1295al8, De generatione animalium 761a20, Physics 265b8, and elsewhere. Given the seemingly intractable difficulty with the opening Line of the Rhetoric, it is not surprising that some scholars have sought ways to diminish the problem, even if they cannot get rid of it entirely. Two such approaches are of particular importance, and, again, both have antecedents in the Renaissance. The first sidesteps serious problems with dvxioxQOcjjog by attributing the use of the word to causes outside the text of the Rhetoric,^ the second by
''Benjamin Jowett, The Politics of Aristotle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885). ' ' H . Rackham, Aristotle. Politics, Loeb Classical Library (London: W. Heinemann Ltd., 1932). ''Richard Robinson, Aristotle's Politics, Books Three and Four (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962); T. A. Sinclair, Aristotle, The Politics (Baltimore: Penguin, 1962). ^''Aristotelis Politicorum Libri Octo, ed. Franz Susemihl (Leipzig, 1872). An extreme instance of this approach is the unique suggestion within the Arabic tradition that the antistrophic relation is explained by the physical placement of the treatises on rhetoric and dialectic. The suggestion seems to be a borrowing from another Arabic argument about how the Poetics was bound with either the Rhetoric or some of the dialectical treatises. See, for example, Richard Walzer "Zur Traditionsgeshichte der aristotelischen Poehc," Greek into Arabic: Essays on Islamic
25
making inadmissible the very question of what Aristotle had in mind by dvxioxQ0(t)05. The first approach continues to be argued in the modern period that Aristotie used the phrase dvxiox0O(J)O5 xfj SiaXexxixfj explicitiy as a rebuttal to Plato, who had derided the art of rhetoric as dvxioxQO(|)ov ooiôjtoiiag (Gorgias 465E).''^ The argument is found at least as early as Marc Antoine Muret, whose discussion of it in 1585 is repeated for centuries. As Aristotle's problematic line was paraphrased in 1833, "Rhetoric is the counterpart, not of cookery, as Plato asserts, but of his own favourite science, dialectics."^^ Thus the point of the use of the word dvxioxQO<})05 is not so much to draw any philosophically meaningful relationship between rhetoric and dialectic, but rather to ennoble rhetoric and announce a challenge to Plato. The argument requires satisfaction of several conditions. Aristotle's auditors in the Academy would have had to catch the unexplained allusion, and realize that its significance extended little further than to announce a challenge. Those auditors would also have had to recognize this was an allusion to the early dialogue Gorgias, despite the fact that Plato had modified his position in the Phaedrus, and that the later dialogue was presumably more recent in memory. Finally, there would have to have been consensus about what Plato meant by the word dvxioxQO<))05. Modern translators have rendered the Gorgias in different ways, including "counterpart,"^^ "correspondence,"^*
Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1962); and D. S. Margoliouth, "On the Arabic Version of Aristotle's Rhetoric," Semitic Studies in Memory of Rev. Dr. Alexander Kohut, ed. George Alexander Kohut (Berlin: S. Calvany & Co., 1897), 376-87. ''For a modern recapitulation of this argument, see W. Rhys Roberts, "References to Plato in Aristotle's Rhetoric," Classical Philology 19 (1924): 344-45. The principal references are gathered in Leonard Spengel, Aristotelis Ars Rhetorica (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1867), 1-3. The argument is apparently accepted by Grimaldi (1980), 3, but as an afterthought. "Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric (Oxford; D. A. Talboys, 1833), In. The commentator relies explicitly upon Muret. "W. H. Thompson, The Gorgias of Plato (London: Whittaker &: Co., 1871), adopted by E. R. Dodds, Plato: Gorgias (Oxford: Clarendon, 1959). In a gloss on Gorgias 464B, Thompson adds what is a commonplace of Aristotelian translahon: "It denotes a relation like that of a 'strophe' and 'antistrophe' in poetry; or between the two wings of a regular facade in architecture, or a picture and its 'pendant', &c." See also W. R. M. Lamb, Plato: Gorgias (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1925), W. C. Helmbold, Plato's Gorgias (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1952); and W. D. Woodhead, Socratic Dialogues (Edinburgh and New York, 1953), reprinted in Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, including the letters, BoUingen Series 71 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1961). 'Terence Irwin, Plato: Gorgias (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979).
25
RHETORICA
and "exact parallel,"'' suggesting that the kinds of problems I have outiined for the consensus about Aristotie's dvxioxgo<t)05 could be found as well with Plato's. The last approach I shall mention here is related to the preceding. It Ukewise has roots in Renaissance perceptions, and recalls the kinds of arguments which led to the pedagogical realignments by Agricola, Ramus, and others. Sally Raphael forcefully argues that much of the confusion in the history of commentary is due to Aristotie's own underlying confusion about the relationship of rhetoric to dialectic.'* Aristotle was so eager to counter Plato's disparagement of rhetoric for lacking a logical basis that he overstated his case and so produced an incoherent account of rhetorical reasoning. Aristotie was wrong, in particular, to claim that the enthymeme and example are analogous to deductive and inductive reasoning (cf. Rhetoric 1.2.1356a35-1356b6; 1356bl2-18), since deduction and induction are mutually exclusive, while enthymemes and examples in fact can partake of one another. In Raphael's view, commentators such as Friedrich Solmsen mistakenly accepted Aristotle's overstated case, and wrongly concluded that rhetorical reasoning and dialectical reasoning mutually exclude one another. All Aristotle ever meant to say, as far as his own confusions permitted him, is that rhetoric is analogous to dialectic and has certain affinities with it. If Raphael is right about Aristotle's hopeless confusion in books 1 and 2 of the Rhetoric, then any attempt to clarify what he supposedly meant to say can only lead to more confusion, since what he meant to say is itself confused. Jonathan Barnes recently argued a position which basically shares Raphael's approach. Aristotle claims that rhetoric is an art primarily because of "his contention that it is the converse, dvxioxQO(t)05, of logic. But the contention is senseless: insofar as the rhetorician studies logic he is doing logiche is not engaged in some shadowy Doppelganger of logic, for there is not and cannot be any such thing."''' Barnes's position is itself a consequence of his larger argument that rhetoric had no status among the Greeks as either a XEXVTJ or as an ejtioxfmr|. Rhetoric is stitched together
'^Jacqueline de Romilly, Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1975). "Sally Raphael, "Rhetoric, Dialectic and Syllogistic Argument: Aristotle's Position in Rhetoric I-II," Phronesis 19 (1974): 153-67. "Jonathan Barnes, "Is PJietoric an Art?" DARG Newsletter 2 (Univ. of Calgary, 1986); 2-22, n. 66. Barnes cautions that his essay is still a work in progress.
27
from other legitimate Greek arts, but Aristotie did not invent a new intellectual discipline by cobbling them. Subsequent efforts to understand rhetoric as an art, or to take Aristotle seriously in this particular respect, have led to endless confusion within the philosophical tradition. In closing, let me stress that my present purpose is not to resolve this crux in Aristotle's text, but to start to survey the history of efforts to resolve it. It should be clear from the foregoing that almost every one of the modern critical positions about dvxiox9o<t)05 has been around since the Renaissance, that many of those positions have an even older heritage, and that the history of commentary is richer than the current state of commentary suggests. It is incumbent upon any interpreter or commentator to take a stand on this issue, even a provisional stand, but we have allowed the provisional stands of the commentary tradition to become permanent by default, and modern arguments have not advanced the discussion. Instead, modern commentators, like the Renaissance commentators before them, simply choose up sides and reproduce centuries-old positions, despite the fact that all of these positions have been challenged. Careful use of ambiguous terminology makes it possible for most of these positions to rest uneasily side-by-side, and for commentators to sidestep arguments which seem unresolvable. It will not suffice to argue that the entire issue will be cleared up if only we read the entire treatise, since all the commentators I have spoken about, from the earliest times to the present, have scrupulously read the entire treatise, and still they persist in their differences. I argued earlier that any particular understanding of this small word is driven by a given commentator's larger beliefs about AristoteUan rhetoric and dialectic; that argument also applies to my own view, which I have not developed in this essay, that Aristotle meant just what he said by choosing the word dvxioxQoc|)05a reciprocal and rule-governed transformation. The question is still an open one, and it may yet prove worthwhile to take Aristotle at his word.

Green L. D., Aristotelean Rhetoric, Dialectic, and The Traditions of Antistrofos, Rhetorica" 8.1 (1990), S. 5-27.

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Aristotelian Rhetoric, Dialectic, and the Traditions of Author(s): Lawrence D.

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