Rhetoric: speaking honestly
The third art has two sides: to speak well and truly oneself, and to recognise when one is being talked into something. Plato against the sophists, Aristotle's three means of persuasion, the silence of the Pythagoreans and why a good speaker must first be a good person.
Rhetoric is the art of speech. It is the most disputed of the seven arts, for with it one can convince and one can persuade, and these are not the same. Whoever convinces brings the other to see something for reasons. Whoever merely persuades brings him to do or believe something, whether it is true or not.
Plato against the sophists
In the fifth century BC the sophists travelled through Greece and, for a fee, taught the art of arguing any case convincingly. Gorgias is said to have boasted that he could speak on any subject better than any expert. Plato thought this dangerous. In his dialogue Gorgias, Socrates calls this kind of speech a flattery that asks after the pleasant instead of the good. In the Phaedrus he then shows what a true art of speech would look like: it requires that the speaker know the truth about his subject and understand the soul of his listener.
The Romans made a simple formula of it. The ideal speaker, Cato already said, is vir bonus dicendi peritus, “a good man skilled in speaking”. Quintilian put this sentence at the start of the last book of his textbook of oratory. The order is no accident: first good, then eloquent.
The three means of persuasion
In his Rhetoric Aristotle distinguished three means by which a speech persuades:
- Ethos, the character of the speaker. We are more ready to believe someone we consider trustworthy.
- Pathos, the mood of the listeners. Whoever is angry, afraid or enthusiastic judges differently.
- Logos, the matter itself and its reasons.
All three are legitimate. It becomes dangerous when ethos and pathos replace logos, when one agrees with something because the speaker is likeable or because it stirs a strong feeling. Advertising, headlines and many posts on social networks aim at exactly this. To know rhetoric means to see these levers when they are being applied to oneself.
The silence of the Pythagoreans
The Pythagoreans had their own answer to the question of speech. According to tradition, new pupils had to keep silent and listen for five years before they were allowed to join in. This rule of silence was called echemythia. Whether it really was five years we do not know. But the thought is clear: whoever wants to speak must first learn to listen. More about admission to the brotherhood is on the page Pythagoras: the Pythagorean brotherhood, and why silence can still make sense today on the page What a secret is. Pythagoras himself, by the way, is said to have been a celebrated speaker: his speeches to the elders, the youth, the boys and the women of Croton are handed down by Iamblichus in late retellings (see Pythagoras: the statesman).
Socrates, the greatest master of conversation in antiquity, based his wisdom on a sentence about his own ignorance. In Plato’s Apology he says that he is wiser than others only in that he does not think he knows what he does not know. An honest speaker also says where his knowledge ends.
Present-day forms
Many old tricks of persuasion meet us today in new guise. The artificial hurry, “today only, only for a few”, is as old as the market. The split into initiates and the clueless, “the masses are asleep, only we see clearly”, is the core of every sect and of many conspiracy narratives. And attacking the person instead of the matter is so common that it bears a Latin name, argumentum ad hominem. Precisely those interested in secret teachings should know these patterns, for in this field they are used especially often.
Exercise
In your next discussion, before you contradict, restate the other person’s opinion in your own words until he says: “Yes, that is what I mean.” Only then answer. You will find that many disputes dissolve on the way and that the rest become better.
And for one week: before you pass anything on, a piece of news, a quotation, a rumour, ask yourself whether it is true, whether it is good and whether it is useful. These three questions are often told as “the three sieves of Socrates”. No ancient source says anything of the kind, the story is modern. The questions are good all the same, and so this too is a small exercise in grammar.
Sources and further reading
Sources
- Plato, Gorgias, Phaedrus and Apology
- Aristotle, Rhetoric I 2 (the three means of persuasion)
- Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory XII 1
- Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Life, around 300 AD, 72 and 94 (silence)