Two of the world’s greatest philosophers grapple with the workings of rhetoric to give it better meaning. Plato’s approach is more unique in the way that he stages a conversation between two characters, Socrates and Phaedrus, to hash out the characteristics of rhetoric in Phaedrus. Aristotle on the other hand has a more standard approach with three books on rhetoric each containing separate chapters. Although their approaches differ, their ultimate ideas regarding rhetoric are fairly similar.
Both philosophers relate rhetoric to different fields such as science and art to make the idea clearer. Rhetoric is put side by side with law and the justice system in both excerpts as well. Saying that a judge “must decide for himself all such points as the law-giver has not already defined for him.” Aristotle ties this into rhetoric by saying that the decision of successful rhetoric is very much the same as the decision that a judge makes. Meaning, there are rules to be followed but ultimately the decision between “important or unimportant, just or unjust” is left to the person at whom the issue is directed.
Aristotle also states that “the modes of persuasion are the only true constituents of the art: everything else is merely accessory.” To Aristotle, rhetoric is centered around the persuasiveness of the deliverer. Confidence and conviction can force somebody into the idea of rhetoric when it may not truly be present. Rhetoric must be taken with a grain of salt.
Plato’s take on rhetoric included many references to outside sources including Polus and Theodorus. The discussion being had between Phaedrus and Socrates is filled with ideas all across the boards. They jump from the rhetorician to medicine. Socrates links medicine to rhetoric in this way: “medicine has to define the nature of the body and rhetoric of the soul.” Rhetoric is to medicine as conviction or virtue are to health, and medicine and food are to words and training.
Plato and Aristotle present multiple different ideas on rhetoric throughout their analyses but their connections between law and rhetoric and medicine and rhetoric fairly accurately divulge the real workings of the main idea. Plato sums up rhetoric fairly accurately at the end of his excerpt:
“The conclusion: A man must be able to know and define and denote the subjects of which he is speaking, and to discern the natures of those whom he is addressing. Until a man know the truth of the several particulars of which he is writing or speaking, and is able to define them as they are, and having defined them again to divide them until they can no longer be divided, and until in like manner he is able to discern the nature of the soul and discover the different modes of discourse which are adapted to different natures and to arrange and dispose them in such a way that the simple form of speech may be addressed to the simpler nature, and the complex and composite to the more complex nature – until he has accomplished all this, he will be unable to handle arguments according to rules of art, as far as their nature allows them to be subjected to art, either for the purpose of teaching or persuading. Such is the view which is implied in the whole preceding argument.”
Ultimately the idea that both philosophers settle on is the strength of the persuasiveness of the deliverer of the rhetoric.