초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Already in the first page of his Rhetoric, in open polemic against contemporary or previous authors of rhetorical handbooks, Aristotle mentions the importance of the pivstei~: they are – he says – the only technical devices, any thing else is to be considered as supplementary (Rhet. 1354 a 13 f. aiJ ga;r pivstei~ e[ntecnovn ejsti movnon, ta; d’ a[lla proqh`kai). To fully understand his statement we should, however, keep in mind that, differently from his teacher Plato, Aristotle considers rhetoric as a tevcnh Hence, as any other art speculates why given things happen (Rhet. 1354 a 10 f.), its task is “to see the available means of persuasion in each case” (Rhet. 1355 b 10 f. to; ijdei`n ta; uJpavrconta piqana; peri; e{kaston). Aristotle does not yet specify what the pivstei~ are: he first mentions the ejnquvmhma as ‘the body of persuasion’ (Rhet. 1354 a 15 kuriwvtaton tw`n pivstewn), but when he considers it as ‘the strongest of the pivstei~’ (Rhet.1355 a 7 f. kuriwvtaton tw`n pivstewn), he openly hints at the existence of some others. It is only at the beginning of the second chapter, after defining rhetoric as the ability to discover the possible persuasive in each case (Rhet. 1355 b 25 f. [Estw de; rJhtorikh; duvnami~ peri; e{kaston tou` qewrh`sai to; ejndecovmenon piqanovn), that he comes to deal with his so famous distinction of two different groups of pivstei~.
