Aristotle ' s theory of rhetoric : Defending political life

Abstract

This article aims to explore how Aristojle's theory of rhetoric transformed into a defense of political life. Our investigation seeks to show the cultural and intellectual conditions, which impelled Aristotle to establish a new theory of rhetoric and to analyze the main elements of Aristotle's theory. Aristotle sees the crisis of rhetoric in ancient Greece as a crisis of political life and seeks to establish the conditions of public speech and political communication via his theory of rhetoric. In this context, he imposes the certain restrictions on the means of rhetorical persuasion and thus he justifies the public speech as a political practice. Through those restrictions, Aristotle establishes a new form of political judgment and reasoning, which emerges from practical life and is guarantors of the autonomy of politics. In this regard, Rhetoric casts light upon one of main issues of contemporary political philosophy, the problem of autonomy of politics.