Being a writer, I was particularly excited to read Aristotle’s Rhetoric. His was the first formal documentation on putting together a persuasive argument. It is in-depth, but fascinating, and stretches across several disciplines. Aristotle touches on logic, human motivation and psychology, and the content and structure of arguments themselves. His attention to the flow of an argument and how to most effectively bring together components has inspired me to think about ordering pieces in a pleasing, easy-to-read manner, in addition to the most logical. He also talks about character qualities and emotions in such a way as to inspire us to pay attention to those around us, and in our wording choices.
Relationships
Centuries before the discussion of how privilege in America can result in very different outcomes for students beyond childhood, Aristotle observes how things like wealth or prominent birth can affect our personalities and characters. Generations before psychology was founded, Aristotle, in concert with many other thinkers and philosophers would contemplate the timeless question of happiness and how to obtain it.
The middle third of the text focuses on emotions, character qualities, and the motivations of different people in different stations of life. Aristotle showed himself to be an excellent student of human behavior, understanding and outlining with amazing accuracy the motivations to commit all sorts of actions. What an amazing testament to the fact that not much has changed about human nature in the last few thousand years! While it could be argued to study human interactions for insight on motivation and emotional context, to do so for the express purpose of manipulation to get your way, quite frankly, seems Machiavellian.
The takeaway is rather to pay attention to what motivates the people around you. What sorts of situations make them fearful or confident or envious or pity others? Making a conscious decision to become a student of the human race rewards you with understanding, empathy, the ability to reason and rationalize, the skill of compromise, and yes, helps you talk with people in a more persuasive tone and manner.
Learning
The emphasis on learning is strongly impressed on the reader by virtue of the framework necessary to create an argument. The sheer amount of work Aristotle outlines for creating a persuasive argument is expansive. To be sure, the work uncovering the motivations and desires of the audience, then identifying the most persuasive case to present, then arranging that case, choosing rhetorical devices, phrases, tone, and words to bring it all together in a concise and understandable way is surely a herculean feat. And yet, this was the job of the rhetorician. Today, it’s the job of the writer, in formal and informal settings. As I touched on in this post, we all use persuasion in our daily lives whether we realize it or not.
Aristotle’s display of understanding human psychology, linguistics, and oration, among others, illustrates how rewarding and useful it is to learn across disciplines. By learning principles from different sciences and arts, we can extrapolate patterns and begin to make creative choices, as Aristotle does in this text. Finally, Rhetoric explicitly shows that choosing the right word at the right time is a skill which must be practiced, rather than just a gift some people are blessed with.
Leadership
Being able to communicate effectively is a skill demanded of leadership. It is vital to be able to communicate what you stand for and offer, as well as where you plan to go in the future. All of these points need to be shown in an understandable manner and leaders need to also know how to speak to their followers specifically. I would argue that understanding what motivates those with whom you have an audience and learning the best phrasing, tone, and word choices to constantly improve your leadership capabilities is a requirement for the leader who wants to lead well.
If the mark of “efficient leadership is leading by encouraging people” (Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich), understanding how to use motivation, tone and word choice are the basic requirements. Aristotle has outlined quite comprehensively the work necessary to create effective communication. It is up to us to take his observations and recommendations and make them work for us today.
Conclusion
Rhetoric especially fits in well with Emerson’s admonishment that “thinking is the function; living is the functionary.” The ways we implement and act upon our newly acquired knowledge determines its usefulness. I plan to revisit Rhetoric’s section on outlining an argument in order to refine my writing structure, and make them as pleasing and inspiring as possible.
Ed. note: This is the eighth entry in a series looking at the three schools of philosophy for perspectives on relationships in our modern world. Inspired by Emerson’s “The American Scholar,” we are exploring timeless wisdom which endures to inform our approaches to learning, relationships and leadership. Click here for all the posts in this series.
