Professional Documents
Culture Documents
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Penn State University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosophy
&Rhetoric.
http://www.jstor.org
Enthymemes:
BodyandSoul
Arthur
. Miller
andJohnD.Bee
To Aristotle, the enthymeme holds a position of unquestioned
prominence; it is the "substance of rhetorical persuasion,"1
"the very body of proof,"2 and "the orator's proper modes of
persuasion/*3 Although studies of the enthymeme clarify some
important points, they do not fully account for the centrality
of the enthymeme in Aristotle's treatise. Specifically, no one has
set forth Aristotle's rationale for viewing the enthymeme as the
primary engine of rhetorical proof and practical reasoning,4
that is, the means by which the orator influences the judgments
and actions of the audience. Thus, this essay develops the thesis
that the affective comportent inhrent in the enthymeme is the
essence of Aristotle's concept of the enthmeme as practical reasoning. Within the context of this thesis, "affective component"
denotes the area of feelings and motions. One may discover
support for this thesis in the etymology of "enthymeme" and
terms related to practical reasoning; from Aristotle's discussion
of human action; and, from the Rhetoric.
The first source of support for the prsence of an affective
component in the enthymeme is the etymology of the term. To
be sure, one must be careful not to make too much out of the
history of a word. But such information can be informative;
and in the case of "enthymeme," the etymology is a considrable aid in understanding what Aristotle thought its composition
and function to be. "Enthymeme" is Englished from
= en -\- thymos), the more important part of which
( iv +
is the stem, thymos.5 The basic meaning of thymos is "sol,
spirit, as th principle of life, feeling and thought, esp. of strong
feeling and passion."6 More spcifie uses of thymos by itself include "in physical sens, breath, life," and "spirit, strength."
Another major meaning is "sol, as shown by the feelings and
passions; and so, 1. desire or inclination, esp. desire for mat
2. mind, temper, will, ...
3. spirit,
and drink, appetite, ...
...
4.
of
5.
...
the
seat
the
as
the seat
heart,
anger,
courage,
of the motions, esp. joy or grief, ... 6. mind, sol, as the seat
of thought. . . ."
ArthurB. Milleris AssociateProfessorandJohnD. Bee is AssistantProfessor
on the Rhetoricand PublicAddressFacultyof the Departmentof Speech
and ThtreArts,Universityof Akron.
Philosophyand Rhetoric,Vol. 5, No. 4. Publishedby The Pennsylvania
StateUniversityPress,UniversityPark,Pa. and London.
201
202
203
soul, he points out that the two faculties related to motion are
appetite and mind:
Both of thse then are capable of originating local
movement, mind and appetite: (1) mind, that is, which
calcultes means to an end, i.e. mind practical (it differs from mind speculative in th character of its end);
while (2) appetite is in every form of it relative to an
end: for that which is the object of appetite is the
stimulant of mind practical; and that which is last in the
process of thinking is the beginning of the action. It follows that there is a justification for regarding thse two
as the sources of movement, i.e. appetite and practical
thought. . . .9
But Aristotle adds an important qualification to this point. That
is, mind may be involved in originating motion; but mind, by
itself, is never sufficient to originate action or movement. For
action to occur there must be appetite. The passage following
the one cited above makes this point quite forcefully.
That which moves therefore is a single faculty and the
faculty of appetite; for if there had been two sources of
movement- mind and appetite- they would hve produced movement in virtue of some common character.
As it is, mind is never found producing movement without appetite . . . but appetite can originate movement contrary to calculation, for desire is a form of appetite.10
There are two important points in thse passages. The first
is that Aristotle specifically excludes mind speculative from any
rle in the process of originating action, ". . . for mind as speculative never thinks what is practicable, it never says anything
about an object to be avoided or pursued, while this movement is always in something which is avoiding or pursuing an
object."11 It is mind speculative that fonctions as pure intellect;
it is mind speculative that grasps forms and universals; it is
mind speculative that is oprant in scientific dmonstration; and
it is mind speculative that perceives relationships and functions
in purely logicai activities. But it is this same faculty that is
inoprant in determining human conduct, because it never says
anything about what is to be avoided or pursued; and thus, it
is not practical.
The exclusion of mind speculative from the origination of
action indicates Aristotle's de-emphasis on what may be termed
th "logicai" basis of human conduct. Mind affects action only
204
205
20
207
208
209
(eunoia).
210
211
212
21,5
214