ARISTOTLE’S ETHOS AND RHETORIC AS CIVIC ART
ARISTOTLE’S ETHOS AND RHETORIC AS CIVIC ART

Summary/Abstract: The rhetoric art of Aristotel is based on two types of proofs: logical (entimema and example) and moral, subjective, (the character of the speaker and the pathos of audience). Thus, the ternary ethos-pathos- logos, uttered by Aristotel, as part of rhetoric is a civic art because is practice by citizens for citizens. The inner dialectic of rhetoric, between the act of prevailing and the effect of being prevailed, is grounded on the named adjective that serves as the signification of pistis: worthy of trust – for the rhetorician, compelling for the hearer. This grounding in ethos, for Aristotel, dose not sends to the technical aspect of rhetoric, but foremost to the entire art of rhetoric understood as civic art. Thus, for the rhetorical discourse ethos is a civic proof because without the trust of the hearer and without the assumed responsibility of the speaker rhetoric is only technical, productive, but not practical.

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