Aristotle's Rhetoric Analysis
While Aristotle’s work is centuries old, it is a testament to him as a philosopher that his work is still read, discussed, and debated to this day. In the field of philosophy of emotion, his work, called Aristotelian analyses, forms part of the fundamental foundation on which the field is built. Aristotle defines and gives several examples of this analysis of emotions in the second book of his work Rhetoric; however, he does not cover every emotion in those examples. After explaining what constitutes the definition of an emotion in Aristotle’s theory this paper will apply the theory to two emotions that Aristotle did not cover in his original work. To conclude my description of Aristotle’s Analyses theory I will share my opinion of the theory
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and how it compares to more modern theories of emotion.
Aristotelian emotion theory requires three parts to make a complete definition of an emotion.
These parts are the called the emotion’s state of mind, target, and grounds. The state of mind can be defined more directly as the definition of the emotion. In the example of fear, Aristotle defines fear as “…pain or disturbance due to a mental picture of some destructive or painful evil in the future” (Roberts, 74). The second part of the definition is the emotion’s target. The target is who or what the emotion is directed at. For example, a person could have a fear of heights, love their spouse, or regret something they said while drunk. These are emotions with very clear targets, but it should be noted that the target of an emotion need not be the cause of the emotion. The third and final component of an emotion’s definition in the Aristotelian theory is the aforementioned cause or to use Aristotle’s own words, the grounds on which an emotion is …show more content…
felt.
It is easy to explain a theory of emotion’s components, but different to put it into practice. I will now use it to describe two emotions Aristotle did not cover in his book. The first will be joy and the second will be surprise. Aristotle did not cover these in Rhetoric as the book was focusing on teaching public speaking to sway an audience’s opinion, and as such focuses on emotions that are most useful for that kind of speaking. However, I will now show that his theory is not limited to just those emotions.
In Aristotelian theory joy would be said to be commonly accompanied by a feeling of pleasure. In modern terminology it would be said that joy is a positive emotion. Considering that, I will define joy as: Happiness from the knowledge or experience of a positive event. This definition provides a description of the kinds of targets and causes of the emotion. While keeping to an unwritten requirement of Aristotle’s. He kept the definition of an emotion as short as possible. This was likely to keep a lengthy definition from detracting from his point.
Joy’s targets are being the person having the emotion has a personal connection to. An important note about this description of joy’s target is the word being. Being includes any living creature, not just humans. Many people are capable of feeling joy directed at animals as well. The other important part of the definition is the requirement of personal connection. When a person’s close friend survives a dangerous surgery they feel joy, and yet people survive dangerous surgeries every day. Those cases do not bring the person joy because there is no personal connection. As a final note in the case of personal joy, the person has a connection to themselves and their own wellbeing.
The grounds on which a person feels joy is learning of an event that has occurred to the target of the emotion. This event must have been believed to be positive in nature and recent from the person’s perspective. This means the event either happened recently and the person was present, or the person only became aware of it recently. An example of this is when a person is visiting an old friend they have not seen in years and learning of the friend’s marriage. While the marriage may have occurred years ago, the person still feels joy at the news of the positive event occurring to someone they have a personal connection to. The second emotion I will be defining is surprise. In modern language surprise is defined as a feeling of shock, astonishment, or bewilderment. An Aristotelian definition of surprise would be: To feel confused at the occurrence of an event. This shows one of the potential stress points of Aristotle’s theory, because he says “[Emotions] are also attended by pain or pleasure” (Roberts, 70-71). Surprise is not inherently a pleasant nor painful emotion. For something to be pleasant or painful the person must comprehend the feeling, but surprise is a state of non-comprehension.
Surprise continues to stress Aristotle’s theory of emotion when considering the emotions target. There are two options for what the emotion’s target could be. The first is the person having the emotion, and the second option is the grounds for the emotion. The problem is both are valid options, but there is no direct way to determine which is the correct target. Additionally, choosing between the two options does not change the emotion in any way.
The grounds of surprise are more straightforward than its definition and target. Surprise is caused by an unexpected event occurring near or directly to the person having the emotion. As it is increasingly difficult to feel surprise as the distance from the unexpected event increases. This distance is not necessarily physical and can be highly subjective. One example is a jump scare in a haunted house, the further away the person is from the jump scare, the less likely it is to surprise them. While other grounds are not impacted by distance at all, such as the discovering aliens have been spying on humanity for years. As a final note, an event being unexpected is subjective to the person in question. A person who knows they are going into a haunted house is more likely to expect a jump scare than someone entering their own home is.
The concluding section of this paper is dedicated to my opinion of the Aristotelian theory of emotion.
My opinion of Aristotle’s work: Aristotle created a straightforward method to define emotions, but flaws in the system have been revealed as an increasing number of philosophers have scrutinized his work. The theory does not work well when applied to emotions such as surprise. As surprise lacks a clear pleasure or pain feeling that Aristotle claims accompany all emotions, and the target of surprise is hard to clearly identify. Additionally, Aristotle’s theory makes no mention of the requirement that a person must have a personal investment in something to feel emotions where it is the
target.
Even with the flaws in Aristotle’s analysis of emotion, it cannot be denied that the theory helped catapult the field to where it is today. As I have shown, the Aristotelian theory only requires three parts to define an emotion, it can be applied to emotions beyond those Aristotle mention in his book, and the flaws it does have do not prevent it from being a useful source for philosophers to this day. It is not held up as a pinnacle piece of philosophy anymore, but it is a testament to Aristotle that it has not faded into the annals of history, as so many books have.
and how it compares to more modern theories of emotion.
Aristotelian emotion theory requires three parts to make a complete definition of an emotion.
These parts are the called the emotion’s state of mind, target, and grounds. The state of mind can be defined more directly as the definition of the emotion. In the example of fear, Aristotle defines fear as “…pain or disturbance due to a mental picture of some destructive or painful evil in the future” (Roberts, 74). The second part of the definition is the emotion’s target. The target is who or what the emotion is directed at. For example, a person could have a fear of heights, love their spouse, or regret something they said while drunk. These are emotions with very clear targets, but it should be noted that the target of an emotion need not be the cause of the emotion. The third and final component of an emotion’s definition in the Aristotelian theory is the aforementioned cause or to use Aristotle’s own words, the grounds on which an emotion is …show more content…
felt.
It is easy to explain a theory of emotion’s components, but different to put it into practice. I will now use it to describe two emotions Aristotle did not cover in his book. The first will be joy and the second will be surprise. Aristotle did not cover these in Rhetoric as the book was focusing on teaching public speaking to sway an audience’s opinion, and as such focuses on emotions that are most useful for that kind of speaking. However, I will now show that his theory is not limited to just those emotions.
In Aristotelian theory joy would be said to be commonly accompanied by a feeling of pleasure. In modern terminology it would be said that joy is a positive emotion. Considering that, I will define joy as: Happiness from the knowledge or experience of a positive event. This definition provides a description of the kinds of targets and causes of the emotion. While keeping to an unwritten requirement of Aristotle’s. He kept the definition of an emotion as short as possible. This was likely to keep a lengthy definition from detracting from his point.
Joy’s targets are being the person having the emotion has a personal connection to. An important note about this description of joy’s target is the word being. Being includes any living creature, not just humans. Many people are capable of feeling joy directed at animals as well. The other important part of the definition is the requirement of personal connection. When a person’s close friend survives a dangerous surgery they feel joy, and yet people survive dangerous surgeries every day. Those cases do not bring the person joy because there is no personal connection. As a final note in the case of personal joy, the person has a connection to themselves and their own wellbeing.
The grounds on which a person feels joy is learning of an event that has occurred to the target of the emotion. This event must have been believed to be positive in nature and recent from the person’s perspective. This means the event either happened recently and the person was present, or the person only became aware of it recently. An example of this is when a person is visiting an old friend they have not seen in years and learning of the friend’s marriage. While the marriage may have occurred years ago, the person still feels joy at the news of the positive event occurring to someone they have a personal connection to. The second emotion I will be defining is surprise. In modern language surprise is defined as a feeling of shock, astonishment, or bewilderment. An Aristotelian definition of surprise would be: To feel confused at the occurrence of an event. This shows one of the potential stress points of Aristotle’s theory, because he says “[Emotions] are also attended by pain or pleasure” (Roberts, 70-71). Surprise is not inherently a pleasant nor painful emotion. For something to be pleasant or painful the person must comprehend the feeling, but surprise is a state of non-comprehension.
Surprise continues to stress Aristotle’s theory of emotion when considering the emotions target. There are two options for what the emotion’s target could be. The first is the person having the emotion, and the second option is the grounds for the emotion. The problem is both are valid options, but there is no direct way to determine which is the correct target. Additionally, choosing between the two options does not change the emotion in any way.
The grounds of surprise are more straightforward than its definition and target. Surprise is caused by an unexpected event occurring near or directly to the person having the emotion. As it is increasingly difficult to feel surprise as the distance from the unexpected event increases. This distance is not necessarily physical and can be highly subjective. One example is a jump scare in a haunted house, the further away the person is from the jump scare, the less likely it is to surprise them. While other grounds are not impacted by distance at all, such as the discovering aliens have been spying on humanity for years. As a final note, an event being unexpected is subjective to the person in question. A person who knows they are going into a haunted house is more likely to expect a jump scare than someone entering their own home is.
The concluding section of this paper is dedicated to my opinion of the Aristotelian theory of emotion.
My opinion of Aristotle’s work: Aristotle created a straightforward method to define emotions, but flaws in the system have been revealed as an increasing number of philosophers have scrutinized his work. The theory does not work well when applied to emotions such as surprise. As surprise lacks a clear pleasure or pain feeling that Aristotle claims accompany all emotions, and the target of surprise is hard to clearly identify. Additionally, Aristotle’s theory makes no mention of the requirement that a person must have a personal investment in something to feel emotions where it is the
target.
Even with the flaws in Aristotle’s analysis of emotion, it cannot be denied that the theory helped catapult the field to where it is today. As I have shown, the Aristotelian theory only requires three parts to define an emotion, it can be applied to emotions beyond those Aristotle mention in his book, and the flaws it does have do not prevent it from being a useful source for philosophers to this day. It is not held up as a pinnacle piece of philosophy anymore, but it is a testament to Aristotle that it has not faded into the annals of history, as so many books have.