Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was a Greek philosopher whose work spans logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics, biology, and rhetoric. His influence on Western thought is difficult to overstate.
Core ideas (relevant to this vault)
- Rhetoric as the faculty of persuasion: Aristotle defined rhetoric as “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.” He identified three modes: logos (argument from reason), ethos (argument from the speaker’s character), and pathos (argument from the audience’s emotion). This established audience analysis as central to effective communication [@aristotle_rhetoric].
- Categories: Aristotle’s Categories introduced the classification of beings into substance and accident, a framework that shaped subsequent ontology.
- The syllogism: Aristotle formalized deductive reasoning in the Prior Analytics, establishing the first formal logic.
Notable works
- Rhetoric (c. 350 BCE)
- Nicomachean Ethics (c. 340 BCE)
- Categories (c. 350 BCE)
- Prior Analytics (c. 350 BCE)
- Metaphysics (c. 350 BCE)
Related
- rhetoric and composition — the modern discipline that inherits Aristotle’s analysis of persuasion and audience