Aristotle

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