Retoryka jako etyka praktyczna. O pewnej interpretacji Retoryki Arystotelesa

Jacek JAŚTAL

Instytut Ekonomii, Socjologii i Filozofii Politechniki Krakowskiej, ul. Warszawska 24, 31-155 Cracow, Poland , Polska

Abstrakt

Among the essential problems concerning the interpretation of the thought of Aristotle is determining the relation which obtains between the theory of
rhetoric he advanced and the concept of practical philosophy expounded in his works on ethics. While Aristotle describes rhetoric as an element of ethical insight within the realm of politics, he does not develop this subject in any of the writings that are known to us. In the article, the author attempts to present the possible ways of relating rhetoric to the Aristotelian concept of practical reason. In the first part, the origin of the Aristotelian conception of practical wisdom (phronesis) is investigated, its shape being largely determined not only by Plato’s polemics with the sophists, but also by Isocrates’s theory of rhetoric. In the second part, the author attempts to prove that the conception of the ethos of the orator is independent of the conception of the ethical virtues put forward in Aristotle’s works on ethics, thus it cannot be considered as the nexus between rhetoric and moral philosophy. In the third part of the article, the author seeks to prove that the nexus in question may be found in the Aristotelian conception of advisory oration which may be interpreted as a procedure by means of which a political community arrives at the ethically proper decisions about the issues which are crucial to its existence. Ultimately, the connection between rhetoric and ethics, according to Aristotle, might have consisted in that the properly practised art of rhetoric enables the passage from general considerations of the good of the human being and human virtues to particular moral dilemmas, yet the Stagirite did not deal with that question in his works on ethics.

Translated by Dorota Chabrajska

Słowa kluczowe:

Aristotle on rhetoric, Aristotelian ethics, phronesis, Isocrates, the ethos of the orator, Aristotle on virtue