More in our Arsenals

This week we gain new materials to add to our arsenal as rhetors. The information came from a man named Aristotle. According to him there are two types of proofs in rhetoric. There are proofs that are invented by the rhetor himself, that he calls Intrinsic and proofs that are a made up of empirical evidences such as data, testimonies and other sources of information that do not include the rhetor himself as source that he calls Extrinsic. As a reminder for those who do not know who Aristotle was or have only a fuzzy idea of this character, I will give a very brief description of the individual. Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who lived between 384 BC and 322 BC. He is considered to be one of the creators of modern Western philosophy; his writings are still subject of interest in several domains until today. He treated subjects extending from physical sciences to social sciences and other area of great interest. Aristotle was Alexander the Great’s master and Plato’s student.
We also learned that Ancient rhetors did rely on testimonies as sources only after careful scrutiny, that the credibility of the person giving the account had as much importance as the testimony itself. Nowadays, rhetors classify witnesses into two categories: Community Authority and the Proximate Authorities. The first one are given authority based on their position in the community when the second type gains its authority from the closeness with the subject debated. When it comes to use of Data rhetors have to make sure that they come from reputable and qualified sources.