著者

野津 悌

出版者

日本西洋古典学会

雑誌

西洋古典學研究 (ISSN:04479114)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.50, pp.24-34, 2002-03-05

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In Rhetoric 1 2 Aristotle says that artistic modes of persuasion are of three sorts, which he calls ethos, pathos, and logos, and he recommends all three modes However, among them pathos consists in arousing emotions, and in Rhetoric 1 1 he prohibits arousing emotions because it is not right to corrupt judgement This inconsistency between the first and second chapter of his treatise has been much discussed In this paper, I examine one prevailing explanation of the inconsistency, which one can find in E M Cope's Commentary, and with which other scholars, e g A Hellwig and J Sprute, agree According to this explanation Aristotle's statements in 1 1 concern only an ideal rhetoric, which can function only if an ideal system of laws exists which prohibits the litigants from speaking outside the subject, just like in the Areopagus, and he does not claim that under real circumstances of public life arousing emotions must be prohibited Therefore, it is not inconsistent that he prohibits arousing emotions on the one hand and recommends it on the other He regards it, so to speak, as a necessary evil under real circumstances, to be used for morally irreproachable ends But this explanation is not persuasive in that arousing emotions is regarded as corrupting the hearers' judgements, and yet allowable only if it is used, as a necessary evil, for morally right ends I argue that Aristotle regards arousing emotions not only as corrupting the hearers' judgements, but also as playing an important role in the hearers' recognition of the truth Then, in order to make clear the difference between the corrupting one and the other which enables hearers to recognize the truth, I reconsider what Aristotle means by saying in 1 1 that it is right to prohibit "speaking outside the subject" According to the above explanation, which supposes "speaking outside the subject" is identical with arousing emotions, Aristotle means that arousing emotions in itself must be prohibited But, in my view, that is not right "Speaking outside the subject" here is identical with, not arousing emotions m itself, but a corrupting kind of arousing emotions, namely, arousing emotions by means of speaking about things totally extraneous to the issue Aristotle means here that only arousing emotions in such a way must be prohibited According to this view, we can suppose, there is another kind of arousing emotions, which Aristotle does not prohibit, namely, arousing emotions by means of speaking about things which are related to the issue and so enable hearers to recognize the truth To conclude, I propose that the primary function of pathos which Aristotle recommends in 1 2 consists rather in making hearers recognize the truth than in corrupting their judgement Indeed it is undeniable that pathos in 1 2 can function also as a necessary evil, as the prevailing view has it, but I claim that it is rather a subsidiary function of pathos