Proof-reading Aristotle's Rhetoric

This paper offers a new interpretation of the first chapter of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, and of Aristotle’s understanding of rhetoric throughout the treatise. I defend the view that, for Aristotle, rhetoric was a skill in offering the listener proper grounds for conviction. His arguments in this chapter state and defend this controversial, epistemically-normative view against the rival views of Gorgias, Thrasymachus and and the rhetorical handbook writers, on the one hand, and against those of Plato, on the other. Aristotle defends his view on the basis that rhetoric is a skill in discharging an important role in the state – the role of helping citizens to good publicly-deliberated judgements.