Aristotle on Rhetoric and Teaching

Aristotle follows the Socrates of Plato’s Gorgias in contrasting rhetoric with teaching. For him, premises of arguments must in rhetoric be reputable (endoxa), but in teaching be archai of the relevant science. And teaching requires recognition of the speaker’s authority, rhetoric does not. Like Socrates, he thinks teaching but not rhetoric requires knowledge of your subject. Unlike Socrates, Aristotle does not for this reason reject rhetoric as dangerous, but accepts it as useful for public and interpersonal deliberation.