A. Robert Lauer
arlauer@ou.edu
Introduction to MLLL 5063: 
Early Literary Criticism:
Last revised on 12 December 2003
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Index:

• Pre-Socratic Philosophers
• The Socratic and Post-Socratic (Platonic) Philosophers
• Plato
• Aristotle
• Longinus
• Horace
• Plotinus
• St. Augustine
• Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
• John Locke
• Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts (Rationes dictandi, Poetria nova, Forma praedicandi)
• Immanuel Kant

Physicalists: Materialists (the world is made of matter: matter resolves into forces and energy).  Opposed to mind/body dualism.  All things are made of: earth, water (Thales of Miletus, fl. 585 BC), air, or fire (Heraclitus). Atomism: Demosthenes.  Everything is made of tiny bits of indestructible and invisible matter bumping into each other and sticking together (atoms).

Thales

Plato

Aristotle

Socrates (470-399 BC): Self critical reflection on the nature of our concepts.  A soldier, married.  A great teacher. Dialectical method (questioning) as instrument of separating truth from error.  The Epicureans hated him.
Sophists (Wise men): A term applied by Plato to various teachers of whom he disapproved: Protagoras, Gorgias, Thrasymachus, and Hippias of Elis.  They talked purely for victory and took money for teaching the technique of rhetoric.  Sceptical, speculative, but also moral.
     a.  Protagoras (490-420 BC):  he taught virtue (arete) in Athens: "man is the measure of all things" (objects possess contradictory properties depending on the person who takes in one way and another another way [perspectivism]): each person's sense perception is true (for the owner) but it can also be improved and taught.  He invented the dialectical method.
     b.  Gorgias (483-376 BC): A teacher of rhetoric.  Antithetical style.

Socrates

Plato (429-347 BC): An aristocrat disappointed with government who believed only philosophers are fit to rule.  Supported by tyrants like Dionysius II of Sicily.  He wrote several dialogues:

• I.  Early works: Hippias Minor, Laches, Charmides, Ion, Protagoras, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Gorgias, Meno, Lysis, Menexenus, and Euthydemus.  These establish the figure of Socrates as endlessly questioning and ruthlessly shattering the false claims to knowledge of his contemporaries.  This elenctic method (from the Greek word elenchus > cross examination [i.e., the dialectical or Socratic method of eliciting truth by cross  examination) clears the ground for establishing a true appreciation of virtue.  More "negative" than positive.
• II.  Middle works: Phaedo, Philebus, Symposium, Republic, Theaetetus.  The philosophical understanding of the notion of Forms.  Less sceptical.  Not dialogical.  Students under 30 should not be exposed to this exercise at the Academy.  Positive doctrines of Platonism: Forms (independent, real, divine, invisible, changeless, causative of all that is): The Good (mystic apprehension achieved at end of philosophic pilgrimage (Eros).   We understand the forms by noesis (knowledge), not doxa (opinion, changing belief).  Recollection of forms before we became imprisoned in body (Beauty).  Republic: Justice and order in soul and state.  Only those who apprehend the form of the good are fit to rule (i.e., the "good," i.e., the "virtuous").
• III. Late works: Critias, Parmenides, Phaedrus, Sophist, Statesman, Timaeus, Laws.  Logos, certification by reason.  Civic piety and religion, education.  Cosmological issues.  Perfect  Harmony.

• Book 1:
• Book 2:
• Book 3:
• Book 4:
• Book 5:
• Book 6:
• Book 7:
• Book 8:
• Book 9:  The Tyrannical Constitution.  The tyrant is a natural development of the democratic type.  The tyrant is similar to a drunkard, a madman, and a deranged person who wishes to rule over men and gods.  He will refrain from no atrocity or murder, for his passion is of the uttermost anarchy and lawlessness.  He is friendless and faithless and never knows freedom or true friendship.  The most evil is the most miserable.  No city is more wretched than that rule by a tyrant, and none happier than that governed by a king.  The tyrant is ruled by the gadfly of desire.  The city ruled by a tyrant would be poor.  The tyrant soul must always be needy and suffer from unfulfilled desire.  He is full of terrors and alarms.  He is envious, faithless, unjust, friendless, impious, iniquitous, unhappy.  Of the aforementioned 5 constitutions (royal, timocratic, oligarchic, democratic, and tyrannical), the king would be the most just and happy; the tyrant the most unjust and miserable.  There are three primary classes of men (ranked in order): the philosopher (king) or lover of wisdom, the (timocratic) lover of victory (honor), and the (oligarchic) lover of gain.  Plato discusses pleasure and pain as “relative” conditions dependent on one’s position (up, middle, and down).  Hence, when one goes “down” and experiences pain, and then “up” to a middle point (where pain ceases), one believes he is “approaching” pleasure (by going “up”).  A comparison is also made between bodily hunger and thirst and ignorance and folly.  Both require nourishment, whether physical or philosophical.  Those who have no experience of wisdom and virtue are always “down,” like cattle, grazing and copulating, and kicking around, striving to satisfy their “lowly” desires.  The tyrant, likewise, satisfies lowly desires, unlike the high-spirited (philosopher) king.  The tyrant is also lower than the democratic and the oligarchic types in his pursuit of lowly desires.  The king, however, is wise and prizes his studies and his soul.  Likewise, he will not abandon the nurture of his body or his health or even his beauty, but will strive toward soberness and harmony of spirit, for he is a true musician.  Plato realizes that his ideal city may not exist, except as a pattern laid up in heaven, but it makes no difference.  The wise man would seek the politics of this city.
• Book 10: On Poetry.  Poetry is imitative in nature and corrupt, for it lacks knowledge and truth.  Poetry does not seek true form or truth but merely the appearance or phantoms of things.  The poet is thrice removed from the object of imitation, which is only in the mind of God, for the artisan creates a nominal (existential) representation of the ideal (mathematical) object (a chair occupying the dimensions of time, space, etc.), but the artist represents only an image (a phantom) of the (nominal and real) object.  There are three arts concerned with everything: a) the user’s (whose author would know the most about the object), the maker’s (whose author would only know its good or bad effects), and the imitator’s (whose author would not even be able to have an opinion about the object he is representing [e.g., whether it’s useful or not]).  The imitator has and imparts no wisdom or knowledge about the object imitated.  Imitation for him is only a form of play (not of will or necessity or even of use) that should not to be taken seriously.  Poetry is then far removed from the truth and from intelligence.  Furthermore, in the case of poetry (tragedy), this art deals with lowly passions and the irrational, not with the better (rational) part of the soul.  The poet’s creation is already inferior as far as imitation goes, and, on top of that, he dwells on lowly topics (the passions) instead of fortifying the soul.  Poetry tends to corrupt.   We feel pleasure when we hear lamentations.  But in real life we should behave in the opposite manner and remain calm and endure our pain.  In comedy we take pleasure in buffooneries.  But in real life we would blush and find that detestable.  Poetry fosters the feelings of sex, anger, and all the appetites and pains and pleasures of the soul.  Those are the passions we should try to overcome on account of their irrationality.  Only hymns to the gods and the praises of good men are acceptable forms of poetry in Plato’s city.  Poetry should bestow not pleasure (only) but benefit (833).  On the Immortality of the Soul.  What corrupts and destroys is evil; what preserves and benefits is good.   The soul has things that make it evil (injustice, licentiousness, cowardice, ignorance) but also things that are good (its love of wisdom and justice).  There is also an inevitable evil that accompanies the soul: sin in a former life.  But the gods would never abandon the righteous.  The Daughters of Necessity: The Fates: Lachesis (past), Clotho (present), Athropos (future).  They spin the wheel of life, allot, and end life.  The soul, based on previous experiences and sufferings (the past) chooses its next embodiment upon returning from the earth.  Happiness consists in choosing the mean and not the extremes (842).  The virtuous soul will choose wisely and experience happiness.  The unwise or precipitous soul will choose unwisely.  But the souls choose according to their former experiences.  Thusly, Orpheus chose to become a swan to avoid being born of woman (since women dismembered him).  The unjust choose to return as wild beasts.  The souls drink from the River Lethe and forget the past and fall asleep and are subsequently born again in whatever form they have chosen.  The soul is immortal and capable of enduring all extremes of good and evil.  Let us uphold the upward way and pursue righteousness with wisdom always and ever, that we may be dear to ourselves and to the gods during our sojourn here and when we receive our reward.  And we shall fare well in our journey of 1000 years.

Alexander the Great

• I.  Logical works: Organon, Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics, Sophistical Refutations.
• II.  Works on physics: Physics, On the Heavens, On Generation and Corruption.
• III.  Psychology and natural history: On the Soul, On the Parts of the Animals, On the Movement of Animals, On the Generation of Animals, and other shorter works collected in Parva Naturalia.
• IV.  Ethics: Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics, Magna Moralia, Politics, Rhetoric, and The Art of Poetry.
• V.  Works on the general investigation of the things that are: Metaphysics.

• Book I.  Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good.  The ruler over a few persons is called a master; over more, the manager of a household; over a still larger number a statesman or king.  When the government is personal, the ruler is a king; when the citizens rule and are ruled in turn, he is a statesman.  “The compound should always be resolved into the simple elements or least parts of the whole.” There must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other: e.g., a) a male and a female, that the race may continue; or b) a natural ruler and a subject, that both may be preserved.  For that which can foresee by the exercise of the mind is by nature intended to be lord and master, while that which by its body can give effect to such foresight is a subject and by nature a slave.  Hence, master and slave have the same interests. Out of these two relationships (man and woman, master and slave) the first thing to arise is the family.  The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men’s everyday wants.  When several families are united, the first society to be formed is the village.  The most natural form of the village is that of a colony from the family.  Since every family is ruled by the eldest, in the colonies of the family the kingly form of government prevailed because their constituents were of the same blood. When several villages are united in a single complete community, the state comes into being, originating in the bare needs of life and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life.  Hence, if the earlier forms of society were natural, so is the state, “for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end.  For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature . . . the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.”  Hence, the state is a creation of nature and man is by nature a political (gregarious, social) animal.  He who by nature and not by accident is without a state is either a bad man (a lover of war) or above humanity. Man is gregarious and the only animal endowed with speech to differentiate between good and evil, just and unjust. The state is by nature prior to the family and to the individual since the whole is of necessity prior to the part.  The proof of this lies in the fact that when isolated, the individual is not self-sufficing.  Anyone who has no need of the state is either a beast or a god.  Man has by nature implanted in him a social instinct which, when perfected, makes him the best of animals; when separated from law and justice, the worst.  Without virtue, man is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. Justice is the bond of men in states and the principle of order in political society. A complete household consists of master and slave, husband and wife, father and children.  Property is a part of the household and necessary for a man to live well.  The servant is a kind of instrument or living possession: “he who is by nature not his own but another’s man, is by nature a slave.”  From the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule. The soul rules the body despotically, whereas the intellect rules the appetites with a constitutional and royal rule.  This is natural.  The opposite, or equality, would be unnatural. The male is by nature superior to the female, and the one rules and the other is ruled.  This is a principle of necessity for their preservation.  Inferiors are by nature slaves and it is better for them to be under the rule of a master.  The inferior class should be the slaves of the superior.  Since some men are by nature slaves and others free, slavery for the former is both expedient and right.  By right of conquest, what is taken in war belongs to the victors.  Power, however, implies virtue. The superior in virtue ought to rule.  Greeks are not slaves, only barbarians (the rest of the world).  The relation of master and slave is natural when they are friends and have a common interest, but when it rests merely on law and force the reverse is true. The rule of a household is of a monarchical kind, while the rule of freemen and equals is of a constitutional sort.Nature has made all animals for the sake of man.  The art of war is natural, for it is a form of acquisition (a hunt), in this case of men intended by nature to be governed but who are unwilling to submit.  War in this case is natural and just.  Wealth-getting (e.g., of animals and vegetables) is another variety of the art of acquisition.  This includes retail-trade, or the creating of wealth by commercial exchange (unnatural) and usury (unnatural and despicable). 
• Book II.  All known constitutions of the existing political communities are faulty.  The members of a state must have either a) all things in common, b) nothing in common, or c) some things in common and some not.  The good of things must be that which preserves them.  Friendship is the greatest good of states and the preservative of them against revolutions.  ¶Property should be in a certain sense common but as a general rule private, for then everybody has a bested interest to attend to his own business.  The love of self is by nature implanted in man.  What is to be censured is not the love of self (and private property) but the love of excess (which is selfish and detrimental to the common good).  The excessive unification of a state (wherein, e.g., property is communal) may be detrimental to itself (for there is much quarreling among those who have all things in common).  The state is a plurality that should be united and made into a community by education.  Temperance and moderation are important.  Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime. ¶The best form of government is that which has a mixed constitution, perhaps like the Lacedaemonian or some other more aristocratic government.  The constitution is better when it is made up of more numerous elements (a virtuous and wise monarch, a council of elders, and popular Ephors selected from the people).  There ought to be in states not only equal property but equal education.  Civil troubles arise out of the inequality of property (in the case of the people) and honor (in the case of the aristocracy).  Moderate possessions and occupation, as well as habits of temperance and a philosophical education are cures for disorders.  Moreover, the greatest crimes are caused by excess, and not need, for the avarice of mankind is insatiable (this is why education is important to moderate desire).  ¶Tyrants do not rise in order not to suffer cold but because they want more than their share.  The state should supply the internal wants of the state and meet dangers coming from without. ¶Written laws ought not always to remain unaltered.  Enactments are universal but actions are concerned with particulars.¶Citizens should have leisure in a well-ordered society.¶In those states in which the condition of women is bad, half the city may be regarded as having no laws (as in Sparta).¶The judges in the Council of Elders should not be permanent, for the mind and the body grow feeble.  The worthiest should be appointed, whether he wants it or not.  Ambition and avarice are the motives of crime.¶The Spartan, Cretan, and Carthaginian constitutions are analyzed.¶“They should rule who are able to rule best.”¶On Legislators: Solon, the creator of the democracy in Athens is the best.  He harmonized the different elements in the state: the Council of the Areopagus was oligarchic, the elected magistracy aristocratic, and the courts of law democratic. Charondas is known for having introduced suits vs. false witnesses (denunciation for perjury).
• Book III.  What is a state?  A state is composite, like any other whole created of many parts—these are the citizens.  What is a citizen?  He who shares in the administration of justice and holds offices.  A state is a body of citizens sufficing for the purposes of life (NB: Polis means both state and city).  The good citizen (whose duty is the salvation of the state) does not have to be a good man.  A virtuous citizen knows how to rule and obey. Practical wisdom only is characteristic of the ruler.  He is a citizen in the highest sense who shares in the honors of the state. If he is excluded from the honors of a state he is an alien. ¶A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state. In democracies the people are supreme; in oligarchies, the few.  Since man is a political animal, men, even when they do not require one another’s help, desire to live together. Mankind meets together and maintains the political community.  In life men find a natural sweetness and happiness, even in misfortune. ¶When the state is framed upon the principle of equality and likeness, the citizens think that they ought to hold office in turns.  Governments which have a regard to the common interest are constituted in accordance with strict principles of justice and are therefore true forms. Those that regard only the interests of the rulers are defective and perverted, whereas a state is a community of freemen. ¶The words constitution and government have the same meaning.  The true forms of government are those in which one (a king), some (an aristocracy), or many (a polity or constitution) govern with a view to the common interest.  Governments which rule with a view to the private interest of one (a tyrant), some (an oligarchy), or many (a democracy), are perversions.  Hence, a tyranny has only the interest of the monarch in mind, an oligarchy has in view the interest only of the wealthy, and a democracy of the needy: none of them have the common good of all. ¶All men cling to justice of some kind, but their conceptions are imperfect. A state exists for the sake of a good and happy life, and not for the sake of life only.  A state does not exist for the sake of alliance and security from injustice, nor yet for the sake of exchange and mutual intercourse (e.g., commerce).  Virtue must be the care of a state which is truly so called, for without this end the community becomes a mere alliance.  Likewise, a state is not a mere society having a common place and established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange.  A state is a community of families and aggregations of families in well-being, for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life.  Such a community can only be established among those who live in the same place and intermarry.  Hence arises in cities family connections, brotherhoods, common sacrifices, amusements which draw men together.  These are created by friendship, for the will to live together is friendship.  The end of the state is the good life.  “And the state is the union of families and villages in a perfect and self-sufficing life, by which we mean a happy and honorable life.” Political society exists for the sake of noble actions and not of mere companionship. ¶The government of the many instead of the few may seem to be fine, for the many in unison are less liable to err.  The laws, when good, should be supreme.  Societal good is justice (the common interest).  Education and virtue have superior claim (to rule).  Those who are sprung from better ancestors are likely to be better men, for nobility is excellence of race.  Virtue  too has a claim, for justice is a social virtue.  The best state is one where the citizen is able and willing to be governed and to govern with a view to the life of virtue. Legislation is only concerned with those equal in birth and capacity.  For men of pre-eminent virtue there is no law, for they are themselves a law. ¶Ostracism is a democratic institution (fear of the great, the wealthy, the pre-eminent, and the powerful).  This is political justice.  An alternative, however, would be to joyfully obey a superior ruler and that men like him should be kings in their state for life. ¶On Royalty: There are five kinds of royal rule: 1) TheLacedaemonian Royalty, where the kingly office is a form of generalship.  Here the king also handles matters of religion.  This may be hereditary or elective.  2) The Barbarian Royalty, which resembles tyranny, although it is legal and hereditary.  Here the people are by nature slaves. The guards of these kings are nationals (not mercenaries, as in tyrannies).  3) The Hellenic Aesymnetia or Dictatorship.  This is an elective and legal tyranny, although not hereditary.  Sometimes this office was held for life, sometimes for a term of years, or until certain duties had been performed.  4) The Heroic Royalty. Hereditary and legal.  Exercised over willing subjects.  The first chiefs were benefactors of the people in arts or arms.   They either gathered them in a community or procured land for them. Thus they became kings of voluntary subjects and their power was inherited by their descendants. They took the command in war (like a general), presided over the sacrifices (like a priest), and decided causes (like a judge).  5) The Absolute Royalty.  Here the king has the disposal of all. ¶Aristocracy is the best form of government, provided that a number of men equal in virtue can be found. ¶“The law is reason unaffected by desire.” Customary laws have more weight and relate to more important matters than written laws.
• Book IV.  
• Book V.
• Book VI.  Herein, Aristotle discusses the different varieties of the deliberative or supreme power in states.  He also discusses combinations of governments and notes that democracy is the opposite form of government of oligarchy.  The basis of democracy is liberty, which Aristotle defines as the system wherein all rule and all are ruled in turn.  Moreover, in a democracy the poor have more power than the rich (the oligarchs).  Additional characteristics of democracy are: 1) The election of officers by all out of all.  2) The appointment to offices by lot (in case where special skills are needed).  3) No property qualifications.  4) A brief tenure without reelection.  5) Payment for services (for members of the assembly, law-courts, and magistrates).  Low birth, poverty, and mean employment characterize a democracy, unlike the birth, wealth, and education of the oligarch.  The weaker are always asking for equality and justice, while the strong care little for those things (because they have the power).

 There are 4 kinds of democracy: 1) The oldest form, typical of an agricultural society (where everybody is poor).  Herein everybody works and nobody covets the property of another.  There is no leisure here.  The people are more interested n gain than in honor.  As long as the people are allowed to work and not deprived of property they can patiently endure a tyranny or an oligarchy.  They are satisfied merely with voting to elect magistrates.  Their ambition ends there.  2) A pastoral people.  Here, the people tend to their flocks and are robust and well trained for war.  3) A Commercial democracy.  4) the worst democracy, which is unruly and disorderly, and favored by most persons (for its extreme freedom).  It is easier to establish a democratic state than to preserve it.  Controls are needed to prevent insurrections.
 On oligarchies: The best oligarchy is similar to a constitutional government.  Strict property qualifications are essential to retain power among the oligarchs.  Oligarchies, however, can become cliquish and tyrannical.  There are four divisions of the common people: 1) husbandmen, 2) mechanics, 3) retail traders, and 4) laborers.  There are also 4 kinds of military forces: 1) the cavalry, 2) the heavy infantry, 3) the light-armed troops, and 4) the navy.  A strong oligarchy has a good cavalry (since horses cost money).  The next best oligarchy has heavy infantry.  Light-armed troops and the navy element are more typical of democracies than of oligarchies (for they cost less).  Oligarchical magistrates should erect public buildings to impress the people and to retain power.  The necessary offices in an oligarchy are; the market, public and private buildings, city wardens, country wardens, tax collectors, recorders, executioners, and jailers.  Also needed are generals, auditors, controllers, and councilors.  Finally, priests.

Book VII.  On happiness.  Only a virtuous man is truly happy.  He is moderate in his possessions and has a highly cultivated mind.  Courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance are the cardinal virtues of an individual and of a state.  The good of the state and not of the individual is paramount.  The government is best if every man can act best and live happily.  The virtuous ones prefer the live of the philosopher and of the statesman.  But some nations are war-like and stress ambition and military power as the highest goods.  However, war-like pursuits, although honorable, are not the supreme end of all things, but only means.  The end of the state is peace (where virtue can grow and happiness take place).  Happiness is activity.
 A perfect state cannot exist without a due supply of the means of life.  The first material a statesman needs is population.  But only the essential people should be included in the perfect state (not slaves or foreigners).  A governor should command and judge.  A smaller population is more manageable than a larger one.  A territory should be easy to egress to the inhabitants and difficult of access to the enemy.  It should be well situated in regard to sea and land.  It should be a convenient center for the protection of the whole country.  It should be able to receive the fruits of the soil and for the bringing in of timber.  Import what is necessary and export what one has in excess.  An increase of population (and of foreigners) would be adverse to good order.
 On the racial superiority of the Greeks.  Northern Europeans are full of spirit but lacking in intelligence.  Hence, they are free but have no political organization.  Asians are intelligent and inventive but are wanting in spirit.  Hence, they are always in a state of subjection and slavery.  But the Hellenic race, since it is situated between them, is intermediate in character: high-spirited and intelligent.  Hence, they are free and the best-governed of all people. If it could be formed into one state it would be able to rule the world.
 A state is not a community of living beings but a community of equals, aiming at the best life possible. Happiness is the highest good, being a realization and perfect practice of virtue.  Since there are different types of men, there are different modes of life and forms of government.  Nevertheless, a state needs some indispensable things, namely: 1) food, 2) arts (mechanical), 3) arms, 4) revenue, 5) religion, 6) justice.   Thee are indispensable components of any state, for a state is not a mere aggregate of persons, but a union of them sufficing for the purposes of life, and if any of the above things are missing, the community cannot be self-sufficing (and hence, not happy).  A state needs husbandmen to procure food, artisans, warriors, a wealthy class, priests, and judges.  Happiness cannot exist without virtue.  Hence, leisure is necessary for the development of virtue and the performance of political duties.  The most important citizens are the warriors and the councilors.  Husbandmen can be slaves, provided they are not high-spirited, for then they would make a revolution.  Liberty should be held up to them as the reward for their services.  There should also be social classes, as exists in Egypt. 
 Location:  A healthy city should lie towards the east or be sheltered from the north wind (for they will have a milder winter).  There should be springs and fountains in the town, as well as pure water.   Strongholds: an acropolis is good for an oligarchy or a monarchy, but a plain is more suitable to a democracy.  Streets should be arranged symmetrically but have some irregular architecture to prevent easy access to enemies. 
 In the Ethics, Aristotle maintains that happiness is the realization and perfect exercise of virtue.  Actions that aim at honor and advantage are the best.  Virtue and goodness in the state are not a matter of chance but the result of knowledge and purpose. Three things make men good and virtuous: 1) nature, 2) habit, and 3) rational principle. Education is essential to inculcate good habits.  Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons, and no government can stand which is not founded on justice.  If a government is unjust, revolutions take place.  Yet, governors should excel their subjects.  Citizens must learn to obey first (especially when young) and to rule later (when older).
 The soul of man is divided into two parts: 1) the rational and 2) the irrational principle (the appetites, desires, and emotions of the body).  In nature and art, the inferior exists for the sake of the better or superior. And the better or superior has a rational principle.  The rational principle is divided into 1) a practical and 2) a speculative principle.  Life is divided into two parts: 1) business and 2) leisure.  War exists for the sake of peace; business for the sake of leisure: things useful and necessary for the sake of things honorable.  We must do what is necessary and indeed what is useful, but what is honorable is better.   No legislator should train the citizens to conquer and obtain dominion over their neighbors, for there is great evil in this.  Neither should men study war to enslave those who do not deserve to be enslaved.  One should obtain empires for the good of the governed and not to exercise a form of despotism.  One should only be master over those who deserve to be slaves. The legislator should direct all his military measures to the provision of leisure and the establishment of peace. For most of those military states are safe only while they are at war.  Peace is the end of war.  Leisure is the end of toil.  Many necessaries of life have to be supplied before we can have leisure. But there is no leisure for slaves.  War compels men to be just and temperate.  But the enjoyment of a good fortune and the leisure which comes with peace tends to make them insolent.
 Marriages.  Men should marry when they are 37.  Women when they are 18. 
 Children.  No deformed child should live.  When couples have children in excess, abortion should be procured before life and sense have begun.  No one past 50 should have children.  Adulterers should be punished in proportion to the offense. Milk is good for children, but not wine.  Accustom children to the cold to harden them.  Allow children to move a lot and not be inactive.  Stories and tales should prepare children for the business of life.  Children should be allowed to cry and scream (they are exercising their bodies in this fashion).  No improper language or indecent visuals should be allowed to children.  They should be spared anything that suggests vice or hate.

Book VIII.  On Education.  The legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth, for the neglect of education does harm to the constitution.  Citizens do not belong to themselves but to the state.  Each citizen is part of a state.  Education is the business of the state.  Occupations are liberal and illiberal.  Those arts that deform the body and all paid employments are vulgar and degrade the mind.  The four branches of education are: 1) reading and writing (useful for the purposes of life), 2) gymnastics (to infuse courage), 3) music (for intellectual enjoyment in leisure), and 4) drawing (useful for the purposes of life).  Leisure is the end of occupation.  Amusements (sleep, drinking, music, and dancing) are suitable at times (like medicines) for the emotions they create in the soul give us relaxation, pleasure, and rest.  “To be always seeking after the useful does not become free and exalted souls.”  What is noble, not what is brutal, should have the first place.  Men ought not to labor at the same time with their minds and with their bodies, for the two kinds of labor are opposed to one another.
 Music is one of the pleasantest things.  Music can inspire enthusiasm, which is an emotion of the ethical part of the soul.  When men hear imitations, their feelings move in sympathy. Rhythm and melody supply imitations of anger and gentleness, and also of courage and temperance.  The habit of feeling pleasure at mere representations is not far removed from the same feeling about realities.  If one delights in the sight of a statue for its beauty only, it necessary follows that the sight of the original will be pleasant to him.  Music has the power to form character.  But the flute does not form moral character (it is too exciting).   Neither does the lyre, the harp, or the sambuca.  They give pleasure only (Bacchic frenzy). Avoid them.  Go for ethical music that may serve for intellectual enjoyment.  Dorian music is the gravest and manliest. Avoid Phrygian music.

Aristotle's Rhetoric:

Book I.

Book II.

Book III. Three points are necessary in making a speech: 1) the means of producing persuasion, 2) the style or language used, and 3) the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech. 
Persuasion is used 1) to move the emotions of the judges, 2) to give a good impression of one’s moral character, and 3) to prove one’s point.
        Style is necessary in the delivery of an oration, for the facts alone may not be sufficient in themselves to prove a point.  Style has to do with 1) volume of one’s voice for the right emotion, 2) modulation of pitch, and 3) rhythm.  The whole business of rhetoric is concerned with appearances.  The truth of the facts may not be enough to prove a point, for “the way in which a thing is said does affect its intelligibility.” 
     A speech has two parts: 1) Statement and 2) Proof.  These are also called a) Statement of the case, Enunciation, “Narration,” and b) Argument, Demonstration, Proof.  Within the former part one may find a pre-narration, a narration, and a post-narration; within the latter one may also find Comparison, Refutation of the Opponent, and Final Refutation as components of the Proof.  There are also Secundations, Divagations, and Ramifications.  But, again, only two parts are essential to speeches: Statement and Proof.  One may also find a Preamble or Introduction (as a prologue in poetry or a prelude in flute-music) [also called Exordium] and a Conclusion, Epilogue, of Peroration.  Hence, the parts of any speech are: 1) Introduction (Preamble), 2) Statement (Enunciation, Narration), 3) Proof (Evidence, Argument, Demonstration [with Comparisons and Refutations]), and 4) Conclusion (Epilogue, Peroration, Summation). 
     The Introduction is the beginning of any speech.  Any way to begin is fine, and then strike up a theme and lead into it.  The subject of an introduction is usually some piece of praise or censure (in encomia), or appeals (in forensic speeches), or advice (in deliberations).  A prologue should give an audience a grasp of what is to follow so that they can hold fast to it and follow the argument.  The prologue shows what the aim of the speech is.  A prologue may also have a remedial function and serve to remove opprobrium or excite prejudice against the opposition.  Appeals to the hearer bring good will (captatio benevolentiae).  A prologue may also be used to distract an audience, or to make it receptive, or to give a good impression of one’s character (so that the audience becomes receptive to what one is about to say).  It should also give a short summary of what is to follow (the speech) and serve as a “head” to the main “body” of the speech.  At times calls to attention might be used throughout a speech (if the topic is difficult).
     The Narration or Statement is usually provided by nature and is not of the orator’s invention (only in the Proof does the orator use his art).  The narration may be intermittent (in encomia), or brief (in fora), or be as long as necessary if one has to prove one’s moral character: “Slip in anything else that the judges may enjoy.”  The narration should depict character, especially when they deal with moral questions.  If any detail seems improbable, give a reason for it.  Use emotion if necessary (these carry conviction).  Narration is usually of past events (in fora), or present (in encomia), or future (in deliberations).

     [3.2 [The Qualities of Style].  A good style is, first of all, clear.  Language that is not clear does not perform the function of language.  Style should be appropriate to its theme, neither mean nor above the dignity of its subject.  Clearness is secured by means of name-words [nouns & adjectives] and verbs that are current, as well as by freeing prose from meanness and embellishments (the latter being typical of poetry).  But deviations from ordinary style (e.g., rare words, compound words, and coined words) may be impressive if used on occasion.  To be effective, embellishments and deviations from the norm should be well hidden to be persuasive and remain unnoticed by the listener, who would become suspicious of the speaker’s intent if s/he saw through the tricks being used. Homonyms (equivocal terms) are useful to the sophist to mislead his audience.
     On Metaphor.  Metaphor gives clearness, charm, and distinction to the style (prose and poetry).  Use proportional metaphors.  Metaphors miss the mark if they have unpleasing sounds or if they are far-fetched.  We must draw them from kindred and similar things.  Riddles usually contain metaphors or enigmas. 
     On Epithets.  They may be formed from the bad and ugly side of a thing (“Orestes the matricide”) or from the better aspect (“Orestes, the avenger of his sire”).
     On Diminutives.  Diminutives make a bad thing less bad, a good thing less good.
     3.3.  [Four Faults of Style].  There are four defects in style: 1) the misuse of compound words (“end-executing”), 2) the use of strange (archaic, obsolete, alien) words (“Xerxes is a vasty man”), 3) mistakes in the use of epithets (“white milk”), and 4) bad figures of speech (metaphors and similes), e.g., to say “For shame, O Philomela!” when complaining of a swallow’s aerial droppings upon one. 
     3.4. On Similes.  Similes are useful in prose as well as in verse, but must be sparingly used, for they are poetical.  The ‘proportional metaphor’ [or simile] must always be capable of reciprocal transference, hence, if a bowl is “The shield of Dionysus,” then a shield may be fittingly called “The bowl of Ares.”  If the criss-cross transference cannot be made, then the metaphor is not good.
     3.5. Stylistic Purity.  Good style is correct idiom, and this purity of language depends upon five things: 1) The correct use of connective words and the arrangements of them in the natural sequence they require.  Avoid many connectors or long intervals between connectors and items being connected, for that tends to make language obscure.  2) The use of specific words rather than vague general terms.  3) The avoidance of ambiguous language.(unless you have nothing to say, in which case the ambiguity helps).  4) The correct use of gender.  5) The correct use of number (i.e., the concords between plural noun and plural verb must be preserved). 
     Also, a composition should be easy to read or easy to deliver.  Such will not be the case if we have too many connectives and clauses or where punctuation is hard.  Avoid solecisms, produced when you annex to a pair of terms a third term which does not fit them both.  With a sound and a color, for instance, the word ‘seeing’ should not be used; ‘perceive’ will apply to both.
     3.6. Impressiveness.  Impressiveness of style may be obtained in six ways: 1) by describing an object instead of naming it (unless you aim for conciceness).  2). Use metaphors and epithets for vividness, being careful to avoid a poetical effect.  3) Use the plural for the singular, as doe the poets ( “To harbors Achaean” [though only one harbor is meant]).  4) Avoid linking two words with one article—use the article with each noun. 5) Use connective particles.  6) Describe a thing in terms of which it is not (this form of amplification has no limit).
     3.7. Propriety.  Your language will be appropriate if it expresses 1) emotion (to make people believe in your facts, for people are always in sympathy with an emotional speaker even if there is nothing in what he says) and 2) character (distinguish differences of age, sex, and nationality), and if it is 3) in proportion with its subject (compound words, plentiful epithets, and strange words best suit an emotional speaker). 
     3.8. Prose Rhythm.  The pattern (schema) of the diction should be neither metrical nor devoid of rhythm.  It is number that limits all things. Prose should be rhythmical but not metrical (otherwise it would be verse instead of prose), but its rhythm must not be too precise.  The heroic rhythm ( ‘- - ‘-- ) has dignity but lacks the cadence of the spoken language.  The iambic ( - ‘- ‘ ) is the characteristic rhythm of people as they talk.  The trochaic rhythm is too much like a comic dance ( ‘- ‘- ).  The paeon is acceptable in its two forms:  / ‘- - - / and      / - - - ‘ /.  The language of prose should be well cadenced and not unrhythmical. 
     3.9. The Period and Its Members.  The style is either running (loose, strung-out) or compact (periodic).  We prefer the latter, for we can see the whole (beginning and end) at a glance.  Such a style is pleasing and easy to follow.  It gives satisfaction because it is the opposite of indefinite.  A member [colon, clause] is one of the two parts of a period. When the members [cola] are too long, they give the hearer a sense of being left behind.  The sentence begins to look like a speech.  The members are either 1) simply divided or 2) antithetical.  Antithetical sentences are pleasing because things are best known by opposition, and are all the better known when the opposites are put side by side, and also because they have the resemblance of logic (or of a refutative syllogism). Parisosis [parallel structure] is having the two members of a period equal in length. Paromoeosis [parallelism of sound] is having similar words at the extreme of the two members.  It is also possible to have all these figures together: Antithesis, Parison [equality of members], and Homoeoteleuton [similarity of endings]: “he lived, not died, happily, joyfully.”
     3.10.  Lively Sayings.  The actual invention of these is a matter of natural talent or long practice. We all take a natural pleasure in learning easily; so, since words stand for things, those words are most pleasing that give us fresh knowledge. “Now strange words leave us in the dark; and current words [with the things they stand for] we know already.  Accordingly, it is metaphor that is in the highest degree instructive and pleasing.” And the similes of the poets do the same, for the simile is a metaphor, differing from it only in that this simile adds the phrase of comparison, which makes it longer and less pleasing.  In order to be lively, they must give us rapid information.  Antithesis and balance please.   Metaphors must not be far-fetched, for such are hard to grasp, not obvious [trite], for such leave no impression.  Also, words must set an event before our eyes.  Hence, the speaker must aim at these three points: metaphor, antithesis, actuality.
     Metaphors are of four kinds: The best liked is the proportional metaphor (already discussed). 
     3.11.  Means to Liveliness Further Considered.  A clever, lively, pointed saying gains its quality through Antithesis, Metaphor (especially the proportional kind), and Actuality (putting a thing before the eyes), e.g.: “And the spear-point, quivering eagerly, rushed through his breast” (Iliad 15.542).  In this example, the object is invested with life, and thereby gives an effect of activity.  Terse statements (apophthegms)  are effective, as well as well-devised riddles, for the solution they present is an act of learning, and they are expressed metaphorically too.  We also enjoy novelties (the element of surprise), for the thought turns out otherwise than expected, like the jests of comic writers, that are produced by substitutions in words.  This ‘deception’ pleases, for the listener anticipates one thing but hears another.  Hence, the more concise and antithetical the saying, the better it pleases, for the reason that by the contrast one learns the more, and by the conciseness, with the greater speed.  Further, there should always be some personal application, or special merit of expression, if the saying is to ring true, nd not to be tame.  Similes are metaphors.  So are proverbs (from one species to another).  Successful hyperboles are also metaphors if you employ a word of comparison (“like” [e.g., “Happy? Like a pig in mud.”]).  Hyperboles are characteristic of youngsters; they betray vehemence.  They are also used by men in an angry passion.  Attic [Athenian] orators like to use hyperboles too.  They are unsuited to an elderly speaker.
     3.12.  Propriety of Speech Resumed; Concluding Observations.  Each kind of rhetoric has its own style.  The written style is the more finished.  The controversial is far better adapted to dramatic delivery.  Such devices as asyndeta [parallel expressions without connectives: “I came, I saw, I conquered”] and repetition of the same word, censured in the written [literary] style, have their place in the controversial style for dramatic effect. But if you repeat, vary the repetition.  Asyndeton serves to amplify an idea [the conjunction gives closure to it].  The style of epideictic [panegyric, encomiastic] speeches is the most literary, since it is meant to be read; next to it comes the style of forensic speaking.]

     Arguments provide proofs of the Statement.  Proofs have four heads: 1) The act was not committed (in which case one has to prove that), 2) The act was committed but did no harm (prove that), 3) The act was less than is alleged, or 4) The act was justified.  Only in the first instance is one of the two parties a rogue and ignorance can thusly not be pleaded.  Encomia need no Proof.  In deliberations the best Arguments are those that involve “examples.”  Enthymemes (syllogisms, e.g., “If x is granted, then y follows”) are best used in fora.  Limit the use of enthymemes, though (their subtlety kills emotion).  Maxims are good in arguments and narrataions since they express (moral) character.  In Counter-Arguments, attack the most vulnerable part of your opponent to cast doubt on his speech.  Do not be abusive against your opponent since that is a sign of being ill-bred (and the argument can suffer subsequently [if the people become ill-disposed toward you]).  In Interrogations, offer an explanation for your answer and do not be curt.  Use jests to kill your opponent’s seriousness, and seriousness to oppose his jests (Gorgias).  Irony works when one uses it to amuse oneself (buffoonery when one amuses other people).
     Epilogues have four parts: 1) to make the audience well-disposed toward yourself and ill-disposed toward your opponent, 2) to magnify or minimize the leading facts, 3) to excite the required state of emotion in your hearers, and 4) to refresh their memories.  The required emotions to be excited in an audience (see no. 3 above) are: pity, indignation, anger, hatred, envy, emulation, and pugnacity.  Likewise, one has to review what one has said (see no. 4 above) by repeating one’s points frequently so as to make them easily understood.  What one should state in the Introduction is the subject in order tht the point to be judged may be quite plain.  In the Epilogue one should summarize the arguments by which the case has been proved.  For the conclusion, the disconnected style is appropriate: “I have done.  You have heard me.  The facts are before you. I ask for your judgment.” 

Aristotle's Topics:

Book I:  On Reasoning.  Reasoning is an argument in which certain things are laid down and by which other things necessarily come about (by means of dialectical reasoning).  Reasoning may be a) a Demonstration (when the premises from which the reasoning starts are true and primary) or b) Dialectical (if it reasons from opinions generally accepted, for things are true and primary which are believed on the strength of themselves or if they are generally accepted by the majority, or by the philosophers, or by the most notable and illustrious of them) or c) Contentious (if it starts from opinions that seem to be generally accepted but are not generally accepted) or d) a Mis-reasoning (when a man draws a false figure and reasons from things that are neither true and primary, nor yet generally accepted, and conducts his reasoning upon assumptions which, though appropriate to the science in question, are not true, for he effects his mis-reasoning either by describing the semicircles wrongly [in geometry] or by drawing certain lines in a way in which they could not be drawn].

[Lauerian examples of several forms of reasoning:

I. Logical Reasoning: A.  [Major premise] All people eat.  B [Minor premise] John is a man.  C.  [Conclusion] Therefore, he [John] eats [because he belongs to the group people].
II. ‘Contentious’ of ‘Special’ reasoning: A.  All men eat cheesecake.  B.  Robert is a man.  C. Therefore he eats cheesecake.  [NB: B and C follow logically, one from the other only if A is accepted; however, A has not been demonstrated: therefore, the conclusion is faulty or ‘contentious’].
III. Mis-reasoning: A.  All men eat cheesecake.  B.  Bobby is a child.  C.  Therefore everybody eats cheesecake.  [NB: Nothing follows here.  A has to be demonstrated first.  If it were capable of being demonstrated, one would have to modify B and demonstrate if the category ‘child’ can be logically included in the category ‘men’ or not.  C is defective because the term ‘everybody’ is all-inclusive and may also logically include the concept ‘women,’ which is excluded from A and B].]

     Aristotle’s treatise on Topics is useful, as he states, for a) intellectual training (the possession of a plan of inquiry enables us more easily to argue about the subject proposed), b) casual encounters (to judge opinions on their merit and not on the ground of other people’s convictions), and c) the philosophical sciences (to detect more easily the truth and error about the several points that arise).  Hence, dialectic is a process of criticism wherein lies the path to the principles of all inquiries.
     Arguments start with ‘propositions,’ while the subjects on which reasonings take place are ‘problems.’  Every proposition or problem indicates either a genus or a peculiarity or an accident.  What is ‘peculiar’ to anything in particular is its essence; hence, that part that indicates the essence of a thing is called a ‘definition.’  The remainder of it its ‘property.’  Hence, there are four elements to anything, namely: definition, property, genus, and accident. 
     A definition is a phrase signifying a thing’s essence (hence, a definition is always a phrase of a certain kind).  Arguments about definitions are concerned with questions of sameness and difference.  However, to show that two things are the same is not enough to establish a definition.  To show that they are not the same is enough of itself to overthrow it [the definition].
     A property is a predicate which does not indicate the essence of a thing, but yet belongs to that thing alone, and is predicated convertibly of it. Thus it is a property of man to be capable of learning grammar, for if A is a man, he is capable of lerning grammar, and if he is capable of learning grammar he is a man.  For no one calls anything a property which may possibly belong to something else, e.g., sleep in the case of man, which is a ‘temporary’ or ‘relative’ property (for it does not necessarily follow that if something is asleep it is a man).
     A genus is what is predicated in the category of essence of a number of things exhibiting differences in kind.  Hence, man and ox share the same genus (‘animal’).
     An accident is 1) something that is neither a definition nor a property nor a genus, yet belongs to the thing, 2) something which may possibly either belong or not belong to any of the self-same thing, as. E.g., the ‘sitting posture.’ Also, there is nothing to prevent an accident from becoming a temporary or relative property. Thus, the sitting posture is an accident, but will be a temporary property, whenever a man is the only person sitting. Nothing prevents an accident from becoming both a relative and a temporary property; but a property absolutely it will never be.
     Definition of the term Sameness.  Sameness falls into three divisions: a) numerically (where there is more than one name but only one thing [‘doublet’ <jacket> and ‘cloak’]), b) specifically (where there is more than one thing, but they present no differences in respect of their species, as one man and another), or c) generically (where things are the same under the same genus [‘horse’ and ‘man’]).
     There are ten classes of predicates in which the four orders in questions are found: 1) Essence, 2) Quantity, 3) Quality, 4) Relation, 5) Place, 6) Time, 7) Position, 8) State, 9) Activity, and 10) Passivity.  For the accident and genus and property and definition of anything will always be in one of these categories: for all the propositions found through these signify either something’s essence or its quality or quantity or some one of the other types of predicate.  Such, then, and so many, are the subjects on which arguments take place.
     Defition of a ‘dialectical proposition’ and a ‘dialectical problem.’ Not every proposition can be set down as dialectical [‘dialectical’ means ‘conversational,’ in the Socratic sense], for no one would make a proposition that nobody holds [no other would assent to it] or make a problem of what is obvious to everybody [for this admits of no doubt].  Hence, a dialectical proposition consists in asking something that is held by all men, provided it be not contrary to the general opinion, or propositions that are generally accepted, propositions that contradict the contraries of opinions that are taken to be generally accepted, and opinions that are in accordance with the recognized arts.  Propositions contradicting the contraries of general opinions will pass as general opinions, for if it is a general opinion that one ought to do good to one’s friends, it will also be a general opinion that one ought no to do them any harm.  Here, that one ought to do harm to one’s friends is contrary to the general view, and that one ought not to do them harm is the contradictory of the contrary.  Likewise also, if one ought to do good to one’s friends, one ought not to do good to one’s enemies (this too is the contradictory of the view contrary to the general view; the contrary being that one ought to do good to one’s enemies).
     A dialectical problem is a subject of inquiry that contributes either to choice or avoidance, or to truth and knowledge, and that either by itself, or as a help to the solution of some other such problem.  It must, moreover, be something on which either people hold no opinion either way, or the masses hold a contrary opinion to the philosophers, or the philosophers to the masses, or each of them among themselves. For some problems it is useful to know with a view to choice or avoidance, while some it is useful to know merely with a view to knowledge.  Problems also include questions in regard to which reasonings conflict; others also in regard to which we have no argument because they are so vast (whether the universe is eternal or not).
      A ‘thesis’ is a supposition of some eminent philosopher that conflicts with the general opinion.  Or it may be a view about which we have a reasoned theory contrary to men’s usual opinions.  A thesis may also be a problem (though a problem is not always a thesis).  Theses are suppositions in conflict with general opinion.  Practically all dialectical problems are now called ‘theses.’  Not every problem or thesis should be examined, only one which might puzzle one of those who need argument,
 Dialectical arguments have several species: 1) Induction (a passage from individuals to universals [this is a very convincing and clear form of arguing, readily grasped by the use of the senses and applicable generally to the mass of men] or 2) Reasoning (a more forceful and effective way of arguing, especially against contradictory people).
     The means whereby we are to become well supplied with reasoning are four: 1) the securing of propositions, 2) the power to distinguish in how many senses a particular expression is used, 3) the discovery of the differences of things, and 4) the investigation of likeness. 
     On propositions.  One may first take in hand the opinions held by all or by most men or by philosophers.  One should indicate also the opinions of individual thinkers, e.g., ‘Empedocles said that the elements of bodies were four’: for any one might assent to the saying of some generally accepted authority.
     Of propositions and problems there are three divisions: 1) ethical (e.g., ‘Ought one rather to obey one’s parents or the laws, if they disagree?’) , 2) natural philosophy (e.g., ‘Is the universe eternal or not?’), and 3) logical (e.g., ‘Is the knowledge of opposites the same or not?’).  For purposes of philosophy we must treat of these things according to their truth, but for dialectic only with an eye to general opinion.  All propositions should be taken in their most universal form; then the one should be made into many.  In the same way these two should be divided, as long as division is possible. 
     Whether a term bears a number of specific meanings or one only may be considered by the following means. First, look and see if its contrary bears a number of meanings, whether the discrepancy between them be one of kind or one of names.  For in some cases a difference is at once displayed even in the names (e.g., the contrary of ‘sharp’ in the case of a note is ‘flat,’ while in the case of a solid edge it is ‘dull.’).  In some cases there is no discrepancy in the names used, but a difference of kind between the meanings is at once obvious (e.g., in the case of ‘clear’ and ‘obscure’: for sound is called ‘clear’ and ‘obscure’, just as ‘color’ is too).  Moreover, see if one sense of a term has a contrary, while another has absolutely none (e.g., to ‘love’ as a frame of mind has ‘to hate’ as its contrary; but as a physical activity like kissing, it has none: hence, ‘love’ is an ambiguous term).  Further, see in regard to their intermediaries, if some meanings and their contraries have an intermediate, while others have none, or if both have one but not the same one (e.g., ‘clear’ and ‘obscure’ in the case of colors have ‘gray’ as an intermediate, whereas in the case of sound they have none: hence, the terms ‘clear’ and ‘obscure’ are ambiguous).  See, moreover, if some of them have more than one intermediate, while others have but one (e.g., as in the case with ‘clear’ and ‘obscure,’ for in the case of colors there are a number of intermediates, whereas in regard to sound there is but one, ‘harsh.’).
     In the case of the contradictory opposite, look and see if it bears more than one meaning.  For if this bears more than one meaning, then the opposite of it also will be used in more than one meaning (e.g., ‘to fail to see’ is a phrase with more thn one meaning: ‘to fail to possess the power of sight’ or ‘to fail to notice’).
     Examine inflected forms (e.g., if ‘justly’ has more than one meaning, then ‘just’ also will be used with more than one meaning).
 Look also at the classes of the predicates signified by the term, and see if they are the same in all cases.  For if they are not the same, then clearly the term is ambiguous (e.g., ‘good’ in the case of food means ‘productive of pleasure,’ in the case of medicine, ‘productive of health’, in the case of the soul, to be of a certain quality like temperate, just, courageous).  Sometimes a term signifies what happens at a certain time (e.g., a ‘good’ [propitious] time).  Often it signifies what is of a certain quantity (e.g., a ‘good’ amount of wine).  Hence, the term ‘good’ is ambiguous.
     Look also at the genera of the objects denoted by the same term (e.g., ‘horse’ as an animal or as an engine, as in ‘horsepower’).
     Often in the actual definitions as well ambiguity creeps in unawares, and for this reason the definitions also should be examined (this is the case when we use synonyms).  Moreover, since the species is never the differentia of anything, look and see if one of the meanings included under the same term be a species and another a differentia (e.g., ‘clear’ [white] as applied to a body is a species of color, whereas in the case of a note it is a differentia, for one note is differentiated from another by being ‘clear’).
     Likeness should be studied, first in the case of things belonging to different genera, the formula being: ‘A : B = C : D’  (e.g., as knowledge stands to the object of knowledge, so is sensation related to the object of sensation), and ‘As A is in B, so is C in D’ (e.g., as sight is in the eye, so is reason in the soul, and as is a calm in the sea, so is windlessness in the air).  Practice is more especially needed in regard to terms that are far apart.
     It is useful to have examined the number of meanings of a term both for clearness’ sake (for a man is more likely to know what it is he asserts, if it has been made clear to him how many meanings it may have), and also with a view of ensuring that our reasonings shall be in accordance with the actual facts and not addressed merely to the terms used.  For as long as it is not clear in how many senses a term is used, it is possible that the answerer and the questioner are not directing their minds upon the same thing.  It helps us also both to avoid being misled and to mislead by false reasoning: for if we know the number of meanings of a aterm, we shall certainly never be misled by false reasoning, but shall know if the questioner fails to address his argument to the same point; and when we ourselves put the questions we shall be able to mislead him, if our answerer happens to know the number of meanings of our terms.
     The discovery of the differences of things helps us both in reasonings about sameness and difference, and also in recognizing what any particular thing is.  For when we have discovered a difference of any kind whatever between the objects before us, we shall already have shown that they are not the same.
     The examination of likeness is useful with a view both to inductive arguments and to hypothetical reasonings, and also with a view to the rendering of definitions.   It is useful for hypothetical reasonings because it is a general opinion that among similars what is true one one is true also of the rest.  Likewise, also, in the case of objects widely divergent, the examination of likeness is useful for purposes of definition, e.g., the sameness of a calm at sea, and windlessness in the air (each being a form of rest).

Aristotle’s On Sophistical Refutations:

     Ch. 1: Sophistical refutations appear to be refutations but are actually fallacies instead.  For some reasonings are genuine while others seem to be so but are not.
     Ch. 2: Sophistical arguments in dialogue form consist of four classes: 1) Didactic (those arguments that reason from the principles appropriate to each subject and not from the opinions held by the answerer), 2) Dialectical (those arguments that reason from premises generally accepted, to the contradictory of a given thesis), 3) Examination-arguments (those that reason from premises which are accepted by the answerer and that anyone who pretends to possess knowledge of the subject is bound to know), and 4) Contentious arguments (those that reason or appear to reason to a conclusion from premises that appear to be generally accepted but are not so). 
     There are five arguments used in competitions and contests: 1) Refutation (to refute the other party [e.g., “that’s your opinion; it’s a free country”]), 2) Fallacy (to show he is committing a fallacy [e.g, “that does not compute, now, does it?”), 3) Paradox (to lead him into a paradox [e.g., “so, is it A or is it B?”]), 4) Solecism (to make the answerer, in consequence of the argument, to use an ungrammatical expression [e.g, “oh, sh . . . , did I say that?”]), and 5) To reduce the opponent in the discussion to babbling (e.g., to make him repeat himself [e.g, Reagan’s “there he goes again!”]).

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics:

BOOK IX:  On Friendship.  In all friendships between dissimilars, proportion equalizes the parties and preserves the friendship.  But in friendships between lovers sometimes the lover complains that his excess of love is not met by love in return, while often the beloved complains that the lover who formerly promised everything now performs nothing.  Such incidents happen when the lover loves the beloved for the sake of pleasure while the beloved loves the lover for the sake of utility. If these are the objects of the friendship, it is dissolved when they do not get the things that formed the motives of their love, for each did not love the other person himself but the qualities he had, and these were not enduring.  But the love of character endures because it is self-dependent. 
      On gifts.  If a gift is made with a view to a return, it is preferable that the return made should be one that seems fair to both parties.  We must for the most part return benefits rather than oblige friends.  But one should not make the same return to everyone, nor give a father the preference in everything.  We ought to render to each class what is appropriate and becoming.  One should honor one’s parents before all others, as one does to the gods, in the matter of food, since they gave us being.  To other persons one should give honor appropriate to their age, by rising to receive them and finding seats for them and so on, but to comrades and brothers one should allow them freedom of speech and common use of all things. 
      On friendship (continues).  Friendships may be broken off when the other party does not remain the same, e.g., when a friendship was formed for the sake of utility or pleasure and our friend no longer has those attributes.  Likewise, when one accepts another man as good and he turns out badly, one should break the friendship since only the good can be loved.  If the friend is capable of being reformed, one should assist him, but a man who breaks off such a friendship (with a bad person) would seem to be doing nothing strange.  Likewise, if a friend remains the same while the other becomes better and far outstrips him in virtue, a friendship is necessarily broken, for they can no longer agree on the same things, nor find the same delight or pain in them: “for not even with regard to each other will their tastes agree.” Hence, they cannot remain friends. 
 Friendly relations with one’s neighbors seem to proceed from a man’s relations to himself.  A friend is one who wishes and does what is good for the sake of his friend, wishes him to live for his sake, one who lives with and has the same tastes as himself, and grieves and rejoices with his friend.  We should strain to avoid wickedness and be good, for only then can we be friendly to ourselves or friends to others.
     On goodwill.  Goodwill is a friendly sort of relation but is not identical with friendship, for it does not involve intensity or desire, whereas these accompany friendly feeling, and friendly feeling implies intimacy.  Goodwill seems then to be a beginning of friendship, “as the pleasure of the eye is the beginning of love. For no one loves if he has not first been delighted by the form of the beloved, but he who delights in the form of another does not, for all that, love him, but only does so when he also longs for him when absent and craves for his presence; so too it is not possible for people to be friends if they have not come to feel goodwill for each other.” Goodwill, hence, is inactive friendship, though when it is prolonged and reaches the point of intimacy it becomes friendship.  Goodwill arises on account of some excellence and worth.
     On unanimity.  Unanimity also seems to be a friendly relation.  It is about things to be done that people are said to be unanimous.  Unanimity seems then to be political friendship, for it is concerned with things that are to our interest and have an influence on our life.  But bad men cannot be unanimous except to a small extent, any more than they can be friends, since they aim at getting more than their share of advantages, while in labor and public service they fall short of their share, and each man wishing for advantage to himself criticizes his neighbor and stands in his way.
     On benefactors.  Benefactors are thought to love those they have benefited more than those who have been well treated love those that have treated them well.  It is part of human nature for most people to be forgetful and more anxious to be well treated than to treat others well.  Also, people feel uncomfortable being in a position of debtor, for they wish that their creditors did not exist (for they are obliged to them).  What is pleasant is the activity of the present, the hope of the future, the memory of the past; but most pleasant is that which depends on activity and, similarly, the most lovable.  Love is like activity, being loved like passivity, and loving and its concomitants are attributes of those who are the more active.  Again, all men love more what they have won by labor.  Hence, mothers are more fond of their children than fathers, for bringing them into the world costs them more pains and they know better that the children are their own.
     On self love.  The good man should be a lover of self, for he will profit by doing noble deeds and will benefit his fellows, but the wicked man should not, for he will hurt both himself and his neighbors, following as he does evil passions. 
Whether the happy man needs friends or not.  He does, for man is a political creature, not a solitary being.  He needs people to do well by.  It is also better to spend one’s time with friends and good men than with strangers or chance persons.  Happiness, also, is an activity, so, the supremely happy man will need friends (to be continually active).  A good man delights in virtuous actions and is vexed at vicious ones.  A virtuous friend seems to be naturally desirable for a virtuous man.  Life seems to be essentially the act of perceiving or thinking.  Hence, a good and virtuous man needs to be conscious of the existence of his friend by their living together and sharing in discussion and thought, for this is what living together is about in the case of men (in the case of cattle it is merely feeding in the same place). 
     One should have a few good friends, and not friends based solely on utility or pleasure.  Love is ideally a form of excess of friendship, and that can only be felt towards one person.  Great friendships can only be felt towards a few people.  Friends are more necessary in bad than in good fortune, but friendship is more noble in good fortune.  Friends comfort us by their sight and words.  It is nobler to give than to receive gifts.
     Friendship is a partnership and the most desirable thing for friends is to live together.  Friends become better by their common activities and by improving each other.

BOOK X:  On pleasure.  Pleasure is most intimately connected with our human nature.  Hence, we need to educate the young in this pursuit.  To enjoy the things we ought and hate the things we should has the greatest bearing on virtue and character.  Men choose what is pleasant and avoid what is painful.  That is most an object of choice which we choose not because or for the sake of something else.  Pleasure is in itself an object of choice.  Pleasure is something whole, not a movement towards something else.  Pleasure is also not continuous.  When the intelligible or sensible object and the discriminating or contemplative faculty are as they should be, pleasure will be involved in the activity.  Pleasure completes the activities, and therefore, life, which they desire.  Without activity pleasure does not arise, and every activity is completed by the attendant pleasure.
      Activities are hindered by pleasures arising from other sources (as when one is playing the flute and attending to arguments).  We can only do one activity at one time to get the most pleasure from it.  If we engage in two simultaneously, one overwhelms the other.  In the theater, people eat sweets when the actors are poor.
      Pleasures of the mind are superior to pleasures of the senses.  And of the pleasures associated with the senses, sight is superior to touch, and hearing and smell to taste.  Each animal has its proper pleasure and function, which correspond to its activity.
      On happiness.  Happiness is the end of human nature.  It is not a disposition (like sleep, which is common not only to man) but an activity.  Happiness is also self-sufficient.  Virtuous actions are desirable in themselves and not for something else.  Virtue and reason.  Pleasant amusements are pleasant but not ends in themselves.  Happiness is an end.  Happiness is activity in accordance to virtue (according to reason).  It is also of a contemplative nature.  Philosophic wisdom is the pleasantest of virtuous activities.  Those who know will pass their time more pleasantly than those who inquire.  Self-sufficiency is part of the contemplative activity. Happiness is thought to depend on leisure, for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war to live in peace.  The activity of the practical virtues is exhibited in political or military affairs, but the actions concerned with these seen to be unleisurely.  Political and military actions are noble and great but are not associated with leisure.  But the activity of reason, which is contemplative, is superior (to them) and aims at no end beyond itself, and to have its pleasure proper to itself.  It is self-sufficient, leisurely, unwearied, and complete.  Reason is divine.  What is proper to each thing is by nature best and most pleasant for each thing.  For man, life according to reason is best and pleasantest, since reason more than anything else is man.  The life of reason is, hence, the happiest (for man).
      But the life in accordance with the other types of virtue is also happy.  Practical reason is linked to virtue of character, and this to practical wisdom.  The life of the passions is also a happy live provided we use the median virtues.  But the contemplative man needs nothing to be happy for he is self-sufficient (e.g., he won’t need money to be liberal, or opportunity to be temperate).  Perfect happiness is a contemplative activity and similar to the lives of the gods, who contemplate all things men do.
      None of the other animals is happy since they in no way share in contemplation. Happiness, therefore, must be some form of contemplation.  But even with moderate advantages one can act and live virtuously and be happy.  The philosopher is the happiest man and dearest to the gods, for he is most like them. 
      Are we made good by nature, habituation, or teaching?  Nature’s gifts do not depend on us.  Argument and teaching are not powerful with all men.  The sould of the student must be cultivated by means of habits for noble joy and noble hatred.  Passion seems to yield to no argument but to force.  To habituate one to good, right laws must be enacted to stimulate men to virtue; and chastisements exacted (including banishment for the incurably bad) from those inclined to evil, for most people obey necessity rather than argument, and punishment rather than the sense of what is noble. 
      Public control is best effected by laws.  Hence the art of politics (of the statesman) is most important (the art of legislating). 

Longinus

Example of the Sublime in Nature

“Longinus” was a Greek literary critic from the 1st. century AD and author of On the Sublime, a famous and “long” (hence the name) Greek treatise of literary criticism.  Nothing is known of  “Longinus’s” life, and for a long time On the Sublime was attributed to Cassius Longinus (ca. 213-273), a Greek rhetorician and philosopher of the Neoplatonic school whose anti-Roman sentiments earned him his execution for treason. On the Sublime is one of the monuments of literary criticism.  Its author is often referred as Pseudo-Longinus. 

Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC–8 BC), a Latin poet, is one of the greatest of lyric poets and satirists.  He was born in Venusia, in Southern Italy, and studied at Rome and Athens.  He upheld the Roman Republic although he fared quite well under the imperial period of Caesar Augustus.  He was also supported by Maecenas, a benefactor of the arts and at one time friend of the emperor, who granted Horace a farm in the Sabine Hills.  Horace’s works consist of two books of Satires (Sermones), which appeared in 35 and 29 BC; the Epodes (Iambi), ca. 30 BC; four books of Odes (Carmina), ca. 24 BC, two books of Epistles (Epistolae), ca. 20 BC; a hymn (Carmen Saeculare), and the Ars Poetica or Epistle to the Pisos (ca. 13 BC), one of the best-known Roman contributions to literary criticism. 

Emperor Caesar Augustus

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Plotinus

Plotinus

Plotinus divides the realm of intelligible things into three:

• 1.  The One.  The One is the absolutely transcendental, unknowable object of worship and desire.  The One emanates or overflows, like light from the sun, to create the world of intelligence, and that in turn emanates into the world of the soul.  It is in contemplation of the higher, creative principle that the lower receives its form or impress.
• 2.  Intelligence or nous (Gk. mind: Reason, and especially the faculty of intellectual apprehension, as distinct from mere empirical knowledge.  For Plato it is the quality enabling one to apprehend the forms).  The world of intelligence is that of ideas or concepts, but conceived as ideas in the mind of the One, although also conceived as the realm of number.
• 3.  The Soul.  The soul is incorporeal, substantial, and immortal, and capable of transmigration (metempsychosis).  Individual souls exist as reflections of the one cosmic Soul and their aim is to direct their contemplation back up the hierarchy, eventually to obtain light and vitality by contemplative absorption in the One.

Neoplatonism:  The fusion of Plato's philosophy with religious, Pythagorean, and other classical doctrines, originated by Plotinus in the Enneads.  The Universe is an emanation of the One, the omnipresent, transcendental Good.  The One gives rise to the realm of nous (ideas, intelligence) and that in turn to the soul, or souls, some of which sink into bodies and others remain celestial.  Boethius mixes these doctrines with Christianism.  Influential on Dante, the cabbala (Jewish mysticism, dealing with the cosmos, angels, magic, and Gnosticism [gnosis is revealed but secret knowledge of God enabling those who possess it to achieve salvation]), and Medieval and Renaissance philosophy.  However, the God of the Neoplatonists is far too remote from the world, unlike the God of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.  It is not accessible by prayer and it is not concerned with events further down.  It is a self-sufficient God, but not self absorbed.

St. Augustine

 (Aurelius Augustinus) 
[13 November 354 AD-28 August 430 AD]

St. Augustine (Aurelius Augustinus) is one of the four great Fathers of the Latin Church (the others are St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and St. Gregory the Great).  He was born in Numidia (North Africa), the son of Patricius (a pagan father) and a Christian mother (St. Monica).  Augustine was of a sensual disposition, like his father, and in his early years fathered a son, Adeodatus.  He was also fascinated by the Latin poets and Plato and studied rhetoric in Carthage.  His Greek and Hebrew were not as strong as his Latin.  As a pagan he joined the Manicheans, who believed that the world was ruled by good and evil forces, associated with light and dark.  However, when he traveled first to Rome and then Milan, he was first taken by Neoplatonism and then by the rhetoric of St. Ambrose and the Scriptures of St. Paul.  He became subsequently a Christian in 386.  After his conversion he gave up his profession as a teacher of rhetoric and devoted himself to Christian thought in solitude.  With Ambrose and, earlier, St. Athanasius and St. Anthony of the Desert, St. Augustine is connected with monasteries and the monastic life, or study in solitude.  Many of his Christian works are attacks on paganism, like Contra Academicos (against the skepticism of the New Academy), Contra Manichaeos, De correctione Donatistarum (against Donatus), vs. Pelagius.  His most famous works are The City of God (where he sees Christianity rising as a new civic order on the ruins of the Roman Empire) and his Confessions (an autobiographical work where he repents of his former life).  He also wrote a systematic treatise On the Trinity.  He was made bishop of Hippo in 396 and died when the city was being invaded by the Vandals.  An important contribution to the theory of signs is found in his treatise On Christian Doctrine.

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux

(1636-1711)

         Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636-1711).  L’Art poétique (The Art of Poetry) [1674].
 

• Canto 1: The main thesis here is that the poetic art is “innate.”  The rest of the canto is prescriptive.  The main recommendations are:  Before writing, learn how to think.  Love reason.  Rhyme is a slave to reason and good sense.  Avoid all superfluous words.  Vary your style of writing, but always avoid the low style.  Be aware of always giving pleasure to your audience, to the point of choosing words and even cadences with care.  Work in a leisurely way and revise your work often.  Do not write in a hurry.  Be critical of your work.  Cultivate friends who will criticize your work rather than praise it.
• Canto 2: Since this is an eighteenth-century poetics, the emphasis here is on a modest, simple, and unostentatious style (unlike the Baroque in the seventeenth century).  However, even here one must write with conviction: “it is not enough to be a poet; one must be a lover” (244).  Essentially, Boileau gives here an account of sundry poetic forms: 1) the ode, which is impetuous; 2) the sonnet, which is rigorous; 3) the epigram, which is brief and witty; 4) the conceit, of Italian origin, full of false charms; 5) the rondeau, Gallic in origin, and artless; 6) the ballade, with old maxims and freaks of rhyme; 7) the madrigal, simple, noble, sweet, tender, and loving; 8) the satire, which can be bold in its condemnation of vice (Lucilius), sprightly (Horace), severe (Persius), and hyperbolic (Juvenal); and the 9) vaudeville, a French witty and mischievous form of satire.  Whatever one condemns or attacks by means of satire, it should be done with good sense and art.  Spare God and the divine.
• Canto 3: This canto devotes itself to tragedy, the epic, and comedy.  In essence, what Boileau recommends is that the poet should always strive to be clear from the beginning in order to “please and touch” (246): “To draw tears from me, you must first weep yourself” (247).  In tragedy, one must fix the place (unity of place) of the action (unity of action) and the time (unity of time), and not be like the barbarous plays of the Spaniards (“Beyond the Pyrenees”).  Observe verisimilitude, avoid the absurdly marvelous, and narrate what ought not to be seen (usually the violent and the obscene).  Complications should increase and prepare the ground for a sudden revelation (what Aristotle calls the anagnorisis) and change (Aristotelian peripety or peripeteia).  At first, tragedy consisted of a chorus who sang to honor Dionysus (the god of wine) and assure one of a good vintage (cf. Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy).  The most accomplished singer received a goat (Gr. tragos).  The first tragic poet was Thespis.  Aeschylus added characters to the chorus, covered their faces (with masks), and had them wear socks (buskins [Sp. coturnos]) on a raised platform or stage. Sophocles perfected tragedy [NB: it is strange that Boileau omits Euripides, who added psychological intensity to the characters] and the Romans never attained the “divine heights” of the Greeks (the Romans would have been Seneca [for tragedy], and Plautus and Terence [for comedy]).  The theater was abhorred by the early pious French and hence was unknown for a long time in France, except in some religious skits (a similar thing happened in Spain).  Love then entered the scene, as it did in the novel.  In tragedy, it is important to observe the law of decorum and treat tragic heroes with the appropriate dignity, according to their (historical) models.  Hence, King Agamemnon (the Greek general who destroyed Troy) should be proud, Achilles angry, Aeneas austere, etc.  The novel is amusing and frivolous, but the stage is exacting and demands strict decorum and judgment.  Each passion speaks a different language.  Different climates tend to make different humors.  Customs of centuries and of countries should be known and observed. The epic is grander than tragedy (in extension) and contains a vast narrative of long-continued action.  Its lifeblood is the marvelous (the admirable).  Its purpose is to enchant.  An epic hero should be splendid in valor and magnificent in virtue.  Even his faults should be heroic.  His exploits should keep our attention (e.g., Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, King Louis of France).  Narration here should be brief and concise, but description opulent and stately.  The beginning should be simple and unaffected.  Use verbal figures, aim to please, and create an agreeable picture.  Comedy was born as a development of tragedy in Athens.  At first it was satirical and farcical, as well as licentious (e.g., Aristophanes in Athens; Plautus in Rome).  Eventually it lost its venom and became instructive and an innocent pleasure (with Menander in Athens; Terence in Rome).  Nature should be comedy’s guide.  Know mankind well.  Times and humors change, as well as attitudes and customs.  Be aware of those things and observe the appropriate decorum.  The young should be impulsive, volatile in their desires, and egotistical; the mature person should be wise; the old peevish.  Comedy is the enemy of tears. 
• Canto 4:  This canto offers solid advice to writers.  If one can’t write, well, be a mason or whatever else you might excel at.   All arts are necessary.  Listen to advice.  Accept censure without grumbling.  Your work should be worthy of your mind and morals.  Cherish virtue and avoid meanness of heart and contemptible jealousy (which are signs of vulgar and mediocre minds).  AND, “Do not let writing be your continual employment.” Cultivate friends, be responsible, be pleasant, learn to talk well, and to live [in other words, as Sharon Stone would say at the end of the movie Sliver: “get a life”].

John Locke

(1632-1704)

         John Locke (1632-1704).  An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)

         Locke prioritizes ideas over words.  In our postmodern age, words refer to other words in a continuous pursuit of a constantly deferred meaning (idea). 
         Hence, there is no truth (épistème), only opinion (doxa).  For Locke, however, there is episteme if only one finds the correct word to express it. 

• Hence, in Book 3, chapter 2, Locke believes that words are external sensible signs necessary to communicate to others the invisible ideas of our thoughts.  But the sounds themselves are arbitrary and imposed on others by mere will.  They themselves do not contain “truth” [contrary to what Plato has Socrates postulate in the Cratylus].  Words stand for the ideas in our mind.   However, one supposes that words stand for the reality of things, but in reality, their signification is totally arbitrary.  They signify ONLY one’s peculiar ideas. 
• 3. 3:  In addition, words refer to general terms, for it would be impossible for words to refer to every particular thing (communication would be impossible).  Hence, words become signs of general ideas and ideas become general by separating from them the circumstances of time and place.  Hence, general words become abstractions.  Definitions of words are merely attempts to make others understand what ideas we have in mind: “For definitions, as has been said, being only the explaining of one word by several others” [NB: here Locke would come close to Paul de Man and other postmodernists].  General and universal ideas refer only to our definitions of ideas, not to the real existence of things.  The essence or genus is an abstract idea (real), different from the particular (nominal) object, which is subject to decay and decomposition.  Hence, a (nominal) man may die and become dust, but the (real) idea of man is incorruptible and “immortal” even if all men died (in other words, the idea of man would still prevail).  [NB: A problem with this is: who would know that?  Also, inventions would then be just as real [unicorns, griffins] even if they did not nominally exist]).
• 3.9: Words have two functions: a) to record our thoughts and b) to communicate them.  Any words would serve the first purpose, but only specific words would serve the second purpose (by their civil [commercial] or philosophical [correct] use).  Words in the second category serve well only if they excite in others the same ideas one has.  But since words have no signification, they must be learned and retained in order to exchange our thoughts and communicate.  Complex ideas are made up of many thoughts and are harder to grasp.  If not “understood,” words are mere noise and sound.  Moral words are very difficult to grasp and understand because they connote complex ideas and because they have no necessary standard in nature (they are imaginary concepts [e.g., think of words like honor, grace, faith, love]).  Ancient authors become obscure because the meaning of their words would have changed over time.  But even words that refer to substances are hard to fathom, like the referent “gold” (which would mean different things if one referred to color, fusibility, weight, etc.).  As Locke states, “The greatest parts of disputes [are] more about the signification of words than a real difference in the conception of things” (264).   Define your terms first. The names of simple ideas are the least doubtful (white, sweet, yellow, bitter), but not those that refer to a collection of simple ideas (modesty, frugality).  Simple modes are easier to grasp (seven, triangle).  The most doubtful terms are the names of very complex mixed modes and substances (terms used in religion, morality, law).  Hence, let us be charitable when we read older authors whose words have changed meaning over time and on account of being from different places (like ancient Greek authors, for instance).  That’s why there are volumes of interpreters and commentators of the old and new Testaments.
• 3.10:  The ends of language are: a) to make known one man’s thoughts or ideas to another, b) to do it with as much ease and quickness as possible, and c) to convey the knowledge of things.  We abuse words when we use them without a clear idea of what they mean, or when we mean other things, or when we use words whose meaning is ambiguous and mean several things (cf. “war on terror”).  Figurative speech is false and to be avoided, for we seek by it pleasure and delight instead of information and improvement.  It insinuates wrong ideas, moves the passions, misleads the judgment, and deceives.

• Introduction: The three arts presented here (the anonymous The Principles of Letter-Writing [1135 AD], Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s The New Poetics [c. 1210 AD], and Robert of Basevorn’s The Form of Preaching [1322]) cover 187 years, going from 1135 to 1322.  The ancient world, which comes to an end with St. Augustine’s De doctrina christiana (426 AD), produced four separate rhetorical traditions (rhetoric being a set of precepts that provide a definite method or plan for speaking and writing): 1) The Aristotelian Tradition, consisting of the Rhetoric, the Topica, and On Sophistical Refutations. This tradition is philosophical and its method is logical and dialectical.  Aristotle’s works were required reading at Paris and Oxford.  2) The CiceronianTradition, consisting of