Liz Truss was spot-on in arguing that the only way in which a state can flourish is by combining low taxes with economic growth. But she failed to persuade her audience that she knew how this could be achieved. If only Dr Kwarteng, a classicist, had drawn her attention to Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric (4th century bc), the first full analysis of the means of persuasion, the day and her career would have been saved.
First, Aristotle defined two general types of persuasive proof. One he called ‘artistic’, because it depended upon human ingenuity, the other ‘non-artistic’, because it derived from pre-existing evidence, e.g. witness statements, written contracts, etc. Then he identified three specific areas relevant to successful persuasion: first, the character of the speaker and the contribution his credibility could make (êthos, which he calls ‘the most authoritative form of persuasion’); second, the favourable emotional reactions (pathos) that the speaker could legitimately arouse in his audience; and third, the ‘true or apparently true’ arguments (logos) for his case that the speaker could invent.
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