Free eBooks Rhetoric Available To Downloads
Aristotle's Rhetoric is an ancient Greek treatise on the art of persuasion, dating from the 4th century BC. In English, its title varies: typically it is titled the Rhetoric, the Art of Rhetoric, or a Treatise on Rhetoric. Like the other works of Aristotle that have survived from antiquity, the Rhetoric seems not to have been intended for publication, being instead a collection of his students' notes in response to his lectures. The treatise shows the development of Aristotle's thought through two different periods while he was in Athens, and illustrates Aristotle's expansion of the study of rhetoric beyond Plato's early criticism of it in the Gorgias (ca. 386 BC) as immoral, dangerous, and unworthy of serious study. Plato's final dialogue on rhetoric, the Phaedrus (ca.370 BC), offered a more moderate view of rhetoric, acknowledging its value in the hands of a true philosopher (the "midwife of the soul") for "winning the soul through discourse." This dialogue offered Aristotle, first a student and then a teacher at Plato's Academy, a more positive starting point for the development of rhetoric as an art worthy of systematic, scientific study.
Paperback: 146 pages
Publisher: ReadaClassic.com (September 18, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1611042402
ISBN-13: 978-1611042405
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.3 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #709,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #103 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Methodology #1135 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Greek & Roman #1942 in Books > Reference > Words, Language & Grammar > Rhetoric
Careful where you click! You think you're ordering the Kennedy translation, right? But if you click on the link to "used" under "formats," will take you to an entirely different book - an outdated translation with no footnotes or critical apparatus, published not by Oxford Univ. Press but by "ReadaClassic.com" - without warning you. Really frustrating when you get the wrong book after waiting 10 days for it to arrive!
This review is for the "Readaclassic" publication (check the publisher, not the title, descriptions, or reviews). This is NOT the George Kennedy translation. It's the W. D. Ross 1908 translation that is available for free on the internet. All descriptions and reviews on the page refer to the Kennedy 1991 edition, BUT THIS IS NOT IT. There are NO footnotes, NO commentary, NO introduction or preface, and NO way to cite the text. That means students can't use this version for research. Essentially, this publisher simply copied texts available online, pasted it into his own document, and "published" it without the usual publication data. I understand that Readaclassic is just looking to make a quick buck from someone else's labor, but I'm disappointed that .com is allowing con artists to flood the market with cheap, mislabeled fakes.
It was definitely definitely worth the price. I knew very little about Aristotle at the beginning of the grad level course I was taking. I bought this book on the chance it would be beneficial to my understanding of the required texts. It worked. Kennedy's analysis provided valuable insight that I wouldn't have gained from our normal textbook. Must buy :-) :-)
I received the George Kennedy translation when I ordered the book. I bought this book for a college rhetoric class, and it's one of the few textbooks I've kept! If you've ever read Aristotle, you know that he can be a tedious read. What's more, is that this text was essentially his "lecture notes," so it's not exactly cleaned-up. Fortunately for us students, Kennedy's summaries preceding each chapter and the footnotes following each page proved absolutely invaluable. He highlighted key concepts, revealed ambiguities (e.g. the enthymeme from a syllogism), and did all that in a more familiar, vernacular language where possible. If you're reading Aristotle, get this book!
The footnotes on this text are great. A lot of the wording can be heavy for a first read-through of Aristotle, and Kennedy does his best to make Aristotle more accessible to people who are new to Rhetoric.
The other reviewers are correct. The edition advertised as "Paperback, June 13, 2006" is the superior Kennedy translation. The edition advertised as "Paperback" is the 1924 translation by W. Rhys Roberts.
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