Perspective

Aristotle was a renowned Greek philosopher even at the time of the book's writing. His frequent mention of his previous works (the "Topics," the "Analytics," the "Ethics," and the "Poetics" among others) shows that at the time the "Rhetoric" was written he was already an established authority in Athens. Aristotle's approach to rhetoric, like his approach to any subject, is intensely methodical and systematic. He always begins with a classification of the subject matter and, in this case, he concludes that rhetoric is not an art. He then proceeds to define the subject matter, which definition he provides at the beginning of the second chapter of the first book. The work from there on is to analyze the various parts and applications of the subject matter in such a way as to cover every conceivable question in the greatest amount of detail.

It is important to realize that...