On persuasive speech: Marcus Tullius Cicero

The nature of eloquent and persuasive speech has been fiercely debated. Is rhetoric an art or a skill? Does it require natural ability, or can it be aquired through the memorization of a couple of rules and precepts?

Marcus Tullius Cicero spoke of a triad:

• Inborn talent
• Mastery of the art of speaking
• Diligent application of one’s talent and training through practice.

The ideal orator

On one of Cicero’s most interesting works, “On the ideal orator”, he stresses that the most important requisite is practice, while also holding that an orator needs natural gifts of intellect as well as physical qualities such as a good voice and appropriate bodily movement

Difference between being persuasive and being truthful

The power wielded by a skillful speaker, who knows how to persuade through speech and appeal to human emotions is a powerful weapon. One that can be employed for good or for evil.

To illustrate this, we can focus on two extraordinarily effective orators who were involved in the same conflict but on different sides of it, Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler.

In ancient Greece, after the creation of a rhetorical system that was based largely on the principle of argumentation founded on probability, teachers of rhetoric emerged who rejected the ideal sphere of pure reason and absolute truth in favor of the probable and relative, who sometimes endeavored to make the worst seem the better cause.

Philosophers like Socrates and Plato, on the contrary, searching for final and absolute ends, championed truth uncovered through dialectical inquiry.

“I see that no little part of their misfortunes was brought about through the agency of men who were highly skilled in speaking. On the other hand […] I find that many cities have been founded, the flames of very many wars have been extinguished […] not only by the mind’s power of reason but also more easily by eloquence. […] wisdom without eloquence does too little for the good of communities, but eloquence without wisdom is, in most instances, extremely harmful and never beneficial. If, then, anyone exerts all of his energies in the practice of oratory to the neglect of the highest and most honorable pursuits of reason and moral conduct, he is reared as a citizen useless to himself and harmful to his country; but the person who arms himself with eloquence in such a way that enables him not to assail the interests of his country, but rather assist them, this man, in my opinion, will be a citizen most helpful and most devoted both to his own interests and those of the public.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Inventione

Beyond rethoric, combining philosophy with eloquence

Ancient theorists organized their presentation around five parts:

• Invention (discovering, that is, thinking out the material)
• Arrangement (ordering the material)
• Style (putting the ordered material into appropriate words)
• Memory (memorizing the speech)
• Delivery (including directives about voice, facial expression, and gesture).

These five steps make up the process of a speaker when composing and delivering their speech. If you are working on one today, you’ll still find these are effective means for organizing and presenting your ideas.

The issue at hand

Every controversial subjet in speech or debate involves a question about a fact, about a definition, or about the nature or quality of an act. The question from which the whole case arises is called the “issue”.

• When the dispute is about a fact, the issue is called conjectural because the plea is supported by conjectures or inference.
• When the issue is about a definition, it is called definitional, because the meaning of the term must be defined in words.
• When the nature or quality of the act is examined, the issue is called qualitative, in asmuch as the controversy concerns the value of the action and its class or quality
• When the plea depends on the circumstance that it seems the right person does not bring the case, or that he brings it against the wrong person, or before the wrong court, or at the wrong time, under the wrong statute, or for the wrong charge, or with the wrong penalty, the issue is called translative

In every case, one of these issues should be applicable. Since if none of these apply there can be no controversy.

The source of proof

Aristotle, in his handbook On Rhetoric, identified two kinds of available means of persuasion for winning one’s case or argument, what he called nonartistic and artistic proofs. Nonartistic proofs are those that the speaker does not invent by using his art, for example, written contracts and the testimony of witnesses; artistic means of persuasion, which the speaker does create by employing his art, are three in number:

• logos (rational argumentation)
• ethos (the presentation of character)
• pathos (the arousal of emotions in the audience).

Therefore, the method employed in the art of oratory, relies entirely upon three means of persuasion:

1. Proving that our contentions are true [logos]
2. Winning over our audience [ethos]
3. Inducing their minds to feel any emotion the case may demand [pathos].