Persuasion
Words can be the most powerful tool used by mankind. When they are used with good intentions they produce great benefits, and when used with bad intentions they produce even greater damages. Aristotle defines rhetoric and explains the power of words. While Pericles displays the influence of rhetoric and persuasion through his speech, Toni Morrison disagrees with the fact that language is used to persuade. Persuasion is defined as ways to manipulate or change a persons thinking. While persuasion may be useful, it usually leads to violence. Though violence is typically physical, it can also be defined as mental injuries to others as well.
As a founder of a school of Rhetoric, Aristotle focuses on defining and emphasizing the usefulness of rhetoric and dialectic in his Rhetoric excerpt. He opens his argument saying, “rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic” (490), showing that in order for one to understand rhetoric, the relationship between rhetoric and dialectic should be understood first. He explains the similarities, saying that, “both are faculties for providing arguments”, displaying that both are used in speech to debate a topic (494). By using this he also explains what the terms mean, as they are both persuasion techniques. He then defines the term more clearly and states, “Rhetorical study, in its strict sense, is concerned with the modes of persuasion. Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration”(491). It is clear that rhetoric is a way to