Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion

Heinrichs describes concession as the most powerful logos tool, “rhetorical jujitsu that uses your opponent’s moves to your advantage” (3). One example is the argument between Heinrichs and his son in Chapter 1: Heinrichs convinces George to get him a toothpaste tube by pretending the latter won their argument.

Consensus is argument’s main prize. It represents “an audience’s commonsense thinking” (9), or shared faith in a persuader’s choice. Emotional persuasion is often critical to achieving consensus.

Decorum is an ethos tool. First coined by the ancient Romans, decorum describes character-based agreeability. In Latin, “decorum means ‘fit,’ as in suitable” (45) and responds to changes in a social environment. To be persuasive, a persuader must meet their audience’s expectations. By doing so, the audience will find them agreeable. There are several ways to be decorous: code grooming (using language particular to an audience), identity strategy (distinguishing the audience from outsiders), and irony (saying something to outsiders with a meaning obvious only to the tribe).

Deliberative rhetoric is one of Aristotle’s three types of rhetorical persuasion (the other two being demonstrative and forensic). This rhetoric form handles arguments about choices and concerns itself with the future. To Aristotle, “deliberative argument’s chief topic is ‘the advantageous’” (28), meaning it promises a payoff. Deliberative arguments require proof; commonplace and other examples serve as proof in deduction and induction.

Demonstrative rhetoric is one of Aristotle’s three types of rhetorical persuasion (the other two being deliberative and forensic). Its focus is weighing right and wrong, on values that bring a group together. Demonstrative rhetoric uses the present tense. Examples of this rhetoric form include commencement addresses, funeral orations, and sermons. Heinrichs uses excerpts from President Barack Obama’s career to illustrate demonstrative rhetoric as well.

Disinterest is one of Aristotle’s three ethos qualities (the other two being practical wisdom and virtue). This quality is also known as eunoia. Many people use “disinterest” and “uninterest” (not showing interest) interchangeably, but rhetorical disinterest does not mean uninterest. In fact, showing no interest in a topic makes for weak argumentation. Rhetorical disinterest is “an apparent willingness to sacrifice your own interests for the greater good” (415).

To Heinrichs, an “audience must think you have these noble attributes, that does not mean you must have them in reality” (77). There are a number of rhetorical tricks that can convince an audience of a persuader’s impartiality: the reluctant conclusion (the audience believes the persuader reluctantly reached a conclusion despite their own desires), the personal sacrifice (the speaker convinces the audience that their choice will help the latter more than the former), dubitation (the speaker appears in doubt to avoid looking manipulative), and authenticity (the speaker makes their audience think they are being genuine, even if it isn’t true).

Aristotle’s enthymeme is a lack of premise in an argument. To Heinrichs, “Aristotle made rhetorical logic zippier by streamlining the syllogism, ditching the middle line and leaving out the ‘if-then’ part” (139). In other words, enthymeme uses a belief, value, or attitude (commonplace) as a first step in convincing an audience to support a choice. An enthymeme falls under deductive logic, applying a general principle to a specific issue. To illustrate this, Heinrichs first describes a syllogism: “If babes go for Priapic divers, and/If you go for babes,/Then you should buy a Priapic” (139). Heinrichs then applies an enthymeme: “Babes go for Priapic owners. You should buy a Priapic” (139). In the second example, Heinrichs removes the middle premise and “if-then” part.

Ethos is one of Aristotle’s three megatools of persuasion (the other two being logos and pathos). In fact, he considered ethos to be the most important of the three tools. In Greek, the word ethos originally meant “habitat;” the word “ethics” is derived from ethos. Heinrichs notes, “An ethical person fits her audience’s rules and values the same way a penguin fits the peculiar habitat of an iceberg” (45). Ethos has to do with a person’s ability to meet their audience’s expectations, their ability to put them in the mindset for persuasion. One’s character and reputation are persuasive whereas lying is unpersuasive in rhetoric. Audiences are more likely to believe a trustworthy persuader’s argument.

Borrowing from Aristotle, Heinrichs describes “three essential qualities of a persuasive ethos” (54): virtue or cause, practical wisdom or craft (phronesis), and disinterest (eunoia). These three qualities work together to ensure that an audience trusts a persuader’s goodness and judgement—and is willing to answer their call to action. Decorum and the liar detector (techniques for judging a person’s trustworthiness) are important ethos tools.

Forensic (legal) rhetoric is one of Aristotle’s three types of rhetorical persuasion (the other two being deliberative and demonstrative). Its focus is “to determine guilt and mete out punishment” (27). In assigning blame to past agents or events, forensic rhetoric employs the past tense.

Kairos, known to the Romans as occasio, is rhetoric timing or the “art of seizing the moment” (422). A persuader with kairos “knows how to spot when an audience is most vulnerable to her point of view, and then exploits the opportunity” (275). Kairos depends on timing and medium. There are three types of persuasive moments: moment spotter (an audience is experiencing uncertain moods or beliefs), perfect audience (the audience is well-disposed to the persuader), and audience change (seeking another audience should the current one be unprepared for persuasion). The five senses are key to finding the right medium. Sound is the most logical sense. Smell, taste, and touch trigger strong emotional reactions; sight is primarily associated with pathos and ethos.

Logos is one of Aristotle’s megatools of persuasion (the other two being ethos and pathos). Logic in rhetoric is different from logic in philosophy. In rhetoric, the audience’s beliefs are just as important as facts, whereas philosophy looks down on public opinion. Formal logic deals in truths and reaches a conclusion that must also be true (syllogism). Rhetorical logic instead focuses on commonplaces to support a choice (enthymeme).

The two basic tools of logos are deductive logic and inductive logic. The former starts with a fact or commonplace (premise) and applies it to a specific example to reach a conclusion. The latter takes a specific example and uses it to prove a premise or conclusion. Deductive logic uses commonplaces as proof, whereas inductive logic uses examples. The two tools allow persuaders to apply available facts, values, and attitudes (commonplaces) to a given issue.

To determine whether or not an argument is logically incorrect, Heinrichs recommends that readers ask themselves the following three questions:

“1. Does the proof hold up?

2. Am I given the right number of choices?

3. Does the proof lead to the conclusion? (164)”

These three questions enable readers to determine whether a logical fallacy is grounded in bad proof, wrong number of choices, or a disconnect between proof and conclusion. There are seven deadly logical sins that fall into these three categories: False comparison, bad example, and ignorance as proof fall under bad proof; the wrong number of choices falls under false choice; and the remaining logical sins fall under a disconnect between proof and conclusion.

There are also three categories of rhetorical fouls—which are “mistakes or intentional offenses that stop an argument dead or make it fail to reach consensus” (422). These categories are speaking in the wrong tense, arguing about values rather than choices, and humiliating an opponent.

Pathos is one of Aristotle’s three megatools of persuasion (the other two being ethos and logos). Synonyms for pathos include rhetorically pathetic, pathetic appeal, and emotional argument. Heinrichs notes, “pathos means more than just ‘feelings’ in the emotional sense. It also has to do with physical sensations—what a person feels or, more precisely, suffers” (82). Emotions such as humility, humor, shame, and sorrow do not motivate people to take action; esteem, emulation, love, and happiness (among others) prove more effective. Effective emotions “arouse people’s tribal instincts—exploiting their insecurities about where they stand in a group and how much they belong to it” (88) and work best in group settings. Heinrichs details a number of pathos tools that can rouse an audience to action—including storytelling, volume control, and simple speech.

Practical wisdom or craft is one of Aristotle’s three qualities of ethos (the other two being disinterest and virtue). This quality is also known as phronesis. Heinrichs describes practical wisdom as when an audience “should consider you a sensible person, as well as sufficiently knowledgeable to deal with the problem at hand. In other words, they believe you know your particular craft” (68). There are three techniques that can convince an audience to trust a speaker’s decision: show off your experience (audiences find experience more trustworthy than book learning), bend the rules (speakers do not need to stick to rules, unless doing so meets an audience’s expectations), and take the “middle course” (speakers should aim for a moderate position to try and cast their opponent’s position as extreme).

Rhetoric “harnesses the most powerful of social forces” (4): argument. In Heinrichs’s words, “It plays with your emotions, changes your attitude, talks you into a decision, and goads you to buy things [...] it forms a real-life Matrix, the supreme software that drives our social lives” (4). The ancient Greeks invented rhetoric to teach individuals, especially aspiring leaders, how to speak and write persuasively. This art form created democracies, trained Roman orators, and inspired William Shakespeare and the founding fathers of the United States. Rhetoric faded from academia during the 1800s, a reality Heinrichs deeply laments. Heinrichs wrote Thank You for Arguing in the hopes that the US education system would reincorporate rhetoric.

Syllogism is a formal logic technique through which a conclusion is drawn based on two premises. It falls under deductive logic, which applies a general principle to a specific issue. Aristotle created a much-used example in “All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal” (138). The conclusion that “Socrates is mortal” is based on the two premises “All men are mortal” and “Socrates is a man.” Another form of syllogism comes from “if-then” thinking: “If most men ages twenty-five to fort read ‘lad’ magazines, and/If ads in these magazines sell lots of cars,/Then we should advertise the Priapic in lad mags” (138). The “Then” statement (conclusion) is derived from the two “If” statements (premises). Like the ancient Greeks, Heinrichs finds syllogism boring and “useless in day-to-day conversation” (138) and argument.

In rhetoric, value does not necessarily mean “‘righteousness’ or ‘truth’” (65). Rather, value refers to what an audience values. If an agent supports their audience’s values, they can prove their trustworthiness and win them over. In doing so, the agent embodies rhetorical virtue.