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Aristotle

The Science Guy

Like Plato was Socrates' best student, Aristotle was Plato's best student. Unlike Plato, however, Aristotle's epistemology was notably divergent from that of his teacher. Aristotle believed in absolute truths in that they were truths discoverable through scientific thinking. Aristotle specifically believed in the process of induction - observing a lot of phenomena and coming to a subsequent truth claim. 

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Aristotle recognized that his scientific approach was not universally ideal for problem solving as there were certain issues without an absolutely truth answer. For these issues, probable truths (typically generated through dialectic) would suffice. Rhetoric would then be used to share the absolute or probable truths. 

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That said, Aristotle still didn't put much stock in rhetoric - he felt it was far too emotional for accurately conveying truth. While it wasn't his favorite, Aristotle still recognized the value of rhetoric as he went on to write Rhetoric literally the book on rhetoric. In this he illustrates the appeals - Ethos (credibility), Logos (reason), and Pathos (emotion). He preferred to focus on Logos, but recognized that at times emotionality was important to get through to an audience.

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TL;DR:

  • inductive science => absolute truths => shared via rhetoric

  • dialectic => probable truths => shared via rhetoric

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