be cultivated with others. Whoever appropriates rhetoric, thereby places himself within the possibility of seeing, at each moment, what speaks for a matter. What is suggested by this determination is that rhetoric provides a particular knowing-the-way-around, but in such a way that rhetoric does not deal with a definite subject area, as does, say, arithmetic. It has no underlying matter, no ὑποκείμενον, that it itself is to cognize. It has a τεχνικόν,35 the possibility of providing a knowing-the-way-around, but not about a determinately demarcated region of beings. Instead, its cultivating of πιστεύειν in an audience involves as many various matters as does language. A definition of rhetoric: to see that which speaks for a matter; to cultivate, in speaking itself, πιστεύειν with those to whom one speaks, specifically, about a concern that is up for debate at the time; to cultivate a δόξα. Πιστεύειν is a “view,” δόξα, on which speaking depends, and which, therefore, is presumably something that governs, or guides, the everydayness of being-there, the being-with-one-another of human beings. Being-with-one-another moves in definite, always modifiable views regarding things; it is not an insight, but a “view,” δόξα. It is a δόξα regarding things, but not such that things which are brought to language are themselves thematically investigated. This πιστεύειν, “holding in a view” within being-with-one-another, is that upon which discourse itself depends.
Rhetoric has a definite possibility of setting forth, which puts one in a position to see the πιθανόν, what is conducive to the cultivation of a πιστεύειν. Aristotle also designates this as πίστις.36 Here πίστις is not “belief” or “opinion,” but that which speaks for a definite matter in relation to which a πιστεύειν is to be received. The relation between πιστεύειν and πιθανόν is analogous to that between ἀληθεύειν and ἀληθές—the unconcealable-being-that-is-there, which has the possibility of being conducive to ἀληθεύειν. Ἀληθεύειν is a mode of being-in-the-world, such that one has unconcealed it there just as it is. This ἀληθεύειν is the basic phenomenon toward which we are headed. We will come back to this on another occasion.37 It also underlies λέγειν insofar as δόξα is a definite manner of appropriating beings as they show themselves. Πίστις is that which is conducive to the cultivation of a πιστεύειν. One should be able to see and learn about the πιθανόν through rhetoric. Thus we must first gain an orientation regarding πίστις.
b) The Three πίστεις ἔντεχνοι: ἦθος, πάθος, and λόγος Itself
Aristotle provides a partitioning of the πίστεις: (1) ἄτεχνοι, (2) ἔντεχνοι.38 First, we will consider the πίστεις ἔντεχνοι, that which speaks for a matter that we can have at our disposal, what we ourselves can accomplish by ourselves. We ourselves have the possibility of being something that speaks for a matter.
35. Rhet. Α 2, 1355 b 34.
36. Rhet. Α 2, 1355 b 35.
37. See p. 263 ff.
38. Rhet. Α 2, 1355 b 35.