ABSTRACT
Ethos, the means of persuasion within Aristotle’s Rhetoric that receives the briefest treatment, ostensibly appears to be the most straightforward of any of the three proofs. But ethos-the art of an individual speaker giving the “right impression of himself [sic]” and “evinc[ing] a certain character” (Aristotle II.2.1) by means of intelligence and good will-turns out to be the most mutable proof of all, defying neat categorization or characterization (Baumlin). The concept of ethos slips and slides in and out of focus in three ways. First, the malleability of ethos manifests itself in what scholars, in their various translations and commentaries on the Rhetoric, say that Aristotle says. Thus, Lane Cooper gives ethos a practical twist, William M.A.Grimaldi a philosophical spin, and George A.Kennedy a sophistical one (Myers). Second, ethos transforms itself in response to the evocation of particular historicalcultural milieus (Alcorn; Johnson). As Marshall W.Alcorn argues, “[I]f both language and the self undergo historical change, then it must follow that ethos also undergoes historical change…assuming many shapes as those structures change over time” (7). Thus, within specific times and places, ethos evolves in ways that are manifested by and reflected in the social-intellectual predispositions of an era. Third, the malleability of ethos is shown by its elusive discursive position. Within both Aristotle’s Rhetoric and individual historical epochs, the placement of ethos itself (i.e., the locus of “good character”) shifts its point of origin from rhetor to audience, from in the speech to by/through the speech (see II.2.1; see Yoos for ethos as audience based; see Reynolds for ethos as position).
