Dossier
‘Porre davanti agli occhi’: Aristotele e l’attivazione delle emozioni nella retorica
Pubblicato 2024-01-31
Parole chiave
- Aristotle,
- Rhetoric,
- ‘bringing-before-the-eyes’,
- actualisation,
- emotions
Abstract
In Aristotelian psychology, the perception of painful and pleasant passions is essentially a matter of interpreting external stimuli – complex objects or events – by attributing a certain quality to them and representing an image capable of provoking pleasure or pain. In the Rhetoric Aristotle exploits
this fundamental feature of human psychology. He makes it a powerful tool of persuasion that consists in the ability to convey and ‘bringing-before-the-eyes’ of the listener a vivid image capable of arousing emotions in him.