Finding the Rhetoric in Physics and Metaphysics

I wasn't able to wrap my mind around Aristotle's writings for this week in a way that would let me figure out a modern day example for what he was talking about, so instead I looked at what he was saying and applied it to rhetoric, since he does not specifically reference rhetoric in his writing.

At the beginning of Metaphysics, Aristotle says "the human race lives...by art and reasonings...[a]nd art arises, when from many notions gained by experience one universal judgement about similar objects is produced" (1552).

I found this to line up with what Aristotle says about rhetoric in Rhetoric. First of all, he says that the human race lives by art and reasonings, and in Rhetoric he is explicit that practicing rhetoric is in fact an art, which goes against what Plato says in both Gorgias and Phaedrus. So, since the human race lives by art, we in a sense also live by rhetoric. He goes on to say what rhetoric arises from, or how it is brought about, which is through experience. We figure out how to practice the art of rhetoric, or how to use the best means of persuasion in a given situation, through experience and practice. This makes sense because you cannot have any art if you don't practice it first.

On the next page, Aristotle says "If...a man has experience and knows the universal but does not know the individual included in this, he will often fail to cure" (1553). He had just been speaking about doctors and what it is to know the universal, which is art, and experience, which is knowledge of individuals. (Side note: I find it interesting how doctors are brought up again and again by classical philosophers and rhetors). I took this to mean that, even though rhetoric is practiced in a group setting, it cannot be known completely on a large scale; it all comes down to the individual practicing rhetoric. Aristotle designates art and experience as two parts that are important in any practice, because without both a person will not be able to cure, or convince, or have any kind of credit as an artist.