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Hobbes generally had a low opinion of rhetoric. There is some irony in this: his own rhetorical skills are among the best that exist in philosophy, and he published the first translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric into English (in an abbreviated form: see Bibliography [3]) and thought it was among Aristotle's best work. The English translation was itself a translation of a Latin translation that Hobbes had prepared for his tutee the third earl of Devonshire. The English translation was published in 1637 but no doubt done many years earlier. For Aristotle, the use of rhetoric is not an inherently degenerate activity; it is the art of persuading, primarily with proofs consisting of examples or enthymemes. Because the goal of rhetoric is persuasion, the rhetorician uses as premises propositions that are commonly believed, in particular, by the person to be persuaded ( EW 6:423–5). In his own writings, Hobbes contrasts rhetoric with logic. In The Elements of Law , Hobbes apologizes for its style on the grounds that “whilst I was writing I consulted more with logic than with rhetoric” ( EL “Dedication”). In De Cive , Hobbes says that there are two kinds of eloquence. The kind that relates to logic is “an elegant and clear expression of the conceptions of the mind”; it depends in part on discovering the nature of things themselves and in part on using words properly ( DC 12.12). ... log in or subscribe to read full text