διὰ δὲ τῶν λόγων] In § 3 we are told that there are three kinds of πίστεις or rhetorical proofs, which are conveyed through the channel or medium-(διά with the genitive) of the speech. These three are then described seriatim. The first, § 4, is διὰ τοῦ ἤθους; the second (§ 5), διὰ τῶν ἀκροατῶν, ὅταν εἰς πάθος ὑπὸ τοῦ λόγου προαχθῶσιν; and the third, § 6, διὰ τῶν λόγων, plainly in the sense of the direct πίστεις or arguments proper, ὅταν ἀληθὲς ἢ φαινόμενον δείξωμεν ἐκ τῶν περὶ ἕκαστα πιθανῶν. διὰ τῶν λόγων is the reading of all the MSS except A^{c}, which has τὸν λόγον: but this, as an unnecessary and unaccountable departure from the construction of the parallel expressions, διὰ τοῦ λόγου, τοῦ ἤθους, τῶν ἀκροατῶν, and afterwards διὰ τούτων, seems to be self-condemned. By these λόγοι we may understand either the actual words which are the instruments or medium of the reasonings, or better the reasonings or arguments themselves which the words convey. This explanation appears to be sufficiently rational and consistent, and in accordance with the ordinary usages of the language. Spengel, however, in his paper über die Rhet. des Arist. (Trans. Bav. Acad. 1851) p. 26, and again in his edition of the Rhetoric, Vol. II p. 46, thinks that the text requires alteration, and would read δἰ αὐτοῦ δὲ τοῦ λόγου, or διὰ δ᾽ αὐτοῦ τοῦ λόγου, which seems to be totally unnecessary. The explanation above given is confirmed by the rendering of the Vetus Translatio ‘per orationes autem credimus’, where ‘orationes’ plainly stands for the ‘words of the speeches in which these arguments are expressed’. ἀληθὲς ἢ φαινόμενον] The second of these terms denotes the fallacious branch of Rhetoric, ‘the apparent, unreal, sham’ arguments, exemplified in II 24, and corresponding to the spurious branch of Dialectics treated in the Σοφιστικοὶ ἔλεγχοι, and appended to the Topics. The illustration of these is allowed to enter into a scientific treatise only for the purpose of detecting and exposing these fallacies, and enabling the pleader or dialectician to confute them when employed by an adversary. ἔστι γὰρ ἡ σοφιστικὴ φαινομένη σοφία οὖσα δ᾽ οὔ, de Soph. El. I, 165 a 21.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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