(Aristoteles, Emotions in Court: Theory and Instructions for Its Use (Aristotle, Rhetoric III)

The long and famous analysis of passions as instruments of persuasion in Book II of the Rhetoric is considered as the main source to reconstruct this complex puzzle which is the Aristotelian theory of emotions. But it is in Book III, dedicated to the linguistic expression of speech (lexis) and to the order of its parts (taxis), that Aristotle gives us in a concrete way the instructions for the use of the emotions and the psychological mechanisms which concern persuasion, like mimesis and empathy. The diversified analysis of the emotional factor in the different parts of the speech is not only a complement to the "rhetoric of the passions" of Book II, but it also allows us to better understand the structure of the Rhetoric itself and shows that the theme of the passions can be considered as one of the main threads of the whole treatise.