Plato identified the first aim of rhetoric as the ability to persuade others and advance a certain point of view. Persuasion requires that an audience trust the speaker and creates an appeal to the trust relationship from the audience to the speaker. Plato believed that rhetoric, for the purpose of persuasion, was dangerous and could lead audiences away from truth. Plato wrote about confrontations between Socrates and other Greek philosophers of his time, demonstrating the persuasive nature of their arguments and Plato’s own distaste for the style.
The rhetorical aim of passing along information includes the field of education, instructional manuals and transfer of facts. The field of education, often referred to as pedagogy, is an intricate rhetorical field aimed at finding the most successful methods for disclosing and sharing information from one source to another. The exchange of information, as a rhetorical aim, focuses on the logic supporting the information, degree of trust in the speaker and the audience’s ability to understand the information provided to them.
Plato identified an aim of rhetoric as the search for ultimate truth. Known as the Socratic method, teachers lead students to an understanding of a lesson through clever questioning. This approach is also called philosophical rhetoric. The technique involves discourse between a few individuals, asking questions and evaluating each other’s positions. The Socratic method is very different from persuasion because the Socratic method is not attempting to convince others of a point, just to clarify each other’s points and investigate ideas from different perspectives.
The final aim of rhetoric is to entertain. Such rhetoric involves speeches and presentations often meant to inspire humor, passion or reverence in an audience. Greek philosophers often used rhetoric for this purpose, entertaining crowds of individuals with historical speeches and creative wit. One popular example of this aim of rhetoric is Gorgias’ “Encomium of Helen,” where he spoke eloquently about Helen of Troy, a revered historical figure from "The Iliad.”