Emotion, Aesthetics, and Persuasion: The Rhetorical Force of Galileo’s Argument

Abstract

It was argued in a previous chapter that a book like Galileo’s Dialogue must have a type of content that can best be appreciated after its scientific-logical content has been analyzed. This is what may be called its rhetorical content, in a restricted sense of ‘rhetoric’, according to which the term refers to actual substance present in the book, and not to merely cosmetic verbal expressions of desires and intentions. The substance actually present in the book from this rhetorical point of view is a type of intellectual content, but one that plays upon feelings and emotions, either directly and explicitly by verbal expressions that have the desired emotive effect, or else indirectly and implicitly by emphatic identification with what is explicitly said or done.