Abstract
Some art aims to persuade the viewer or audience of certain ethical or political views—Picasso’s Guernica is an example. I aim to consider the quasi-rhetorical persuasive powers which art of this kind has that are analogous to the persuasive powers of rhetoric proper, as found in oratory. I will ask what we can learn about the persuasive powers of art from thinking about it as quasi-rhetoric.
Peter Goldie is The Samuel Hall Chair in Philosophy at The University of Manchester. His main philosophical interests are in the philosophy of mind, ethics and aesthetics, and particularly in questions concerning value and how the mind engages with value. He is the author of The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration (OUP 2000), and On Personality (Routledge, 2004), and co-author of Who’s Afraid of Conceptual Art? (Routledge 2010). Forthcoming from OUP in 2011 are two co-edited volumes: Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives; and The Aesthetic Mind. He is writing a book for OUP on narrative thinking and emotion.