Rhetoric is a text with a practical aim: it serves as the handbook of the rhetor, a method for writing political, judicial, and demonstrative speeches. However, it is not merely a collection of recipes for success. Aristotle asserts that rhetoric is a system, with sufficiency and methodicalness, which can be articulated as a complete theory, that is, as an art in the ancient sense of the term.

This position is announced at the beginning of the work and is practically supported, so to speak, by the very design and execution of the treatise. Rhetoric is a dual book: both a handbook and a philosophical theorem, at the same time. Throughout its existence, from the 5th century B.C. to the present, the theory of rhetoric has been a subject of controversy.

The reception of Aristotle's Rhetoric, that is, how this book has been read and evaluated over time, is largely a mirror of the adventures of rhetorical theory. The Middle Ages undervalued and ignored it, the Renaissance rediscovered it, and moderns have glorified it, but, it seems, for the wrong reasons: Aristotle's Rhetoric aspires to be the logic of public discourse, political and judicial, while moderns saw in it a technique for rhetoric or/and for deceiving the audience.

Notably, from the late 20th century onwards, there has been a 'rhetorical turn' in the human sciences and philosophy, where rhetoric is primarily understood as the theory of deliberation, and where discussion and research on Aristotle's Rhetoric hold a central position. Rhetoric is a contemporary philosophical book.

The modern Greek translation of the ancient text, the introduction, and the overall editing of the volume is by Pantelis Basakos, emeritus professor of philosophy at Panteion University.