Popular English use of probability synthesizes two
distinct concepts, probability proper (what is statistically most likely to happen) and
credibility (what is most reasonable or believable) The Aristotelian account of eikos
also assumes the two to share overlapping domains. Aristotle deals with eikos at
greatest length in his Rhetoric, because it is an important element of
persuasion.
In Poetics, Aristotle emphasizes that actions
must be probable for the character and situation. He famously stated that "poetry is
more philosophical than history" because poetry deals with universals and history with
particulars. Specifically, poetry deals with things that are probable or likely but not
actual, while history deals with actualities that are often improbable (the more
unlikely an event, the more it is covered by historians or journalists -- thousands of
people every day doing the ordinary act of working at the World Trade Center was not
news; the singluar event of people flying 2 planes into it was
news/history).
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