The History & Theory of Rhetoric - Assignment Example

Module 2 Question In its usual acceptation, the concept of rhetoric is concerned with persuasion and indifferent to truth. It is primarily aimed at persuading and appeals to emotion than the intellect and therefore could be considered irrational and based not on knowledge but belief without it. This is the reason why I agree with Socrates about rhetoric. A person through rhetoric, for instance, could persuade his audience that he is an expert in a field although he is not. In Phaedrus, Socrates explained this succinctly: When the orator instead… puts good for evil, being himself as ignorant of their true nature as the city on which he imposes is ignorant; and having studied the notions of the multitude, falsely persuades them… about good which he confounds with evil… what will be the harvest. (p. 64) Questions for Review Question 1. Plato rejects the Sophists’ rhetoric because of its alleged exclusion of truth and that it is entirely concerned not with truth but merely with persuasion, often taking advantage of the ignorance of an audience while at the same time pandering to its prejudices instead of seeking a moral and objective foundation. Question 4. In sum, the true art of rhetoric for Plato, must support the theoretical and moral values and on them, within appropriate limits, it must base itself and not on sentiments or emotions. The true art of rhetoric is considered as the authentic rhetoric – one that is not separated from truth and justice. Study Questions Question 1. Gorgias explicitly stated that a good rhetor is knowledgeable about justice, and also he has the power to commit injustice. Furthermore, he must possess goodwill and candor. Question 2: In Callicles speech about passion and desire, he argued that men would lead wretched lives if they were restrain themselves because true virtue and happiness require the full flourishing of one’s desires and the use of one’s courage and prudence to get what he wants. In his response to Socrates, he said that in truth, luxury, intemperance, and freedom, if they have support – that is virtue and happiness; but those other things, the embellishments, the agreements of human beings that are contrary to nature are drivel and worth nothing. MODULE 3 Question 2: Plato’s Theory of Form is analogous to a poet’s approach in emphasizing his commitment to an absolutist view rather than a relativist one. For instance, in the discourse of justice – the subject is considered not some chameleon concept that takes it content from the habits or attitudes of a specific society at a specific time. Rather, it is a concept that has a determinate content and absolute validity. In justice, in the context of Plato’s theory, things are just and others are not and that justness or the lack of it is determined by fixed criteria, regardless of what anybody may happen to think at any particular time. Question 1: In regard to the debate between Protagoras and Socrates in regard to whether virtue is teachable, Protagoras is the victor. Socrates’ dialectic is full of logical errors and his conclusions are unconvincing. For example, Socrates argued that justice equals courage, which Protagoras sufficiently refuted. All in all, for Socrates, all virtues are one and that they are knowledge that is a priori, hence can never be learned from experience. However, Socrates was not able to explain or give us access to perfect a priori truth. Question 2: In Philebus, all things are categorized into four classes: the finite, the infinite, the composition of the two and the cause. The fourth, which enters into all things, gives our bodies soul as well as the capacity of self-management, healing disease, organize, the ability of wisdom. MODULE 4 Question 2 Aristotle’s proclaimed rhetoric can be an art and why the artful side of rhetoric is also restricted to argument – what he called as enthymeme. The artistic capability for Aristotle is something that is acquired by systematic study and once, acquired, consisting in the possession of certain formidable principles through the use of which a rhetorician can then prepare and deliver his speeches. From this perspective, it appears that Aristotle is talking more about practice rather than art. Whatever the case may be, it looks like rhetorical practice is truly an art and truly practice when it has a function in a specific and narrow Aristotelian sense of term. Question 1 According to Aristotle, there are three kinds of rhetoric: the deliberative rhetoric (one the aims to establish the usefulness or the harmfulness of a proposed or future action); forensic rhetoric (the kind that defends or accuse, referring to past acts and circumstances; and, the epideictic or celebratory rhetoric (the kind that eulogize or diseulogize, presenting facts or events, particularly the one recommending those who are worthy of praise or blame). Questions for Review (Page 94) Question 1 Aristotle took a different view with his master in regard to the relation between rhetoric and dialectic. Plato obviously disapproved of rhetoric and had no interest in such kind of argumentation, defining it in his friendliest term as the art of persuasion. Aristotle, however, considered it as the power of perceiving the available persuasiveness. In his opinion, persuasion is a form of demonstration, concerning matters that are contingent and is based on probabilities. Aristotle underscored rhetoric’s usefulness and sufficiently clarified its relationship with dialectic. Question 4 Aristotle’s The Art of Rhetoric focused on three types of artistic proofs – the main subject of the piece. The first was ethos or the character of the speaker as it comes across in speech. The second type is called pathos, sometimes referred to as the emotional or pathetic appeal. The third, and considered to be the most important artistic proof, is the logos – the appeal to reason which in ancient Greece referred to “thought plus action.” Question 6: Jeffrey Walker is one of those that argued within the premise that the witness of a performance takes an active role in eliciting the display as well as in responding to it. In his treatment of epideixis in rhetoric, he invoked the Aristotelian suggestion that an epideictic audience members should be a theoros – one who makes observations about what is praiseworthy, preferable, desirable of worthy of belief. (Page 122) Question 1 Cicero, who is considered to be the greatest Roman orator, established five canons or subdisciplines of rhetoric: invention, arrangement/organization, style, memory, and delivery. Question 6 In the area of Rhetorics, Quintilian taught his students the five parts of speech: exordium, narratio (statement of facts), the proof, the refutation and peroration. Question 9 The Second Sophistic is the modern reference to the cultural characteristics of the first three centuries CE. It was originally coined by Philostratus to refer to the oratorical style in persona – the improvisation based on historical figures. It emerged as the reference to the resurgent interest in Greek education and values under the Roman empire. MODULE 5 For Aristotle, a man commits wrong or acts unjustly or the opposite whenever he does such acts voluntarily and that when done involuntarily, the act is not one of injustice. Thus, when Nixon was ordered by the US Supreme Court to turn over the tapes made from his office to the investigators of the Watergate break-in. Because of this his involvement in the obstruction of justice became clear. In the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, it was argued that: “when (1) the injury takes place contrary to reasonable expectation, but does not imply vice, it is a misadventure. When (2) it is not contrary to reasonable expectation, but does not imply vice, it is a mistake… When (3) he acts due to anger or to other passions necessary or natural to man; for when men do such harmful and mistaken acts they act unjustly, and the acts are acts of injustice, but this does not imply that the doers are unjust or wicked; for the injury is not due to vice. But when (4) a man acts from choice, he is an unjust man.” (p. 157) Clearly, Nixon chose to withhold information and cover-up a conspiracy – an attempt to commit wrongdoing - before the court ordered him to do so. Aristotle would certainly consider him to be an unjust and vicious man. Question 3: For Aristotle, degrees of wrongdoing is determined by seven causes of human actions: through chance, through nature, through compulsion, through habit, through reason, through anger and through longing. Study Question Question 1 The subject of political oratory is divided into five main fields: ways and means, war and peace, national defense, imports and exports and legislation. Ways and means refer to the issue regarding the number and extent of the country’s sources of revenue; peace and war requires the discourse on the military strength and studies on war that the country and others had waged; National Defense is about the methods of defence in actual use; Import and Export is mainly about the food supply – how the country’s needs are being met; Legislation is the understanding of the country’s laws, wherein the whole welfare depends. Question 2 The categories of goods – necessary, doubtful, greater good - have been explained by Aristotle in section 1632 of Rhetoric. Necessary good is that kind that is expedient. For example, it is good to have useful friends. Doubtful goods, meanwhile, is concerned with individual goods and those goods made by choice. A list of examples were outlined but the most important of which that explains this category is that good is everything that is contrary to evil. This doubtful because “evil” may be those things disadvantageous to us but beneficial to others. Then, there is the category of the greater goods – the kind constituted by a greater number of goods. The point is that the greater number excels the original quantity. In regard to virtue it appears that it is “good” in its most fundamental sense. Then it is specifically an expedient or necessary good because it allows men to come to wise decisions and act justly. MODULE 6 John Doe Course September 19, 2009 Aristotle’s Rhetoric: Modern Application Abstract: The Aristotelian concept of rhetoric has endured through the ages. The power of this persuasive speech has proved useful and important to societies with democratic form of government. This paper will explore and compare the importance of Aristotle’s rhetoric between ancient Greece and our contemporary society. The power of the media will be specifically emphasized here as a pivotal variable in the glaring parallels between the utility of rhetoric in politics and in society as a whole. Aristotle has defined rhetoric twice in his work, Rhetoric. He initially delineated its function in the early chapters and stating that “its function is not so much to persuade as to find out in each case the existing means of persuasion.” (Book 1, chapter I, 14) The second definition is considered as the main definition: “the faculty of discovering the possible means of persuasion in reference to any subject whatsoever.” (1355b25-26) It is important to note that in Greece, specifically in Athens, the democracy was direct. As the mass institutions of direct democracy grew in Athens, so did the importance of rhetoric because of the use of persuasive public speaking. Gorgias emphasized this when he argued that rhetoric became an ability to persuade by speech the judges in court, the councilmen in the Council, the assemblyman in the Assembly, and those in any gathering, which is a political gathering. (cited in Worthington 2007, p. 76) Interestingly, one finds a strong parallel in the use of rhetoric in politics today. In Western societies, although none adopted direct form of democracy, rhetoric is crucial in electing politicians to office ever since monarchies and authoritarian governments were replaced by parliamentary, federal and republican form of governments. The foundations of our democratic institutions are descended out of the Athenian democratic government and, hence, this is not surprising. However, what is more important is that rhetoric appears to be equally important in modern society (despite its population and complexity) as much as during the Greek times because of the power of the media. In a way, this channel is fast becoming the public forum – wherein people receive and access information, discuss and debate issues, influence public policy, among other political activities, including the formation of political action and pressure groups. In combination with technology, the limits of time and geography are eroded, allowing numerous people to communicate, create and participate in a virtual public sphere not unlike the Athenian Agora and even the Assembly. In addition, rhetoric is no longer confined to politics alone. Rhetorics could be seen in the way action groups use the media in order to influence court decisions, for example. Events such as the Bhopal, Enron bankruptcy, accidents and disasters or a series of events, whether as a result of consuming contaminated foods or by the ingestion of drugs that resulted in the harm of individuals – these capture the interest of people, consumer activists and the imagination of the media. The forms of persuasive speech being employed in these instances may be the regular subjection of individuals or organizations to public vilification and criticism. (Howells 1991, p. 38) These rhetoric are carefully crafted campaigns and are difficult to parry. What is more significant is that these campaigns often succeed sometimes in influencing a highly politicized judiciary and state government. All in all, rhetoric is continuously employed to persuade minds and achieve other objectives not unlike those in the Greek times. The Aristotelian rhetoric is still widely practiced and, in fact, has been diversified and specialized. The existence of advertising agencies and public relation outfits underscore this point. References Aristotle. (2008). The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. BiblioBazaar, LLC. Aristotle. (1975). The "Art" of Rhetoric. John Henry Freese (trans.). vol. 22. Howells, Geraint. (1991). Product liability, insurance, and the Pharmaceutical industry: an Anglo-American comparison Volume 9 of Fulbright papers Fulbright Papers : Proceedings of Colloquia, Vol 9. Manchester University Press. Plato. (2006). Phaedrus. Benjamin Jowett (ed.) Digiread Publishing. Worthington, Ian. (2007). A companion to Greek rhetoric: Volume 16 of Blackwell companions to the ancient world. Wiley-Blackwell. Read More