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Rhetoric (from Greek
ρητωρ, rhêtôr, "orator") is one of the three original liberal arts or trivium (the other members are dialectic and grammar). While it has meant
many different things during its 2500-year history, it is generally described today as the art of persuasion through
language.
Rhetoric began in ancient Greece. The first written manual is attributed to Corax and
Tisias. Rhetoric was popularized in the 5th century B.C. by itinerant teachers known as sophists, the best known of whom were Protagoras, Gorgias, and Isocrates.
Plato is the great historical enemy of the sophistic movement. For Plato, the essence
of philosophy lay in the process of dialectic, in which reason and discussion
progressively lead to the discovery of important truths. Plato believed that the sophists cared not for the truth of an argument,
but only how they might appear to win it.
Two of Plato's dialogues are especially focused upon rhetoric. The Gorgias emphasizes Plato's contention that the
sophists value style over substance. Philosophy and rhetoric are related in the same way as are medicine and cosmetics. That is,
medicine (like philosophy) is concerned with what is truly best for its subjects, whereas cosmetics (like rhetoric) is concerned
solely with appearances. The Phaedrus was written after the Gorgias. While it continues Plato's critique of
rhetoric, he also holds out the possibility that a rhetoric may yet be devised which is true and noble.
In fact, the rhetoric developed by Plato's student, Aristotle, can be seen as
just such a rhetoric. In the first sentence of The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle describes rhetoric as the counterpart of
dialectic. By this, he means that, while dialectical methods are necessary to find truth, rhetorical methods are required to
communicate it.
Aristotle defined rhetoric as "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion." With this
definition Aristotle placed invention, or the discovery of lines of argument, at the very center of the rhetorical enterprise. In
doing so he set his system apart from that of the sophists, which focused on outcomes of public speaking. For Aristotle, then,
rhetoric is an architectonic, rather than a productive, art.
Aristotle's systematic description of rhetoric completely dominated rhetorical thought through the middle ages and beyond. His
chief emphasis is upon the three kinds of proof that can be offered on behalf of an argument. Logos consists of the use
of language in constructing an argument. Pathos concerns emotional appeals. Ethos focuses upon how the
character of a speaker influences an audience to consider him to be believable.
Also very important in Aristolte's scheme are Kairos, the context in which
the proof will be delivered, The Audience, the psychological and emotional makeup of those who will receive the proof,
and To Prepon, the style with which he clothes his proof. In order for rhetoric to be effective, the orator must be
sensitive to these elements. He must realize that the context will constrict what he can say and what will be considered
relevant. He must attune his message to his audience, or he will risk alienating or disgusting his audience. And he must embody
his ideas in a way that is both proper to the occasion and to his audience. For example, the orator would not use colloquial or
slang language if he was speaking about a lofty topic. Indeed, all three elements are intertwined: The character of the audience
will define how the orator judges the context, the context will define the style he will use, and, through the experimentation,
the style will influence what the context consists of.
While Western philosophy has tended to emphasize Logos, Aristotle's three bases of evidence provide a philosophical
foundation for the broadly conceived psycho-social or behavioral sciences where accounting for non-rational factors in human
behavior is necessary for explanatory completeness. Especially professions or occupations in applied social sciences, such as
psychotherapy are based in the practice of persuasion, or rhetoric in Aristotle's broad conception.
The Romans were great borrowers, and they found much value in Aristotle's rhetoric. Cicero and Quintilian were chief among Roman rhetoricians, and
their work is clearly an extension of Aristotle's. In particular, Quintilian codified rhetorical studies under five canons that
would persist for centuries in academic circles. Inventio (invention) is the process that leads to the development and
refinement of an argument. Once an argument is developed, it is up to dispositio (disposition, or arrangement) to
determine how it should be organized for greatest effect. Once the speech content is known and the structure is determined, the
next steps involve pronuntiatio (language choice) and elocutio (delivery). Finally, memoria (memory)
comes to play as the speaker recalls each of these elements during the speech.
In the 16th century, after long domination by Scholasticism and
Aristotelian thinking, Petrus Ramus proposed to reorganize the school
curriculum of the day. Breaking with the traditional divisions of the liberal arts, he proposed something similar to the
contemporary division of universities into multiple schools and departments of study (in fact, Ramus is the ultimate source of
this organizational scheme). His efforts succeeded. The five components of rhetoric no longer lived under the common heading of
rhetoric. Instead, invention and disposition were determined to fall under the heading of philosophy, while language, delivery,
and memory were all that remained for rhetoric.
Once stripped of its more substantial elements, rhetoric became a much less prestigious topic of study. Much as Plato
originally condemned the rhetoric of the sophists for its lack of concern for truth, rhetoric now came to be associated with
emptiness: it ceased to be connected with ideas. In popular use, this connotation persists to this day. However, the term is still used in a deeper and more constructive sense in
the study of human communication.
(Definitions, discussion of conflicting opinions, ending with synthesis: a working general definition of rhetoric for this
article)
See also Figure of speech, trope, Monroe's motivated
sequence
- Classical (Greek)
- Corax (5th century BC) -- produced first written manual of rhetoric
- Gorgias (483?-376? BC) -- father of systematic study of rhetoric
- Isocrates (436-338 BC) -- foremost teacher of oratory in the ancient
world
- Plato (427-347 BC) -- outlined the differences between true and false rhetoric
- Aristotle (384-322 BC) -- created most influential systemization of rhetoric
ever written -- The Art of Rhetoric
- Libanius (AD 314-394) -- prominent practitioner and teacher in the Later Roman
Empire
- Classical (Roman)
- Cicero (106-43 BC) -- Great Roman orator and philsopher
- Quintilian (AD 35-100) -- Imperial professor of rhetoric, complete system
of rhetorical education
- Medieval
- Renaissance
- Desiderius Erasmus (AD 1466?-1536) -- Dutch scholar, wrote on style and
composition
- Juan Luis Vives (AD
1492-1540) -- established pattern of rhetorical education in English
- Leonard Cox (AD ??-??) --
produced first rhetoric handbook in English --Arte or Crafte of Rhetoryke (1530)
- Giambattista Vico (AD 1668-1744) -- recognized that language
shaped genius and not the reverse, well known for the New Science and On the Study Methods of Our
Time.
- Thomas Wilson (AD
1525?-1581) -- neoclassicist, wrote most popular English Renaissance rhetoric handbook - The Arte of Rhetorique
(1553)
- Modern
- (there's quite a few here; I need to do a little sifting first)
- Richard M.
Weaver
- I.A. Richards
- Contemporary
- Kenneth Burke
- James Kinneavy
- Chaim Perelman
- Richard A.
Lanham
- Stephen Toulmin
Current state of rhetorical study
Rhetorical theory today is as much influenced by the research results and research methods of the behavioral sciences and by
theories of literary criticism as by by ancient Rhetorical theory.
See also
- Visual rhetoric.
External Links
Silva Rhetoricae
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