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Ancient Greek Rhetoric

Ancient Greek Rhetoric. An Enduring Conversation. Birthplace of democracy Demos = people; Kratia = power or rule Direct participatory democracy. Classic Athens was the birthplace of rhetoric. Rhetoric can be used to distort meaning and persuade unethically

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Ancient Greek Rhetoric

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  1. Ancient Greek Rhetoric An Enduring Conversation

  2. Birthplace of democracy • Demos = people; Kratia = power or rule • Direct participatory democracy Classic Athens was the birthplace of rhetoric

  3. Rhetoric can be used to distort meaning and persuade unethically • Rhetoric doesn’t have any “content” – it’s not a discipline and isn’t worthy of study • Rhetoric can’t lead to True Knowledge Same anxieties as today

  4. Ideal vs. real world • Parable of the cave • Intuitive vs. empirical • How do we know what’s true? What is the source of “epistemic authority”? Plato: Odd metaphysics!

  5. Plato: Believes in the Truth and believes it can be known through instinctive connection with the ideal world and through dialectic • Sophists: Believe that human issues are always contingent and the process of rhetoric can help us decide what’s best to do • Which perspective informs the “knowledge as static facts “ paradigm? Sophists vs. Plato

  6. Like a drug! • Moves by emotion as well as reason Ancients realized rhetoric is powerful!

  7. Epideictic: praise and blame (Encomium of Helen) • Forensic: What happened (criminal trials) • Deliberative: What should happen (legislators) Three types of rhetoric

  8. What kind of rhetoric is this?

  9. The Gossip Machine, Churning Out Cash Lindsay Lohan's arrival at the courthouse in Beverly Hills, Calif., last July was a feast for the celebrity media. By JIM RUTENBERG Published: May 21, 2011: NY Times What kind of rhetoric is this?

  10. Looking After the Soldier, Back Home and Damaged After War, From Wife to Caregiver: April Marcum has joined a community of spouses, parents and partners who drop most everything in their lives to care for injured loved ones returning from war. NY Times What kind of rhetoric is this?

  11. Still considered an important theorist of rhetoric (predicts and explains rhetorical force) • Taught rhetoric to students, including Alexander the Great • Left behind some notes (might have been recorded by a student) called The Rhetoric Aristotle

  12. Understood that rhetoric is situational – must find the available means of persuasion in each case • Does Aristotle believe persuasion can be rational? • What did he mean by “men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive at truth”? • Do you agree that “things that are true and things that are better are, by their nature, practically always easier to prove and easier to believe in? Aristotle, cont’d

  13. Three kinds of proofs: • Ethos • Pathos • Logos Psychologists have found these activate different parts of the brain! Aristotle, cont’d

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