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Explore the history, theories, and contemporary perspectives on rhetoric, emphasizing its persuasive nature, contextual meaning, and role in shaping beliefs and behaviors. Learn about influential figures like Aristotle and Isocrates, and modern theorists such as Kenneth Burke and Stephen Toulmin.
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What is Rhetoric? Danna Prather
Well…it depends • Different people are going to give you different definitions for rhetoric. • According to Aristotle rhetoric is the use in any particular case of the available means of persuasion. • Kenneth Burke says rhetoric is persuasion plus identification. • I think rhetoric is the study and use of symbols to create, maintain, distribute, and remove power.
Rhetoric is that which is Public, Persuasive, Contextual, and Contingent • Public – effects an entire community • (opposed to technical – specific group Philosophers, engineers, or private – personal audiences) in our case effects American community
Persuasive– ability to affect belief and behavior through the power of symbolic interaction • supposes that there is no such thing as universal truth
Contextual - meaning of particular language is derived from the particular experiences and understanding of a particular audience at a particular time
Contingent – decisions have to be made and acted upon but decision makers are forced to rely upon probabilities rather than certainties.
Rhetoric’s Distant Past - Greeks • Corax and Tisias – originators of rhetoric • (oral culture) • Gorgias – early sophist • “Nothing exists. If anything does exist it can’t be descibed. If anything does exist and can be descibed, it can’t be communicated.” • (Socrates/Plato)
The Classical Rhetorical Canon • Inventio – Invention • Dispositio – Arrangement • Memoria – Memory • Elecutio – Style • Pronuntiatio - Delivery
Isocrates – Foremost speech teacher in the ancient world • Isocrates claimed to achieve moral knowledge by studying public address, as the practical art of oratory and as the "biographical science" of studying and imitating "great speakers." Isocrates did not focus on strategies and tactics of persuasion; for him, the history of public address is the history of virtue in action: The argument which has been "made by a man's life is of more weight" than arguments "furnished by words" (Antidosis, IV.274-75, 278; 1961b, 2:337-39). (retrieved from http://www.mcgees.net/fragments/essays/back%20burner/isocrate.htm)
Aristotle – The Rhetoric • According to Aristotle rhetoric is the use in any particular case of the available means of persuasion. • The enthymeme • Types of speeches: • Deliberative • Forensic • Epideictic
Rhetoric’s Distant Past - Romans • Cicero – Rome’s leading orator-philosopher • Quintilian – 1st Imperial professor of Rhetoric at Rome • System of rhetorical education • Rhetoric is “a good man speaking well.”
Rhetoric’s Murky Middle • Rene Decartes • “I think, therefore I am.” • John Locke • Anti-authoritarianism – rational thought, not authority or supersition • Edmond Burke • Political writer – founder of modern conservatism • Aesthetics • The Elocutionists
Contemporary Rhetorical Theory • Kenneth Burke • Dramatism - theory of motive • Act, agent, scene, agency, purpose • Stephen Toulmin – Toulmin Model Data Claim Warrant
Chaim Perelman • Universal audience • Michael McGee • Ideology • Dana Cloud • Materiality of Discourse • Jacques Derrida & Michel Foucault
