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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

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

Plato: Odd metaphysics!

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: 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

Like a drug! Moves by emotion as well as reason

Ancients realized rhetoric is powerful!

Epideictic: praise and blame (Encomium of Helen)

Forensic: What happened (criminal trials)

Deliberative: What should happen (legislators)

Three types of rhetoric

What kind of rhetoric is this?

What kind of rhetoric is this?

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 RUTENBERGPublished: May 21, 2011: NY Times

What kind of rhetoric is this?

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

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

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

Three kinds of proofs: Ethos Pathos Logos

Psychologists have found these activate different parts of the brain!

Aristotle, cont’d