©2010 Pearson Education Public Speaking Handbook: 3 rd edition Appendix B The Classical Tradition Of Rhetoric This multimedia product and its contents.

©2010 Pearson Education

Public Speaking Handbook:3rd edition Appendix B

TheClassicalTradition

OfRhetoric

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The EarliestTeachers of Rhetoric• Corax (476 B.C.)

• Doctrine of generalprobability.

• Focused on likelihoodof guilt.

• Public speaking skills todefend ones self in courts.

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Beginning of the Greek Tradition: The

Sophists• Skilled speakers

won in courts.• Sophist:

“wisdom bearer.”• Helped train people.• Some wrote speeches (logographers). Antiphon (480 - 411 B.C.). Lysias (459 - 380 B.C.).

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Beginning of the Greek Tradition: The

Sophists• Some trained people to be eloquent. Protagoras (481 - 411 B.C.). Gorgias (485 - 380 B.C.).

• Some trained people to be statesmen.

• Isocrates (436 - 338 B.C.)helped to promotewisdom in his students.

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Beginning of the Greek Tradition: The

Sophists• Isocrates’ three keys to success: Natural ability. Ability refined through practice and experience. Education in philosophy as well as rhetoric.

• Some criticized sophists of focusing

more on form, and less on content.

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Plato• Lived from 469 to 399 B.C.• The biggest critic of the sophists.• Was a student of Socrates.• Writings focused on: Psychology. Logic. Rhetoric.

• Platonic (Socratic) Method: helped

determine the “truth.”

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Plato• Rhetoric: a means of using language

to influence the minds of listeners,

not just those in the courts.• Truth exists on several levels: Doxa - observed human senses

(least reliable). Episteme - “true”

knowledge, fromphilosophical inquiry(most reliable).

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Aristotle• Lived from 384 to 322 B.C.• Founded the Lyceum school.• His Rhetoric was the earliest

discussion of speechmaking.• Had philosophy of Plato, and

practical suggestions of the Sophists. • Believed rhetoric was an art – a

system that could be taught.

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Aristotle• Defined rhetoric as: “the faculty of

discovering, in any given case, the

available means of persuasion.”• Three means of persuasion: Ethos - credibility Logos - reasoning Pathos - emotions

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Aristotle• Said there were different situations (“given cases”) for a speech: Deliberative – legislative speaking

(decide on a course of action) Forensic – speaking in courts

(judge a person’s past action) Epideictic – ceremonial oratory

(praise or blame the speech subject)

• Situations were determined by the

role of listeners.

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The Roman Tradition• Roman educational systems prepared

citizens to speak in legislatures & courts.• Progymnasmata: written & spoken

exercises.• Schools of rhetoric focused on 5 arts: Invention – gather evidence Arrangement – organize ideas Style – use of language Memory – recall ideas when speaking Delivery – nonverbal skills

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The Roman TraditionCicero • Ideal orator: a learned

philosopher-statesman.• Public Speaking: intended

for the good of the state.• A true orator is a fully educated person.

Quintilianus • Stressed moral & ethical uses of rhetoric. • Believed the ideal orator was

“a good man speaking well.”