Rhetoric intro with notes

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF RHETORIC

Why Arguments Matter

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RHETORIC

Greek for “Public Speaking”

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RHETORIC

Everything we do to persuade others

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RHETORIC

aka...hustling

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The Story Begins in Sicily

TISIASCORAX

Here’s the (apocryphal) story: 5th century BC in Sicily. An evil tyrant seizes everybody’s land and propert and forcers people to go to court to get it back. Corax agreed to teach Tisias how to argue court cases successfully. Corax was good at organizing an argument: prose, narration, statement of arguments, refutation of opposing arguments, and summary. Tisias agrees to pay him under one condition: he wouldn’t pay him until he won his first lawsuit. Well, after the lessons, Tisias goes ahead and sues Corax. C argues that if he wins the case T has to pay and if T loses he still gets paid because then T would have won the case. On the other hand, T argues he doesn’t have to pay either way. If he loses the case, then he doesn’t have to pay. If he wins the case, then he will be rewarded any money that he would have given T. The judge throws the case out muttering that they deserve each other. Actually, he says that Tisias is a bad egg hatched from a bad crow. Corax is greek for crow. From the beginning, rhetoric has been seen as a method of manipulation and trickery even more than a method of reaching the truth.

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DEMOCRACY DEMANDS argument

The greek philosopher Aristotle is the first to create an extensive description of the principles of rhetoric. Why? In the first democracy of the world, regular people would often bring court cases against the rich and the jury would be a mob (up to 1000) of regular people. It meant that the rich needed to be able to argue well to the mob in order to hold on to their property, as well as to win office.

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ARISTOTLE WRITES Rhetoric

Aristotle wrote the book RHETORIC in 335 BC as an advertisement for his school the Lyceum. He was competing against Isocrates for pupils and they wanted to know how to construct arguments. Aristotle’s theory is more about human nature--who are we and what motivates us? In any case all rhetoric starts by considering the audience. Good rhetoric is that which convinces the people you’re talking to, not what is true or seems true to the speaker.

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LOGoS

ETHOS

PATHOS

The greek philosopher Aristotle is the first to create an extensive description of the principles of rhetoric and identified (only) three branches: ethos, pathos, and logos. He also distinguished between (only) three forms of rhetoric: judicial, epideictic, and deliberative

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JUDICIAL (past)

EPIDEIcTIC(praise / insult)

Deliberative (future)

The greek philosopher Aristotle is the first to create an extensive description of the principles of rhetoric and identified (only) three branches: ethos, pathos, and logos. He also distinguished between (only) three forms of rhetoric: judicial, epideictic, and deliberative

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Cicero

Civilization is built on Rhetoric, but...

Cicero (106BC- 43BC) believed that the number one priority in education is teaching educated males both the technical fluency in rhetoric as well as the moral education to use the power properly. Otherwise, it was violent mob rule.

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“Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.”

Still, don’t forget that just because you can be eloquent you’re necessarily right or morally just.

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INVENTION

ARRANGEMENT

STYLE

MEMORY

DELIVERY

Still, don’t forget that just because you can be eloquent you’re necessarily right or morally just.

Invention = finding the appropriate arguments in any rhetorical situation.

Arrangement = the parts of a speech or, more broadly, the structure of a text.

Style = he way in which something is spoken, written, or performed. Narrowly interpreted, style refers to word use, sentence structures, and figures of speech. More broadly, style is considered a manifestation of the person speaking or writing. Plain, middle, high

Memory = How to remember what you’re saying...

Delivery refers to the management of voice and gestures in oral discourse.