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Painting depicting a lecture in a knight academy, painted by Pieter Isaacsz or Reinhold Timm for Rosenborg Castle as part of a series of seven paintings depicting the seven independent arts. This painting illustrates rhetoric.
Rhetoric is the art of using language to convince or persuade.
Aristotle defines rhetoric as "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of
persuasion"
and since mastery of the art was necessary for victory in a case at law
or for passage of proposals in the assembly or for fame as a speaker in
civic ceremonies, calls it "a combination of the science of logic and
of the ethical branch of politics". Rhetoric typically provides
heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing
arguments for particular situations, such as Aristotle's three persuasive audience appeals,
logos,
pathos, and
ethos. The
five canons of rhetoric or phases of developing a persuasive speech were first codified in classical Rome:
invention,
arrangement,
style,
memory, and
delivery.
From
Ancient Greece to the late 19th century, rhetoric, which along with
grammar and
logic (or
dialectic – see
Martianus Capella) is one of the
three ancient arts of discourse, played a central role in Western education in training orators, lawyers, counsellors, historians, statesmen, and poets.
Uses
Scope
Scholars
have debated the scope of rhetoric since ancient times. Although some
have limited rhetoric to the specific realm of political discourse, many
modern scholars liberate it to encompass every aspect of culture.
Contemporary studies of rhetoric address a much more diverse range of
domains than was the case in ancient times. While classical rhetoric
trained speakers to be effective persuaders in public forums and
institutions such as courtrooms and assemblies, contemporary rhetoric
investigates human discourse
writ large.
Rhetoricians have studied the discourses of a wide variety of domains,
including the natural and social sciences, fine art, religion,
journalism, digital media, fiction, history, cartography, and
architecture, along with the more traditional domains of politics and
the law.
Many contemporary approaches treat rhetoric as human communication that
includes purposeful and strategic manipulation of symbols. Public
relations, lobbying, law, marketing, professional and technical writing,
and advertising are modern professions that employ rhetorical
practitioners.
Because the ancient Greeks highly valued public political
participation, rhetoric emerged as a crucial tool to influence politics.
Consequently, rhetoric remains associated with its political origins. However, even the original instructors of Western speech—the
Sophists—disputed this limited view of rhetoric. According to the Sophists, such as
Gorgias,
a successful rhetorician could speak convincingly on any topic,
regardless of his experience in that field. This method suggested
rhetoric could be a means of communicating any expertise, not just
politics. In his
Encomium to Helen, Gorgias even applied rhetoric to fiction by seeking for his own pleasure to prove the blamelessness of the mythical
Helen of Troy in starting the
Trojan War.
Looking to another key rhetorical theorist,
Plato
defined the scope of rhetoric according to his negative opinions of the
art. He criticized the Sophists for using rhetoric as a means of
deceit instead of discovering truth. In "Gorgias", one of his
Socratic Dialogues, Plato defines rhetoric as the persuasion of ignorant masses within the courts and assemblies.
Rhetoric, in Plato's opinion, is merely a form of flattery and
functions similarly to cookery, which masks the undesirability of
unhealthy food by making it taste good. Thus, Plato considered any
speech of lengthy
prose aimed at flattery as within the scope of rhetoric.
Aristotle both redeemed rhetoric from his teacher and narrowed its focus by defining three genres of rhetoric—
deliberative,
forensic or judicial, and
epideictic.
Yet, even as he provided order to existing rhetorical theories,
Aristotle extended the definition of rhetoric, calling it the ability to
identify the appropriate means of persuasion in a given situation,
thereby making rhetoric applicable to all fields, not just politics.
When one considers that rhetoric included torture (in the sense that the
practice of torture is a form of persuasion or coercion), it is clear
that rhetoric cannot be viewed only in academic terms. However, the
enthymeme based upon
logic (especially, based upon the syllogism) was viewed as the basis of rhetoric.
However, since the time of Aristotle, logic has changed. For example,
Modal logic has undergone a major development that also modifies rhetoric.
Yet, Aristotle also outlined generic constraints that focused the
rhetorical art squarely within the domain of public political practice.
He restricted rhetoric to the domain of the
contingent or probable: those matters that admit multiple legitimate opinions or arguments.
The contemporary
neo-Aristotelian and
neo-Sophistic
positions on rhetoric mirror the division between the Sophists and
Aristotle. Neo-Aristotelians generally study rhetoric as political
discourse, while the neo-Sophistic view contends that rhetoric cannot be
so limited. Rhetorical scholar
Michael Leff
characterizes the conflict between these positions as viewing rhetoric
as a "thing contained" versus a "container". The neo-Aristotelian view
threatens the study of rhetoric by restraining it to such a limited
field, ignoring many critical applications of rhetorical theory,
criticism, and practice. Simultaneously, the neo-Sophists threaten to
expand rhetoric beyond a point of coherent theoretical value.
Over the past century, people studying rhetoric have tended to enlarge its object domain beyond speech texts.
Kenneth Burke
asserted humans use rhetoric to resolve conflicts by identifying shared
characteristics and interests in symbols. By nature, humans engage in
identification, either to identify themselves or another individual with a group. This definition of
rhetoric as identification
broadened the scope from strategic and overt political persuasion to
the more implicit tactics of identification found in an immense range of
sources.
Among the many scholars who have since pursued Burke's line of thought,
James Boyd White sees rhetoric as a broader domain of social experience in his notion of
constitutive rhetoric. Influenced by theories of
social construction,
White argues that culture is "reconstituted" through language. Just as
language influences people, people influence language. Language is
socially constructed, and depends on the meanings people attach to it.
Because language is not rigid and changes depending on the situation,
the very usage of language is rhetorical. An author, White would say, is
always trying to construct a new world and persuading his or her
readers to share that world within the text.
Individuals engage in the rhetorical process anytime they speak or produce meaning. Even in the field of
science,
the practices of which were once viewed as being merely the objective
testing and reporting of knowledge, scientists must persuade their
audience to accept their findings by sufficiently demonstrating that
their study or experiment was conducted reliably and resulted in
sufficient evidence to support their conclusions.
The vast scope of rhetoric is difficult to define; however,
political discourse remains, in many ways, the paradigmatic example for
studying and theorizing specific techniques and conceptions of
persuasion, considered by many a synonym for "rhetoric".
As a civic art
Throughout
European History,
rhetoric has concerned itself with persuasion in public and political
settings such as assemblies and courts. Because of its associations with
democratic institutions, rhetoric is commonly said to flourish in open
and democratic societies with rights of
free speech,
free assembly, and political enfranchisement for some portion of the
population. Those who classify rhetoric as a civic art believe that
rhetoric has the power to shape communities, form the character of
citizens and greatly effect civic life.
Rhetoric was viewed as a civic art by several of the ancient philosophers. Aristotle and
Isocrates were two of the first to see rhetoric in this light. In his work,
Antidosis,
Isocrates states, "We have come together and founded cities and made
laws and invented arts; and, generally speaking, there is no institution
devised by man which the power of speech has not helped us to
establish." With this statement he argues that rhetoric is a fundamental
part of civic life in every society and that it has been necessary in
the foundation of all aspects of society. He further argues in his piece
Against the Sophists
that rhetoric, although it cannot be taught to just anyone, is capable
of shaping the character of man. He writes, "I do think that the study
of political discourse can help more than any other thing to stimulate
and form such qualities of character." Aristotle, writing several years
after Isocrates, supported many of his arguments and continued to make
arguments for rhetoric as a civic art.
In the words of Aristotle, in the
Rhetoric, rhetoric is
"... the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of
persuasion". According to Aristotle, this art of persuasion could be
used in public settings in three different ways. He writes in Book I,
Chapter III, "A member of the assembly decides about future events, a
juryman about past events: while those who merely decide on the orator's
skill are observers. From this it follows that there are three
divisions of oratory – (1) political, (2) forensic, and (3) the
ceremonial oratory of display". Eugene Garver, in his critique of
"Aristotle's Rhetoric", confirms that Aristotle viewed rhetoric as a
civic art. Garver writes, "Rhetoric articulates a civic art of rhetoric,
combining the almost incompatible properties of techne and
appropriateness to citizens." Each of Aristotle's divisions plays a role in civic life and can be used in a different way to affect cities.
Because rhetoric is a public art capable of shaping opinion, some of the ancients including
Plato
found fault in it. They claimed that while it could be used to improve
civic life, it could be used equally easily to deceive or manipulate
with negative effects on the city. The masses were incapable of
analyzing or deciding anything on their own and would therefore be
swayed by the most persuasive speeches. Thus, civic life could be
controlled by the one who could deliver the best speech. Plato explores
the problematic moral status of rhetoric twice: in
Gorgias, a
dialogue named for the famed Sophist, and in
The Phaedrus, a dialogue best known for its commentary on love. This concern is still maintained to nowadays.
More trusting in the power of rhetoric to support a republic, the Roman orator
Cicero
argued that art required something more than eloquence. A good orator
needed also to be a good man, a person enlightened on a variety of civic
topics. He describes the proper training of the orator in his major
text on rhetoric,
De Oratore, modeled on Plato's dialogues.
Modern day works continue to support the claims of the ancients
that rhetoric is an art capable of influencing civic life. In his work
Political Style,
Robert Hariman
claims, "Furthermore, questions of freedom, equality, and justice often
are raised and addressed through performances ranging from debates to
demonstrations without loss of moral content".
James Boyd White
argues further that rhetoric is capable not only of addressing issues
of political interest but that it can influence culture as a whole. In
his book,
When Words Lose Their Meaning, he argues that words of
persuasion and identification define community and civic life. He states
that words produce "the methods by which culture is maintained,
criticized, and transformed". Both White and Hariman agree that words and rhetoric have the power to shape culture and civic life.
In modern times, rhetoric has consistently remained relevant as a
civic art. In speeches, as well as in non-verbal forms, rhetoric
continues to be used as a tool to influence communities from local to
national levels.
As a course of study
Rhetoric
as a course of study has evolved significantly since its ancient
beginnings. Through the ages, the study and teaching of rhetoric has
adapted to the particular exigencies of the time and venue. The study of rhetoric has conformed to a multitude of different applications, ranging from architecture to literature.
Although the curriculum has transformed in a number of ways, it has
generally emphasized the study of principles and rules of composition as
a means for moving audiences. Generally speaking, the study of rhetoric
trains students to speak and/or write effectively, as well as
critically understand and analyze discourse.
Rhetoric began as a civic art in Ancient Greece where students
were trained to develop tactics of oratorical persuasion, especially in
legal disputes. Rhetoric originated in a school of
pre-Socratic philosophers known as the
Sophists circa 600 BC.
Demosthenes and
Lysias emerged as major orators during this period, and
Isocrates and
Gorgias as prominent teachers. Rhetorical education focused on five particular canons:
inventio (invention),
dispositio (arrangement),
elocutio (style),
memoria (memory), and
actio
(delivery). Modern teachings continue to reference these rhetorical
leaders and their work in discussions of classical rhetoric and
persuasion.
Rhetoric was later taught in universities during the
Middle Ages as one of the three original
liberal arts or
trivium (along with
logic and
grammar).
During the medieval period, political rhetoric declined as republican
oratory died out and the emperors of Rome garnered increasing authority.
With the rise of European monarchs in following centuries, rhetoric
shifted into the courtly and religious applications.
Augustine
exerted strong influence on Christian rhetoric in the Middle Ages,
advocating the use of rhetoric to lead audiences to truth and
understanding, especially in the church. The study of liberal arts, he
believed, contributed to rhetorical study: "In the case of a keen and
ardent nature, fine words will come more readily through reading and
hearing the eloquent than by pursuing the rules of rhetoric." Poetry and letter writing, for instance, became a central component of rhetorical study during the Middle Ages.
After the fall of the Republic in Rome, poetry became a tool for
rhetorical training since there were fewer opportunities for political
speech.
Letter writing was the primary form through which business was
conducted both in state and church, so it became an important aspect of
rhetorical education.
Rhetorical education became more restrained as style and substance separated in 16th-century France with
Peter Ramus,
and attention turned to the scientific method. That is, influential
scholars like Ramus argued that the processes of invention and
arrangement should be elevated to the domain of philosophy, while
rhetorical instruction should be chiefly concerned with the use of
figures and other forms of the ornamentation of language. Scholars such
as
Francis Bacon developed the study of "scientific rhetoric". This concentration rejected the elaborate style characteristic of the classical oration. This plain language carried over to
John Locke's
teaching, which emphasized concrete knowledge and steered away from
ornamentation in speech, further alienating rhetorical instruction,
which was identified wholly with this ornamentation, from the pursuit of
knowledge.
In the 18th century, rhetoric assumed a more social role, initiating the creation of new education systems. "
Elocution schools" arose (predominantly in England) in which females analyzed classic literature, most notably the works of
William Shakespeare, and discussed pronunciation tactics.
The study of rhetoric underwent a revival with the rise of
democratic institutions during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Scotland's author and theorist
Hugh Blair
served as a key leader of this movement during the late 18th century.
In his most famous work "Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres", he
advocates rhetorical study for common citizens as a resource for social
success. Many American colleges and secondary schools used Blair's text
throughout the 19th century to train students of rhetoric.
Political rhetoric also underwent renewal in the wake of the US
and French revolutions. The rhetorical studies of ancient Greece and
Rome were resurrected in the studies of the era as speakers and teachers
looked to
Cicero and others to inspire defense of the new republic. Leading rhetorical theorists included
John Quincy Adams of
Harvard
who advocated the democratic advancement of rhetorical art. Harvard's
founding of the Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory sparked
the growth of rhetorical study in colleges across the United States.
Harvard's rhetoric program drew inspiration from literary sources to
guide organization and style. Recently, there have been studies
conducted examining the rhetoric used in political speech acts to
illustrate how political figures will persuade audiences for their own
purposes.
Debate clubs and lyceums also developed as forums in which common
citizens could hear speakers and sharpen debate skills. The American
lyceum in particular was seen as both an educational and social
institution, featuring group discussions and guest lecturers. These programs cultivated democratic values and promoted active participation in political analysis.
Throughout the 20th century, rhetoric developed as a concentrated
field of study with the establishment of rhetorical courses in high
schools and universities. Courses such as
public speaking and
speech analysis apply fundamental Greek theories (such as the modes of persuasion:
ethos,
pathos, and
logos)
as well as trace rhetorical development throughout the course of
history. Rhetoric has earned a more esteemed reputation as a field of
study with the emergence of
Communication Studies
departments as well as Rhetoric and Composition programs within English
departments in universities and in conjunction with the linguistic
turn. Rhetorical study has broadened in scope, and is especially
utilized by the fields of marketing, politics, and literature.
Rhetoric, as an area of study, is concerned with how humans use
symbols, especially language, to reach agreement that permits
coordinated effort of some sort.
Harvard University,
the first university in the United States, based on the European model,
taught a basic curriculum, including rhetoric. Rhetoric, in this
sense, how to properly give speeches, played an important role in their
training. Rhetoric was soon taught in departments of English as well.
Knowledge
The
relationship between rhetoric and knowledge is an old and interesting
philosophical problem, partly because of our different assumptions on
the nature of knowledge. But it is fairly clear that while knowledge is
primarily concerned with what is commonly known as "truth", rhetoric is
primarily concerned with statements and their effects on the audience.
The word "rhetoric" may also refer to "empty speak", which reflects an
indifference to truth, and in this sense rhetoric is adversarial to
knowledge. Plato famously criticized the Sophists for their rhetoric
which had persuaded people to sentence his friend Socrates to death
regardless of what was true. However, rhetoric is also used in the
construction of true arguments, or in identifying what is relevant, the
crux of the matter, in a selection of true but otherwise trivial
statements. Hence, rhetoric is also closely related to knowledge.
Eloquentia Perfecta
Eloquentia Perfecta
is a Jesuit rhetoric that revolves around cultivating a person as a
whole, as one learns to speak and write for the common good.
History
Rhetoric has its origins in
Mesopotamia. Some of the earliest examples of rhetoric can be found in the
Akkadian writings of the princess and priestess
Enheduanna (c. 2285–2250 BC, while later examples can be found in the
Neo-Assyrian Empire during the time of
Sennacherib (704–681 BC). In
ancient Egypt, rhetoric had existed since at least the
Middle Kingdom period (c. 2080–1640 BC). The
Egyptians
held eloquent speaking in high esteem, and it was a skill that had a
very high value in their society. The "Egyptian rules of rhetoric" also
clearly specified that "knowing when not to speak is essential, and very
respected, rhetorical knowledge". Their "approach to rhetoric" was thus
a "balance between eloquence and wise silence". Their rules of speech
also strongly emphasized "adherence to social behaviors that support a
conservative status quo" and they held that "skilled speech should
support, not question, society". In
ancient China, rhetoric dates back to the
Chinese philosopher,
Confucius (551–479 BC), and continued with later followers. The tradition of
Confucianism emphasized the use of
eloquence in speaking. The use of rhetoric can also be found in the ancient
Biblical tradition.
In
ancient Greece, the earliest mention of oratorical skill occurs in
Homer's
Iliad, where heroes like
Achilles,
Hector, and
Odysseus were honored for their ability to advise and exhort their peers and followers (the
Laos or army) in wise and appropriate action. With the rise of the democratic
polis,
speaking skill was adapted to the needs of the public and political
life of cities in ancient Greece, much of which revolved around the use
of
oratory
as the medium through which political and judicial decisions were made,
and through which philosophical ideas were developed and disseminated.
For modern students today, it can be difficult to remember that the
wide use and availability of written texts is a phenomenon that was just
coming into vogue in
Classical Greece.
In Classical times, many of the great thinkers and political leaders
performed their works before an audience, usually in the context of a
competition or contest for fame, political influence, and cultural
capital; in fact, many of them are known only through the texts that
their students, followers, or detractors wrote down. As has already
been noted,
rhetor was the Greek term for
orator: A
rhetor
was a citizen who regularly addressed juries and political assemblies
and who was thus understood to have gained some knowledge about public
speaking in the process, though in general facility with language was
often referred to as
logôn techne, "skill with arguments" or "verbal artistry".
Rhetoric thus evolved as an important art, one that provided the
orator with the forms, means, and strategies for persuading an audience
of the correctness of the orator's arguments. Today the term
rhetoric
can be used at times to refer only to the form of argumentation, often
with the pejorative connotation that rhetoric is a means of obscuring
the truth. Classical
philosophers
believed quite the contrary: the skilled use of rhetoric was essential
to the discovery of truths, because it provided the means of ordering
and clarifying arguments.
Sophists
In Europe, organized thought about public speaking began in
ancient Greece. Possibly, the first study about the power of language may be attributed to the philosopher
Empedocles
(d. c. 444 BC), whose theories on human knowledge would provide a
newfound basis for many future rhetoricians. The first written manual is
attributed to
Corax and his pupil
Tisias.
Their work, as well as that of many of the early rhetoricians, grew out
of the courts of law; Tisias, for example, is believed to have written
judicial speeches that others delivered in the courts. Teaching in
oratory was popularized in the 5th century BC by itinerant teachers
known as
sophists, the best known of whom were
Protagoras (c. 481–420 BC),
Gorgias (c. 483–376 BC), and
Isocrates (436–338 BC). Aspasia of Miletus is believed to be one of the first women to engage in private and public rhetoric activities as a Sophist.
The Sophists were a disparate group who travelled from city to city,
teaching in public places to attract students and offer them an
education. Their central focus was on
logos
or what we might broadly refer to as discourse, its functions and
powers. They defined parts of speech, analyzed poetry, parsed close
synonyms, invented argumentation strategies, and debated the nature of
reality. They claimed to make their students "better", or, in other
words, to teach virtue. They thus claimed that human "excellence" was
not an accident of fate or a prerogative of noble birth, but an art or "
techne"
that could be taught and learned. They were thus among the first
humanists. Several sophists also questioned received wisdom about the
gods and the Greek culture, which they believed was taken for granted by
Greeks of their time, making them among the first agnostics. For
example, they argued that cultural practices were a function of
convention or
nomos rather than blood or birth or
phusis. They argued even further that morality or immorality of any action
could not be judged outside of the cultural context within which it
occurred. The well-known phrase, "Man is the measure of all things"
arises from this belief. One of their most famous, and infamous,
doctrines has to do with probability and counter arguments. They taught
that every argument could be countered with an opposing argument, that
an argument's effectiveness derived from how "likely" it appeared to the
audience (its probability of seeming true), and that any probability
argument could be countered with an inverted probability argument. Thus,
if it seemed likely that a strong, poor man were guilty of robbing a
rich, weak man, the strong poor man could argue, on the contrary, that
this very likelihood (that he would be a suspect) makes it unlikely that
he committed the crime, since he would most likely be apprehended for
the crime. They also taught and were known for their ability to make the
weaker (or worse) argument the stronger (or better).
Aristophanes famously parodies the clever inversions that sophists were known for in his play
The Clouds.
The word "sophistry" developed strong negative connotations in
ancient Greece that continue today, but in ancient Greece sophists were
nevertheless popular and well-paid professionals, widely respected for
their abilities but also widely criticized for their excesses.
Isocrates
Isocrates (436–338 BC), like the sophists, taught public speaking as a
means of human improvement, but he worked to distinguish himself from
the Sophists, whom he saw as claiming far more than they could deliver.
He suggested that while an art of virtue or excellence did exist, it was
only one piece, and the least, in a process of self-improvement that
relied much more heavily on native talent and desire, constant practice,
and the imitation of good models. Isocrates believed that practice in
speaking publicly about noble themes and important questions would
function to improve the character of both speaker and audience while
also offering the best service to a city. In fact, Isocrates was an
outspoken champion of rhetoric as a mode of civic engagement.
He thus wrote his speeches as "models" for his students to imitate in
the same way that poets might imitate Homer or Hesiod, seeking to
inspire in them a desire to attain fame through civic leadership. His
was the first permanent school in
Athens and it is likely that
Plato's Academy and
Aristotle's Lyceum were founded in part as a response to Isocrates. Though he left no handbooks, his speeches (
"Antidosis" and
"Against the Sophists" are most relevant to students of rhetoric) became models of oratory (he was one of the canonical "
Ten Attic Orators") and keys to his entire educational program. He had a marked influence on
Cicero and
Quintilian, and through them, on the entire educational system of the west.
Plato
Plato (427–347 BC) famously outlined the differences between true and false rhetoric in a number of dialogues; particularly the
Gorgias and
Phaedrus
dialogues wherein Plato disputes the sophistic notion that the art of
persuasion (the sophists' art, which he calls "rhetoric"), can exist
independent of the art of dialectic. Plato claims that since sophists
appeal only to what seems probable, they are not advancing their
students and audiences, but simply flattering them with what they want
to hear. While Plato's condemnation of rhetoric is clear in the
Gorgias, in the
Phaedrus
he suggests the possibility of a true art wherein rhetoric is based
upon the knowledge produced by dialectic, and relies on a dialectically
informed rhetoric to appeal to the main character, Phaedrus, to take up
philosophy. Thus Plato's rhetoric is actually dialectic (or philosophy)
"turned" toward those who are not yet philosophers and are thus unready
to pursue dialectic directly. Plato's animosity against rhetoric, and
against the sophists, derives not only from their inflated claims to
teach virtue and their reliance on appearances, but from the fact that
his teacher, Socrates, was sentenced to death after sophists' efforts.
Aristotle
A marble bust of Aristotle
Aristotle
(384–322 BC) was a student of Plato who famously set forth an extended
treatise on rhetoric that still repays careful study today. In the first
sentence of
The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle says that "rhetoric is the counterpart [literally, the
antistrophe] of dialectic". As the "antistrophe" of a Greek
ode responds to and is patterned after the structure of the "
strophe"
(they form two sections of the whole and are sung by two parts of the
chorus), so the art of rhetoric follows and is structurally patterned
after the art of dialectic because both are arts of discourse
production. Thus, while dialectical methods are necessary to find truth
in theoretical matters, rhetorical methods are required in practical
matters such as adjudicating somebody's guilt or innocence when charged
in a court of law, or adjudicating a prudent course of action to be
taken in a deliberative assembly. The core features of dialectic include
the absence of determined subject matter, its elaboration on earlier
empirical practice, the explication of its aims, the type of utility and
the definition of the proper function.
For Plato and Aristotle, dialectic involves persuasion, so when
Aristotle says that rhetoric is the antistrophe of dialectic, he means
that rhetoric as he uses the term has a domain or scope of application
that is parallel to, but different from, the domain or scope of
application of dialectic. In
Nietzsche Humanist (1998: 129),
Claude Pavur explains that "[t]he Greek prefix 'anti' does not merely
designate opposition, but it can also mean 'in place of.'" When
Aristotle characterizes rhetoric as the antistrophe of dialectic, he no
doubt means that rhetoric is used in place of dialectic when we are
discussing civic issues in a court of law or in a legislative assembly.
The domain of rhetoric is civic affairs and practical decision making in
civic affairs, not theoretical considerations of operational
definitions of terms and clarification of thought. These, for him, are
in the domain of dialectic.
Aristotle's treatise on rhetoric systematically describes civic
rhetoric as a human art or skill (techne). It is more of an objective
theory than it is an interpretive theory with a rhetorical tradition.
Aristotle's art of rhetoric emphasizes persuasion as the purpose of
rhetoric. His definition of rhetoric as "the faculty of observing in any
given case the available means of persuasion", essentially a mode of
discovery, limits the art to the inventional process, and Aristotle
heavily emphasizes the logical aspect of this process. In his account,
rhetoric is the art of discovering all available means of persuasion. A
speaker supports the probability of a message by logical, ethical, and
emotional proofs. Some form of logos, ethos, and pathos is present in
every possible public presentation that exists. But the treatise in fact
also discusses not only elements of style and (briefly) delivery, but
also emotional appeals (pathos) and characterological appeals (ethos).
Aristotle identifies three steps or "offices" of
rhetoric—invention, arrangement, and style—and three different types of
rhetorical proof:
ethos
(Aristotle's theory of character and how the character and credibility
of a speaker can influence an audience to consider him/her to be
believable—there being three qualities that contribute to a credible
ethos: perceived intelligence, virtuous character, and goodwill);
pathos
(the use of emotional appeals to alter the audience's judgment through
metaphor, amplification, storytelling, or presenting the topic in a way
that evokes strong emotions in the audience.); and,
logos (the use of reasoning, either
inductive or
deductive, to construct an argument).
Aristotle emphasized
enthymematic reasoning
as central to the process of rhetorical invention, though later
rhetorical theorists placed much less emphasis on it. An "enthymeme"
would follow today's form of a syllogism; however it would exclude
either the major or minor premise. An enthymeme is persuasive because
the audience is providing the missing premise. Because the audience is
able to provide the missing premise, they are more likely to be
persuaded by the message.
Aristotle identified three different types or genres of civic rhetoric.
Forensic
(also known as judicial), was concerned with determining the truth or
falseness of events that took place in the past and issues of guilt. An
example of forensic rhetoric would be in a courtroom.
Deliberative
(also known as political), was concerned with determining whether or
not particular actions should or should not be taken in the future.
Making laws would be an example of deliberative rhetoric.
Epideictic
(also known as ceremonial), was concerned with praise and blame,
values, right and wrong, demonstrating beauty and skill in the present.
Examples of epideictic rhetoric would include a eulogy or a wedding
toast.
Canons
The Five Canons of Rhetoric serve as a guide to creating persuasive messages and arguments. These are
invention (the process of developing arguments);
arrangement (organizing the arguments for extreme effect);
style (determining how to present the arguments);
delivery (the gestures, pronunciation, tone and pace used when presenting the persuasive arguments); and
memory (the process of learning and memorizing the speech and persuasive messages.)
In the rhetoric field, there is an intellectual debate about
Aristotle's definition of rhetoric. Some believe that Aristotle defines
rhetoric in
On Rhetoric as the art of persuasion, while others
think he defines it as the art of judgment. Rhetoric as the art of
judgment would mean the rhetor discerns the available means of
persuasion with a choice. Aristotle also says rhetoric is concerned with
judgment because the audience judges the rhetor's ethos.
One of the most famous of Aristotelian doctrines was the idea of topics (also referred to as
common topics
or commonplaces). Though the term had a wide range of application (as a
memory technique or compositional exercise, for example) it most often
referred to the "seats of argument"—the list of categories of thought or
modes of reasoning—that a speaker could use to generate arguments or
proofs. The topics were thus a heuristic or inventional tool designed to
help speakers categorize and thus better retain and apply frequently
used types of argument. For example, since we often see effects as
"like" their causes, one way to invent an argument (about a future
effect) is by discussing the cause (which it will be "like"). This and
other rhetorical topics derive from Aristotle's belief that there are
certain predictable ways in which humans (particularly non-specialists)
draw conclusions from premises. Based upon and adapted from his
dialectical Topics, the rhetorical topics became a central feature of
later rhetorical theorizing, most famously in Cicero's work of that
name.
Cicero
Bust of Marcus Tullius Cicero
For the Romans, oration became an important part of public life.
Cicero
(106–43 BC) was chief among Roman rhetoricians and remains the best
known ancient orator and the only orator who both spoke in public and
produced treatises on the subject.
Rhetorica ad Herennium,
formerly attributed to Cicero but now considered to be of unknown
authorship, is one of the most significant works on rhetoric and is
still widely used as a reference today. It is an extensive reference on
the use of rhetoric, and in the
Middle Ages and
Renaissance, it achieved wide publication as an advanced school text on rhetoric.
Cicero is considered one of the most significant rhetoricians of
all time, charting a middle path between the competing Attic and
Asiatic styles to become considered second only to
Demosthenes among history's orators. His works include the early and very influential
De Inventione (On Invention, often read alongside the
Ad Herennium as the two basic texts of rhetorical theory throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance),
De Oratore (a fuller statement of rhetorical principles in dialogue form),
Topics (a rhetorical treatment of common topics, highly influential through the Renaissance),
Brutus (Cicero) (a discussion of famous orators) and
Orator
(a defense of Cicero's style). Cicero also left a large body of
speeches and letters which would establish the outlines of Latin
eloquence and style for generations to come. It was the rediscovery of
Cicero's speeches (such as the defense of Archias) and letters (to
Atticus) by Italians like
Petrarch
that, in part, ignited the cultural innovations that we know as the
Renaissance. He championed the learning of Greek (and Greek rhetoric),
contributed to Roman ethics, linguistics, philosophy, and politics, and
emphasized the importance of all forms of appeal (emotion, humor,
stylistic range, irony and digression in addition to pure reasoning) in
oratory. But perhaps his most significant contribution to subsequent
rhetoric, and education in general, was his argument that orators learn
not only about the specifics of their case (the
hypothesis) but also about the general questions from which they derived (the
theses).
Thus, in giving a speech in defense of a poet whose Roman citizenship
had been questioned, the orator should examine not only the specifics of
that poet's civic status, he should also examine the role and value of
poetry and of literature more generally in Roman culture and political
life. The orator, said Cicero, needed to be knowledgeable about all
areas of human life and culture, including law, politics, history,
literature, ethics, warfare, medicine, even arithmetic and geometry. Cicero gave rise to the idea that the "ideal orator" be well-versed in
all branches of learning: an idea that was rendered as "liberal
humanism", and that lives on today in liberal arts or general education
requirements in colleges and universities around the world.
Quintilian
Quintilian (35–100 AD) began his career as a pleader in the courts of law; his reputation grew so great that
Vespasian created a chair of rhetoric for him in Rome. The culmination of his life's work was the
Institutio Oratoria (
Institutes of Oratory, or alternatively,
The Orator's Education),
a lengthy treatise on the training of the orator, in which he discusses
the training of the "perfect" orator from birth to old age and, in the
process, reviews the doctrines and opinions of many influential
rhetoricians who preceded him.
In the Institutes, Quintilian organizes rhetorical study through
the stages of education that an aspiring orator would undergo, beginning
with the selection of a nurse. Aspects of elementary education
(training in reading and writing, grammar, and literary criticism) are
followed by preliminary rhetorical exercises in composition (the
progymnasmata)
that include maxims and fables, narratives and comparisons, and finally
full legal or political speeches. The delivery of speeches within the
context of education or for entertainment purposes became widespread and
popular under the term "declamation". Rhetorical training proper was
categorized under five canons that would persist for centuries in
academic circles:
- Inventio (invention) is the process that leads to the development and refinement of an argument.
- Once arguments are developed, dispositio (disposition, or arrangement) is used to determine how it should be organized for greatest effect, usually beginning with the exordium.
- Once the speech content is known and the structure is determined, the next steps involve elocutio (style) and pronuntiatio (presentation).
- Memoria (memory) comes to play as the speaker recalls each of these elements during the speech.
- Actio (delivery) is the final step as the speech is presented in a gracious and pleasing way to the audience – the Grand Style.
This work was available only in fragments in medieval times, but the discovery of a complete copy at the
Abbey of St. Gall in 1416 led to its emergence as one of the most influential works on rhetoric during the Renaissance.
Quintilian's work describes not just the art of rhetoric, but the
formation of the perfect orator as a politically active, virtuous,
publicly minded citizen. His emphasis was on the ethical application of
rhetorical training, in part a reaction against the growing tendency in
Roman schools toward standardization of themes and techniques. At the
same time that rhetoric was becoming divorced from political decision
making, rhetoric rose as a culturally vibrant and important mode of
entertainment and cultural criticism in a movement known as the "second
sophistic", a development that gave rise to the charge (made by
Quintilian and others) that teachers were emphasizing style over
substance in rhetoric.
Medieval to Enlightenment
After
the breakup of the western Roman Empire, the study of rhetoric
continued to be central to the study of the verbal arts; but the study
of the verbal arts went into decline for several centuries, followed
eventually by a gradual rise in formal education, culminating in the
rise of medieval universities. But rhetoric transmuted during this
period into the arts of letter writing (
ars dictaminis) and sermon writing (
ars praedicandi). As part of the
trivium,
rhetoric was secondary to the study of logic, and its study was highly
scholastic: students were given repetitive exercises in the creation of
discourses on historical subjects (
suasoriae) or on classic legal questions (
controversiae).
Although he is not commonly regarded as a rhetorician,
St. Augustine
(354–430) was trained in rhetoric and was at one time a professor of
Latin rhetoric in Milan. After his conversion to Christianity, he became
interested in using these "
pagan" arts for spreading his religion. This new use of rhetoric is explored in the Fourth Book of his
De Doctrina Christiana, which laid the foundation of what would become
homiletics,
the rhetoric of the sermon. Augustine begins the book by asking why
"the power of eloquence, which is so efficacious in pleading either for
the erroneous cause or the right", should not be used for righteous
purposes (IV. 3).
One early concern of the medieval Christian church was its attitude to classical rhetoric itself.
Jerome (d. 420) complained, "What has
Horace to do with the Psalms,
Virgil
with the Gospels, Cicero with the Apostles?" Augustine is also
remembered for arguing for the preservation of pagan works and fostering
a church tradition that led to conservation of numerous pre-Christian
rhetorical writings.
Rhetoric would not regain its classical heights until the Renaissance, but new writings did advance rhetorical thought.
Boethius (480?–524), in his brief
Overview of the Structure of Rhetoric, continues Aristotle's taxonomy by placing rhetoric in subordination to philosophical argument or dialectic. The
introduction of Arab scholarship from European relations with the
Muslim empire (in particular
Al-Andalus)
renewed interest in Aristotle and Classical thought in general, leading
to what some historians call the 12th century Renaissance. A number of
medieval grammars and studies of poetry and rhetoric appeared.
Late medieval rhetorical writings include those of St.
Thomas Aquinas (1225?–1274),
Matthew of Vendome (
Ars Versificatoria, 1175?), and
Geoffrey of Vinsauf (
Poetria Nova, 1200–1216). Pre-modern female rhetoricians, outside of Socrates' friend
Aspasia, are rare; but medieval rhetoric produced by women either in religious orders, such as
Julian of Norwich (d. 1415), or the very well-connected
Christine de Pizan (1364?–1430?), did occur if not always recorded in writing.
In his 1943
Cambridge University doctoral dissertation in English, Canadian
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) surveys the verbal arts from approximately the time of
Cicero down to the time of
Thomas Nashe (1567–1600?).
His dissertation is still noteworthy for undertaking to study the
history of the verbal arts together as the trivium, even though the
developments that he surveys have been studied in greater detail since
he undertook his study. As noted below, McLuhan became one of the most
widely publicized thinkers in the 20th century, so it is important to
note his scholarly roots in the study of the history of rhetoric and
dialectic.
Another interesting record of medieval rhetorical thought can be seen in the many
animal debate poems popular in England and the continent during the Middle Ages, such as
The Owl and the Nightingale (13th century) and
Geoffrey Chaucer's
Parliament of Fowls (1382?).
Sixteenth century
Walter J. Ong's article "Humanism" in the 1967
New Catholic Encyclopedia surveys
Renaissance humanism,
which defined itself broadly as disfavoring medieval scholastic logic
and dialectic and as favoring instead the study of classical Latin style
and grammar and philology and rhetoric. (Reprinted in Ong's
Faith and Contexts (Scholars Press, 1999; 4: 69–91.))
One influential figure in the rebirth of interest in classical rhetoric was
Erasmus (c. 1466–1536). His 1512 work,
De Duplici Copia Verborum et Rerum (also known as
Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style),
was widely published (it went through more than 150 editions throughout
Europe) and became one of the basic school texts on the subject. Its
treatment of rhetoric is less comprehensive than the classic works of
antiquity, but provides a traditional treatment of
res-verba (matter and form): its first book treats the subject of
elocutio, showing the student how to use
schemes and tropes; the second book covers
inventio. Much of the emphasis is on abundance of variation (
copia
means "plenty" or "abundance", as in copious or cornucopia), so both
books focus on ways to introduce the maximum amount of variety into
discourse. For instance, in one section of the
De Copia, Erasmus presents two hundred variations of the sentence "
Semper, dum vivam, tui meminero." Another of his works, the extremely popular
The Praise of Folly,
also had considerable influence on the teaching of rhetoric in the
later 16th century. Its orations in favour of qualities such as madness
spawned a type of exercise popular in Elizabethan grammar schools, later
called
adoxography, which required pupils to compose passages in praise of useless things.
Juan Luis Vives
(1492–1540) also helped shape the study of rhetoric in England. A
Spaniard, he was appointed in 1523 to the Lectureship of Rhetoric at
Oxford by
Cardinal Wolsey, and was entrusted by
Henry VIII to be one of the tutors of Mary. Vives fell into disfavor when Henry VIII divorced
Catherine of Aragon and left England in 1528. His best-known work was a book on education,
De Disciplinis, published in 1531, and his writings on rhetoric included
Rhetoricae, sive De Ratione Dicendi, Libri Tres (1533),
De Consultatione (1533), and a rhetoric on letter writing,
De Conscribendis Epistolas (1536).
It is likely that many well-known English writers were exposed to the works of
Erasmus and
Vives
(as well as those of the Classical rhetoricians) in their schooling,
which was conducted in Latin (not English) and often included some study
of Greek and placed considerable emphasis on rhetoric. See, for
example, T.W. Baldwin's
William Shakspere's Small Latine and Lesse Greeke, 2 vols. (University of Illinois Press, 1944).
The mid-16th century saw the rise of vernacular rhetorics—those
written in English rather than in the Classical languages; adoption of
works in English was slow, however, due to the strong orientation toward
Latin and Greek.
Leonard Cox's
The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke
(c. 1524–1530; second edition published in 1532) is considered to be
the earliest text on rhetorics in English; it was, for the most part, a
translation of the work of
Philipp Melanchthon. A successful early text was
Thomas Wilson's
The Arte of Rhetorique
(1553), which presents a traditional treatment of rhetoric. For
instance, Wilson presents the five canons of rhetoric (Invention,
Disposition,
Elocutio,
Memoria, and Utterance or
Actio). Other notable works included Angel Day's
The English Secretorie (1586, 1592),
George Puttenham's
The Arte of English Poesie (1589), and
Richard Rainholde's
Foundacion of Rhetorike (1563).
During this same period, a movement began that would change the
organization of the school curriculum in Protestant and especially
Puritan circles and led to rhetoric losing its central place. A French
scholar, Pierre de la Ramée, in Latin
Petrus Ramus (1515–1572), dissatisfied with what he saw as the overly broad and redundant organization of the
trivium,
proposed a new curriculum. In his scheme of things, the five components
of rhetoric no longer lived under the common heading of rhetoric.
Instead, invention and disposition were determined to fall exclusively
under the heading of dialectic, while style, delivery, and memory were
all that remained for rhetoric. See
Walter J. Ong,
Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason
(Harvard University Press, 1958; reissued by the University of Chicago
Press, 2004, with a new foreword by Adrian Johns). Ramus was martyred
during the French Wars of Religion. His teachings, seen as inimical to
Catholicism, were short-lived in France but found a fertile ground in
the Netherlands, Germany and England.
One of Ramus' French followers,
Audomarus Talaeus (Omer Talon) published his rhetoric,
Institutiones Oratoriae,
in 1544. This work provided a simple presentation of rhetoric that
emphasized the treatment of style, and became so popular that it was
mentioned in
John Brinsley's (1612)
Ludus literarius; or The Grammar Schoole as being the "most used in the best schooles". Many other
Ramist
rhetorics followed in the next half-century, and by the 17th century,
their approach became the primary method of teaching rhetoric in
Protestant and especially Puritan circles.
John Milton (1608–1674) wrote a textbook in logic or dialectic in Latin based on Ramus' work.
Ramism could not exert any influence on the established Catholic
schools and universities, which remained loyal to Scholasticism, or on
the new Catholic schools and universities founded by members of the
religious orders known as the
Society of Jesus or the Oratorians, as can be seen in the
Jesuit curriculum (in use right up to the 19th century, across the Christian world) known as the
Ratio Studiorum
(that Claude Pavur, S.J., has recently translated into English, with
the Latin text in the parallel column on each page (St. Louis: Institute
of Jesuit Sources, 2005)). If the influence of Cicero and Quintilian
permeates the
Ratio Studiorum, it is through the lenses of devotion and the militancy of the Counter-Reformation. The
Ratio
was indeed imbued with a sense of the divine, of the incarnate logos,
that is of rhetoric as an eloquent and humane means to reach further
devotion and further action in the Christian city, which was absent from
Ramist formalism. The Ratio is, in rhetoric, the answer to St Ignatius
Loyola's practice, in devotion, of "spiritual exercises". This complex
oratorical-prayer system is absent from Ramism.
Seventeenth century
In New England and at
Harvard College (founded 1636), Ramus and his followers dominated, as
Perry Miller shows in
The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century
(Harvard University Press, 1939). However, in England, several writers
influenced the course of rhetoric during the 17th century, many of them
carrying forward the dichotomy that had been set forth by Ramus and his
followers during the preceding decades. Of greater importance is that
this century saw the development of a modern, vernacular style that
looked to English, rather than to Greek, Latin, or French models.
Francis Bacon
(1561–1626), although not a rhetorician, contributed to the field in
his writings. One of the concerns of the age was to find a suitable
style for the discussion of scientific topics, which needed above all a
clear exposition of facts and arguments, rather than the ornate style
favored at the time. Bacon in his
The Advancement of Learning
criticized those who are preoccupied with style rather than "the weight
of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention,
or depth of judgment". On matters of style, he proposed that the style
conform to the subject matter and to the audience, that simple words be
employed whenever possible, and that the style should be agreeable.
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) also wrote on rhetoric. Along with a shortened translation of
Aristotle's
Rhetoric,
Hobbes also produced a number of other works on the subject. Sharply
contrarian on many subjects, Hobbes, like Bacon, also promoted a simpler
and more natural style that used figures of speech sparingly.
Perhaps the most influential development in English style came out of the work of the
Royal Society (founded in 1660), which in 1664 set up a committee to improve the English language. Among the committee's members were
John Evelyn (1620–1706),
Thomas Sprat (1635–1713), and
John Dryden
(1631–1700). Sprat regarded "fine speaking" as a disease, and thought
that a proper style should "reject all amplifications, digressions, and
swellings of style" and instead "return back to a primitive purity and
shortness" (
History of the Royal Society, 1667).
While the work of this committee never went beyond planning, John
Dryden is often credited with creating and exemplifying a new and
modern English style. His central tenet was that the style should be
proper "to the occasion, the subject, and the persons". As such, he
advocated the use of English words whenever possible instead of foreign
ones, as well as vernacular, rather than Latinate, syntax. His own prose
(and his poetry) became exemplars of this new style.
Eighteenth century
Arguably
one of the most influential schools of rhetoric during this time was
Scottish Belletristic rhetoric, exemplified by such professors of
rhetoric as
Hugh Blair whose
Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres saw international success in various editions and translations.
Modern
At the
turn of the 20th century, there was a revival of rhetorical study
manifested in the establishment of departments of rhetoric and speech at
academic institutions, as well as the formation of national and
international professional organizations.
Jim A. Kuypers
and Andrew King suggest that the early interest in rhetorical studies
was a movement away from elocution as taught in departments of English
in the United States, and was an attempt to refocus rhetorical studies
away from delivery only to civic engagement. Collectively, they write,
twentieth century rhetorical studies offered an understanding of
rhetoric that demonstrated a "rich complexity" of how rhetorical
scholars understood the nature of rhetoric.
Theorists generally agree that by the 1930s a significant reason for
the revival of the study of rhetoric was the renewed importance of
language and persuasion in the increasingly mediated environment of the
20th century
and through the 21st century, with the media focus on the wide
variations and analyses of political rhetoric and its consequences. The
rise of
advertising and of
mass media such as
photography,
telegraphy,
radio, and
film
brought rhetoric more prominently into people's lives. More recently
the term rhetoric has been applied to media forms other than verbal
language, e.g.
Visual rhetoric.
Notable modern theorists
- Chaïm Perelman was a philosopher of law, who studied, taught, and lived most of his life in Brussels. He was among the most important argumentation theorists of the 20th century. His chief work is the Traité de l'argumentation – la nouvelle rhétorique (1958), with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, which was translated into English as The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation,
by John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver (1969). Perelman and
Olbrechts-Tyteca move rhetoric from the periphery to the center of
argumentation theory. Among their most influential concepts are
"dissociation", "the universal audience", "quasi-logical argument", and
"presence".
- Kenneth Burke was a rhetorical theorist, philosopher, and poet. Many of his works are central to modern rhetorical theory: A Rhetoric of Motives (1950), A Grammar of Motives (1945), Language as Symbolic Action (1966), and Counterstatement
(1931). Among his influential concepts are "identification",
"consubstantiality", and the "dramatistic pentad". He described rhetoric
as "the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in
beings that by nature respond to symbols".
In relation to Aristotle's theory, Aristotle was more interested in
constructing rhetoric, while Burke was interested in "debunking" it.
- Edwin Black was a rhetorical critic best known for his book Rhetorical Criticism: A Study in Method (1965) in which he criticized the dominant "neo-Aristotelian" tradition in American rhetorical criticism
as having little in common with Aristotle "besides some recurrent
topics of discussion and a vaguely derivative view of rhetorical
discourse". Furthermore, he contended, because rhetorical scholars had
been focusing primarily on Aristotelian logical forms they often
overlooked important, alternative types of discourse. He also published
several highly influential essays including: "Secrecy and Disclosure as
Rhetorical Forms", "The Second Persona", and "A Note on Theory and Practice in Rhetorical Criticism".
- Marshall McLuhan
was a media theorist whose theories and whose choice of objects of
study are important to the study of rhetoric. McLuhan's famous dictum
"the medium is the message" highlights the significance of the medium
itself. No other scholar of the history and theory of rhetoric was as
widely publicized in the 20th century as McLuhan.
- I. A. Richards was a literary critic and rhetorician. His The Philosophy of Rhetoric
is an important text in modern rhetorical theory. In this work, he
defined rhetoric as "a study of misunderstandings and its remedies", and introduced the influential concepts tenor and vehicle to describe the components of a metaphor—the main idea and the concept to which it is compared.
- The Groupe µ.
This interdisciplinary team has contributed to the renovation of the
elocutio in the context of poetics and modern linguistics, significantly
with Rhétorique générale (1970; translated into English as A General Rhetoric, by Paul B. Burrell et Edgar M. Slotkin, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981) and Rhétorique de la poésie (1977).
- Stephen Toulmin was a philosopher whose models of argumentation have had great influence on modern rhetorical theory. His Uses of Argument is an important text in modern rhetorical theory and argumentation theory.
- Richard Vatz
is a rhetorician responsible for the salience-agenda/meaning-spin
conceptualization of rhetoric, later revised (2014) to an "agenda-spin"
model, a conceptualization which emphasizes persuader responsibility for
the agenda and spin he/she creates. His theory is notable for its
agent-focused perspective, articulated in The Only Authentic Book of Persuasion (Kendall Hunt), derived from the Summer, 1973 Philosophy and Rhetoric article, "The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation".
- Richard M. Weaver
was a rhetorical and cultural critic well known for his contributions
to the new conservatism. He focused on the ethical implications of
rhetoric and his ideas can be seen in "Language is Sermonic" and "The
Ethics of Rhetoric". According to Weaver there are four types of
argument, and through the argument a person habitually uses the critic
can see the rhetorician's worldview. Those who prefer the argument from
genus or definition are idealists. Those who argue from similitude see
the connectedness between things and are used by poets and religious
individuals. The argument from consequence sees a cause and effect
relationship. Finally the argument from circumstance considers the
particulars of a situation and is an argument preferred by liberals.
- Gloria Anzaldua
was a "Mestiza" and "Borderland" rhetorician, as well as a
Mexican-American poet and pioneer in the field of Chicana lesbian
feminism. Mestiza and Borderland rhetoric focused on ones' formation of
identity, disregarding societal and discourse labels.
With "Mestiza" rhetoric, one viewed the world as discovering one's
"self" in others and others' "self" in you. Through this process, one
accepted living in a world of contradictions and ambiguity. Anzaldua learned to balance cultures, being Mexican in the eyes of the Anglo-majority and Indian in a Mexican culture. Her other notable works include: Sinister Wisdom, Borderlands/La Fronters: The New Mestiza, and La Prieta.
- Gertrude Buck
was one of the prominent female rhetorical theorists who was also a
composition educator. Her scholastic contributions such as "The present
status of Rhetorical Theory"
to inspire the egalitarian status of hearers-speakers to achieve the
goal of communication. Another piece that she edited with Newton Scott
is "Brief English Grammar" which troubled the common prescriptive
grammar. This book received a lot of praise and critiques for
descriptive nature of social responsibility from non-mainstream beliefs.
- Krista Ratcliffe is one of the prominent female rhetorical theorists. She wrote one of her influential models of "Rhetorical Listening: Identification, Gender, Whiteness."
In it, she theorizes many ways in which effect has to navigate the
pitfalls of biases, ideological and cultural conditioning, and
appropriation. She points out and recommends relentless engagement. In
her Book, Ratcliffe seems to recommend
when she said that I would suggest that teachers should keep themselves
open to hearing diverse layers in their students' texts that both
challenge their biases and point to new textual possibilities.
Methods of analysis
Criticism seen as a method
Rhetoric
can be analyzed by a variety of methods and theories. One such method
is criticism. When those using criticism analyze instances of rhetoric
what they do is called rhetorical criticism (see section below).
According to rhetorical critic
Jim A. Kuypers,
"The use of rhetoric is an art; as such, it does not lend itself well
to scientific methods of analysis. Criticism is an art as well; as
such, it is particularly well suited for examining rhetorical
creations."
He asserts that criticism is a method of generating knowledge just as
the scientific method is a method for generating knowledge: "The way the
Sciences and the Humanities study the phenomena that surround us differ
greatly in the amount of researcher personality allowed to influence
the results of the study. For example, in the Sciences researchers
purposefully adhere to a strict method (the scientific method). All
scientific researchers are to use this same basic method, and successful
experiments must be 100 percent replicable by others. The application
of the scientific method may take numerous forms, but the overall method
remains the same—and the personality of the researcher is excised from
the actual study. In sharp contrast, criticism (one of many Humanistic
methods of generating knowledge) actively involves the personality of
the researcher. The very choices of what to study, and how and why to
study a rhetorical artifact are heavily influenced by the personal
qualities of the researcher. In criticism this is especially important
since the personality of the critic considered an integral component of
the study. Further personalizing criticism, we find that rhetorical
critics use a variety of means when examining a particular rhetorical
artifact, with some critics even developing their own unique perspective
to better examine a rhetorical artifact."
Edwin Black (rhetorician)
wrote on this point that, "Methods, then, admit of varying degrees of
personality. And criticism, on the whole, is near the indeterminate,
contingent, personal end of the methodological scale. In consequence of
this placement, it is neither possible nor desirable for criticism to
be fixed into a system, for critical techniques to be objectified, for
critics to be interchangeable for purposes of [scientific] replication,
or for rhetorical criticism to serve as the handmaiden of
quasi-scientific theory. [The] idea is that critical method is too
personally expressive to be systematized.
Jim A. Kuypers sums this idea of criticism as art in the
following manner: "In short, criticism is an art, not a science. It is
not a scientific method; it uses subjective methods of argument; it
exists on its own, not in conjunction with other methods of generating
knowledge (i.e., social scientific or scientific). [I]nsight and
imagination top statistical applications when studying rhetorical
action."
Observation on analytic method
There
does not exist an analytic method that is widely recognized as "the"
rhetorical method, partly because many in rhetorical study see rhetoric
as merely produced by reality (see dissent from that view below). It
is important to note that the object of rhetorical analysis is typically
discourse, and therefore the principles of "rhetorical analysis" would
be difficult to distinguish from those of "
discourse analysis".
However, rhetorical analytic methods can also be applied to almost
anything, including objects—a car, a castle, a computer, a comportment.
Generally speaking, rhetorical analysis makes use of rhetorical
concepts (ethos, logos, kairos, mediation, etc.) to describe the social
or epistemological functions of the object of study. When the object of
study happens to be some type of discourse (a speech, a poem, a joke, a
newspaper article), the aim of rhetorical analysis is not simply to
describe the claims and arguments advanced within the discourse, but
(more important) to identify the specific semiotic strategies employed
by the speaker to accomplish specific persuasive goals. Therefore,
after a rhetorical analyst discovers a use of language that is
particularly important in achieving persuasion, she typically moves onto
the question of "How does it work?" That is, what effects does this
particular use of rhetoric have on an audience, and how does that effect
provide more clues as to the speaker's (or writer's) objectives?
There are some scholars who do partial rhetorical analysis and
defer judgments about rhetorical success. In other words, some analysts
attempt to avoid the question of "Was this use of rhetoric successful
[in accomplishing the aims of the speaker]?" To others, however, that
is the preeminent point: is the rhetoric strategically effective and
what did the rhetoric accomplish? This question allows a shift in focus
from the speaker's objectives to the effects and functions of the
rhetoric itself.
Strategies
Rhetorical strategies
are the efforts made by authors to persuade or inform their readers.
Rhetorical strategies are employed by writers and refer to the different
ways they can persuade the reader. According to Gray, there are
various argument strategies used in writing. He describes four of these
as argument from analogy, argument from absurdity, thought experiments,
and inference to the best explanation.
Criticism
Modern
rhetorical criticism
explores the relationship between text and context; that is, how an
instance of rhetoric relates to circumstances. Since the aim of rhetoric
is to be persuasive, the level to which the rhetoric in question
persuades its audience is what must be analyzed, and later criticized.
In determining the extent to which a text is persuasive, one may explore
the text's relationship with its audience, purpose, ethics, argument,
evidence, arrangement, delivery, and style. In his
Rhetorical Criticism: A Study in Method, scholar
Edwin Black
states, "It is the task of criticism not to measure ... discourses
dogmatically against some parochial standard of rationality but,
allowing for the immeasurable wide range of human experience, to see
them as they really are." While the language "as they really are" is debatable, rhetorical critics explain texts and speeches by investigating their
rhetorical situation,
typically placing them in a framework of speaker/audience exchange.
The antithetical view places the rhetor at the center of creating that
which is considered the extant situation; i.e., the agenda and spin.
Additional theoretical approaches
Following the
neo-Aristotelian
approaches to criticism, scholars began to derive methods from other
disciplines, such as history, philosophy, and the social sciences.
The importance of critics' personal judgment decreased in explicit
coverage while the analytical dimension of criticism began to gain
momentum. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, methodological pluralism
replaced the singular neo-Aristotelian method. Methodological
rhetorical criticism is typically done by deduction, where a broad
method is used to examine a specific case of rhetoric. These types include:
- Ideological criticism –
critics engage rhetoric as it suggests the beliefs, values,
assumptions, and interpretations held by the rhetor or the larger
culture. Ideological criticism also treats ideology as an artifact of
discourse, one that is embedded in key terms (called "ideographs") as well as material resources and discursive embodiment.
- Cluster criticism – a method developed by Kenneth Burke
that seeks to help the critic understand the rhetor's worldview. This
means identifying terms that are 'clustered' around key symbols in the
rhetorical artifact and the patterns in which they appear.
- Frame analysis –
when used as rhetorical criticism, this theoretical perspective allows
critics to look for how rhetors construct an interpretive lens in their
discourse. In short, how they make certain facts more noticeable than
others. It is particularly useful for analyzing products of the news
media.
- Generic criticism –
a method that assumes certain situations call for similar needs and
expectations within the audience, therefore calling for certain types of
rhetoric. It studies rhetoric in different times and locations, looking
at similarities in the rhetorical situation and the rhetoric that
responds to them. Examples include eulogies, inaugural addresses, and
declarations of war.
- Narrative criticism –
narratives help organize experiences in order to endow meaning to
historical events and transformations. Narrative criticism focuses on
the story itself and how the construction of the narrative directs the
interpretation of the situation.
By the mid-1980s, however, the study of rhetorical criticism began to
move away from precise methodology towards conceptual issues.
Conceptually driven criticism operates more through abduction, according to scholar
James Jasinski,
who argues that this emerging type of criticism can be thought of as a
back-and-forth between the text and the concepts, which are being
explored at the same time. The concepts remain "works in progress", and
understanding those terms develops through the analysis of a text.
Criticism is considered rhetorical when it focuses on the way
some types of discourse react to situational exigencies—problems or
demands—and constraints. This means that modern rhetorical criticism is
based in how the rhetorical case or object persuades, defines, or
constructs the audience. In modern terms, what can be considered
rhetoric includes, but it is not limited to, speeches, scientific
discourse, pamphlets, literary work, works of art, and pictures.
Contemporary rhetorical criticism has maintained aspects of early
neo-Aristotelian thinking through close reading, which attempts to
explore the organization and stylistic structure of a rhetorical object.
Using close textual analysis means rhetorical critics use the tools of
classical rhetoric and literary analysis to evaluate the style and
strategy used to communicate the argument.
Purpose of criticism
Rhetorical
criticism serves several purposes or functions. First, rhetorical
criticism hopes to help form or improve public taste. It helps educate
audiences and develops them into better judges of rhetorical situations
by reinforcing ideas of value, morality, and suitability. Rhetorical
criticism can thus contribute to the audience's understanding of
themselves and society.
According to
Jim A. Kuypers,
a dual purpose for performing criticism should be primarily to enhance
our appreciation and understanding. "[W]e wish to enhance both our own
and others' understanding of the rhetorical act; we wish to share our
insights with others, and to enhance their appreciation of the
rhetorical act. These are not hollow goals, but quality of life issues.
By improving understanding and appreciation, the critic can offer new
and potentially exciting ways for others to see the world. Through
understanding we also produce knowledge about human communication; in
theory this should help us to better govern our interactions with
others." Criticism is a humanizing activity in that it explores and
highlights qualities that make us human."
French
Rhetoric was part of the curriculum in
Jesuit and, to a lesser extent, Oratorian colleges until the
French Revolution.
For Jesuits, right from the foundation of the Society in France,
rhetoric was an integral part of the training of young men toward taking
up leadership positions in the Church and in State institutions, as
Marc Fumaroli has shown it in his foundational
Âge de l'éloquence
(1980). The Oratorians, by contrast, reserved it a lesser place, in
part due to the stress they placed on modern language acquisition and a
more sensualist philosophy (like
Bernard Lamy's
La Rhétorique ou l'Art de parler
(1675), which is an excellent example of their approach). Nonetheless,
in the 18th Century, rhetoric was the structure and crown of secondary
education, with works such as Rollin's
Treatise of Studies achieving a wide and enduring fame across the Continent. Later, with
Nicolas Boileau and
François de Malherbe,
rhetoric is the instrument of the clarity of the comment and speech ;
the literature that ensues from it is named "Sublime". The main
representative remains
Rivarol.
The French Revolution, however, turned this around. Philosophers such as
Condorcet,
who drafted the French revolutionary chart for a people's education
under the rule of reason, dismissed rhetoric as an instrument of
oppression in the hands of clerics in particular. The Revolution went as
far as to suppress the Bar, arguing that forensic rhetoric did
disservice to a rational system of justice, by allowing
fallacies
and emotions to come into play. Nonetheless, as later historians of the
19th century were keen to explain, the Revolution was a high moment of
eloquence and rhetorical prowess, although set against a background of
rejecting rhetoric.
Under the First Empire and its wide-ranging educational reforms,
imposed on or imitated across the Continent, rhetoric regained little
ground. In fact, instructions to the newly founded Polytechnic School,
tasked with training the scientific and technical elites, made it clear
that written reporting was to supersede oral reporting. Rhetoric
reentered secondary curriculum in fits and starts, but never regained
the prominence it had enjoyed under the
ancien régime, although
the penultimate year of secondary education was known as the Class of
Rhetoric. When manuals were redrafted in the mid-century, in particular
after the 1848 Revolution to formulate a national curriculum, care was
taken to distance their approach to rhetoric from that of the Church,
which was seen as an agent of conservatism and reactionary politics.
By the end of the 1870s, a major change had taken place:
philosophy of the rationalist or eclectic kind, generally Kantian, had
taken over rhetoric as the true end stage of secondary education (the
so-called Class of Philosophy bridged secondary and university
education). Rhetoric was then relegated to the study of literary figures
of speech, a discipline later on taught as Stylistics within the French
literature curriculum. More decisively, in 1890, a new standard written
exercise superseded the rhetorical exercises of speech writing, letter
writing and narration. The new genre, called dissertation, had been
invented in 1866, for the purpose of rational argument in the philosophy
class. Typically, in a dissertation, a question is asked, such as: "Is
history a sign of humanity's freedom?" The structure of a dissertation
consists in an introduction that elucidates the basic definitions
involved in the question as set, followed by an argument or thesis, a
counter-argument or antithesis, and a resolving argument or synthesis
that is not a compromise between the former but the production of a new
argument, ending with a conclusion that does not sum up the points but
opens onto a new problem. Hegelianism influenced the dissertation
design. It remains today the standard of writing in French humanities.
By the beginning of the 20th century, rhetoric was fast losing
the remains of its former importance, and eventually was taken out of
the school curriculum altogether at the time of the Separation of State
and Churches (1905). Part of the argument was that rhetoric remained the
last element of irrationality, driven by religious arguments, in what
was perceived as inimical to Republican education. The move, initiated
in 1789, found its resolution in 1902 when rhetoric was expunged from
all curricula. At the same time, Aristotelian rhetoric, owing to a
revival of Thomistic philosophy initiated by Rome, regained ground in
what was left of Catholic education in France, in particular at the
prestigious Faculty of Theology of Paris, now a private entity. Yet,
rhetoric vanished substantially from the French scene, educational or
intellectual, for some 60 years..
In the early 1960s a change began to take place, as the word
rhetoric and the body of knowledge it covers began to be used again, in a
modest and almost secret manner. The new linguistic turn, through the
rise of
semiotics as well as of structural
linguistics, brought to the fore a new interest in figures of speech as signs, the metaphor in particular (in the works of
Roman Jakobson,
Groupe µ, Michel Charles, Gérard Genette) while famed Structuralist
Roland Barthes,
a classicist by training, perceived how some basic elements of rhetoric
could be of use in the study of narratives, fashion and ideology.
Knowledge of rhetoric was so dim in the early 1970s that his short
memoir on rhetoric was seen as highly innovative. Basic as it was, it
did help rhetoric regain some currency in avant-garde circles.
Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, his contemporary, makes references to rhetoric, in particular to the Pre-Socratics. Philosopher
Jacques Derrida wrote on Voice.
At the same time, more profound work was taking place that
eventually gave rise to the French school of rhetoric as it exists
today.
This rhetorical revival took place on two fronts.
First, in 17th-century French studies, the mainstay of French literary
education, awareness grew that rhetoric was necessary to push the limits
of knowledge further, and also to provide an antidote to
Structuralism
and its denial of historicism in culture. This was the pioneering work
of Marc Fumaroli who, building on the work of classicist and
Neo-Latinist Alain Michel and French scholars such as Roger Zuber,
published his famed
Age de l'Eloquence (1980), was one of the
founders of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric and
was eventually elevated to a chair in rhetoric at the prestigious
College de France. He is the editor in chief of a monumental
History of Rhetoric in Modern Europe. His disciples form the second generation, with rhetoricians such as Françoise Waquet and Delphine Denis, both of the Sorbonne, or
Philippe-Joseph Salazar (
fr:Philippe-Joseph Salazar on the French Wikipedia), until recently at Derrida's College international de philosophie, laureate of the
Harry Oppenheimer prize and whose recent book on
Hyperpolitique has attracted the French media's attention on a "re-appropriation of the means of production of persuasion".
Second, in the area of Classical studies, in the wake of Alain
Michel, Latin scholars fostered a renewal in Cicero studies. They broke
away from a pure literary reading of his orations, in an attempt to
embed Cicero in European ethics. Meanwhile, among Greek scholars, the
literary historian and philologist
Jacques Bompaire, the philologist and philosopher E. Dupréel, and later the literature historian
Jacqueline de Romilly
pioneered new studies in the Sophists and the Second Sophistic. The
second generation of Classicists, often trained in philosophy as well
(following
Heidegger and Derrida, mainly), built on their work, with authors such as
Marcel Detienne (now at Johns Hopkins), Nicole Loraux, Medievalist and logician
Alain De Libera (Geneva), Ciceronian scholar Carlos Lévy (Sorbonne, Paris) and
Barbara Cassin (Collége international de philosophie, Paris). Sociologist of science
Bruno Latour
and economist Romain Laufer may also be considered part of, or close to
this group. Also French philosophers specialized in Arabic commentaries
on Aristotle's
Rhetoric.
Links between the two strands—literary and philosophical—of the
French school of rhetoric are strong and collaborative, and bear witness
to the revival of rhetoric in France. A recent issue of
Philosophy & Rhetoric presents current writing in the field.
Animal rhetoric
Rhetoric is practiced by
social animals in a variety of ways. For example, birds use
song, various animals warn members of their species of danger,
chimpanzees
have the capacity to deceive through communicative keyboard systems,
and deer stags compete for the attention of mates. While these might be
understood as
rhetorical actions (attempts at persuading through meaningful actions and
utterances), they can also be seen as rhetorical fundamentals shared by humans and animals. The study of animal rhetoric has been described as biorhetorics.
The
self-awareness
required to practice rhetoric might be difficult to notice and
acknowledge in some animals. However, some animals are capable of
acknowledging themselves in a mirror, and therefore, they might be
understood to be self-aware and engaged in rhetoric when practicing some
form of language, and therefore, rhetoric.
Anthropocentrism plays a significant role in human-animal
relationships, reflecting and perpetuating binaries in which humans are
assumed to be beings that "have" extraordinary qualities while animals
are regarded as beings that "lack" those qualities. This
dualism
is manifested through other forms as well, such as reason and sense,
mind and body, ideal and phenomenon in which the first category of each
pair (
reason,
mind, and
ideal) represents and belongs to only humans. By becoming aware of and overcoming these
dualistic
conceptions including the one between humans and animals, human
knowledge of themselves and the world is expected to become more
complete and holistic.
The relationship between humans and animals (as well as the rest of the
natural world) is often defined by the human rhetorical act of naming
and categorizing animals through
scientific and
folk
labeling. The act of naming partially defines the rhetorical
relationships between humans and animals, though both may be understood
to engage in rhetoric beyond human naming and categorizing.
Contrary to the binary assumptions deriving from
anthropocentrism, which regarded animals as creatures without extraordinarily qualities, it does exist some specific animals with a sort of
phrónēsis
which confers them capabilities to "learn and receive instruction" with
rudimentary understanding of some significant signs. Those animals do
practice deliberative, judicial, and
epideictic rhetoric deploying
ethos,
logos, and
pathos with gesture and preen, sing and growl.
Since animals offer models of rhetorical behavior and interaction that
are physical, even instinctual, but perhaps no less artful, getting rid
of our accustomed focus on verbal language and consciousness concepts
will help people interested in rhetoric and communication matters
promote human-animals' rhetoric.
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