Objectives:
- Response to Student First Day Responses
- Outline of Class Methodology (the Rhetorical Toolbox)
- Introduction to Rhetoric
- Tools: enthymemes, stasis theory, the rhetorical triangle, the artistic appeals (introduce and prompt)
- Overview of Student Responses to Readings
- (Volley of First Rhetorical Challenge)
Disciplining Rhetoric
Responding to your Responses
Can We Talk?
- Controversies
- Race & Ethnicity (and, Interracial dating/marriage, Affirmative action)
- War in Iraq
- Abortion
- Detroit
- Religion/Philosophy
- School Issues
What do you Want?
- Expertise in more complex and sophisticated writing styles
- Preparation for writing in other (more advanced) classes
- Vocabulary building
- Wiki use
- Freedom to write about what we want to write about...
The Methodology behind this class
- The Toolbox: acquiring & mastering skills, tips, and tricks
- Rhetoric is tool for getting what you want
- Martial Arts of Rhetoric: defensive and offensive (cf. Aristotle's Rhetoric: "Accordingly all men make use, more or less, of both; for to a certain extent all men attempt to discuss statements and to maintain them, to defend themselves and to attack others.")
The Rhetorical Toolbox: Basic Building Blocks for Arguments
Components of the Enthymeme: The claim, the stated reason, the unstated assumption, and grounds
Famous Enthymemes
All humans are mortal, so Socrates is mortal.
- Claim: Socrates is mortal
- Stated reason: all humans are mortal
- Unstated assumption: because Socrates is a human
The glove doesn't fit, so you must acquit
- Claim: the defendant should be acquitted
- Stated reason: because the glove does not fit
- Unstated assumption: because the glove was used by the murderer and therefore must fit on the murderer's hand
- Grounds: proof that the glove was used in the commission of the crime, proof that the glove does not fit, that the glove has not changed size and shape, that the hand of the defendant has not changed size or shape...
Helen should not be condemned "For either by will of Fate and decision of the gods and vote of Necessity did she do what she did, or by force reduced or by words seduced or by love possessed."
- Claim: Helen should not be condemned
- Stated reason: because she was compelled by will of Fate, decision of the gods, vote of necessity, force, seduction by words, or love"
- Unstated assumption: People should not be culpable for actions that were beyond their control.
Build your own Enthymemes:
Women should be allowed to join combat units because the image of women in combat would help eliminate gender stereotypes.
- Claim: women should be allowed to join combat units
- Stated reason: because the image of women in combat would help eliminate gender stereotypes
- Unstated assumption(?):
- Grounds(?):
Women should not be allowed to join combat units...
- Claim: women should not be allowed to join combat units
- Stated reason:
- Unstated assumption:
- Grounds(?):
Cocaine and heroin should be legalized...
- Claim: cocaine and heroin should be legalized
- Stated reason:
- Unstated assumption:
- Grounds(?):
Breaking it Down Again: Types of Questions and Claims
The Stasis Procedures
Definitional/Categorial: Is X a Y?
Disagreement over the nature of a thing or its inclusion in a category (occurs when one disagrees over the definition of either X or Y)
- Is Pluto a planet?
- Is abortion murder?
Evaluative: Is X good or bad? Is X a good or bad Y?
Disagreement over values, importance, or worthiness
- Is Bush's surge plan a good option?
- Are wikis an appropriate tool for classroom use?
Resemblance Is X like Y?
- Is Internet addiction like drug addiction?
- Is the Iraq war like the Vietnam war?
Cause/Consequence Will X cause Y? Is X caused by Y?
- Will decriminalizing marijuana reduce crime?
- Will raising the minimum wage increase unemployment?
Proposal
- Should gay marriage be legalized?
- Should teenage murder defendants be tried as adults?
Building Arguments around the Stasis
Example one: theft
Example two (proposal argument):
Eating disorders (such as anorexia and bulimia) should be covered by general health insurance.
- Definitional/Categorical?
- Evaluation?
- Resemblance?
- Cause/Consequence?
Triangulating: Contexts and Appeals
- Persuasion occurs through a transactional process involving three major vectors (in a manner similar to the processes of feedback in nature and technology). A rhetor produces a message designed to persuade a particular audience and then (often) responds dynamically to the reactions of that audience, thus altering their message.
Examples from our texts:
- Gorgias' monologue has little dynamic input from a very diverse audience, thus requiring a blunderbuss approach (either fate, divine intervention, love, seduction, force, etc.)
- Socrates' dialogue has much input from his audience, and thus he shifts strategy throughout and refers back to his interlocutors' earlier comments in making claims.
Upshots
- Rhetorically sound arguments must be accomodated to their audience
- Though truth may exist, there are multiple registers for validating claims
- In any instance of persuasion, you are more likely to be really trying to alter a person's actions, not their beliefs (the beliefs are a passage toward actions)
- Rhetoric often takes place through the use of one more of the artistic appeals: ethos (persuasion based on the character, expertise, or ethics of the speaker), logos (persuasion based on "logical" reasoning and often quantifiable grounds and evidence), and pathos (persuasion that manipulates or exploits an audience's emotions or affective capacities)
Upshots
- Though truth may exist, and might even be "proved," convincing an interlocutor of a claim and/or motivating them to act on it often goes beyond use of the "empirical" evidence
Building Arguments around the Artistic Appeals
- Rhetorical Challenge: In a bid to rally support for the unpopular war, Bush told Americans on Wednesday night that 21,500 extra troops were needed to help "break the cycle of violence" in Iraq and hasten an eventual withdrawal "Showdown." Bush's plan was met with much resistance. Approval ratings for his handling of the war hover around an all-time low of 26%; additionally, many have taken the past Congressional election as a sign that Americans are in fact increasingly in favor of decreasing troop levels. Defend Bush's plan with recourse to each of the three appeals.
Readings Wrap-Up
Rhetoric from multiple angles: (now with extra cynicism!)
- While reading Gorgia’s “Encomium to Helen” I became quite thoroughly confused and aggravated. Although Gorgia claims to be a rhetorician, and an exceptional one at that, he is in my opinion a pathetic excuse for a persuasive speaker. I feel that he fails to logically prove anything much in his encomium except that he has a knack for speeches that are lenghty and full of digressions. Perhaps half of the entire “encomium” is a promotion of his beloved rhetoric in itself.
- In “Gorgias”, there is a discussion of rhetoric between Gorgias and Socrates (the irony of using rhetoric to convince an audience about rhetoric makes me feel like I have something better to do with my time, which I do), whereas the “Encomium of Helen”, a speech used to defend Helen of the Trojan War, was used as a tool to showoff Gorgias’ great orating ability.
Monologic vs. Dialogic:
- The readings, although displaying the same thing, are very different from each other. One is direct by allowing you to only think one way; this due to preemptively answering questions or concerns to what was being said. The other is direct because it’s only one person asking and one answering. This allows for questioning because there isn’t enough explanation behind Gorgias’ answers. Socrates picks at Gorgias’ brain to see what else he can get out of him. He considers rhetoric to be his art but rather than explaining how he felt beforehand, he allows Socrates to ask a series detailed questions while he responds with one-word answers.
- While reading the conversational excerpts between Socrates, Gorgia and another character, I found both Gorgia and Socrates irritating. I see the tensions between the two and understand what points both where trying to get at. However, I believe that Gorgia’s consistent responses in the shortest form possible were unneccesarily rude and drew out the conversation to an abhorrent length. If only Socrates had asked a few all-encompassing questions on what rhetoric is exactly instead of a numerous amount of very specific questions easily and if Gorgia had responded in complete answers along with some of his own input rather than answering plainly what Socrates had asked him, the entire discussion could have taken place quite shortly with much less wasted breath and energy.
The true, the false, and the rhetorical
- Exactly how true is rhetoric? How each individual looks at rhetoric may be different. There obviously is a type of rhetoric that is false because there are no facts to back it up, only opinions. Rhetoric is the art of persuading people to think what you want them to. It doesn’t state that you have to prove your point. There must be a fine line between the true rhetoric and the false.
Is it the Drugs?: Persuasion is a drug we call rhetoric?:
- The effect of speech upon the condition of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies. For just as different drugs dispel different secretions form the body, and some bring an end to disease and others to life, so also in the case of speeches, some distress, others delight, some cause fear, others make the hearers bold, and some drug and bewitch the soul with a kind of evil persuasion. (Encomium)
Assignment for Next Week
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