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Definition of Rhetoric (Aristotle)

The discovery of the available means of persuasion

Rhetoric defined (Rostek/modern)

The use of language and other symbolic systems to make sense of our experiences, construct our personal and collective identities, produce meaning, and prompt action in the world

Roles of symbols

An arbitrary representation of something else, a word, image, or artifact that is assigned meaning

What is the defining symbol of USC?

Tommy Trojan
Trojans represent: resilience, competitiveness

Symbols V. Signs

Symbols are agreed upon types of signs, they call attention to significances.

Signs are the broader category, points towards a meaning
Symbols are a type of sign whose meaning depends on social convention

Power struggles often set around conflicting symbols

Symbols and identity

People learn who they are through socialization (and symbols)

Calling USC students Trojans invites students to identify themselves as perseverant

Identification brings people together around common interests, also mark people as outsider

Symbols and culture

Culture is the historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed ins symbolic forms by means of which people communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life

Culture carries meaning across generatiosn through symbols

Public sphere

The arena of communication in which people discuss matters of common concern and form public opinion, space of public conversation, discussion, and deliberation

Think of how people are excluded in this regard

Political sphere

The space for action and agency, where people and institutions exercise political agency and make or implement decisions

Aristotle

Son of a physician, Joined Plato’s academy at a young age, served as a teacher for 20 years

Deeply indebted to Plato and respected him, but far more moderate

Less disdain for contribution of the sophists, significantly more supportive of rhetoric

Scientist, very practical and drew scientific conclusions (contributions to biology)

Systematic analysis

Sophists

Defined as wise men, that sold wisdom

Prepared students for life in Greek democracy (Fathers wanted their sons educated), as Greek society was very litigious

Great debates were held in the forums

Taught practical speaking and argument for civic success

Logographers

Paid speech writer; wrote speeches for someone else to deliver, often in legal cases

(Illustration of how money could change one’s access to rhetorical expertise, access to persuasive help)

Isocrates

Student of Protagoras & Gorgias, early logographer

Opened a famous school, students stayed for 3 years learning liberal education, emphasized practical skills (Orator statesman)

Protagoras

Father of debate

Well known sophist, made the proposition that human beings are the measure of things

Plato

Emphasized Socratic method, student of Socrates

Very disdainful of democracy, rhetoric and sophists

Said that virtue was not something that could be taught, only people who could know the truth were philosophers

Philosopher-King ideal: political power should be guided by knowledge rather than popularity

Plato’s view of Rhetoric

Criticized rhetoric as something that produces belief/pleasure without teaching what is true and good (No virtue teaching)

Rhetoric is a form of flattery, not a real art

Example: a skillful speaker might win a case or move a crowd while making the audience less capable of sound judgement

Persuasive speech can only be worthy if its practitioner understands truth, knows the nature of souls or audiences, and orders the speech appropriately (Persuasion cannot be divorced from knowledge and moral responsibility)

Plato and the Sophists

Accused the sophists of selling persuasive skill and encouraging people to win arguments without knowing the truth

Not truth discovering, nor do they identify strategies that serve community interests

True Arts

Aimed at the genuine good of the body or soul

EX:
Gymnastics - Health and training
Legislation - Forming a civic order

False Arts

Flattering imitation of true arts, aimed at appearance or immediate pleasure

EX:
Cosmetics - attractive appearance
Sophistry - merely seeming wise about a civic order

Aristotle’s view of rhetoric

Rhetoric is useful as truth and justice do not always prevail, moreover general audiences may not be able to follow a specialist’s technical demonstrations

Citizens should be able to argue and defend themselves

Helps people be able to see both sides of an issue, people are able to discover and assess possible persuasive means in matters open to judgement

Topoi

Topics that reoccur within arguments

Costs vs Benefits
Risks to Rewards
Shame vs Pride

Aristotle’s 3 types of science

Productive, Practical, Theoretical

Aristotle’s Productive Science

Those that have a product such as engineering and architecture, but also rhetoric where the product is strategic, such as a victory in court, concerned primarily with making something

Aristotle’s practical science

Ethics and Politics that guide behavior, concerned with conduct and choices

Aristotle’s theoretical science

Physics, math, theology, fields where the knowledge is foundational to others, concerned primarily with understanding or explanation

The Golden Mean

In Aristotle’s perspective of ethics, virtue is often found in a fitting mean between excess and deficiency.

EX: A mix of skepticism and optimism.

Ethos

Persuasion arising from the character the audience perceives in a speaker.

Incredibly important, can lead you to agree with the rhetoric without even needing to hear the argument

Pathos

Persuasion via human’s emotions and how they effect judgement. Fear, anger, pity, shame, empathy, all push people towards action/judgement.

Logos

Persuasion via reasoning, including examples and enthymemes. Examine whether a conclusion follows, whether its premises are credible, and what assumptions are missing.

Who holds power in a democracy?

The citizens, voting public

Who holds power in a oligarchy?

Property owners, a select wealthy few

Who holds power in a aristocracy?

The educated, or socially designated best

Who holds power in a Monarchy

A king/monarch

Enthymemes

Rhetorical argument built from probably or commonly accepted premises. Often leaves premises unstated for the audience to apply

Must have a knowledge of who your audience is

“She understands students because she was a student here”

Rhetoric and Age

Younger people tend to be more open minded, more invested in the future, confidence

Older people tend to be more cautious, conservative, nostalgic

Middle aged people (In their prime as Aristotle states, mix of both characteristics) ((Golden mean))

Aristotle’s bases of rhetoric

Probabilities, includes values held by rational men + factual generalizations from science

Factual generalizations from common sense

Statements derived from axioms or principles
All humans are mortal, therefore …

Sophists claim's about their teaching

Promised that they could educate youth for civic life

Argued that education was the key to excellence (previously, it was believed if you weren’t born affluent you were dumb)
Now, you had the ability to improve your circumstances

Truth was unknowable; the goal was to persuade others to your views
Truth was only known to the Gods

Some even claimed they could teach virtue

Corax V. Tisius

Corax has a student named Tisias, Tisias only agrees to pay Corax after he wins his first lawsuit, then he avoids bringing a lawsuit thus avoiding paying for the fee. Corax sues for the fee

If Corax wins, the court orders payment. If Tisias wins, he has won his first case and must pay under the contract.

Cicero

Roman statesman, orator, and theorist, very popular figure and politician.

Had a great deal of speeches, very focused on style

Emphasized usage of literary devices and metaphors, helped audiences understand complex topics

Canons of Rhetoric

Invention, arrangement, style, memory, delivery

Canon of Rhetoric: Invention

What arguments, examples, and supporting material should I use?

Creation of the argument

Canon of Rhetoric: Arrangement

Focused on the strategic organization of an argument to maximize effectiveness and clarity

What order should I present the argument?

Canon of Rhetoric: Style

How one artfully expresses their idea, flourishes that you add to your argument

How should I deliver this to best fit the audience i’m speaking to, and to convey my purpose

Canon of Rhetoric: Memory

Knowing the argument so deeply that you can deliver points without looking at one’s notes

How will I retain and command the material?

Canon of Rhetoric: Delivery

How should voice, pace, gesture, and presence communicate my argument?

How you vocally and physically present your speech

Roman rhetoric during Republic

Public speaking mattered in courts, the Senate and political competition. Roman education drew heavily on Greek rhetoric but placed it on Roman civic and legal life. Notable space for deliberation and political advocacy

Roman rhetoric during the Empire

Power concentrated under emperors, space for consequential political opposition and public deliberation narrowed

Achievements of Romans

Infrastructure, military might/organization, govern/rule hundreds of different territories

Metaphors

Implied resemblances, helps make unfamiliar idfeas vivid, while also directing attention

Describing immigration as a flood, bowels of the Earth

Literary devices

Simile, personification, metonymy, Synecdoche, hyperbole

Metonymy

Using the name of one thing for another related to it

EX: ‘The power of the crown was wounded’

Synecdoche

The use of a part to imply the whole.

EX: ‘Brass for high ranking military officers’
‘I got mouths to feed!’

Quintilian

Great teacher of rhetoric, first publicly paid one. Ideal orator is morally good as well as skilled at speaking: character and rhetorical ability should develop together

St Augustine

Argued that rhetoric should be utilized to serve Christian teachings

Doctrine is ciceronian

Rhetoric and Christianity

Many early Christian leaders had been educated in classical rhetoric, yet rhetoric also carried associations with pagan traditions and manipulation

Original universities in the US

Harvard, William & Mary, Yale, Princeton, King’s College (Columbia), Pennsylvania, Brown, Queen’s College (Rutgers), and Dartmouth

Purpose of these Universities

Only white males initially,

Students focused on ancient languages, ancient history, tehology, and mathematics
In the 18th century, science (especially astronomy and physics) and modern history and politics assumed a larger role

Majority of early graduates became Protestant clergymen

Access of women

First gained access to higher education in the United States when Oberlin College admitted students in 1837, more than 200 years after Harvard College was founded. In Colonial America there was no precedent for higher education for women

Creation of public universities

Trained clergy and elites

Newly admitted states wanted universities

Emulated the elites but focused more on practical education
Trained farmers to be more productive, engineers to build new buildings and machines, eventually led to them educating doctors, dentists, nurses, and pharmacists

U of Georgia, 1785
North Carolina, 1795
Ohio University, 1804
U of Virginia, 1819

Role of debate in education

Debating societies gave students intellectual companionship, practice in research and oral argument, and a venue for moral, philosophical, and political questions.

Connected universities to other campuses
Campuses debated each other

Publicly attended events

Trojan Debate Squad

Founded in 1880

First chartered student organization on campus

One of First USC faculty members, and the first female, was a professor of oratory

Holds record for most consecutive NDT appearances

History of USC

Founded with 53 Students, 10 faculty members

First woman faculty member was a professor of Oratory

Tuition was $15 a year

Power of words

Words do not merely attach labels to an already settled social world. A description selects features of a situation and can influence who seems responsible, sympathetic, threatening, or deserving of help.

Compare looting with scavenging

Forbidden words

Words become socially restricted because of their histories, associations, effects, and relationships among speakers and audiences. A marginalized group may reclaim a term without granting everyone he same license to use it

Semiotics

The study of how we create meaning

Includes sign processes and meaningful communication

Includes: Signs and sign processes, indication, designation, likeness, analogy, allegories, mentonyms, metaphors, symbolism, signification, communication

Terministic screens

We see the world through the names we provide

Terms select some aspects of reality, reflect a way of seeing it, and deflect other aspects.

Example: the gender binary

Ideographs

Ordinary, abstract political term that expresses a culture’s commitments and can justify action or the exercise of power

Symbols that are uniquely value laden within a particular culture

Example: Freedom, family values, equality, liberty

Resignification

An effort to change an established word’s meaning by using it in a new, oppositional way.

Example: Reclaiming of the word queer

Politics and new technology

Technologies shape campaign strategies, advantage certain candidates, determine the structure of the campaign

Example: new social media platforms let candidates, supporters, critics, and ordinary witnesses, circulate material rapidly

Who tends to be Republican?

White Anglo Saxon Protestants
Business Executives
Small business owners
Higher income wage earners
Those who old more prestigious positions
Rural residents and suburbanites in Midwest and South
Now lesser educated Whites

Who tends to be Democrat?

African Americans
Jews
Hispanics
Catholics (especially ethnic Catholics)
Union Households
Academics
Social workers
Inner city residents & suburbanites ont he coasts
Blue collar workers (however this has become more and more contested)

National populist movement

Frames politics as a moral struggle between a neglected, native ‘pure people’ and a corrupt, globalist, or liberal establishment

Anti immigrant

Social media and its influence on politics

Networked communication, more unreliable resources

Misinformation is new strategically employed

Intensifies echo chambers

Lets citizens participate, organize, report events, and challenge official accounts with relatively low publishing barriers

Dramatism

Burke sees humans as symbolic creatures who assess their human situation & construct their world symbolically

Language is strategic response to a situation and motive can be determined through symbols

Kenneth Burke

American literary critic, author, poet
Never graduated from college
Wrote 10 major books and hundreds of essays
Part of what was known as the ‘new critics’ movement
Small c communist

Things move, people act

Identity - identification

Identity concerns how a person or group understands who it is. Identification is the rhetorical process of emphasizing shared interests, values, experiences, or purposes so that distinct people can act together.

Candidate calling an audience ‘fellow parents’
Remember who is being left out of these identifications

Consubstantiation

Describes people sharing a meaningful basis for action while remaining separate individuals. Two students may disagree on many issues but identify as members of the same debate team and work toward a common goal.

Orientation

Learned way of approaching the world, shaped by earlier experiences, education, interests, and habits. It helps a person recognize and handle familiar situations but can also create trained capacity

An event derives its character from past experiences with like or similar events, socialization

Piety

The sense of what properly goes with what, leads to the development of a sense of hierarchy

People learn expected connections among roles, conduct, and values: what a ‘good student’ does

Motives

Situations, events, actions, settings that humans must create meaning to explain

Pentadic analysis reveals these competing explanations without pretend a single word automatically proves a person’s intent

Guilt - purification ritual

Order → violation or pollution → guilt → purification → redemption

Purification can occur through mortification (a person accepts responsibility or punishment) or victimage (blame is placed on a scapegoat). The rhetorical question of this being who is blamed, how narrowly or broadly, and what change follows.

Burke’s definition of man

Symbol using animal
Lets people name, substitute, imagine, and coordinate beyond immediate physical circumstances

Inventor of the negative
No, should not, never is possible within symbolic systems and makes rules and moral judgement possible

Goaded by a sense of hierarchy
Creates rankings, ambitions, and tensions around status

Rotten with perfection
Tendency to carry an ideal or a system’s implications to an extreme, potentially with destructive results

Separated from nature by inventions of his own creation
Includes technologies and institutions that reshape how humans live

Pentad

Act: What happened?
Scene: Where and under what circumstance did it happen?
Agent: Who acted?
Agency: By whawt means did the agenct act?
Purpose: Toward what end?

Walter Fisher

USC professor

Argued that people understand much communication through stories and judge among them using reasons that include values, not formal deduction alone

Narrative Paradigm

Argued that humans are storytelling animals, Narrative rationality is hard-wired into our being, Narrative rationality subsumes other forms of reasoning

A narrative connects events in time and often suggests why one event led to another. Fisher’s paradigm asks why a story seems credibly and meaningful to an audience

Tests of stories

Narrative probability
Does the story hang together (internal consistency)

Narrative fidelity
Does the story seem true based on similar sotries (external conssitency)

Coherence of characters

Modes of discourse

Narration: Tells a story or recounts events in sequence
Description: Uses details to help an audience picture a person, place, or event
Exposition: Explains or informs
Argumentation: Supports a claim with reasons and evidence to persuade an audience.

Jurgen Habermas

Argued that citizens can form meaningful public opinion by discussing issues of common concern outside direct control of the state.

Open participation, discussion of general interests, and freedom from coercion