Intro to Jesuit Rhetorical Arts and Rhetoric Through the Ages - Study Notes

Historical Background

  • Classical Greece: Sophists taught rhetoric.
    • Speaking was pragmatic: adjust what is considered good, useful, and true to the circumstances.
  • Plato (~400 BCE): rhetoric as flattery, ornament.
    • He felt rhetoricians merely tried to persuade without caring about truth.
    • Negative connotation of the term “sophistry.”

Aristotle

  • 384–322 BCE: Aristotle attempted to discover general rules for rhetoric, principles that could be passed down.
    • Core idea: “To observe in any particular situation the available means of persuasion.”
    • Describes rhetoric as operational, analytical, and diagnostic.
  • Wrote a text called Rhetoric that lays out these principles.
  • This work is usually what we mean by “classical rhetoric.”

The Rhetorical Appeals

  • Aristotle identified 3 major tactics for persuading people, known as rhetorical appeals:
    • Ethos
    • Pathos
    • Logos

Ethos

  • Appeal to character or authority of the speaker/writer.
  • As an audience, our perception of the ethos leads us to trust the speaker/writer.
  • Involves the trustworthiness and credibility of the speaker/writer.
  • Key questions:
    • Is the speaker/writer dependable?
    • Is he knowledgeable?
    • Can we trust him?

Pathos

  • Appeal to emotions (desire, passion, patriotism, etc.).
  • Engages considerations of the values and beliefs in the audience that will ultimately move them to action.

Logos

  • Logical argument; appeal to reason or logic.
  • Frequently includes the use of data, statistics, math, research, order, and perceived objectivity.

Roman Tradition

  • Rhetoric as emotion and power.
  • Cicero (106 BC–43 BC): emphasized the importance of a liberal education in rhetoric.
  • Quintilian (35–100 AD): described as “the good man skilled at speaking.”
  • For Quintilian, rhetoric had a decidedly moral purpose.

Five Canons of Rhetoric

  • The division of rhetoric identified by Cicero:
    • Invention: how we find arguments
    • Arrangement: organization
    • Style/Elocution: conventions based on audience expectations
    • Memory: what has worked in the past
    • Delivery: presentation of voice and gesture

Rhetoric in Medieval Times and the Renaissance

  • Middle Ages: rhetoric shifted from political to religious discourse.
  • Latter part of the Medieval period: universities with classes on grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
  • Renaissance: study of rhetoric experienced a re-birth.

Rhetoric in the Modern Day

  • Rejuvenation of rhetoric continued through the Enlightenment.
  • In the 18th and 19th centuries, universities in both Europe and America began devoting entire departments to the study of rhetoric.
  • Proliferation of mass media in the 20th century.
    • Photography, film, and TV as powerful tools of persuasion.
    • Studies in visual rhetoric emerged.

Jesuit Rhetoric

  • Emerged out of the Renaissance.
  • Eloquentia Perfecta: a tradition of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) that revolves around cultivating a person as a whole; learning to speak and write for the common good.
  • Dr. Mailloux: "an optimal orator would combine written and oral language concepts such as morality or ethics and intelligence."
  • Commitment to social justice.

The Rhetorical Triangle

  • A framework for thinking about communication/persuasion scenarios with three elements:
    • A speaker or writer (who performs the rhetoric)
    • An audience (the people addressed)
    • A purpose (the message communicated with the audience)

Rhetorical Situation

  • Exigence: someone is compelled to speak, and someone is compelled to listen.
  • Rhetorical situations create speaker, audience, and issue.
  • The issue never exists apart from people or disagreement.
  • Rhetoric emerges from disagreement:
    • “We need never deny the presence of strife, enmity, faction as a characteristic motive of rhetorical expression.” — Kenneth Burke

A Few Useful Terms to Start Out With

  • Ideology: a coherent set of beliefs that people use to understand events and the behavior of people.
  • Stasis: the point at which disagreement emerges in an issue; the desire for stasis (equilibrium) also emerges.
  • Question at Issue: the specific question generating response.
  • Enthymeme: a statement that answers a question at issue and also gives the reason(s) why.
  • Discourse community: any group that uses language as the primary tool of communication, negotiation, and understanding.

Dr. Steven Mailloux's Definition – Rhetoric's Pragmatism

  • Rhetoric is the use of language in a context to have effects.
  • Associated with essays in rhetorical hermeneutics (Steven Mailloux).

Another Definition of Rhetoric

  • “Messages that rely on verbal and nonverbal symbols that more or less intentionally influence social attitudes, values, beliefs, and actions.”
  • Source: Making Sense of Messages by Mark Stoner and Sally Perkins.

Rhetoric

  • Historically: the arts of speechmaking and oratory.
  • In this course: messaging that occurs through any medium, not just text or speech.
  • Over time, you begin to see all communication as rhetorical.

Diagnostic Writing

  • Prompt example: How do you define the terms 'good person' and 'the common good'?