-- by JLS
for the GC
THANKS TO J for bringing Cicero back to life.
Leech has written on this phrase I like, "conversational rhetoric". It CAN be abused, though.
This is from wiki, rhetoric. I am trying to find how this connects with 'law' as in 'lawyer':
"From ancient Greece to the late 19th Century, it was
a central part of Western education, filling the
need to train public speakers"
such as Kennedy.
"and writers"
-- not Jacqueline Kennedy.
"to move audiences to action with
arguments.[1] The very act of defining
has itself been a central part of rhetoric,
appearing among Aristotle's Topics.[2] The word
is derived from the Greek ῥητορικός, "oratorical",[3]
from ῥήτωρ , "public speaker",[4] related to
ῥημα, "that which is said or spoken, word, saying",[5]
and ultimately derived from the verb ἐρῶ), "to speak,
say".[6] In its broadest sense, rhetoric
concerns human discourse.[7][8]"
And in its narrowest, Jacqueline Kennedy.
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Further from the wiki (this just to counterbalance J's judgement against Greek logic and point that except Plato nobody took Logic too seriously back in Athens -- and it's not surprising that Plato settled his Academy 'without (i.e. outside) a city wall' -- in the groves of the hero, Academos -- far from, or at least not maddingly close to, the madding crowd.
ReplyDeleteFurther from the wiki:
"Because the ancient Greeks highly valued public participation in the political forum, 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 in starting the Trojan War.[10]"
And trust they next try to approach mathematics and formal logic (as there wasn't, then).
"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."
Which has a Toulminian ring to it.
"In “Gorgias,” one of Plato’s Socratic Dialogues, Plato defines rhetoric as the persuasion of ignorant masses within the courts and assemblies.[11] 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."
Or Churchill practically arguing for 'the justice of one's country's cause'.
"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, and epideictic."
The latter being 'logic'.
"Aristotle extended the definition of rhetoric to the ability to identify the appropriate means of persuasion in a given situation, making rhetoric applicable in all fields, not just politics.[12]"
Now. Try to see what FIELD his abstract "Categories" belong and conclude: "Eschatology, philosophical".
"Yet, he also outlined generic constraints that focused the 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."
I.e. volume II of Mill's System of Logic ("being a tract on deduction __AND__ induction").
"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."
And use it for 'implicature' alla Leech.
"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."
-- which was one of Toulmin's criticisms about seeing his paperback abused in the USA and ignored 'back home'.
One further bit from the wiki.
ReplyDeleteDoes NOT make you wonder that, had Grice entitled his thing, "Rhetoric and conversation", nobody would be paying attention!
"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." [40]"
-- and he was a master at Gricean maxims?
"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."
-- with caveats with Plato who distrusted _everthing_ included hisself [sic].
"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."
ReplyDeleteYes. Really, one might argue that modern Sophists control American politics, both republocrat and demopublican (tho' some are more sophistic than others...). Oratory still rather critical-- (one reason Obama went to victory over Hillary and McCaint, since he's quite a effective speaker (or jive talkin-turr-key to some).
The Greats, Plato and Aristotle were correct in denouncing the Sophists for their skilled but deceptive legalistic rhetoric, but in a sense....even then it was a battle of sorts. Or are you claiming an obligation to "tell the truth" and avoid mendacity?? How Kantian, JL. IN that Kant was a bit like the Greats (not to say St. Augie who denounces mendacity in a few essays).
I once discussed this with Georgi of that lah-di-dah uni at L. A., the University of Southern California. He wrote an essay entitled, "Where Grice and Socrates agree". He is considering the Gorg. dialogue by Plato (especially 495):
ReplyDeleteG. Georgi focuses in some detail on Gorg. 495 -- which relates to J's point about how Kantian a Greek can be?
Plato has:
"Ouk an eti met' emou hikanôs ta onta exetazois eiper para ta dokounta
sautôi ereis"
which has been translated as:
"It will be impossible to continue
our search for truth together
if you are going to make statements
you don't really believe"
But also as:
"You can no longer be a fit partner
with me in probing the truth
if you are going to
speak against your own convinctions"
Georgi this finds in Socrates a proposer of a first proto-Gricean Maxim of Quality where 'eironia' _has_ to be regarded as a mere figure of speech.
Or something.
Tomtom Trojans! Im not sure they're much worse than the bearish comrades at UC-Lah (you want Reductionism 500, check out some of the analytical hacks in the UC-Lah Phil....I thought about applying once for PhD...thank Osiris reconsidered...the UC Dept. of Matriculation itself about as philosophical as Joe Stalin's diary...).
ReplyDeleteAnyway. I'm against the heritage mongering really, though find a few Platototle chestnuts ...viable (more the politics of the Republic...and Politics..). Sort of caved in wit' Cicero, but that's also historically relevant==as Russell said, better an hour with Bricmont than a year with Platon. Or was it Newton. At times, Philosophy seems like a bunch of monkeys (a few clever ones) crawling around the legs of Dr. History (even the case with Aristotle, and how Aristotle has ...served,and not served humanity). Ooops, Hegel creeps in, like the Owl of Minerva, like happyhour or so
Yes. Most of what Plato wrote about he heard in the streets. I CAN imagine Gorgias arguing with Socrates, and Socrates complaining:
ReplyDelete(Gorg. 495):
"It will be impossible, my dear Gorgias,
to continue our search for truth,
at least together,
if you, my dear friend, are going to make otiose statements
you don't really believe"
---- On the other hand, MOST philosophy courses I ever took were about philosophers (or philosophy instructors really) making otiose statements that they, and with straight faces, too, didn't believe -- never mind 'really'.
"It's good for the training," they would argue.