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/ The Greeks and Romans distinguished five parts, or divisions of thc stud-v of
rhetoric.
l lnvention - discovery ofconvincing arguments.
2. Arrangement - organizing material for best impact
3. St)le - selection ofappropriate lalguage
4. Delivcry - coordinating voice and gestures
5. Memory - mastery and rehearsal of content
/ The Greek philosopher Plato regarded rhetoric as mostly flattery. Far from seeing
it as an art, he described rhetoric as a .'Knack" similar to cooking or the clcver
use of cosmctics- Both are attempts to make things seem bette r than they realll'
are.
/ Aristotle. a student of Plato. made rhetoric as an academic subject. More than
2000 l ears ago- Aristotle's Rhetoric sl stematicalll explored the topics of speaker.
mcssagc, and audicnce.
/ Ancient Grsece $'as knou'n for its traveling speech teachers called sophists.
Particularly in Athens, these teachers trained aspiring larvy'ers and politicians to
participate effectivel-v in the courts and deliberative councils.
v/ Aristotle saw the firnction of rhetoric as the discovery in each case of '-the
availablc mears of persuasion." Hc never spcllcd out r.vhat he meant by
persuasion but his concem rvith non-coercive methods makes it clear that he ruled
out force of law, torture, and u'ar. His threefold classification ofspeech situations
according to the nature ofthe audience shoxs that he had affarrs ofstate in mind.
l. Courtroom (forcnsic) speaking which addresses iudges who are trying to
decide the facts ofa person's guilt or innocence.
2. Political (deliberative) speaking attempts to influence legislators or voters
llho decidc futurc polic1,.
3. Ceremonial (epidcictic) speaking heaps praise or blame on anotlle r for the
benefit of spectators.
/ Becausc the students of Aristotlc n'ere familiar with the question-and-ansncr style
of Socratic dialogue, Aristotle classified rhetoricas a counterpart or offshoot of
dialectic. Dialectic is one-on-one discussion; rhetoric is one person addressing
manl-: Dialectic is a search for truth: rhetoric tries to demonstrate truth that's
alreadl been found. Dialectic ansrvers general philosophical questions: rhetoric
addresses specific- practical ones. Dialectic deals with certaint): rhetoric deals
n i& probabiliS .
RHETORICAL PROOF: LOGOS, ETHOS, pATHOS
Aristotle focuses on two tenns of logical proof- the elthymerne and the cxample.
He regarded the enthymeme as "the strongest of the proofs." An enth;rmemi is
merely an incomplete version of a formal deductive syllogism.
Major or general premise: All people are created equal Minor or specific
premise: I am a person - Conclusion: I arn equal to other people.
.i. Aristotle believed that the effective speaker must knolv how to stir up various
emotions in &e audience. He catalogued a series of opposite feelings, then
explained the conditions under which each mood is experienced- and finally
described how the speaker can get an audience to feel that $'ay.