Classical Rhetoric: an Introduction and Overview
Rhetoric: the art of using language effectively to
persuade, convince, or affect an
audience.
Why are some writers or speakers so memorable or, in
many cases, forgettable?
Effective language comes down to choice: what choices
does an author or speaker
make and how do those choices affect the audience?
Make people your slave with
language!
Res-verba: what is said and how it being said
Three branches of rhetoric:
I. Deliberative (legislative: to exhort/persuade or
dissuade)
II. Judicial (forensic: to accuse or defend)
III. Epideictic or Panegyric (ceremonial: to praise or
blame)
Aristotle, father of classical rhetoric:
Rhetoric falls into three divisions, determined by the
three classes
of listeners to speeches. For of the three elements in
speech-making
– speaker, subject, and person addressed – it is the
last one, the
hearer, that determines the speech’s end and object.
The hearer
must be either be a judge, with a decision to make
about things past
or future, or an observer. A member of the assembly
decides about
future events, a juryman about past events: while
those who merely
decide on the orator’s skill are observers. From this
it follows that
there are three divisions of oratory – (1) political,
(2) forensic, (3) the
ceremonial oratory of display. (Rhetoric, I 1358a)
Five main principles or tenets of classical rhetoric:
I. Inventio (invention, discovery, modes of appeal
(logos, pathos, and ethos),
topics)
II. Dispositio (disposition/arrangement/structure)
III. Elocutio (elocution, stylistic devices, schemes
and tropes)
IV. Memoria (memorization, preparation, knowledge of
topic)
V. Pronunciatio (pronunciation, delivery of
information, presentation)
General terms derived from the Greeks. Cicero wrote
about the importance of
oration, too:
…since all the activity and ability of an orator falls
into five
divisions,…he must first hit upon what to say; then
manage and
marshal his discoveries, not merely in orderly
fashion, but with a
discriminating eye for the exact weight as it were of
each argument;
next go on to array them in the adornments of style;
after that keep
them guarded in his memory; and in the end deliver
them with effect
and charm. (De oratore, I.xxxi. 142-143)
Really, though, all of these terms go back to our
original term: res-verba, that is
what is said and how it is being said. We must think
of the choices that each author
makes and how those choices affect the overall message
and effectiveness of the
message to the audience.
Inventio
Invention deals with proof, topics, and modes of
appeal. How will you discuss your
topic? How will you prove it? What will your thesis
be? How will you appeal to
your reader? As you can see, these questions all
center, once again, around choice.
Proof (based on Aristotle’s model)
1. Inartificial proof: sworn testimony, documents,
scientific analysis, laws
2. Artificial proof through modes of appeal:
a. Ethos:
establishing the persuader’s good character and credibility
through ethics. (“Hi there, friends. I’m Morgan Freeman.
I’ve played
God in many movies, but I would never play God with my
health
insurance. I trust Blue Cross Blue Shield, and so
should you.” – plays
on his celebrity and credibility to sell insurance)
b. Pathos:
Putting the audience in an appropriate mood, by playing
on it’s feelings or emotions (“Should we allocate our
national budget
to send more of our young men to die on the
battlefields in foreign
lands, when we have children starving at home? No! We
shall not!” –
playing on people’s emotions to get reduced defense
spending in the
budget)
c. Logos:
Proving, or seeming to prove, the case through rational
argument or logic. (“We are dependent on foreign oil
for the majority
of our energy. Doesn’t it just make sense to explore
other, alternative
forms of energy? Solar, wind, thermal: there are so
many options!” –
playing on people’s sense of logic and rationality)
Truth vs. Validity vs. Effectiveness
Types of logical proof:
1. Deductive (moving from the general to the
specific): everyone has this, and
so this particular person does, too.
a. If the premises are scientifically demonstrated or
valid, then the
conclusion is proven. This is called a Syllogism.
b. If the premises are only probably true, the term
for this argument is
called an Enthymeme.
2. Inductive (moving from the specific to the
general): if it can happen in this
one instance, it can happen in many instances.
a. If all instances of a phenomenon are proven, then
the proof is
scientific.
b. If only some instances of a phenomenon are proven, then
the
argument is from example (most common form of
rhetoric).
These sound perhaps a bit confusing, but it will
perhaps make more sense with
an example. Let’s use a syllogism, which in the
traditional sense employs two
premises and a conclusion. If you prove the premises,
then the conclusion holds
true. Through all of this discussion of logic, we want
to look at the premises, that
is the claim being made. We must always distinguish
between truth, validity, and
effectiveness. Just because something seems valid
doesn’t mean that it’s true, but
that doesn’t necessarily affect the effectiveness of
that claim. For instance, examine
this syllogism:
Premise One: All frogs are green.
Premise Two: I have a frog.
Conclusion: Therefore, my frog is green.
This syllogism seems like a true statement, and it’s
certainly valid from a logical
standpoint, but is it, in fact, true? If all frogs are
green, and you have a frog, then
it seems logical that your frog is green, right?
What’s wrong with this claim? Are
all frogs green? It’s a valid statement, but is it
true? If it’s valid but not true, it’s an
Enthymeme. This argument is an enthymeme.
What if we tried a similar syllogism?
P1: All men are human.
P2: I am a man.
C: Therefore, I am human.
Is this valid and/or true? All men are, in fact,
human, and if you’re a man, then you
are human. This syllogism is valid and true. This
argument is a syllogism.
Just because the form of the argument works and is
valid, though, it doesn’t mean
that it’s true. The frog example proved that. How
about if we substituted “green”
for “human” for this second example? Is it still valid
and true?
P1: All men are green.
P2: I am a man.
C: Therefore, I am green.
It’s not very true anymore, is it? Therefore, it’s an
enthymeme.
The idea with syllogisms, or enthymemes, or with any
argument for that matter, is
to examine the argument, the claim. In this case, if
we look at that first premise, “All
men are green,” we see that the first premise isn’t
true. If one of the two premises
isn’t true, the conclusion isn’t true. It’s that
simple.
When you examine any argument that someone makes, you
should look for the truth
and validity of the claims. How about if we move on to
something more normal,
something you might see on t.v.?
P1: Everywhere you look, kids are killing other kids
with guns.
P2: Senator Smith wants to lower the age to own a gun.
C: Therefore, more kids will die from gun-related
deaths.
It’s not frogs or green men, but it’s the same thing,
essentially. Look at the premises
and then evaluate the validity and truth of the
conclusion. Is Premise One true or
valid? It’s very much a generalization, isn’t it? Have
we looked at the statistics?
Do we know if there’s been an increase in gun-related
deaths among children? Do
we know why? Premise Two may be true, and let’s assume
it is. Ultimately, the
conclusion is not necessarily valid or true, because
one of the premises isn’t true.
Does this mean that it’s not effective, though? We’ll
see later that sometimes, even
though something isn’t true or valid, it can still be
effective. If you have an effective
speaker, they can be pretty convincing, even if what
they’re saying is total hooey.
Most rhetoric and argument is based around enthymemes,
that is, trying to convince
an audience of something that cannot definitively be
proven.
