English 5001

Week 2- Commentary

I often look at people who can’t get along with others, or who always seem to be at odds with society, and I say, “That person just doesn’t get it.”  What I usually mean by this is that they don’t…

quintillian and aristotle

Throughout Aristotle and Quintillian’s works, we are presented with various interpretations of rhetoric. For Aristotle, rhetoric is “defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion”. In his neatly packaged treatise on rhetoric, Aristotle…

Week 2: Aristotle’s “Rhetoric”

The first line in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, “Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic”, began my frustration.  Having previously read Plato’s Grogias, wherein Socrates, in a very nonlinear, disorienting way, establishes the notion that the object of rhetoric is persuasion and belief and it is only…

Gorgias

“That is just what I suspected you meant, Gorgias. But don’t be surprised if a little later on I repeat this procedure and ask additional questions when the answer seems to be already clear. This, as I say, is not…

The Art of Rhetoric

Gorgias tries to defend his ideas on what rhetoric stands for and tries to define the term to Socrates.  Socrates allows Gorgias to hang himself with his definition of the term and Socrates pokes holes into Gorgias ideas.    SOCRATES:…

Gorgias

In Gorgias, Socrates concludes that rhetoric is the power of persuasion. By questioning Gorgias, it’s as though he reveals the truth about rhetoric by revealing that in itself it offers neither truth nor knowledge. When Gorgias states, “he should not…

The Responsibilities of Rhetoric

It would be easy to imagine that the conversations of ancient Greek philosophers, while certainly of historical interest, might have little relevancy to our lives today.  Such an assumption would, however, be a mistake.  As I read through the four…

Week 1 Read On

All of the readings this week had me agreeing with them.  I found myself on the side of Socrates and Isocrates without having much knowledge about their opponents.  I looked at some of the techniques that allowed me to agree…