Rhetoric Classical and Modern Rhetoric

Rhetoric

Classical and Modern Rhetoric

In philosophy and the human sciences, rhetoric has for centuries played a significant role. The art of rhetoric involves the usage of language to harness authority, reason, and emotions in order to persuade an audience to either agree with the speaker, pass judgment, or identify with a particular point-of-view and act on it. In Greece, rhetoric had its humble origins in the Sophist school of philosophy around 600 B.C. - many years before Socrates. Later, rhetoric was one of the major liberal arts to be taught in the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages. The art of rhetoric would be confined to legal and political settings throughout the medieval period of history. A rhetorical argument may also utilize popular opinion, beliefs, and selected evidence. Modern rhetoric encompasses a wider range of practices than was the case in the ancient and medieval period. Having been in existence for over three thousand years, one cannot hold rhetoric in the same light, as it is constantly shifting and evolving over time. The modern conception of rhetoric holds that the older model is limited in its scope, as it relies on communication, which in turn is contingent on meaning. Rhetoric thus is no longer limited to legal and political discourse. The study of rhetoric encompasses a wide interdisciplinary field, including literary theory, critical theory, the philosophical schools of hermeneutics and post-structuralism, and the social sciences. From a disciplinary perspective, here we see the shift between classic and modern rhetoric. In the following essay, I intend to survey both classical and modern conceptions of rhetorical theory in order to show how the former evolved in to the latter. The idea is to chart the changing anatomy of rhetoric, while also examining the way external factors throughout history (such as socio-political climates) have had an impact on this theoretical evolution.

Classical and Modern Rhetoric

Introduction

In philosophy and the human sciences, rhetoric has for centuries played a significant role. The art of rhetoric involves the usage of language to harness authority, reason, and emotions in order to persuade an audience to either agree with the speaker, pass judgment, or identify with a particular point-of-view and act on it. In ancient Greece, rhetoric had its humble origins in the Sophist school of philosophy around 600 B.C. - many years before Socrates. Later, rhetoric was one of the major liberal arts to be taught in the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, alongside grammar and logic.

The art of rhetoric would be confined to legal and political settings throughout the Medieval period of history. For this reason, we now regard rhetoric as being one of the key components of a democratic society. The idea of free speech is closely tied up with theories of rhetoric. Political enfranchisement and free assembly are also rooted in rhetorical analysis.

This is not to say that rhetoric cannot be used in a coercive fashion, as an instrument of an authoritarian regime. As we have seen in the previous century, rhetoric is also employed as a tool of tyranny and dogmatism. Thus, it is important to note that rhetoric is not always employed in situations in which both speaker and listener may find themselves on equal footing in terms of debate.

It is important to note that rhetorical theory is not scientific, although it is frequently mistaken as such. Unlike scientific arguments, rhetoric does not make use of demonstrable facts. Rather, it frequently relies upon fallible opinions in rendering its argument. A rhetorical argument may also utilize popular opinion, beliefs, and selected evidence. These reliances are all referred to in rhetorical theory as "commonplaces," in that they form a common ground between the speaker and his or her audience.

Modern rhetoric encompasses a wider range of practices than was the case in the ancient and Medieval period. Having been in existence for over three thousand years, one cannot hold rhetoric in the same light, as it is constantly shifting and evolving over time. The modern conception of rhetoric holds that the older model is limited in its scope, as it relies on communication, which in turn is contingent on meaning. Rhetoric thus is no longer limited to legal and political discourse. Rhetoric has been broadened to include the study of meaning and how it comes to form. The study of rhetoric thus encompasses a wide interdisciplinary field, including literary theory, critical theory, the philosophical schools of hermeneutics and post-structuralism, and the social sciences.

From a disciplinary perspective, here we see the shift between classic and modern rhetoric. Whereas in the classical model, rhetoric was associated with such disciplines as law, politics, marketing, lobbying, advertising, and public relations, rhetoric has now broadened to include such areas as history, literature, the humanities, religion, journalism, science, the social sciences, and beyond (Nelson et. al. 1987). Every aspect of the human realm thus becomes reliant somehow on elements of the rhetorical, as all means of communication are saturated with meaning - a fact not picked up on in earlier times.

In the following essay, I intend to survey both classical and modern conceptions of rhetorical theory in order to show how the former evolved in to the latter. The idea is to chart the changing anatomy of rhetoric, while also examining the way external factors throughout history (such as socio-political climates) have had an impact on this theoretical evolution.

Classical Rhetoric

The use of rhetoric pre-dates the era when written texts were widely available. In ancient Greece, important thinkers and speakers would perform their works in front of an audience, and these were major events in the socio-political life of the classical era (Hansen 1991). Oftentimes, this was done in the form of competitions, and the winning result could be fame, political importance, as well as cultural capital (Ober 1989). Contrary to the modern notion that rhetoric is utilized to obscure important truths, rhetoric thus had a quite positive function in the classical era; it was considered to be a great skill, in that it enabled the speaker to order and classify their arguments in order to persuade large groups of people of important truths.

By the fifth century B.C., the study of rhetoric had been developed to the extent that the Sophists taught it widely. The best-known Sophists included Isocrates, Protagoras, and Gorgias. These men would travel around from city to city making rhetorical speeches as a means of attracting students, who were then charged a fee in order to learn the art of rhetoric. Students of rhetoric would learn all about various aspects of speech and discourse. The Sophists taught their students how to analyze different parts of speech, analyzed poetic strategies, invented different ways of arguing, and debated philosophical questions regarding the nature of reality (Romilly 1992).

Plato made the next important philosophical contribution to the theory of rhetoric. He argued that the art of rhetoric (or public speaking) existed apart from the art of the dialectic. Plato resented the Sophists, in that he felt that their "art of rhetoric" was in fact a tool for manipulating meaning. Instead of communicating truths, the Sophist rhetoricians were merely skilled in arguing for the sake of arguing, and thus persuading the listener of views that he or she likely had already. (Today, one might say that the Sophists were guilty of "intellectualism.") the form of rhetoric that Plato promoted was dialectical in nature, a method that engaged the listener in the pursuit of truth.

Aristotle would elaborate many of Plato's teachings on rhetoric in to a more systematic apparatus. Aristotle considered rhetoric to be the counterpart of the Platonic dialectic. Both dialectic and rhetoric are inseparable components of discourse. Dialectical methods are employed for seeking out truth in matters relating to theory, while rhetorical methods are used to find truth in more practical matters (such as determining whether or not a person is guilty in a court of law) (Garver 1994).

The ancient Greek conception of rhetoric would carry over in to ancient Rome. Greek rhetoricians would be hired to teach in Roman schools in order to learn the fine art of rhetoric and dialectic. Thus, Roman rhetoric developed - although this strain of rhetoric was more partial to practical matters, rather than the loftier theoretical ambitions of the Greeks. In particular, the work of Cicero and Quintillion served as an important extension of Sophist, Platonic, and Aristotelian forms of rhetoric.

After the Roman Empire broke up, the study of rhetoric continued, although for several years, it was not pursued with as much rigor as it had been previously. Then, in the medieval period, universities began to spring up across Europe, and the study of rhetoric began to flourish once again. At the same time, the focus in rhetoric shifted throughout the medieval period, with more of an emphasis on writing - particular the arts of letter and sermon writing. Rhetoric assumed second position to logic in formal education. Where rhetoric was emphasized, it was through rigorous exercises in the creation of discourses on historical subjects as well as classic legal questions. It was not until the Renaissance that the art of rhetoric would retain the heights it had reached in the classical period.

The Renaissance favored classical forms of rhetorical theory - particularly Latin. The Renaissance period can be seen as a severe reaction to the medieval period's emphasis on dialectical forms of scholastic endeavor. One of the key figures in the revival of the classical study of rhetoric was Erasmus. Vernacular rhetoric also began to gain in popularity during this period; this was rhetoric written in languages other than Latin and Greek, such as English. One of the best-known early English examples of this tendency was the Arte of Rhetorique by Thomas Wilson, which was penned in 1553. Wilson outlined what he considered to be the five main canons of rhetoric, after the classical definition by Aristotle: invention, disposition, memory, elocution, and utterance.

These five areas of rhetoric would come into challenge later in the 16th century by an educational tendency in Protestant and Puritan circles. According to Ong (1958), a French scholar by the name of Pierre de la Ramee would re-organize Wilson's elucidation of rhetoric by placing invention and disposition under the category of dialectic, leaving delivery, style, and memory for rhetoric. This would result in rhetoric's diminishing importance in educational curriculums.

The development of rhetoric in England in the seventeenth century would bring rhetoric into the modern era. The new rhetoricians focused on English, rather than focusing on the Latin and Greek roots, as their Renaissance forbears had. The poet John Dryden was influential in formulating a rhetorical theory that emphasized a style of speaking and writing that was suitable "to the occasion, the subject, and the persons." In his own writings, he attempted to use English words, rather than foreign and Latinate ones, wherever possible.

Modern Rhetoric

The evolution of modern rhetoric took place largely in France in the 19th and 20th centuries. For French Jesuits in particular, rhetoric was long considered to be one of the essential foundational aspects of education, and all young men destined for leadership positions in the church were well versed in rhetorical theory. Up until the French Revolution, rhetoric was also considered fundamental in Oratorian colleges. After the Revolution, however, the Oratorians began to focus more on the acquisition of modern languages while pursuing a more sensualist approach to rhetorical study.

The French Revolution would change the public's perception of rhetoric. Such philosophers as Condorcet would argue that rhetoric was used as a tool of oppression in the hands of clerics. Even the Bar was suppressed for a while, as it was believed that forensic rhetoric made a rational system of justice impossible, in that it allowed fallacies and emotional reactions to play a role in public discourse. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that the Revolution in France was a time of great rhetorical heights in the history of discursive engagement. Even though rhetoric was rejected, it was still deployed by many of the leading figures of the French Revolution.

Rhetoric again suffered under the First Empire - and this was not only in France, but also across the European continent. At this point in history, a focus on writing, rather than oral reporting, took precedence in educational training. While rhetoric would come and go in college curriculums, it never enjoyed the prominence it had under the previous regime. Writers penned educational manuals advising those in the educational professions to distance their teaching away from rhetoric, so as not to adapt the authoritarian methods that the Church, an agent of conservatism, had previously used.

The end of the 1870s had nearly abolished rhetoric abolished in favor of Kantian philosophy. The only time that rhetoric came in to the curriculum was in studying figures of speech, which were integrated in to the curriculum of French literature. In the 1890s, a new form of writing, known as the dissertation, began to take absolute precedence over formal rhetorical exercises, such as speech writing, narration, and the writing of letters. Dissertations were invented in philosophy class for the purpose of rational argument. In such dissertations, a question would be asked. The student would then respond with an introduction that was meant to elucidate essential definitions in the question as set, followed by a thesis, an antithesis, and finally a synthesis that produces a new argument, followed by a conclusion that does not merely sum up the points made, but opens doors on to a new problem brought up by the preceding parts. This dissertation style was influenced by the philosophy of Hegel. Today, academics in the humanities continue to use this format when writing.

In the early 20th century, there was a revival of interest in rhetoric throughout academia. Departments of speech and rhetoric came into being, and a number of international professional organizations were formed to revive and foster the study of rhetoric. It is widely believed that the revival of rhetoric is tied in with an increasing importance of language and persuasion in the 20th century, during the course of which mediation increased to a frenzy. With the advent of mass media and advertising, rhetoric as a societal tool became more and more important.

Today, researchers in rhetoric are influenced by literary theory as well as the behavioral sciences. Early in the 20th century, those working in the field of rhetoric attempted to transform it in to a social science. Some of the more notable figures from this era include Hugh Duncan, Ernst Cassirer, and Kenneth Burke, all of whom strove to integrate rhetorical strategies in to a social science perspective that took in to account human communication and behavior in a multiplicity of aspects.