George A Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and it’s Christian and Secular Tradition

Chapter 1: Traditional and Conceptual Rhetoric

• rhetoric: the word, first comes from Plato’s Gorgias, rhekorike
  • persuasion and logos: persuasion was originally more close to rhetoric
  • also means speech, argument, reason
• rhetoric was originally institutional. And was taught and studied through institutional bodies.
• the big four authors on classical rhetoric
  • Cicero (106-43 BC)
  • Plato (428-348 BC)
  • Aristotle (384-322 BC)
  • Quintilian (35-100 AD)
• More general definitions of rhetoric
  • purpose vs persuasion
• primary rhetoric vs secondary rhetoric
  • Primary:
    • persuasion, civic life, oral, involves a specific occasion, an act not text
    • the goal: training of public speakers
  • Secondary:
    • techniques, text over act, more about rhetorical figures/tropes
  • letteraturizzazione:
    • transition from primary to secondary
    • from persuasion to narration
    • from civic to personal
    • from speech to literature (written text)
  • second rhetoric in arts: analogy to painting and sculpture
• Rhetoric in West and East
  • Kennedy: Comparative Rhetoric
  • a comprehensive theory for rhetoric is difficult to find
  • skill is learned by imitation
    • the rules are not for telling, but showing.
  • metarhetoric: conceptualization of techniques
  • In Greece: rhetoric is developed in lawcourts
    • rhetoric, a separate discipline, from political philosophy and ethical philosophy, in West
• What we have:
  • “circumstances and contents of speeches,” or the cases/records of rhetorical demonstrations, before we develop the concept of theory of rhetoric.
  • reconds: Iliad, Odyssey written in 800 BC, about the Trojan War in 1200 BC.
• Rhetoric in the Homeric Poems (Analysis of the records)
  • 2 Great deeds of Homeric heros
    • speaker of words
    • doer of deeds
  • Classical rhetoric interested in:
    • When are speeches employed
    • How different speeches function differently
  • Classification
    • deliberative: debate, about future action
    • judicial: justice, past action
    • epideictic: praise or blame
  • Lies:
    • frequent in west rhetoric
    • protested by Plato: “the only valid rhetoric was the speaking the truth.”
  • 9th Book, Iliad
  • 3 orators with Achilles
    • (1-1) Odysseus: 5 parts
      • (a) proemium: introduction, seeking attention and goodwill of an audience
      • (b) a proposition: the argument or the hypothesis
      • (c) a narration: an explanation to the situation
      • (d) exhortation
      • (e) proof: 5 reasons
        • ethical, pathos (emotional)
      • Odysseus is emotional, but it is counterproductive.
    • (1-2) Archilles
      • 3 groups:
        • view, responses to offers, and advice
      • techniques:
        • maxims, irony, anaphora
    • (2-1) Phoenix: 2 features
      • Phoenix’s relation to Achilles
      • an analogy
    • (3-1) Ajax
      • apostrophe: turn to Odysseus, not Archilles
    • About Classical rhetoric
      • enthymemes: statements with supporting reasons
      • balances between speeches
    • 9th book of Iliad: about the failure of rhetoric in dealing with personal situations
      • the limitation of rhetoric
      • rhetoric is more effective in public than in the private
• The Literate Revolution (Writing)
• Technical, Sophistic, and Philosophical Rhetoric
  • rhetoric toward 2 directions:
    • toward general rules
    • toward particular categories
  • 3 factors: speaker, speech, and audience
  • 3 approaches to rhetoric
    • (1) technical rhetoric: techne
      • rhetorical handbook, manuals: Cicero’s On Invention and Rhetoric for Herennius
      • “speech” at the center
      • rhetoric as the art of persuasion
      • focus on public life and lawcourts (deliberative)
    • (2) sophistic rhetoric:
      • development: from Isocrates to the Second Sophistic of Roman times, to Christianity
      • “speaker” at the center: ideal orator (both deliberative and epideictic)
    • (3) philosophical rhetoric
      • message and audience at the center
      • close to: dialectic, logic, ethics, political theory, psychology
      • Aristotle’s Rhetoric (both on philosophical and technical traditions)
    • Cicero’s On the Orator attempts to cover 3 traditions
• Women in Classical Rhetoric
  • Sappho of Lesbos
  • Peitho: goddess of persuasion
  • women are only included in examples in texts. Their connection to rhetoric is limited.
  • Public speech texts become occasions to study women’s rhetoric. And the study of women’s rhetoric is extended to other genres, other than speeches. It means any verbal expressions are rhetorical related.