St. Augustine and Quintilian
Trace 3 elements of St. Augustine's rhetoric back to earlier rhetors. Also, relate how your 3 to 10 minute "video" project for next week is coming along. You might list key definitions here of the concepts you're relating, as well as the context in which you see yourself using this "video." That is, it's useful for our class, but can it help you in your final paper, in your teaching, in your workplace?
The underlying value in St. Augustine's writing is that both good and bad, or true and false, content can be equally persuasive, so it's important for good men to study rhetoric to spread the truth (about God is the implication). Not using rhetoric to spread truth leaves the truth "unarmed" and vulnerable to an attack by false rhetoric. This belief was why Plato attacked rhetoricians and/sophists so vehemently, because it allowed the spread of falsehoods. Aristotle was a little more practical and acknowledged that this could happen, but good rhetoricians could oppose them. Cicero also believed this. In fact, Quintilian is notable because he appears to be the only person we've read that didn't believe this. Yet, he wrote an entire essay "proving" how this couldn't happen. I personally wasn't convinced, but it's a charming idea to think that bad men can't speak well.
Likewise everyone discussed the proper way to educate young men in the practice of rhetoric, although with Plato and Aristotle it was more implied. Quintilian and St. Augustine both discuss how to teach rhetoric, although Quintilian spells out an elaborate curriculum and stresses both learning the rules (in part so one knows when to break them), studying and emulating experts, but in the proper way, and finally practicing. That's contrasted with St. Augustine who believed that learning rules wasn't bad as long as one had the time, but really just studying good examples and practicing was enough for him. I guess St. Augustine would love the "great book" curriculums. And he and Dr. Kemp would be great friends.
Finally, one minor issue that really struck me only because it seems so contemporary, is that both Quintilian and St. Augustine make a plea for a plain language movement. St. Augustine says, "And so when teaching, one should avoid all words which do not teach...." (465). He claims writers should do so even if they are incorrect. Later, he insists upon it. Likewise Quintilian wishes that "we were less afraid of words in daily use...." (380). Along the same lines they both criticize texts and speeches that are too long. St. Augustine says that one shouldn't say anything more than is required to gain the understanding of the audience. The only criticism Quintilian has for Cicero is that he was a little long-winded. In this regard, both St. Augustine and Quintilian advocated a relatively simple and pared-down style, relatively speaking. They were early TCers.
I think reading St. Augustine and Quintilian in the same week is interesting in that they both take this completely different tactic regarding the ethics question. St. Augustine is on one extreme saying that lots of evil men that will persuade audiences of bad and incorrect things are very good rhetoricians, therefore good men must be better rhetoricians--it's their sacred duty. On the other hand, Quintilian is saying basically that it's not a problem, because rhetoric is a good man speaking well and therefore bad men don't have the ability to do it. Their vices, foolishness, etc. keep them from doing it. Of course, he sort of skirts around the issue of using rhetoric to persuade people by claiming that's a ridiculous yardstick to judge rhetoric by. Basically good rhetoric is judged by how well one does it, not how many people it convinces. So he really doesn't respond at all to the charge that rhetoric used by a bad man is like a sword in the hands of a madman (Sor Juana's analogy not mine.) Although I find Quintilian's reasoning incredibly charming and enticing, ultimately I agree with St. Augustine. We good people need to get good at rhetoric so we can defend the truth. Even though my idea of truth and St. Augustine's are completely different, we agree that rhetoric can be used to spread it.
Finally, I've done virtually nothing on my video. I'm trapped in in-law purgatory on the high plains. It was all I could do to read St. Augustine. I already know something about enthymemes, but I do want to diverge from Aristotle's use of enthymemes. He believed, as I understand it, that enthymemes are effective because people recognized or at least agreed with the left-out premise of the truncated syllogism. In fact, the efficacy of the enthymeme depended on the audience's belief in the truncated part. I think, similar to Althusser's interpellation, that people hear enthymemes and agree with them because they don't understand the truncated part of the syllogism. It calls to them and sucks them in before they realize they've acquiesed. In fact, it's a way that modern day orators get audiences to subscribe to certain ideas, because they've left out the part that they might object to or they've left out the part that the rhetor doesn't want to say out loud. For example, when an interviewer asked Condoleezza Rice "Is Iraq involved in 911?" She replied, repeatedly, "the U.S. will seek out and destroy the perpetrators of 9/11" That's a truncated syllogism, an enthymeme, and the truncated part is that Iraq was involved in 9/11. Essentially she's saying: we will attack 9/11 perpetrators; Iraq is a 9/11 perpetrator; we will attack Iraq--only she never really said that, she implied it. In fact, she insists that she never claimed Iraq was involved in 9/11 yet she's on tape, repeatedly, saying just that using an enthymeme. Enthymemes allow politicians to convince audiences to go for policies that they otherwise wouldn't agree to, because it allows them to leave out language that would otherwise act as a red flag for audiences. Had Condoleezza Rice ever said that Iraq was not involved in 9/11, Americans never would have acquiesed to the invasion. Just before we invaded Iraq, several polls including the Gallup Poll indicated that 70% of Americans believed that Iraq was involved in 9/11.
I think the idea of the modern uses of enthymemes is incredibly useful for both our class and our students. We need to understand this idea to be critical consumers of information, but I'm not really going to discuss this in my paper.
Kendall
Monday, July 24, 2006
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Sophists Rule!
Week 7If you had to provide a brief account of the impact of Cicero on technical communication today, how would you do it? What would that impact be? Also, what messages have you learned from the Rhetorica ad Herennium?
Cicero foresaw SME's and the problem they would create for technical communicators everywhere. Cicero points out that knowing something doesn't necessarily help one communicate it. People with knowledge frequently need assistance communicating that knowledge to others. The company that Alison worked for obviously realized that when they hired her to write for engineers. They knew the engineers were ineffective at communicating and that their ineffectiveness could cost the company money or even lives--Alison to the rescue.
The other interesting thing that Cicero does is make the arguement that effective communication is more valuable than knowledge or information. That being an effective communicator requires natural talent, but also education and practice to perfect the skill. He implies that those with knowledge or information are a dime a dozen so to speak. In the 21st century new economy, theoretically it seems like that would be the case. The medium is the message. Remix is art. The selecting, framing, phrasing, and contextualizing of information is what makes knowledge, so technical communicators should be the ones with the most value. Unfortunately that's frequently not the case. Tiffany Craft-Portewig's dissertation pointed out that TCers either insert graphics as their told or just clean up the engineers graphics even though the TCers have the ability to produce far more effective graphics. On the ATTW listserv Karen Schriver just asked for help on developing a workshop for TCers and SME's who have lost the ability to work together effectively because the SME's have been bullying them. Two thousand years ago Cicero wrote an essay outlining both the problems and the solution to the work-a-day dilemma of TCers. We all need to listen.
As for Rhetorica Ad Herennium we still use the basic technique of defining techniques and explaining how to use or not use them even if we don't always use the vocabulary or techniques described in the Rhetorica. A big part of teaching style is teaching vocabulary--now it's more likely to be nominalization, telegraphic style, parallelism etc.--and teaching students how these things and correct or imitate them as necessary. We're still using the basic pedagogical techniques as demonstrated in the Rhetorica Ad Herennium.
Kendall
Cicero foresaw SME's and the problem they would create for technical communicators everywhere. Cicero points out that knowing something doesn't necessarily help one communicate it. People with knowledge frequently need assistance communicating that knowledge to others. The company that Alison worked for obviously realized that when they hired her to write for engineers. They knew the engineers were ineffective at communicating and that their ineffectiveness could cost the company money or even lives--Alison to the rescue.
The other interesting thing that Cicero does is make the arguement that effective communication is more valuable than knowledge or information. That being an effective communicator requires natural talent, but also education and practice to perfect the skill. He implies that those with knowledge or information are a dime a dozen so to speak. In the 21st century new economy, theoretically it seems like that would be the case. The medium is the message. Remix is art. The selecting, framing, phrasing, and contextualizing of information is what makes knowledge, so technical communicators should be the ones with the most value. Unfortunately that's frequently not the case. Tiffany Craft-Portewig's dissertation pointed out that TCers either insert graphics as their told or just clean up the engineers graphics even though the TCers have the ability to produce far more effective graphics. On the ATTW listserv Karen Schriver just asked for help on developing a workshop for TCers and SME's who have lost the ability to work together effectively because the SME's have been bullying them. Two thousand years ago Cicero wrote an essay outlining both the problems and the solution to the work-a-day dilemma of TCers. We all need to listen.
As for Rhetorica Ad Herennium we still use the basic technique of defining techniques and explaining how to use or not use them even if we don't always use the vocabulary or techniques described in the Rhetorica. A big part of teaching style is teaching vocabulary--now it's more likely to be nominalization, telegraphic style, parallelism etc.--and teaching students how these things and correct or imitate them as necessary. We're still using the basic pedagogical techniques as demonstrated in the Rhetorica Ad Herennium.
Kendall
Monday, July 10, 2006
Sophists Rule!
Aristotle and Jesse Jackson
In what ways do you think Jesse Jackson's speech makes use of topoi and concepts from Aristotle's Rhetoric? What are the key differences between Aris and Plastico? Which are you--Aristotelian or Platonic--in your teaching and/or work?
I suspect if I were really motivated, I could probably demonstrate how every technique in his speech is discussed in the Rhetoric, but I'm not that motivated.
First, Jackson relies heavily on both ethos and pathos. He really works hard on ethos. He establishes it in very traditional, old-fashioned ways such as introducing his family and also linking himself with previous people like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. He also tells his family history as well as some of his accomplishments. In fact, he focuses on himself so much, he also becomes an example--another Aristotelian tact. He shows how he's an example of what can happen in the U.S. when people become politically active.
He also evokes pathos by telling not just his personal story, but also mentioning murdered and disenfranchised Americans in the civil rights struggle. Even his metaphor of his grandmother's quilt being the various factions of the Democratic party evoked pathos.
He also relies extensively on topoi. For example, in B&H 231, one line of argument is demonstrate when cause happens then effect happens and when absent, absent. In Jackson's speech he points out how, when factions put aside their differences Democrates win, when they don't they don't win--classic Aristotle. Also on page 231, pointing out when the incredible happens, such as when Jackson says that he wasn't supposed to be successful as the child of teenage mother who also had a teenage mother. I could go on, but you get the point. Virtually every rhetorical strategy in Jackson's speech is Aristotelian.
For me, the big difference between Plato and Aristotle is an idealistic belief in a higher truth for Plato and Aristotle's more practical view to work with what we know and since we know things through language, work through language in the form of rhetoric and dialectice. Of course, I'm far more Aristotelian than Platonic; I'm more concerned with results not ideals. I liked Jimmy Johnson and thought Tom Landry was a little extreme. I get excited about Christmas and not Easter. A pyrrhic victory is no victory at all. I like baroque architecture and not...well I like Palladian architecture too, but I'm not much for modernist architecture. Fragments can, sometimes, complete a thought. I think learning to sight read is as good as phonetics and the right answer is still right even if you don't show your work. I like the reproduction furniture in my house as much as the few antiques I have. When CD players came out, I got one as soon as I could afford it, and I thought my roommate was a complete idiot when she bought a betamax player. I've never liked Macs and can still just barely get them to work. I readily admit that chianti is my favorite wine. I saw REM open for the Producers in 1982 at the Club Foot; the other opening band, Erector Set, was better. I could go on with lists of why Emmitt Smith is better than Tony Dorsett, but Roger Staubach is better than Troy Aiken, but the non-football people won't get it. The point is, I'm more interested in practical results than purist ideals, so I identify more with Aristotle than Plato.
Kendall
In what ways do you think Jesse Jackson's speech makes use of topoi and concepts from Aristotle's Rhetoric? What are the key differences between Aris and Plastico? Which are you--Aristotelian or Platonic--in your teaching and/or work?
I suspect if I were really motivated, I could probably demonstrate how every technique in his speech is discussed in the Rhetoric, but I'm not that motivated.
First, Jackson relies heavily on both ethos and pathos. He really works hard on ethos. He establishes it in very traditional, old-fashioned ways such as introducing his family and also linking himself with previous people like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. He also tells his family history as well as some of his accomplishments. In fact, he focuses on himself so much, he also becomes an example--another Aristotelian tact. He shows how he's an example of what can happen in the U.S. when people become politically active.
He also evokes pathos by telling not just his personal story, but also mentioning murdered and disenfranchised Americans in the civil rights struggle. Even his metaphor of his grandmother's quilt being the various factions of the Democratic party evoked pathos.
He also relies extensively on topoi. For example, in B&H 231, one line of argument is demonstrate when cause happens then effect happens and when absent, absent. In Jackson's speech he points out how, when factions put aside their differences Democrates win, when they don't they don't win--classic Aristotle. Also on page 231, pointing out when the incredible happens, such as when Jackson says that he wasn't supposed to be successful as the child of teenage mother who also had a teenage mother. I could go on, but you get the point. Virtually every rhetorical strategy in Jackson's speech is Aristotelian.
For me, the big difference between Plato and Aristotle is an idealistic belief in a higher truth for Plato and Aristotle's more practical view to work with what we know and since we know things through language, work through language in the form of rhetoric and dialectice. Of course, I'm far more Aristotelian than Platonic; I'm more concerned with results not ideals. I liked Jimmy Johnson and thought Tom Landry was a little extreme. I get excited about Christmas and not Easter. A pyrrhic victory is no victory at all. I like baroque architecture and not...well I like Palladian architecture too, but I'm not much for modernist architecture. Fragments can, sometimes, complete a thought. I think learning to sight read is as good as phonetics and the right answer is still right even if you don't show your work. I like the reproduction furniture in my house as much as the few antiques I have. When CD players came out, I got one as soon as I could afford it, and I thought my roommate was a complete idiot when she bought a betamax player. I've never liked Macs and can still just barely get them to work. I readily admit that chianti is my favorite wine. I saw REM open for the Producers in 1982 at the Club Foot; the other opening band, Erector Set, was better. I could go on with lists of why Emmitt Smith is better than Tony Dorsett, but Roger Staubach is better than Troy Aiken, but the non-football people won't get it. The point is, I'm more interested in practical results than purist ideals, so I identify more with Aristotle than Plato.
Kendall
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Sophists Rule!
Aristotle
Blog Post Prompt
Week 5
What are the topoi, basically, and why are they important in what you teach or where you work?
What key idea are you thinking about tackling for your 10-minute video? (Send Dr. Rice confirmation sometime soon).
See if you can work out your topic for your final paper/presentation. You might share a thesis, and perhaps an introduction. What you write is subject to change, of course.
First, I see the topoi as ways to expand a topic. They are basically lists of ways to develop a topic. Currently I'm using the Markel book to teach my course and he uses essentially topoi to discuss how to create an expanded definition. Consider graphics, comparison/contrast, how it works, entymology, definiton by negation etc. I'm sure I've left a few out, but you get the drift. Topoi are easy invention techniques to get students developing topics and they can even be helpful for experienced writers to get them going and to make sure they haven't left anything out.
I'd like to do my ten minute video on enthymeme. I'd particularly like to talk about how enthymemes can work in political speech. For example, a speech might say that we're wiring tapping telephones, because that's the best way to fight terrorism. The left-out part of that particular enthymeme, or truncated syllogism, is that catching terrorists is the most important thing for government to do. The expanded the syllogism might read. Catching terrorism is the most important thing for government to do. Wire tapping is the most effective way to catch terrorists, therefore the government should wire-tap telephones. However, as an enthymeme the underlying value, the commonplace, is left out. While such enthymemes are very effective for those who aren't careful listeners, those that are sensitive to the topic realize that the implied commonplace is that the government should keep us safe at all costs. Once the audience realizes that's the commonplace at work, they may or may not agree. However, as long as the commonplace is implied, it becomes more difficult to argue with it, because the audience may or may not be able to articulate the common place. Enthymemes are still very effective rhetorical strategies. Of course, Aristotle didn't really see them this way exactly. He thought they worked so well because people just agreed with the common place. I think they work so well because people don't realize exactly what they are agreeing with.
I'm not quite up to a lot of work on my final project. Here goes though. Sophists believed that by framing and speaking rhetoricians created truth--truth contingent on kairos, audience, etc. Of course, Plato generally believed in absolute Truth and originality. Implied in this belief in truth was that the originality, the skill, of a speech or text comes with the content. The Sophists and to a much lesser extent Aristotle and other rhetoricians believed that the skill in a speech or a text resided in its arrangement, selection, introduction, and even kairos--it's fitness for the occasion. After 2500 years, we've begun to embrace the idea that the skill and/or originality of an information artifact is not the information per se, but the arrangement, selection, framing, and appropriateness for its audience. However, Plato's ghost still haunts modern thought and many students, professors, practicioners, and lay people have trouble accepting that what makes content acceptable and palatable for audiences isn't the content itself, but rather the rhetorical aspects of a text. Technical communicators don't create content, they make content work for audiences. Consequently, as long as Plato's ghost dominates thought, technical communicators will be marginalized. More importantly, audiences will be disenfranchised, because if the focus is on the content and not the audience, kairos, etc. the audience won't receive content in a form they can receive. In other words, on a purely practical level, an emphasis on rhetoric and not content allows audiences to receive information, regardless of the information; an emphasis on content diminishes the importance of the rhetorical aspects of a text and results in information artifacts that don't communicate. So technical communicators must excorcize the ghost of Plato from modern thought not only to improve their status, but to perform their jobs ethically and to the highest standards.
That's basically my argument in a nutshell; obviously it needs more work.
Finally I'd like to talk about how much I like Aristotle. Reading Rhetoric reminds me how all the major ideas that we have in technical communication, considering the audience, ethos, pathos, logos, lines of argument, and invention all come from Aristotle. For me, as much as I like the Sophists, Aristotle really is the first, professional, technical communicator.
Kendall
Blog Post Prompt
Week 5
What are the topoi, basically, and why are they important in what you teach or where you work?
What key idea are you thinking about tackling for your 10-minute video? (Send Dr. Rice confirmation sometime soon).
See if you can work out your topic for your final paper/presentation. You might share a thesis, and perhaps an introduction. What you write is subject to change, of course.
First, I see the topoi as ways to expand a topic. They are basically lists of ways to develop a topic. Currently I'm using the Markel book to teach my course and he uses essentially topoi to discuss how to create an expanded definition. Consider graphics, comparison/contrast, how it works, entymology, definiton by negation etc. I'm sure I've left a few out, but you get the drift. Topoi are easy invention techniques to get students developing topics and they can even be helpful for experienced writers to get them going and to make sure they haven't left anything out.
I'd like to do my ten minute video on enthymeme. I'd particularly like to talk about how enthymemes can work in political speech. For example, a speech might say that we're wiring tapping telephones, because that's the best way to fight terrorism. The left-out part of that particular enthymeme, or truncated syllogism, is that catching terrorists is the most important thing for government to do. The expanded the syllogism might read. Catching terrorism is the most important thing for government to do. Wire tapping is the most effective way to catch terrorists, therefore the government should wire-tap telephones. However, as an enthymeme the underlying value, the commonplace, is left out. While such enthymemes are very effective for those who aren't careful listeners, those that are sensitive to the topic realize that the implied commonplace is that the government should keep us safe at all costs. Once the audience realizes that's the commonplace at work, they may or may not agree. However, as long as the commonplace is implied, it becomes more difficult to argue with it, because the audience may or may not be able to articulate the common place. Enthymemes are still very effective rhetorical strategies. Of course, Aristotle didn't really see them this way exactly. He thought they worked so well because people just agreed with the common place. I think they work so well because people don't realize exactly what they are agreeing with.
I'm not quite up to a lot of work on my final project. Here goes though. Sophists believed that by framing and speaking rhetoricians created truth--truth contingent on kairos, audience, etc. Of course, Plato generally believed in absolute Truth and originality. Implied in this belief in truth was that the originality, the skill, of a speech or text comes with the content. The Sophists and to a much lesser extent Aristotle and other rhetoricians believed that the skill in a speech or a text resided in its arrangement, selection, introduction, and even kairos--it's fitness for the occasion. After 2500 years, we've begun to embrace the idea that the skill and/or originality of an information artifact is not the information per se, but the arrangement, selection, framing, and appropriateness for its audience. However, Plato's ghost still haunts modern thought and many students, professors, practicioners, and lay people have trouble accepting that what makes content acceptable and palatable for audiences isn't the content itself, but rather the rhetorical aspects of a text. Technical communicators don't create content, they make content work for audiences. Consequently, as long as Plato's ghost dominates thought, technical communicators will be marginalized. More importantly, audiences will be disenfranchised, because if the focus is on the content and not the audience, kairos, etc. the audience won't receive content in a form they can receive. In other words, on a purely practical level, an emphasis on rhetoric and not content allows audiences to receive information, regardless of the information; an emphasis on content diminishes the importance of the rhetorical aspects of a text and results in information artifacts that don't communicate. So technical communicators must excorcize the ghost of Plato from modern thought not only to improve their status, but to perform their jobs ethically and to the highest standards.
That's basically my argument in a nutshell; obviously it needs more work.
Finally I'd like to talk about how much I like Aristotle. Reading Rhetoric reminds me how all the major ideas that we have in technical communication, considering the audience, ethos, pathos, logos, lines of argument, and invention all come from Aristotle. For me, as much as I like the Sophists, Aristotle really is the first, professional, technical communicator.
Kendall
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