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