Cameron Steele EH 102 Professor Lariscy 19 January 2018
A Brief History of Rhetoric The state of Greece was experiencing both economic and political turmoil. Greece was broken up into sections that were ruled by aristocratic families that held land. War and economic competition plagued the state of Greece. In Sayracuse previously exiled men returned to lay claim on land or property previously lost to a previous form of authority. Without papers and records, these people would have to argue in front of many people in hopes of getting their stuff back. In other to get their stuff back, they needed to speak well, thus the idea of rhetoric …show more content…
The presence of two decision making bodies, known as the Assembly and the Council respectively, set the stage for the public debate and verbal attacks on one another. The courts, consisting of a large jury of citizens, required the use of rhetoric to persuade them into making a verdict on one’s behalf. With Rhetoric not being a natural skill to all, education in the subject was heavily sought after. The early teachers or rhetoric where known as the Sophists. These were basically ‘freelance teachers’ who taught rhetoric coupled with various skills simply because there was money to be made teaching. The Sophists saw no issue in teaching rhetoric to aid in one’s political pursuit. This topic concerning rhetoric came into fire when modern thinkers began to question the morality of this style of …show more content…
To him, rhetoric was not only just means of persuasion, but more importantly a tool to help an audience understand the truth of a given topic. This contrasted with the belief patterns of the Sophists and ill-intended users of rhetoric, for those groups mainly crutched on the persuasiveness of rhetoric instead of actual truth to guide an argument. This, to Aristotle and others is what made rhetoric generally dishonest. That being said, Aristotle also saw the usefulness of having rhetoric in one’s arsenal, and wrote The Art of Rhetoric. The Content of the book consists primarily of ways to apply rhetoric. These methods are broken up into 5 sections. The Art of Rhetoric had a great influence on the way rhetoric was studied for the next 2000 years across Greece and the surrounding
A Brief History of Rhetoric The state of Greece was experiencing both economic and political turmoil. Greece was broken up into sections that were ruled by aristocratic families that held land. War and economic competition plagued the state of Greece. In Sayracuse previously exiled men returned to lay claim on land or property previously lost to a previous form of authority. Without papers and records, these people would have to argue in front of many people in hopes of getting their stuff back. In other to get their stuff back, they needed to speak well, thus the idea of rhetoric …show more content…
The presence of two decision making bodies, known as the Assembly and the Council respectively, set the stage for the public debate and verbal attacks on one another. The courts, consisting of a large jury of citizens, required the use of rhetoric to persuade them into making a verdict on one’s behalf. With Rhetoric not being a natural skill to all, education in the subject was heavily sought after. The early teachers or rhetoric where known as the Sophists. These were basically ‘freelance teachers’ who taught rhetoric coupled with various skills simply because there was money to be made teaching. The Sophists saw no issue in teaching rhetoric to aid in one’s political pursuit. This topic concerning rhetoric came into fire when modern thinkers began to question the morality of this style of …show more content…
To him, rhetoric was not only just means of persuasion, but more importantly a tool to help an audience understand the truth of a given topic. This contrasted with the belief patterns of the Sophists and ill-intended users of rhetoric, for those groups mainly crutched on the persuasiveness of rhetoric instead of actual truth to guide an argument. This, to Aristotle and others is what made rhetoric generally dishonest. That being said, Aristotle also saw the usefulness of having rhetoric in one’s arsenal, and wrote The Art of Rhetoric. The Content of the book consists primarily of ways to apply rhetoric. These methods are broken up into 5 sections. The Art of Rhetoric had a great influence on the way rhetoric was studied for the next 2000 years across Greece and the surrounding