At the beginning of the semester, I broadly defined rhetoric as the art of argumentation using the three rhetorical strategies (ethos, logos, and pathos). While I still believe this is true, having studied rhetoric and its history further, I now believe that this is only a small fraction of what rhetoric is. Having had the chance to study rhetoric’s origins in Ancient Greece, Rome, and Christian Europe and how notable rhetors from these periods developed and used rhetoric, my understanding and definition of what rhetoric is has drastically changed.

I would now define rhetoric as the art of persuasion and argumentation that takes into account various elements of the speaker, audience, culture, and situation to make an effective change in the way the audience views a dilemma or topic. Although my new definition doesn’t explicitly state it, it still includes use of the rhetorical strategies, instead this is now implied. The main difference between my new and old definitions is that the new one includes more elements that can affect or be used toward the argument. The reason I have made these changes is because my prior knowledge of rhetoric stemmed from being taught that rhetoric was primarily focused on the three appeals, whereas now I have learned that rhetoric takes into account the culture of the era and place as well as the kairos, or timing of when the argument is presented to the audience. In general, over the course of the semester we have explored how different Sophists and Philosophers have defined and used rhetoric and none of them have limited the art of rhetoric to just the three appeals, rather they have defined it as a mastery of the skill of persuasion using every available resource.