Drake L. Singh

Major Garriott

ERH 201 WX-03

5 December 2017

Rhetoric: The Art of Argument

Long ago in the fifth century BCE, in the city of Syracuse on the island of Sicily, two lawyers started the development of a linguistic art that would go on to affect every aspect of our day to day lives. This is the art of rhetoric. Rhetoric involves the various strategies, conditions, and skills required to persuade an audience toward a desired viewpoint or outcome. Rhetoric can be found in everything from a testimony in court to the advertisements we see on television. Rhetoric is carefully used in such presentations with the intention of convincing the audience of a specific argument or point. Since its founding in Sicily, philosophers and orators have dedicated themselves to the study of rhetoric. These rhetoricians attempted to define rhetoric and studied how to most effectively use it. However, while some rhetoricians sought to understand and teach rhetoric for the advancement of society, others simply saw rhetoric as another skill that could be sold to the public. Today, rhetoric is seen as both a useful tool to writers and orators and a deceitful style of presentation aimed at controlling an audience. However, while rhetoric can be destructive in the wrong hands, rhetoric remains an integral part of our lives and always will be. After having studied Aristotle, Isocrates, Cicero, St. Augustine, and Christine de Pizan, I have formed my own view of what rhetoric is, where it belongs, and how it is used. Aristotle taught me what rhetoric consists of and how it can be most effectively used. Isocrates taught me how rhetoric should be used for moral purposes. Cicero taught me how rhetoric should be taught after having learned basic language and oratory skills. St. Augustine and Christine de Pizan taught me how rhetoric applies to different aspects of life, such as religion and women’s roles society. The works and teachings of these rhetoricians, along with my own experience using and observing rhetoric, has shaped my view of rhetoric and thus how I define it.

I would 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. Rhetoric is essentially the study of how to most easily convince an audience to accept your point. Based on the various techniques and appeals developed by the ancient rhetoricians, such as ethos, pathos, and logos, rhetoric is focused on understanding the audience and the situation and how to best use these to formulate an effective argument. Aristotle divided these three appeals into the Entechnic and Atechnic proofs. Entechnic proofs consist of ethos and pathos, suggesting that the rhetorician must be able to seem credible and use emotions accordingly in their argument. Atechnic proofs consist of logos, doxa or cultural knowledge, and subject matter, suggesting that the rhetorician must be able to display an understanding of the subject or at least present a process to their argument.

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