Capstone

Capstone Research Plan (Final)

I.) Pursuing Civic Education in a Timely Fashion. Isocratic, Aristotelian, and Ciceronian Theories on Kairos in Contemporary Civic Pedagogy.

II.) Bryant Smilie
III.) MAJ Iten

IV.) Description
1.) Focus: The main purpose of this capstone is to develop a thorough understanding of whether or not kairos could offer a new approach to modern civic education. Such an understanding will allow me to answer the following research questions. My overarching question is, given how modern civic and rhetorical education seems to have focused on examining the theoretical concepts of its field, what would an analysis of Isocrates’ Aristotle’s, and Cicero’s use of kairos to promote a more dynamic, hands-on form of pedagogy tell us about their fundamental beliefs in what a civic education was meant to accomplish? After exploring the classical educators’ perspective on what an individual should learn from their educational methods and how they should apply these lessons, I will be in a position to analyze how kairos was the foundation for classical civic education and the key to knowing how to approach any type of exigency before executing a decisive response.
2.) Coursework: MAJ Iten and I became extremely interested in how classical rhetors viewed their roles in democratic societies’, and discovered that their teaching methodologies seemed to coalesce around a handful of fundamental concepts in rhetoric. One of these, kairos, became the focal point of my research for identifying new ways to teach civic education in the contemporary world. While I analyzed this concept in several classes with MAJ Iten, there were three courses in particular that meticulously built the foundation for my capstone at present. These were Rhetorical Traditions I, Language and Style, and Civic Discourse. In all of these classes, we covered everything from the broad theoretical concepts offered by the Sophist to examining single words and sentences to find the most ideal way to influence an audience. It was also these three classes in particular that played a crucial role in me wanting to use my English major in order to become a rhetorician.
3.) Exigence: With the history of the role kairos played in the teachings of the three rhetors in mind, I can answer two questions. What exactly is kairos when its very definition has changed so fluidly since ancient Greece alongside the concept itself being highly complex and contradictory in nature? And, given how these three educators relied on kairos to such a substantial degree in their educational methodologies, what was the student meant to be preparing for in the future?
V.) Research Plan
With the Capstone Prospectus now completed, my intention is to continue digging deeply into my core section of research, along with gathering any additional secondary sources that will help to finalize my argument. The largest priority I have now is finishing up the primary works I have been reading during the summer and using interlibrary loan to re-order several texts I researched last semester. Because I have done such a large amount of research, sitting down with my advisor and crafting a way to make use of the several annotations I have made up to this point will allow me to narrow down the information that is vital to my argument, and place any additional annotations into a secondary category for potential use later on. By the time October begins, it is my intention to have completed my primary research, identified any secondary sources that may be of use, and begin finalizing the bibliography for the capstone. With these tasks completed, I will be able to start crafting a framework to base each of the respective sections on along with beginning the writing process itself. The main goal of my research plan is to simply finish several tasks dealing with research itself so that I will be able to immediately begin work on writing the capstone by the time October begins.
VI.) Bibliography
Aristotle. On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Trans, George A. Kennedy. New York: Oxford UP, 1991.
Carter, Michael. “Stasis and Kairos: Principles of Social Construction in Classical Rhetoric.”
Enos, Richard. “Greek Rhetoric Before Aristotle: Revised and Expanded Edition. Parlor Press. 2011.
Harker, Michael. “The Ethics of Argument: Rereading Kairos and Making Sense in a Timely Fashion”. National Council of Teachers of English 59 (2007): 77-97. JSTOR. Print
Jasinki, James. Sourcebook on Rhetoric: Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2001.
Poulakos, Takis. “Isocrates and Civic Education.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 13 (2007): 625-628. JSTOR. Print.
—“Isocrates’ Use of Doxa.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 34 (2001): 61-78. JSTOR. Print.
Sipiora, Phillip, and James S. Baumlin, eds. Rhetoric and Kairos: Essays in History, Theory, and
Sutton, Janes. Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. Ed. Thomas Sloan. New York: Oxford UP, 2001.

Capstone:
Intro & Body I

ERH 481
Date Due: 17, September 2019
Date Sub.: 17, September 2019
Help received: None
Draft One
Bryant Smilie

Today, the rhetorical concept of kairos has been largely left untouched due to its intricacy, depth, and difficulty in translating. Many individuals engaging in debates on rhetoric in contemporary civic education have generally avoided the role kairos has played in past democratic cultures, leaving out the fact that “kairos is central to at least some versions of the rhetorical traditions, and arguably, necessary to all” (Miller xi). Instead of emphasizing the practical application of rhetoric to everyday civic problems, present teachings seem to focus on the education of theories instead of emphasizing the active application of rhetoric to everyday civic problems as taught by rhetors in the past. The purpose of this thesis first is to emphasize the need for historical scholarship to be conducted over constantly supplying criticism to the field of rhetoric. As Barnett Baskerville rightly points out, “there is a need for scholars who can record accurately and artistically the history of our art…to delineate its place in and contribution to the cultural history of the nation” (11). Kairos is one such concept that has been viewed critically without the laborious historical research being conducted first, and this has been done at the risk of forgetting that kairos has been the core foundation of several rhetorical traditions.

The traditions created by the pedological work of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero all commonly emphasized the need for their students to practice rhetoric in such a dynamic and fluid way that they would be prepared for any argument once they became the main political actors within their communities. What is revealing, however, is the fact that all three of these rhetors not only utilized kairos in their main teachings, but also commonly used the concept as the underlying tool an individual could use to quickly understand all the elements of an exigency and to decisively act through a powerful and wholesome argument meant to influence their audience. Therefore, the works of these three rhetors when concerning kairos can all be viewed as being part of the same diachronic chain-of-being, that is, there is a sense of commonality and intertextuality that builds upon one another when their works are deeply researched (Enos 13). The purpose of this thesis is to develop a thorough understanding of how a historical review of the concept of kairos within the works of these three rhetors could offer a new approach to teaching contemporary civic discourse. My overarching question is, given how modern civic and rhetorical education seems to have focused on examining the theoretical concepts of its field, what would an analysis of Isocrates’ Aristotle’s, and Cicero’s use of kairos to promote a more dynamic, hands-on form of pedagogy tell us about their fundamental beliefs in what a civic education was meant to accomplish?

After exploring the classical educators’ perspective on what an individual should learn from their educational methods and how they should apply these lessons, I will be in a position to analyze how kairos was the foundation for classical civic education and the key to knowing how to approach any type of exigency before executing a decisive response. With the history of the role kairos played in the teachings of the three rhetors in mind, I can answer two questions. What exactly is kairos when its very definition has changed so fluidly since ancient Greece alongside the concept itself being highly complex and contradictory in nature? And, given how these three educators relied on kairos to such a substantial degree in their educational methodologies, what was the student meant to be preparing for in the future? By deeply analyzing the use of kairos in the pedagogies of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero, it will be possible to show that all three rhetors shared a common usage of the term in their writings, and saw its intensive application in civic education as the ideal way for preparing individuals to become leaders of the state in the near future.

Capstone (Body Paragraphs First Two Pages)

9/23/19 Draft One

Kairos, in the rhetorical tradition, is a term that is “multi-dimensional and flexible” (Crowley 31). The numerous definitions attached to the concept emphasizes its sheer complexity and contradictory nature in a way that makes it extremely difficult for any student of rhetoric to understand why it was so intertwined to the rhetorical process itself. Over the centuries, kairos has come to represent symmetry, propriety, occasion, due measures, fitness, tact, decorum, profit, and wise moderation just to name a handful of definitions that accompany this idea (Sipiora 1). Before the term became wedded to rhetorical concepts, kairos was one of the gods within Grecian culture. Known by the name Opportunity, the god was the youngest child of Zeus and was generally associated with the ideas of timing and recognizing the strategic moment (1). While related to chronos, which dealt with time as something that could be directly measured, kairos instead sought a specific window of time.

Rather than being about “the duration of time” (Crowely 31), it was concerned with what use was made of a singular advantageous moment. The first known use of kairos in a literary work is within the Iliad. Reflecting the concept that was associated with the god Opportunity, the term denoted a vital or lethal place in the body… that is particularly susceptible to injury and necessitates special protection” (Sipiora 2). In short, it was referring to a strategic piece in time that necessitated proper care. As time progressed, Greek poets and writers continued expanding on the concept to the point that a clear split was seen with the linear chronos. Works by Hesiod, Euripides, Pericles, Pythagoras, etc. gradually underscored that kairos was “a point in time [that was] filled with [great] significance” (2) instead of simply occupying a physical space. These individuals and many other educators began to realize the importance of kairos in Greek culture and the potential it had for influencing the classical rhetorical traditions that were emerging on the scene.

The golden age of rhetoric in Greece can be said to have begun after the Battle of Marathon, an event which Richard Enos believes “direct[ed] attention to the importance of rhetoric from individual human capacity to the benefits of rhetorical deliberation for a city and her culture” (92). This fusion of rhetoric with society would become the foundation on which a great number of educators and philosophers would cultivate a discipline centered heavily on kairos. Beginning with the Pre-Socratics and the early Sophists, it is possible to see that certain Greek social and political forces provided the environment and exigence needed for the development of techniques that would coalesce into the rhetorical discipline (95). Long before Isocrates, Aristotle, or Cicero made powerful use of kairos in their pedagogies, Sophist such as Gorgias and Protagoras realized that the term had the potential to unify several concepts into one comprehensive work.

Pursuing Civic Education in a Timely Fashion. Isocratic, Aristotelian, and Ciceronian Theories on Kairos in Contemporary Civic Pedagogy.

ERH 481
Date Due: 06 October 2019
Date Sub.: 06 October 2019
Help received: None
Draft Two/Three
Bryant Smilie

Today, the rhetorical concept of kairos has been largely left untouched by historical scholars in rhetoric due to its intricacy, depth, and difficulty in translating. Many of these individuals engaging in debates on rhetoric in contemporary civic education have generally avoided the role kairos has played in past democratic cultures, leaving out the fact that “kairos is central to at least some versions of the rhetorical traditions, and arguably, necessary to all” (Miller xi). Instead of emphasizing the practical application of rhetoric to everyday civic problems, some scholars have opted in teaching “students in the history of rhetoric [to be] critics at the expense of, and not complimentary with, training in histography” (Enos 11). In other words, some scholars have become more concerned with repeatedly commenting on rhetorical theories over discovering new historical information. The purpose of this thesis first is to emphasize the need for historical scholarship to be conducted over constantly supplying criticism to the field of rhetoric. As Barnett Baskerville rightly points out, “there is a need for scholars who can record accurately and artistically the history of our art…to delineate its place in and contribution to the cultural history of the nation” (11). Kairos is one such concept that has been viewed critically without the laborious historical research being conducted first, and this has been done at the risk of forgetting that kairos has been the core foundation of several rhetorical traditions.
The traditions created by the pedological work of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero all commonly emphasized the need for their students to practice rhetoric in such a dynamic and fluid way that they would be prepared for any argument once they became the main political actors within their communities. What is revealing, however, is the fact that all three of these rhetors not only utilized kairos in their main teachings, but also commonly used the concept as the underlying tool an individual could use to quickly understand all the elements of an exigency and to decisively act through a powerful and wholesome argument meant to influence their audience. Therefore, the works of these three rhetors when concerning kairos can all be viewed as being part of the same diachronic chain-of-being, that is, there is a sense of commonality and intertextuality that builds upon one another when their works are deeply researched (Enos 13). (Build and unpack the quote) The purpose of this thesis is to develop a thorough understanding of how a historical review of the concept of kairos within the works of these three rhetors could offer a new approach to teaching contemporary civic discourse. My overarching question is, given how modern civic and rhetorical education seems to have focused on examining the theoretical concepts of its field, what would an analysis of Isocrates’ Aristotle’s, and Cicero’s use of kairos to promote a more dynamic, hands-on form of pedagogy tell us about their fundamental beliefs in what a civic education was meant to accomplish?
After exploring the classical educators’ perspective on what an individual should learn from their educational methods and how they should apply these lessons, I will be in a position to analyze how kairos was the foundation for classical civic education and the key to knowing how to approach any type of exigency before executing a decisive response. With the history of the role kairos played in the teachings of the three rhetors in mind, I can answer two questions. What exactly is kairos when its very definition has changed so fluidly since ancient Greece alongside the concept itself being highly complex and contradictory in nature? And, given how these three educators relied on kairos to such a substantial degree in their educational methodologies, what was the student meant to be preparing for in the future? By deeply analyzing the use of kairos in the pedagogies of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero, it will be possible to show that all three rhetors shared a common usage of the term in their writings, and saw its intensive application in civic education as the ideal way for preparing individuals to become leaders of the state in the near future.
Kairos, in the rhetorical tradition, is a term that is “multi-dimensional and flexible” (Crowley 31). The numerous definitions attached to the concept emphasizes its sheer complexity and contradictory nature in a way that makes it extremely difficult for any student of rhetoric to understand why it was so intertwined to the rhetorical process itself. Over the centuries, kairos has come to represent symmetry, propriety, occasion, due measures, fitness, tact, decorum, profit, and wise moderation just to name a handful of definitions that accompany this idea (Sipiora 1). Before the term became wedded to rhetorical concepts, kairos was one of the gods within Grecian culture. Known by the name Opportunity, the god was the youngest child of Zeus and was generally associated with the ideas of timing and recognizing the strategic moment (1). While related to chronos, which dealt with time as something that could be directly measured, kairos instead sought a specific window of time.
Rather than being about “the duration of time” (Crowely 31), it was concerned with what use was made of a singular advantageous moment. The first known use of kairos in a literary work is within the Iliad. Reflecting the concept that was associated with the god Opportunity, the term denoted a vital or lethal place in the body… that is particularly susceptible to injury and necessitates special protection” (Sipiora 2). In short, it was referring to a strategic piece in time that necessitated proper care. As time progressed, Greek poets and writers continued expanding on the concept to the point that a clear split was seen with the linear chronos. Works by Hesiod, Euripides, Pericles, Pythagoras, etc. gradually underscored that kairos was “a point in time [that was] filled with [great] significance” (2) instead of simply occupying a physical space. Kairos at this moment in time has only been utilized by these individuals as a literary principle that expressed great profoundness in several poems and plays. It would not be long, however, until several educators began to realize the importance of kairos in Greek culture and the potential it had for influencing and unifying the classical rhetorical traditions that were emerging on the scene.
The golden age of rhetoric in Greece can be said to have begun after the Battle of Marathon, an event which Richard Enos believes “direct[ed] attention to the importance of rhetoric from individual human capacity to the benefits of rhetorical deliberation for a city and her culture” (92). This fusion of rhetoric with society would become the foundation on which a great number of educators and philosophers would cultivate a discipline centered heavily on kairos. Beginning with the Pre-Socratics and the early Sophists, it is possible to see that certain Greek social and political forces provided the environment and exigence needed for the development of techniques that would coalesce into the rhetorical discipline (95). Long before Isocrates, Aristotle, or Cicero made powerful use of kairos in their pedagogies, Sophist such as Gorgias and Protagoras realized that the term had the potential to unify several concepts into one comprehensive work because of the way it tethered disciplinary principles to gaining political power. This is particularly seen in rhetoric’s transition from being merely an artistic element in Hellenic society to it becoming a civic tool used in the creation and operation of democracy (104). Marked by the arrival of Gorgias in Athens during a major war raging on in Sicily, the methods he utilized when addressing the Greek assembly not only introduced the Sophistic concept of rhetoric as an amplifier of political arguments to Athens, but also “elevated rhetoric as an effective source of power within a democratic context” (108).
While educators such as Plato sought a more philosophical approach to rhetoric that underscored the need for morality and aesthetic elements to be present in the discipline as a counter to the Sophistic idea of rhetoric acting solely as a machine meant for advancing ones political standing, kairos sought to unify the political rhetoric embodied in the Sophist with the social responsibility insisted upon by Plato’s philosophical rhetoric (Sipiora 5). In short, kairos would quickly become a way for balancing the best elements of rhetorical education with one another in an attempt to develop a pragmatic approach for knowing which logos ideally fits the situation. Although several educators now recognized the value kairos had in teaching the “grasping of concepts” or thinking in a particular way at a particular time (4), a true civic virtue paideia based upon a full understanding of rhetoric and the role kairos plays in the discipline would not emerge until Isocrates presented his Antidosis into Athenian society.
In short, “Kairos is clearly a complex, multidimensional concept… [where] there is much to learn from the ancients’ treatment of [it]” (6). Kairos is an idea which is highly complex and contradictory in its very nature. Its definition has changed so rapidly in Greek culture alone that it has become inherently difficult to identify a set definition for examining how kairos works specifically in civic education. Therefore, it is vital to first recognize that kairos, as it is used by Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero, was meant to unify several rhetorical concepts into one strategic concept for handling any situation. As Michael Harker appropriately points out, kairos “accounts for the past, present, and future, its meaning is derived from its relation to a particular end” (79). Because each rhetorical situation demands that a unique argument be crafted specifically for dealing with that issue, it is nearly impossible for a rhetor to know how to plan for every situation based in the future. Rhetorical theories themselves can provide “models of right and wrong strategies, [but] cannot cast its net over the unforeseen, unpredictable, and uncontrollable moments” (Sipiora 6). Because it is impossible to instruct anyone in using kairos for immediately responding to an occasion, it is understood that kairic discourse must be treated as a mode of improvisation (7). In other words, kairos does not provide the rhetor with an equation

Capstone Reflective Tag 10/06/19
The overall feedback I have received has been highly positive from everyone, but a general consensus that seems to be popping up is that its going over the heads of several people, I think the best way to try to make the reading more understandable to the reader is to provide more in-depth analysis in my own words and separating several of the quotes up. While the research I have shown in the work is in depth and fruitful, it more reflects the views of those authors than the points I am trying to cultivate myself.

ERH 481
Date Due: 08, October 2019
Date Sub.: 08, October 2019
Help received: None
Draft Four
Bryant Smilie

Pursuing Civic Education in a Timely Fashion. Isocratic, Aristotelian, and Ciceronian Theories on Kairos in Contemporary Civic Pedagogy.

ERH 481
Date Due: 10, October 2019
Date Sub.: 10, October 2019
Help received: None
Draft Five
Bryant Smilie

Today, the rhetorical concept of kairos has been largely left untouched by historical scholars in rhetoric due to its intricacy, depth, and difficulty in translating. Many of these individuals engaging in debates on rhetoric in contemporary civic education have simply overlooked the role kairos has played in past democratic cultures, forgetting that “kairos is central to at least some versions of the rhetorical traditions, and arguably, necessary to all” (Miller xi). Instead of emphasizing the practical application of rhetoric to everyday civic problems, some scholars have opted in teaching “students in the history of rhetoric [to be] critics at the expense of, and not complimentary with, training in histography” (Enos 11). In other words, some scholars have become more concerned with repeatedly commenting on rhetorical theories over discovering new historical information. The purpose of this thesis first is to emphasize the need for historical scholarship to be conducted over constantly supplying criticism to the field of rhetoric. As Barnett Baskerville rightly points out, “there is a need for scholars who can record accurately and artistically the history of our art…to delineate its place in and contribution to the cultural history of the nation” (11). Kairos is one such concept that has been viewed critically without the laborious historical research being conducted first, and this has been done at the risk of forgetting that kairos has been the core foundation of several rhetorical traditions.
The traditions created by the pedological work of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero all commonly emphasized the need for their students to practice rhetoric in such a dynamic and fluid way that they would be prepared for any argument once they became the main political actors within their communities. What is revealing, however, is the fact that all three of these rhetors not only utilized kairos in their main teachings, but also commonly used the concept as the underlying tool an individual could use to quickly understand all the elements of an exigency and to decisively act through a powerful and wholesome argument meant to influence their audience. Therefore, the works of these three rhetors when concerning kairos can all be viewed as being part of the same “diachronic chain-of-being”, that is, there is a sense of commonality and intertextuality that builds upon one another when their works are deeply researched (Enos 13). The development of kairos in civic education has always seen its core concepts building on previous rhetorical works. From the early Sophist to the Roman rhetors, the classic works of kairos can be interpreted as being the interconnected parts of an entire pedagogy that was carefully cultivated by Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero. Their forms of education seem intertwined with one another and all seek to use kairos within rhetoric as a way for preparing individuals to eventually lead the nation and not simply as a means of persuasion for personal gain. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a thorough understanding of how a historical review of the concept of kairos within the works of these three rhetors could offer a new approach to teaching contemporary civic discourse. My overarching question is, given how modern civic and rhetorical education seems to have focused on examining the theoretical concepts of its field, what would an analysis of Isocrates’ Aristotle’s, and Cicero’s use of kairos to promote a more dynamic, hands-on form of pedagogy tell us about their fundamental beliefs in what a civic education was meant to accomplish?
After exploring the classical educators’ perspective on what an individual should learn from their educational methods and how they should apply these lessons, I will be in a position to analyze how kairos was the foundation for classical civic education and the key to knowing how to approach any type of exigency before executing a decisive response. With the history of the role kairos played in the teachings of the three rhetors in mind, I can answer two questions. What exactly is kairos when its very definition has changed so fluidly since ancient Greece alongside the concept itself being highly complex and contradictory in nature? And, given how these three educators relied on kairos to such a substantial degree in their educational methodologies, what was the student meant to be preparing for in the future? By deeply analyzing the use of kairos in the pedagogies of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero, it will be possible to show that all three rhetors shared a common usage of the term in their writings, and saw its intensive application in civic education as the ideal way for preparing individuals to become leaders of the state in the near future.
Kairos, in the rhetorical tradition, is a term that is “multi-dimensional and flexible” (Crowley 31). The numerous definitions attached to the concept emphasizes its sheer complexity and contradictory nature in a way that makes it extremely difficult for any student of rhetoric to understand why it was so intertwined to the rhetorical process itself. Over the centuries, kairos has come to represent symmetry, propriety, occasion, due measures, fitness, tact, decorum, profit, and wise moderation just to name a handful of definitions that accompany this idea (Sipiora 1). Before the term became wedded to rhetorical concepts, kairos was one of the gods within Grecian culture. Known by the name Opportunity, the god was the youngest child of Zeus and was generally associated with the ideas of timing and recognizing the strategic moment (1). While related to chronos, which dealt with time as something that could be directly measured, kairos instead sought a specific window of time.
Rather than being about “the duration of time” (Crowely 31), it was concerned with what use was made of a singular advantageous moment. The first known use of kairos in a literary work is within the Iliad. Reflecting the concept that was associated with the god Opportunity, the term denoted a vital or lethal place in the body… that is particularly susceptible to injury and necessitates special protection” (Sipiora 2). In short, it was referring to a strategic piece in time that necessitated proper care. As time progressed, Greek poets and writers continued expanding on the concept to the point that a clear split was seen with the linear chronos. Works by Hesiod, Euripides, Pericles, Pythagoras, etc. gradually underscored that kairos was “a point in time [that was] filled with [great] significance” (2) instead of simply occupying a physical space. Kairos at this moment in time has only been utilized by these individuals as a literary principle that expressed great profoundness in several poems and plays. It would not be long, however, until several educators began to realize the importance of kairos in Greek culture and the potential it had for influencing and unifying the classical rhetorical traditions that were emerging on the scene.
The golden age of rhetoric in Greece can be said to have begun after the Battle of Marathon, an event which Richard Enos believes “direct[ed] attention to the importance of rhetoric from individual human capacity to the benefits of rhetorical deliberation for a city and her culture” (92). This fusion of rhetoric with society would become the foundation on which a great number of educators and philosophers would cultivate a discipline centered heavily on kairos. Beginning with the Pre-Socratics and the early Sophists, it is possible to see that certain Greek social and political forces provided the environment and exigence needed for the development of techniques that would coalesce into the rhetorical discipline (95).Specifically, it was the interactions between democratic cities of Syracuse and Athens which opened the minds of several Greek political leaders to the value in using rhetoric as a tool for giving decisive arguments in front of their senate colleagues. They began to see it as a way to increase their own political power within a democratic institution. Long before Isocrates, Aristotle, or Cicero made powerful use of kairos in their pedagogies, Sophist such as Gorgias and Protagoras realized that the term had the potential to unify several concepts into one comprehensive work because of the way it tethered disciplinary principles to gaining political power. This is particularly seen in rhetoric’s transition from being merely an artistic element in Hellenic society to it becoming a civic tool used in the creation and operation of democracy (104). Marked by the arrival of Gorgias in Athens during a major war raging on in Sicily, the methods he utilized when addressing the Greek assembly not only introduced the Sophistic concept of rhetoric as an amplifier of political arguments to Athens, but also “elevated rhetoric as an effective source of power within a democratic context” (108).
While educators such as Plato sought a more philosophical approach to rhetoric that underscored the need for morality and aesthetic elements to be present in the discipline as a counter to the Sophistic idea of rhetoric acting solely as a machine meant for advancing ones political standing, kairos sought to unify the political rhetoric embodied in the Sophist with the social responsibility insisted upon by Plato’s philosophical rhetoric (Sipiora 5). In short, kairos would quickly become a way for balancing the best elements of rhetorical education with one another in an attempt to develop a pragmatic approach for knowing which logos ideally fits the situation. Although several educators now recognized the value kairos had in teaching the “grasping of concepts” or thinking in a particular way at a particular time (4), a true civic virtue paideia based upon a full understanding of rhetoric and the role kairos plays in the discipline would not emerge until Isocrates presented his Antidosis into Athenian society.
In short, “Kairos is clearly a complex, multidimensional concept… [where] there is much to learn from the ancients’ treatment of [it]” (6). Kairos is an idea which is highly complicated and contradictory in its very nature. Its definition has changed so rapidly in Greek culture alone that it has become inherently difficult to identify a set definition for examining how kairos works specifically in civic education. Therefore, it is vital to first recognize that kairos, as it is used by Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero, was meant to unify several rhetorical concepts into one strategic concept for handling any situation. This supports the idea of kairos “account[ing] for the past, present, and future, its meaning [being] derived from its relation to a particular end” (79), but because each rhetorical situation demands that a unique argument be crafted for dealing with that issue, it is nearly impossible for a rhetor to know how to plan for every situation they will come across. Rhetorical theories themselves can provide “models of right and wrong strategies, [but] cannot cast its net over the unforeseen, unpredictable, and uncontrollable moments” (Sipiora 6). Kairos then, is meant to be used as an extemporaneous tool by a rhetor. Its goal is to provide a method of improvisation which will allow certain individuals to navigate an unanticipated argument in search of its most vital components; then present their own argument that is decisive in persuading their audience. In other words, kairos in civic discourse does not provide the rhetor with the perfect equation for addressing all exigencies, it instead functions as a tool for quickly absorbing all the known elements of a situation and gives the rhetor the ability to act through a powerful and wholesome argument designed to heavily influence their listeners.
Kairos is a key element in a broad section of education; therefore, it is important to identify a definition that best represents what Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero were seeking to achieve in their application of the idea to their civic pedagogies. While a complete definition of kairos would explore the ethical epistemological, aesthetic, and rhetorical aspects within the term (Harker 78), such a definition does not thoroughly explore the role it plays in civic education. When analyzing the civic teachings of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero then, it is possible to see one theme in particular that descends from the Sophists into the works of these rhetors and provides a way for reaching the definition that will be used in this thesis. Because kairos tethers the opposing ideas of conflict and resolution to one another, it is understood that its main purpose is to provide the rhetor with the capacity to seek the truth in unpredictable and uncontrollable circumstances, and then present that truth to a community in a way they can clearly understand. kairos provides a way for an individual dealing with civic questions to find a proper footing within the exigence and then navigate their way towards a truth they wish to consider.
When explaining the purpose of kairos within the pedagogical works of Isocrates Aristotle, and Cicero, their overall goal, as we have already laid out, was centered upon using the concept as a way for “finding truth in a relativistic world” (Carter 103). Understanding this idea that kairos must be looked at outside of it merely being the opportune moment in a rhetorical situation allows for a definition to be identified that ideally represents how kairos is utilized in civic pedagogy. Consequently, the concept can be understood to act as the comprehensive backbone that intertwines ethical, epistemological, aesthetic, and rhetorical forms of argument into a method for always being capable of navigating an argument, regardless of its complexity (Harker 79). This definition can be broken down even more however when we specifically look at the rhetorical strategies employed by Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero. These three rhetors saw kairos as the underlying instrument used to swiftly gain understanding of all the interconnected components of an exigency, then use those forms to deliver the crucial act through a powerful and wholesome argument meant to deeply influence the audience. While kairos possesses a level of depth and intricacy which hides its true purpose in civic education, the paideia of Isocrates is the first to begin cultivating a rhetorical discipline where kairos forms the heart of a discipline meant to create socially responsible citizens.

Pursuing Civic Education in a Timely Fashion. Isocratic, Aristotelian, and Ciceronian Theories on Kairos in Contemporary Civic Pedagogy.

ERH 481
Date Due: 22, October 2019
Date Sub.: 22, October 2019
Help received: In class peer review, MAJ Iten, Scholarly Sources
Draft Six
Bryant Smilie

Today, the rhetorical concept of kairos has been largely left untouched by historical scholars in rhetoric due to its intricacy, depth, and difficulty in translating. A gap in scholarly research in this topic seems to have led to contemporary civic education overlooking the role kairos has played in past democratic cultures, paying less attention to the fact that “kairos is central to at least some versions of the rhetorical traditions, and arguably, necessary to all” (Miller xi). This lack of attention has encouraged students of rhetoric to be “critics at the expense of, and not complimentary with, training in histography” (Enos 11). In other words, some scholars have become more concerned with repeatedly commenting on rhetorical theories over discovering new historical information. The purpose of this thesis first is to emphasize the need for historical scholarship to be conducted over constantly supplying criticism to the field of rhetoric. As Barnett Baskerville rightly points out, “there is a need for scholars who can record accurately and artistically the history of our art…to delineate its place in and contribution to the cultural history of the nation” (11). Renewed attention to kairos in civic education would allow for an increased focus on the role civic education plays within our society and remind the modern rhetor that kairos still is the cornerstone of several rhetorical disciplines.
The traditions created by the pedological work of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero all commonly emphasized the need for their students to practice rhetoric in such a dynamic and fluid way that they would be prepared for any argument once they became the main political actors within their communities. What is revealing, however, is the fact that all three of these rhetors not only utilized kairos in their main teachings, but also recognized the concept as the underlying tool an individual could use to quickly understand all the elements of an exigency and to decisively act through a powerful argument meant to influence their audience. Therefore, the works of these three rhetors when concerning kairos can all be viewed as being part of the same “diachronic chain-of-being”, that is, there is a sense of commonality and intertextuality that builds upon one another when their works are deeply researched (Enos 13). Their forms of education seem intertwined with one another and all seek to use kairos within rhetoric as a way for preparing individuals to eventually lead the nation and not simply as a means of persuasion for personal gain. The main purpose of this thesis then, is to develop a thorough understanding of how a historical review of the concept of kairos within the works of these three rhetors better positions educators to further their research into the discipline with the hopes of developing new methods for contemporary civic education.
After exploring the classical educators’ perspective on what an individual should learn from their educational methods and how they should apply these lessons, I will be in a position to analyze how kairos was the foundation for classical civic education and the key to knowing how to approach any type of exigency before executing a decisive response. With the history of the role kairos played in the teachings of the three rhetors in mind, I can answer two questions. What exactly is kairos when its very definition has changed so fluidly since ancient Greece alongside the concept itself being highly complex and contradictory in nature? And, given how these three educators relied on kairos to such a substantial degree in their educational methodologies, what was the student meant to be preparing for in the future? By deeply analyzing the use of kairos in the pedagogies of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero, it will be possible to show that all three rhetors shared a common usage of the term in their writings, and saw its intensive application in civic education as the ideal way for preparing individuals to become leaders of the state in the near future.
Kairos, in the rhetorical tradition, is a term that is “multi-dimensional and flexible” (Crowley 31). The numerous definitions attached to the concept emphasizes its sheer complexity and contradictory nature in a way that makes it difficult for any student of rhetoric to understand why it was so intertwined to the rhetorical process itself. Over the centuries, kairos has come to represent symmetry, propriety, occasion, due measures, fitness, tact, decorum, profit, and wise moderation just to name a handful of definitions that accompany this idea (Sipiora 1). Before the term became wedded to rhetorical concepts, kairos was one of the gods within Grecian culture. Known by the name Opportunity, the god was the youngest child of Zeus and was generally associated with the ideas of timing and recognizing the strategic moment (1). While related to chronos, which dealt with time as something that could be directly measured, kairos instead dealt with a specific window of time.
Rather than being about “the duration of time” (Crowley 31), it was concerned with what use was made of a singular advantageous moment. The first known use of kairos in a literary work is within the Iliad. Reflecting the concept that was associated with the god Opportunity, the term denoted a vital or lethal place in the body… that is particularly susceptible to injury and necessitates special protection” (Sipiora 2). In short, it was referring to a strategic piece in time that necessitated proper care. As time progressed, Greek poets and writers continued expanding on the concept to the point that a clear split was seen with the linear chronos. Works by Hesiod, Euripides, Pericles, Pythagoras, etc. gradually underscored that kairos was “a point in time [that was] filled with [great] significance” (2) instead of simply occupying a physical space. Kairos at this moment in time has only been utilized by these individuals as a literary principle that expressed great profoundness in several poems and plays. It would not be long, however, until several educators began to realize the importance of kairos in Greek culture and the potential it had for influencing and unifying the classical rhetorical traditions that were emerging on the scene.
The golden age of rhetoric in Greece can be said to have begun after the Battle of Marathon, an event which Richard Enos believes “direct[ed] attention to the importance of rhetoric from individual human capacity to the benefits of rhetorical deliberation for a city and her culture” (92). This fusion of rhetoric with society would become the foundation on which a number of educators and philosophers would cultivate a discipline centered on kairos. Beginning with the Pre-Socratics and the early Sophists, it is possible to see that certain Greek social and political forces provided the environment and exigence needed for the development of techniques that would coalesce into the rhetorical discipline (95).Specifically, it was the interactions between democratic cities of Syracuse and Athens which opened the minds of several Greek political leaders to the value in using rhetoric as a tool for giving decisive arguments in front of their assembly colleagues. They began to see it as a way to increase their own political power within a democratic institution. Long before Isocrates, Aristotle, or Cicero made powerful use of kairos in their pedagogies, Sophist such as Gorgias and Protagoras realized that the term had the potential to unify several concepts into one comprehensive work because of the way it tethered disciplinary principles to gaining political power. This is particularly seen in rhetoric’s transition from being merely an artistic element in Hellenic society to it becoming a civic tool used in the creation and operation of democracy (104). Marked by the arrival of Gorgias in Athens during a major war raging on in Sicily, the methods he utilized when addressing the Greek assembly not only introduced the Sophistic concept of rhetoric as an amplifier of political arguments to Athens, but also “elevated rhetoric as an effective source of power within a democratic context” (108).
While educators such as Plato sought a more philosophical approach to rhetoric that underscored the need for morality and aesthetic elements to be present in the discipline as a counter to the Sophistic idea of rhetoric acting solely as a machine meant for advancing ones political standing, kairos unifies the political rhetoric embodied in the Sophist with the social responsibility insisted upon by Plato’s philosophical rhetoric (Sipiora 5). In short, kairos quickly became a way for balancing the best elements of rhetorical education with one another in an attempt to develop a pragmatic approach for knowing which logos ideally fits the situation. Although several educators now recognized the value kairos had in teaching the “grasping of concepts” or thinking in a particular way at a particular time (4), a true civic virtue paideia based upon a full understanding of rhetoric and the role kairos plays in the discipline would not emerge until Isocrates presented his Antidosis into Athenian society.
In short, “Kairos is clearly a complex, multidimensional concept… [where] there is much to learn from the ancients’ treatment of [it]” (6). Kairos is an idea which is highly complicated and contradictory in its very nature. Its definition has changed so rapidly in Greek culture alone that it has become inherently difficult to identify a set definition for examining how kairos works specifically in civic education. Therefore, it is vital to first recognize that kairos, as it is used by Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero, was meant to unify several rhetorical concepts into one strategic concept for handling any situation. This supports the idea of kairos “account[ing] for the past, present, and future, its meaning [being] derived from its relation to a particular end” (79), but because each rhetorical situation demands that a unique argument be crafted for dealing with that issue, it is nearly impossible for a rhetor to know how to plan for every situation they will come across. Rhetorical theories themselves can provide “models of right and wrong strategies, [but] cannot cast its net over the unforeseen, unpredictable, and uncontrollable moments” (Sipiora 6). Kairos then, is meant to be used as an extemporaneous mindset by a rhetor. Its goal is to provide a method of improvisation which will allow certain individuals to navigate an unanticipated argument in search of its most vital components; then present their own argument that is decisive in persuading their audience. In other words, kairos in civic discourse does not provide the rhetor with the perfect equation for addressing all exigencies, it instead provides a way of thinking which permits individuals to quickly absorb all the known elements of a situation and give them the ability to act through a wholesome argument designed to heavily influence their listeners.
Kairos is a key element in a broad section of education; therefore, it is important to identify a definition that best represents what Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero were seeking to achieve in their application of the idea to their civic pedagogies. While a complete definition of kairos would explore the ethical epistemological, aesthetic, and rhetorical aspects within the term (Harker 78), such a definition does not thoroughly explore the role it plays in civic education. When analyzing the civic teachings of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero then, it is possible to see one theme in particular that descends from the Sophists into the works of these rhetors and provides a way for reaching the definition that will be used in this thesis. Because kairos tethers the opposing ideas of conflict and resolution to one another, it is understood that its main purpose is to provide the rhetor with the capacity to seek the truth in unpredictable and uncontrollable circumstances, and then present that truth to a community in a way they can clearly understand. kairos provides a way for an individual dealing with civic questions to find a proper footing within the exigence and then navigate their way towards a truth they wish to consider.
When explaining the purpose of kairos within the pedagogical works of Isocrates Aristotle, and Cicero, their overall goal, as we have already laid out, was centered upon using the concept as a way for “finding truth in a relativistic world” (Carter 103). Understanding this idea that kairos must be looked at outside of it merely being the opportune moment in a rhetorical situation allows for a definition to be identified that ideally represents how kairos is utilized in civic pedagogy. Consequently, the concept can be understood to act as the comprehensive backbone that intertwines ethical, epistemological, aesthetic, and rhetorical forms of argument into a method for always being capable of navigating an argument, regardless of its complexity (Harker 79). This definition can be broken down even more however when we specifically look at the rhetorical strategies employed by Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero. These three rhetors saw kairos as the underlying instrument used to swiftly gain understanding of all the interconnected components of an exigency, then use those forms to deliver the crucial act through a powerful and wholesome argument meant to deeply influence the audience. While kairos possesses a level of depth and intricacy which hides its true purpose in civic education, the paideia of Isocrates is the first to begin the cultivation of a rhetorical discipline where kairos forms the heart of a discipline meant to create socially responsible citizens.
Isocrates and his use of kairos in the rhetorical discipline show that his primary goal, as establish in Against The Sophist, was to furnish educators who would “expound the principles of the art with the utmost possible exactness as to leave out nothing that can be taught” (175) and for these teachers to educate certain men in becoming “able orators and statesmen [through] much study and [the application] of a vigorous and imaginative mind” (173). Isocrates explains that his main goal is to produce individuals who will be able to effectively lead Athens and the rest of the Hellenistic world. He believed the proper form of civic education possessed kairos at its core and sought to find a pragmatic course of action through understanding when the opportune time was to deliver the decisive moment in an argument. He believed that rhetoric should be utilized in a way that emphasized pragmatism and thoughtful activity within the polis, seeing that democratic institutions instilled with rhetorical elements as a unifying component in Greek society would demand that its individuals take part in ensuring the welfare of the entire community. Instead of being citizens who simply gave thoughtless responses on a whim, they were meant to show reflection and deliberative response before putting their case before their fellow Athenians (Poulakos 9). The value of kairos in civic education for Isocrates then, was its ability to instill improvisation and flexibility into the minds of all individuals facing a rhetorical situation. To create a pedagogy that would fully prepare future leaders of the Greek state, this flexibility needed to be applied to his education in a way that opened the boundaries between all the scholarly forms of argument and politics itself.
To understand the methods by which Isocrates utilized kairos in civic education, it is necessary to note that, especially in Against the Sophists, he deemphasized the best way to give a speech and placed priority in teaching the cultivation of political ideas through men who could “speak in a manner worthy of his subject yet able to discover in its topics which are nowise the same as those used by others” (171). Isocrates did not want rhetors to “[apply] the analogy of an art with hard and fast rules to a creative process” (171) but wanted them to rely on a pragmatic grasp of how rhetorical situations differed and to realize that what was “said by one speaker is not equally useful for the speaker who comes after him” (171). In order to accomplish this, Isocrates list a series of elements that each rhetor must be able to pull from and apply when composing any type of discourse. The elements a rhetor employs for each situation are, “to join them [thoughts] together, to arrange them properly…[understanding] what the occasion demands…[and] to adorn the whole speech with striking thoughts and melodious phrases” (173). Upon breaking down this list, it is possible to see kairos forming the backbone that fully connects the speaker to the exigence. He provides a method for allowing individuals to immediately react to an unforeseen situation by drawing connections between all the critical pieces of information, recognize how to treat this occasion, then deliver a response that is simultaneously eloquent and pivotal in influencing the audience. Isocrates fully believed in the notion that in order to become great leaders for the Greek nation, men had to fully understand the lessons of his civic education and develop a moral quality alongside pragmatic decision-making abilities in political rhetoric in order to look out for the good of the entire group, not just that of individual interest. Aristotle, although he criticized many of Isocrates’ methods, would adopt several of these elements in the hopes of developing a form of civic education that fully used kairos as a binding component between rhetorical methodology and rhetorical practicality.

Works Cited
Aristotle. On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Trans, George A. Kennedy. New York: Oxford UP, 1991.
Baskerville, Barnett. “Must We All Be Rhetorical Critics’?” Quarterly Journal of Speech 63 (1997): 107-116. Print.
Carter, Michael. “Stasis and Kairos: Principles of Social Construction in Classical Rhetoric.” Rhetoric Review 7.1 (1988): 97-112.
Crowley, Sharon, Hawhee, Debra. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. Needlham Heights: Macmillan College Publishing Company, 1994.
Enos, Richard. “Greek Rhetoric Before Aristotle: Revised and Expanded Edition. Parlor Press. 2011.
Harker, Michael. “The Ethics of Argument: Rereading Kairos and Making Sense in a Timely Fashion”. National Council of Teachers of English 59 (2007): 77-97. JSTOR. Print
Isocrates. “Against the Sophists.” Isocrates In Three Volumes. Ed. and trans. George Norlin. London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1980.
—“Antidosis.” Isocrates In Three Volumes. Ed. and trans. George Norlin. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1980.
Jasinki, James. Sourcebook on Rhetoric: Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2001.
Lunsford, Andrea. The SAGE Handbook of Rhetorical Studies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2009.
Miller, Carolyn R. “Kairos in the Rhetoric of Science.” A Rhetoric of Doing: Essays on Written Discourse in Honor of James L. Kinneavy. Ed. Stephen P. Witte, Neil Nakadate and Roger D. Cherry. 310-327. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1992.
Poulakos, Takis. “Isocrates and Civic Education.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 13 (2007): 625-628. JSTOR. Print.
—“Isocrates’ Use of Doxa.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 34 (2001): 61-78. JSTOR. Print.
Sipiora, Phillip, and James S. Baumlin, eds. Rhetoric and Kairos: Essays in History, Theory, and Praxis. Albany: State University of New York, 2002.
Sutton, Janes. Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. Ed. Thomas Sloan. New York: Oxford UP, 2001.

Pursuing Civic Education in a Timely Fashion. Isocratic, Aristotelian, and Ciceronian Theories on Kairos in Contemporary Civic Pedagogy.

ERH 481
Date Due: 3, November 2019
Date Sub.: 3, November 2019
Help received: In class peer review, MAJ Iten, Scholarly Sources
Draft Ten
Bryant Smilie

Pursuing Civic Education in a Timely Fashion. Isocratic, Aristotelian, and Ciceronian Theories on Kairos in Contemporary Civic Pedagogy.

ERH 481
Date Due: 05, November 2019
Date Sub.: 05, November 2019
Help received: In class peer review, MAJ Iten, Scholarly Sources
Draft Eleven
Bryant Smilie

Pursuing Civic Education in a Timely Fashion. Isocratic, Aristotelian, and Ciceronian Theories on Kairos in Contemporary Civic Pedagogy.

ERH 481
Date Due: 06, November 2019
Date Sub.: 06, November 2019
Help received: In class peer review, MAJ Iten, Scholarly Sources
Draft Twelve
Bryant Smilie

The natural link between rhetoric and civic education means that scholars of rhetoric must continually revisit the many resonances of rhetoric in crafting civic pedagogies appropriate to them time and place. One area of classical rhetoric that provides rich potential for enriching civic pedagogy is the notion of kairos. While rhetorical scholarship on kairos continues to emerge, the concept’s role specifically in civic pedagogy can benefit from more scrutiny. As Miller puts it, “kairos is central to at least some versions of the rhetorical traditions, and arguably, necessary to all” (Miller xi). The traditions created by the pedological work of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero all commonly emphasized the need for their students to practice rhetoric in such a dynamic and fluid way that they would be prepared for any argument once they became the main political actors within their communities. All three of these rhetors recognized kairos as the underlying tool an individual could use to quickly understand all the elements of a situation and to decisively act through a powerful argument meant to influence their audience. This thesis seeks to develop a thorough understanding of how a review of the concept of kairos within the works of these three rhetors better positions educators to further their research into the discipline with the hopes of developing new methods for contemporary civic education. While this thesis does not take up application to confirm the utility of certain pedagogical methods, this explanation does posit that classical rhetorical elements could shed light on our modern civic education.
I will first explore the origins of kairos itself and analyze the various definitions which have been attached to it throughout Greece’s classical history. With this accomplished, it will be possible to show how kairos became a unifying element in the rhetorical discipline and clarify why kairos became the foundation for classical civic education. After clearly defining the role kairos plays in civic education and analyzing what Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero thought the concept was meant to achieve, I will explain why they thought kairos was so vital to civic pedagogy and the methods by which they used it in their educations. Such an examination will allow me to display the works of these three rhetors concerning kairos as being part of the same “diachronic chain-of-being”, that is, a sense of commonality and intertextuality that builds upon one another when their works are deeply researched (Enos 13). I will underscore how their forms of education seem intertwined with one another and seek to use kairos within rhetoric as a way for inviting certain individuals to eventually lead the nation. In conclusion, I will contribute a thesis which calls for renewed attention to kairos within the classical rhetorical disciplines, allowing for an increased focus on the role civic education plays within our present society and remind the modern rhetor that kairos still is the cornerstone of several contemporary rhetorical traditions.
Kairos, in the rhetorical tradition, is a term that is “multi-dimensional and flexible” (Crowley 31). The numerous definitions attached to the concept emphasizes its sheer complexity and contradictory nature in a way that makes it difficult for any student of rhetoric to understand why it was so intertwined to the rhetorical process itself. Over the centuries, kairos has come to represent symmetry, propriety, occasion, due measures, fitness, tact, decorum, profit, and wise moderation just to name a handful of definitions that accompany this idea (Sipiora 1). Before the term became wedded to rhetorical concepts, kairos was one of the gods within Grecian culture. Known by the name Opportunity, the god was the youngest child of Zeus and was generally associated with the ideas of timing and recognizing the strategic moment (1). While related to chronos, which dealt with time as something that could be directly measured, kairos instead dealt with a specific window of time.
Rather than being about “the duration of time” (Crowley 31), it was concerned with what use was made of a singular advantageous moment. The first known use of kairos in a literary work is within the Iliad. Reflecting the concept that was associated with the god Opportunity, the term denoted a vital or lethal place in the body… that is particularly susceptible to injury and necessitates special protection” (Sipiora 2). In short, it was referring to a strategic piece in time that necessitated proper care. As time progressed, Greek poets and writers continued expanding on the concept to the point that a clear split was seen with the linear chronos. Works by Hesiod, Euripides, Pericles, Pythagoras, etc. gradually underscored that kairos was “a point in time [that was] filled with [great] significance” (2) instead of simply occupying a physical space. Kairos at this moment in time has only been utilized by these individuals as a literary principle that expressed great profoundness in several poems and plays. It would not be long, however, until several educators began to realize the importance of kairos in Greek culture and the potential it had for influencing and unifying the classical rhetorical traditions that were emerging on the scene.
The golden age of rhetoric in Greece can be said to have begun after the Battle of Marathon, an event which Richard Enos believes “direct[ed] attention to the importance of rhetoric from individual human capacity to the benefits of rhetorical deliberation for a city and her culture” (92). This fusion of rhetoric with society would become the foundation on which a number of educators and philosophers would cultivate a discipline centered on kairos. Beginning with the Pre-Socratics and the early Sophists, it is possible to see that certain Greek social and political forces provided the environment and exigence needed for the development of techniques that would coalesce into the rhetorical discipline (95).Specifically, it was the interactions between democratic cities of Syracuse and Athens which opened the minds of several Greek political leaders to the value in using rhetoric as a tool for giving decisive arguments in front of their assembly colleagues. They began to see it as a way to increase their own political power within a democratic institution. Long before Isocrates, Aristotle, or Cicero made powerful use of kairos in their pedagogies, Sophist such as Gorgias and Protagoras realized that the term had the potential to unify several concepts into one comprehensive work because of the way it tethered disciplinary principles to gaining political power. This is particularly seen in rhetoric’s transition from being merely an artistic element in Hellenic society to it becoming a civic tool used in the creation and operation of democracy (104). Marked by the arrival of Gorgias in Athens during a major war raging on in Sicily, the methods he utilized when addressing the Greek assembly not only introduced the Sophistic concept of rhetoric as an amplifier of political arguments to Athens, but also “elevated rhetoric as an effective source of power within a democratic context” (108).
While educators such as Plato sought a more philosophical approach to rhetoric that underscored the need for morality and aesthetic elements to be present in the discipline as a counter to the Sophistic idea of rhetoric acting solely as a machine meant for advancing ones political standing, kairos unifies the political rhetoric embodied in the Sophist with the social responsibility insisted upon by Plato’s philosophical rhetoric (Sipiora 5). In short, kairos quickly became a way for balancing the best elements of rhetorical education with one another in an attempt to develop a realistic approach for knowing which logos ideally fits the situation. Although several educators now recognized the value kairos had in teaching the “grasping of concepts” or thinking in a particular way at a particular time (4), a true civic virtue paideia based upon a full understanding of rhetoric and the role kairos plays in the discipline would not emerge until Isocrates presented his Antidosis into Athenian society.
In short, “Kairos is clearly a complex, multidimensional concept… [where] there is much to learn from the ancients’ treatment of [it]” (6). Kairos is an idea which is highly complicated and contradictory in its very nature. Its definition has changed so rapidly in Greek culture alone that it has become inherently difficult to identify a set definition for examining how kairos works specifically in civic education. Therefore, it is vital to first recognize that kairos, as it is used by Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero, was meant to unify several rhetorical concepts into one strategic concept for handling any situation. This supports the idea of kairos “account[ing] for the past, present, and future, its meaning [being] derived from its relation to a particular end” (79), but because each rhetorical situation demands that a unique argument be crafted for dealing with that issue, it is nearly impossible for a rhetor to know how to plan for every situation they will come across. Rhetorical theories themselves can provide “models of right and wrong strategies, [but] cannot cast its net over the unforeseen, unpredictable, and uncontrollable moments” (Sipiora 6). Kairos then, is meant to be used as an extemporaneous mindset by a rhetor. Its goal is to provide a method of improvisation which will allow certain individuals to navigate an unanticipated argument in search of its most vital components; then present their own argument that is decisive in persuading their audience. In other words, kairos in civic discourse does not provide the rhetor with the perfect equation for addressing all exigencies, it instead provides a way of thinking which permits individuals to quickly absorb all the known elements of a situation and give them the ability to act through a wholesome argument designed to heavily influence their listeners.
Kairos is a key element in a broad section of education; therefore, it is important to identify a definition that best represents what Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero were seeking to achieve in their application of the idea to their civic pedagogies. While a complete definition of kairos would explore the ethical epistemological, aesthetic, and rhetorical aspects within the term (Harker 78), such a definition does not thoroughly explore the role it plays in civic education. When analyzing the civic teachings of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero then, it is possible to see one theme in particular that descends from the Sophists into the works of these rhetors and provides a way for reaching the definition that will be used in this thesis. Because kairos tethers the opposing ideas of conflict and resolution to one another, it is understood that its main purpose is to provide the rhetor with the capacity to seek the truth in all unpredictable and uncontrollable circumstances, and then present that truth to a community in a way they can clearly understand. kairos provides a way for an individual dealing with civic questions to find a proper footing within the exigence and then navigate their way towards a truth they wish to consider.
When explaining the purpose of kairos within the pedagogical works of Isocrates Aristotle, and Cicero, their overall goal, as we have already laid out, was centered upon using the concept as a way for “finding truth in a relativistic world” (Carter 103). Understanding this idea that kairos must be looked at outside of it merely being the opportune moment in a rhetorical situation allows for a definition to be identified that ideally represents how kairos is utilized in civic pedagogy. Consequently, the concept can be understood to act as the comprehensive backbone that intertwines ethical, epistemological, aesthetic, and rhetorical forms of argument into a method for always being capable of navigating an argument, regardless of its complexity (Harker 79). This definition can be broken down even more however when we specifically look at the rhetorical strategies employed by Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero. These three rhetors saw kairos as the underlying instrument used to swiftly gain understanding of all the interconnected components of an exigency, then use those forms to deliver the crucial act through a powerful and wholesome argument meant to deeply influence the audience. While kairos possesses a level of depth and intricacy which hides its true purpose in civic education, the paideia of Isocrates is the first to begin the cultivation of a rhetorical discipline where kairos forms the heart of a discipline meant to create socially responsible citizens.
Isocrates explains that his main goal in rhetorical pedagogy is to produce individuals who will be able to effectively lead Athens and the rest of the Hellenistic world. In Against The Sophist, he writes that he aimed to furnish educators who would “expound the principles of the art with the utmost possible exactness as to leave out nothing that can be taught” (175) and for these teachers to educate certain men in becoming “able orators and statesmen [through] much study and [the application] of a vigorous and imaginative mind” (173). For Isocrates, the core of this form of civic education is kairos. He sought a pragmatic course of action through understanding when the opportune time was to deliver the decisive moment in an argument. As noted above, kairos is ultimately pragmatic in Isocrates’ rhetoric. Seeing that democratic institutions instilled with rhetorical elements as a unifying component in Greek society would demand that its individuals take part in ensuring the welfare of the entire community, Isocrates believed that rhetoric should be utilized in a way that emphasized pragmatism and thoughtful activity within the polis—both of which depended on kairos. Instead of being citizens who simply gave thoughtless responses on a whim, they were meant to show reflection and deliberative response before putting their case before their fellow Athenians (Poulakos 9). The value of kairos in civic education for Isocrates then, was its ability to instill improvisation and flexibility into the minds of all individuals facing a rhetorical situation. To create a pedagogy that would fully prepare future leaders of the Greek state, this flexibility needed to be applied to his education in a way that opened the boundaries between all the scholarly forms of argument and politics itself.
To understand the methods by which Isocrates utilized kairos in civic education, it is necessary to note that, especially in Against the Sophists, he deemphasized the best way to give a speech and placed priority in teaching the cultivation of political ideas through men who could “speak in a manner worthy of his subject yet able to discover in its topics which are nowise the same as those used by others” (171). Isocrates did not want rhetors to “[apply] the analogy of an art with hard and fast rules to a creative process” (171) but wanted them to rely on a pragmatic grasp of how rhetorical situations differed and to realize that what was “said by one speaker is not equally useful for the speaker who comes after him” (171). In order to accomplish this, Isocrates list a series of elements that each rhetor must be able to pull from and apply when composing any type of discourse. The elements a rhetor employs for each situation are, “to join them [thoughts] together, to arrange them properly…[understanding] what the occasion demands…[and] to adorn the whole speech with striking thoughts and melodious phrases” (173). Upon breaking down this list, it is possible to see kairos forming the backbone that fully connects the speaker to the exigence. He provides a method for allowing individuals to immediately react to an unforeseen situation by drawing connections between all the critical pieces of information, recognize how to treat this occasion, then deliver a response that is simultaneously eloquent and pivotal in influencing the audience. Isocrates fully believed in the notion that in order to become great leaders for the Greek nation, men had to fully understand the lessons of his civic education and develop a moral quality alongside pragmatic decision-making abilities in political rhetoric in order to look out for the good of the entire group, not just that of individual interest. Aristotle, although he criticized many of Isocrates’ methods, would adopt several of these elements in the hopes of developing a form of civic education that fully used kairos as a binding component between rhetorical methodology and rhetorical practicality.
Kinneavy notes that “Aristotle’s Rhetoric is grounded in kairos” (64). In particular, Aristotle sought a usage for kairos in rhetoric that, alongside supporting the ability for civic leaders to quickly make pragmatic decisions in sudden civic situations, provided a way for leaders to grasp all the forms of arguments that govern a society. While he did accept Isocrates’ use of kairos as a way for fellow politicians “who are able out of their opinions to chance upon what is generally what is generally the best course of action or speech…grasp [effective] practical wisdom (phronesis) (Poulakos 14). As illustrated by George Kennedy, Aristotle realized that an audience is made up of a variety of souls with differing patience and grasp of detailed argument, which means that the speaker must be able to identify the proper mode of persuasion for each occasion (15), including the “demand for clarity in understanding [all] the different kinds of language” (On Rhetoric 21). Kairos for Aristotle provides the rhetorical map for discovering what can be commonly used in all situations and equips the leading citizens with the ability to address the public as effectively and eloquently as they would their fellow senators (Bizzell and Herzberg 29). Another key element of Aristotle’s treatment of kairos is his desire to fold in Platonic ethics as seen in Plato’s Phaedrus. In On Rhetoric, according to Kennedy, Aristotle explains that his intention for rhetoric in civic pedagogy is to allow the rhetor to identify the proper form of persuasion in that could be applied to many different subject matters (14). However, tempering Isocratean opportunism with platonic ethical charge was intended to convey truth to all kinds of audiences, not just senatorial. In a sense, he combined Isocrates’ focus on using kairos to identify the realistic path within a rhetorical situation, with the ethical dimensions of Platonic rhetoric.
In terms of pedagogical method, Isocrates generally believed that “practical wisdom is all that we humans have” (Poulakos 14). Aristotle, while he agreed with Isocrates’ desire to apply practical wisdom, thought that some individuals could ascend to true theoretical science on human affairs through rhetoric (Poulakos 14). In other words, he asserted the equal importance of rhetoric as an art that could be mastered and recognized that it is kairos that illustrates rhetoric’s role as an “art” (Sipiora 73). Aristotle expresses his concern for men “who have composed arts of speech [but] have worked [only] on a small part of the subject” of rhetoric and “give most of their attention to matters external to the [true] subject” (31). Aristotle recognizes that rhetoric is the only art that is bent upon knowing how to persuade a specific audience: “The rhetor had to understand that rhetoric “does not belong to a single defined genus of subject, but is like dialectic… [and] sees the available means of persuasion in each case, as is true in all other arts” (36). He uses the term as a way to expound on the generalized rules of the art of public speaking and most importantly, “emphasize the individuality of the situation” (Kinneavy 67). For Aristotle, rhetoric is situationally determined: Aristotle’s method “applies the rules of the art of rhetoric to the particular situation at issue (67). Kairos, as concerned with timing, is “the starting point for grasping the whole of an argument” (Harker 80); it is a sign or map for the rhetor that points to define all the forms of argument and rhetoric a member of Greek society would come across as well as the strategies of delivery, style, and arrangement to use for these arguments (Kennedy 16). Thus, Aristotle’s identification of the three artistic proofs, ethos, pathos, and logos can be said to derive from his thinking about kairos as a universal way of thinking about how to approach a specific issue when addressing a public assembly. He tethers kairos’ methods of persuasion with the Platonic desire to tell the truth directly to multiple audiences, whom a leader of a community will approach to get them involved in decision-making; the key is the leader’s ability to present the argument to them in a way they can understand and thus can contribute to the good of the community. As pointed out by Michael Harker, “the Aristotelian tradition holds that kairos is absorbed in part of a comprehensive system of rhetoric and emerges through moderation, the appropriate, and the good” (Harker 80). Aristotle’s rhetoric emphasizes kairos’ place as the starting point for understanding an argument. It is “a place of inquiry, approximations of logic, character, and empathy” as he truly intended it to be (80).
Cicero is best recognized as the most important rhetor in classical rhetorical history after Aristotle. His works continued to influence rhetoric as far as the Renaissance and introduced several categories of rhetorical study that became commonplace in the Roman Republic and the later Empire (Bizzell and Herzberg 32). He sought a standardization of rhetorical practices that would help to stabilize Rome’s volatile political climate and, as Richard Enos rightly points out, saw “rhetoric [as acting as] the key ingredient for the operation of a successful Rome, [providing] the basis from which civic operations could serve as a normative and regulatory function” (Roman Rhetoric 43). While Roman culture had for sometime been generally intolerant of Greek customs, particularly its lessons in rhetorical disciplines, it did not take long for many Romans to realize the merits behind these lessons because they needed a way to “address immediate problems that [could] be resolved by discourse” (43). Therefore, by the time Cicero became the most prominent orator in the Roman Republic, he acknowledged an indebtedness to the works of the Greek rhetors and its capacity for understanding that rhetoric is situationally determined. Kinneavy observes that “the concept of kairos merged with that of prepon (propriety or fitness) … is the dominating concept in both Cicero’s rhetoric and his ethics” (82). This decorum that Cicero advocates for comes directly from kairos. Translated as “the fitting” and “the timely”, decorum used kairos to determine the proper opportunity for addressing an exigence while simultaneously maintaining an “orderliness of conduct” in the situation (Baumlin 143).
The main method that Cicero relied upon for applying kairos effectively in civic pedagogy was through a mastery of a host of oratorical skills. Similar to Aristotle, he emphasized rhetoric’s role as the primary vehicle for persuasion and the need to fully understand the art of delivering a speech to an audience if someone desired to be a contributing member of society. Through works such as De Oratore and De Inventione, Cicero explains the “activities of the orator [or] the stages through which an orator was expected to progress when preparing and presenting a speech” (May and Wise 10). The chaotic nature of discourse in Rome meant that the rhetor had to be fully prepared to be placed on the stage at anytime and able to immediately grasp the rhetorical situation. The ideal rhetor for Cicero “would not select any one style of rhetoric as the best, but [would have] mastery of all features of rhetoric and can compose effective discourse in accordance to the constraints of the context” (Enos 116). The orator would use kairos to take “a comprehensive view of the individual case in hand and duly take account of all its special circumstances” so that it then becomes possible to craft an argument capable of persuading a particular audience when the ideal opportunity presents itself (10). Cicero desired an education that was flexible. In order to prepare the next generation of leaders for the Republic, he crafted a civic education which insisted upon having individuals use decorum to discern the truth and uphold it in an environment where many were actively searching for power (Baumlin 142). The ideal rhetor then, was a skilled orator who would maintain a relationship with justice while freely maneuvering to persuade an audience. In short, Cicero wanted the prominent citizens throughout Rome to value and engage in a civic pedagogy that encouraged lively and well-argued debates as a way to promote and preserve the Republican way of life in Rome (Enos 114).
Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero all sought to cultivate a civic pedagogy that was extremely flexible and capable of addressing many of the political debates going on within their respective societies. The three rhetors collectively thought that they needed to teach their students to practice rhetorical discourse in such a dynamic and expansive way that their students would be prepared for any exigency once they became the main political actors within their communities. Because rhetoric had become the primary method for many prominent figures to build up their own political power in both the Greek state and the Roman Republic, these three educators felt it was necessary to employ a tool that would allow skilled rhetoricians to freely operate as long as they did so for the betterment of the entire group. Kairos, they believed, provided this crucial tool to civic education because it could be used to swiftly gain an insightful understanding of all the interconnected components of a situation, then use those forms to deliver the crucial act through a powerful and wholesome argument meant to deeply influence the audience. The key characteristic for them however, is the fact that kairos actively searches for the truth within a conflict. As Kinneavy points out, kairos has a close relation to justice… Justice was defined as giving to each according to merit… Justice, therefore, was determined by circumstances: justice was kairos” (61). The works of all three rhetors concerning civic education through the use of kairos all emphasized the need for a moral quality, an ethical charge, and finally a decorum from which methods of persuasion could be centered on winning debates that were concerned with ways to advance their society’s and cultures as a whole.
When analyzing why each rhetor thought kairos was so vital to their civic pedagogies and the methods by which they utilized the term in their paideia, two ideas in particular are repeatedly built upon and successively amplified by Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero, which are the “principle of right timing and the principle of proper measure” (60). Beginning with Isocrates, and his central desire to give his students the “ability to [masterfully] apply rhetorical principles to political situations” (Poulakos 44), he needed his students to understand that they must be able to quickly ascertain the situation within a discourse, recognize the proper way to address the occasion, then deliver an argument that was as influential as it was elegant. Timing is of course critical in this and Isocrates taught this to his students by “conjoining phronesis (practical wisdom) and pragmatic ethics within the situation and time” (Sipiora 8). He also sought an application of proper measure in his teachings by repeatedly emphasizing a process of the rhetor “seeking social justice… [within their] personal ethics” (8). Because many individuals were actively seeking to advance their own agendas in the polis selfishly, it was necessary for the Isocratic rhetor to know the ideal time to exercise their practical intelligence and experience in a natural way while additionally “observ[ing] good measure and proportion” when putting a case before their fellow Athenians (Kinneavy 60). Kairos for Isocrates therefore, was so effective in civic education because it requires the individual to have pragmatic wisdom if they wish to give practical answers in a rhetorical circumstance, alongside understanding your own value system so discourse can translate into social action (Sipiora 9).
Aristotle would build upon and magnify Isocrates’ use phronesis by crafting a civic pedagogy that combined his desire to find a pragmatic path inside a rhetorical situation with the ethical elements of Platonic rhetoric. Aristotle saw the two principles inside of kairos as capable of not only assisting in the construction of a speech, but also capable of analyzing and evaluating other forms of discourse (Kennedy 20). When dealing with seeking the proper moment, Aristotle desired a form of phronesis that encouraged individuals to expand rhetoric from just being a way to persuade to an art of persuading. Knowing when it was the proper time to address any audience came from knowing how to masterfully “apply the rules of the art of rhetoric to the particular situation at issue” (Kinneavy 67). In short, kairos’ situationally determined attitude was expanded from Isocrates’ desire to just bring more “practical intelligence into political deliberation” by Aristotle to include having the wisdom to know the opportune time to apply the proper mode of persuasion when addressing a variety of audiences. Proper measure in his Rhetoric, while it largely remained the same in applying kairos’ desire to actively seek the truth when persuading an audience, adopted Platonic ethics in a way that demanded a stronger sense of clarity on the speaker’s part. The rhetor needed to listen to his own inner ethics that derive from personal skills and experiences, very similar to Isocrates’ belief, and understand that an argument that was meant to persuade had to be “recognizable and meaningful to the audience” if you wished them to take an active role in civic discourse (Bizzell and Herzberg 29).
Cicero’s rhetoric and subsequent application of kairos seems to act as the culmination point of both Isocrates’ and Aristotle’s pedagogies. His work continued to build upon the lessons already cultivated by his Greek counterparts and offered a form of civic education that would have provided “a practical tool for political advancement in a free society” (Roman Rhetoric 55) if not for the destabilizing revolutions during his life. As James Baumlin points out, Cicero’s rhetoric “was a coherent body of knowledge of human behavior with a special focus on the relation of discourse to action” (139). His pedagogy made full use of the Isocrotean tradition of practical wisdom, that is “the practical knowledge of things to be sought for and things to be avoided [in discourse]” (142), while drawing deeply from Aristotle’s techniques of persuasion to create the activities for making a rhetor a skilled orator as well (May and Wise 39). The use of kairos by Isocrates and Aristotle in their civic lessons are clearly seen in the educational methodology that Cicero practiced in the Roman Republic. He placed great value on that sense of opportunita created by kairos, with his decorum stressing the need for right-timing in all human action (Baumlin 139). With this in mind, we recognize that the ideal moment in his rhetoric came from knowing when discourse could transition into tangible action. Cicero’s students needed to be able to understand the art of giving a speech and be capable of engaging their audiences in a way that is appropriate to the situation. Cicero’s proper measure, decorum, was meant to completely standardize the moral boundaries for Roman senators to operate it. Like Aristotle, he “combines the views of Isocrates and Plato in his treatment of rhetoric” in the hopes of setting an ethical model to prevent rhetoric from being used just to advance one’s political career (Bizzell and Herzberg 33). In short, he wanted Roman leaders to be held to a far higher standard because they were expected to “guide and set a moral tone for the populus” (Hughes 128). Roman politics at the time made rhetoric a natural method for gaining power, but by making the ethical boundaries clear through a set practice of decorum, the states Republican traditions could be preserved.
The civic pedagogies of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero all used kairos as a unifying element of several rhetorical principles into one strategic concept for immediately dealing with the exigence right in front of the rhetor. For these three rhetors, effective civic discourse did not come from knowing how to apply a universal template of rules that could solve any situation, it required great personal skill and near ceaseless practicing. Their pedagogies required “a rich experience that would enable a better grip on the present by bringing onto a given situation the full weight of perceptiveness and insightfulness that had been accumulated over time” (Poulakos 54). By building upon the past experiences and lessons of the rhetors before them, Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero all acknowledged the importance of kairos in civic education because it provided a way of thinking that encourages dealing with contingencies and becoming comfortable with improvisations.
The rapid pace at which political issues moved in Hellenic and Roman society meant that the rhetor had to always be prepared for a situation to emerge where they must suddenly give a decisive argument. The three rhetors understood this and placed such importance on kairos because it urgently encouraged people “to discuss prevailing issues before their currency dissipates” (Crowley 33). The rhetor had to swiftly grasp the situation right in front of him, decide on a truth they wished to uphold for an audience, and set about using modes of persuasion tailored to the exigence in order to deliver an influential speech. As a result, kairos was so privileged in the rhetorical theories of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero because it “acknowledged the contingency of issues and situations… [amplifying ones] awareness of the particularities of each situation” (33). To prepare the next generation of leaders of the state, their civic pedagogies were built around having citizen orators who were always ready to confront an exigence because they were consistently aware of the most pressing political issues going on within their communities.
Through a review of these three concepts, I have pointed out that “kairos remains a master concept cutting across ages, cultures, and disciplines” (Sipiora 16). Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero sought past experiences to ascertain why kairos has been so crucial in former rhetorical theories and how they could build upon these lessons for their own societies. As James Kinneavy rightly points out, “since freedom and the ability to persuade and be persuaded are the essence of the polis, it is not surprising to see the educations [on] the life of the polis [are] closely related to the notion of kairos” (65). All three rhetors brought renewed attention to kairos within their disciplines in an effort to find a more effective way of inviting leading citizens to engage in preserving the welfare of their communities and turning political discourse into tangible action. By examining the origins of kairos in Greece’s classical history and laying out how the term became a foundational element of the rhetorical tradition, we clearly see that kairos naturally aligned itself with civic education. This permitted an understanding to be made on how Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero viewed the purpose of kairos in civic education; leading to a thorough analysis of why it was so vital to their civic pedagogies, and the methods by which they made full use of kairos in their paideia. Accordingly, it was discovered that the pedagogies of these three rhetors were intertwined and built upon the works of one another, sharing the common theme of using kairos as “a call for decisive action, [knowing the right moment to speak], [and] expressing what is appropriate” (Harker 82). This renewed attention to how kairos was viewed within the classical rhetorical disciplines has underscored the notion that the concept still functions as a cornerstone of rhetoric that should be brought back under careful scrutiny. The collapse of the Roman Republic and the creation of the Roman Empire saw the culminating application of kairos in civic education under Cicero’s guidance virtually disappear as it became a tool for solely promoting the policies of the emperors. Because we never saw a full implementation of this form of civic pedagogy, revisiting these concepts may allow modern rhetors to give greater recognition to the role civic education plays in our contemporary society and discover that kairos, the cornerstone of many educational programs, is meant to prepare the next generation of citizens in taking full advantage of a plethora of rhetorical traditions.

Pursuing Civic Education in a Timely Fashion. Isocratic, Aristotelian, and Ciceronian Theories on Kairos in Contemporary Civic Pedagogy.

ERH 481
Date Due: 07, November 2019
Date Sub.: 07, November 2019
Help received: In class peer review, MAJ Iten, Scholarly Sources
Draft Thirteen (Final)
Bryant Smilie

Works Cited
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— Roman Rhetoric: Revolution and The Greek Influence Parlor Press. 2008.
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