Tübingen, Germany

General Rhetoric

Allgemeine Rhetorik

Master's
Language: GermanStudies in German
Subject area: humanities
Qualification: Master
Kind of studies: full-time studies
University website: www.uni-tuebingen.de
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, wherein a writer or speaker strives to inform, persuade or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. It can also be in a visual form; as a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the European tradition. Its best known definition comes from Aristotle, who considers it a counterpart of both logic and politics, and calls it "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion." Rhetoric typically provides heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations, such as Aristotle's three persuasive audience appeals, logos, pathos, and ethos. The five canons of rhetoric, which trace the traditional tasks in designing a persuasive speech, were first codified in classical Rome: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Along with grammar and logic (or dialectic – see Martianus Capella), rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse.
Rhetoric
The relations between rhetoric and ethics are disturbing: the ease with which language can be twisted is worrisome, and the fact that our minds accept these perverse games so docilely is no less cause for concern.
Octavio Paz, El mono gramático (The Monkey Grammarian), ch. 4 (1974)
Rhetoric
Plato sees true rhetoric as psychology which can fulfill its truly “moving” function only if it masters original images [eide]. Thus the true philosophy is rhetoric, and the true rhetoric is philosophy, a philosophy which does not need an “external” rhetoric to convince, and a rhetoric that does not need an “external” content of verity.
Ernesto Grassi, Rhetoric as Philosophy, pp. 31-32 (1980)
Rhetoric
Concerning the utility of Rhetoric, it is to be observed that it divides itself into two; first, whether Oratorical skill be, on the whole, a public benefit, or evil; and secondly, whether any artificial system of Rules is conducive to the attainment of that skill.
Richard Whately, Elements of Rhetoric, Introduction, p. 13 (1828)
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