September 22 After Class

After class I am further convinced that it should not be a question of emotion versus logic but rather how they work together.  I talked about it some in my post but I think that a lot of what convinces someone might be logic but a lot of what makes them take action or moves them to change their mind might be emotion.

When looking through my classmates' blog postings I was yet again unable to find a new one for this class period to respond to.  I tried 9, many had posts but they were out of date, one had a blog but no post, and a few had no link whatsoever.

September 22

For the Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students Reading, first and foremost I have always found it interesting that the long version of pathos was pathetic proof, considering it can be a very strong appeal when used correctly and our current primary understanding of the word pathetic, and thus I was glad to have it mildly explained in the beginning of the chapter.  Emotions are a strong thing, when played upon correctly they can move a person to do things where logic can only convince.  The trick is to know when your emotions are being played by say advertisers.  I think a major part of this is the idea that emotions make people care, but logic makes people keep caring, as exampled with the talk about 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Aristotle's ideas of knowing what the emotion was, who can cause it, and why people become emotional was interesting as well in part because I thought his list of causing emotions (indignation, anger, and joy) was a little short, and the cause is not always a who. 

The ideas of how to change the mind of someone emotionally invested also got my attention.  People do not change their minds unless given a good enough reason and a lot of the time logic may not be enough to combat the emotional attachment they have to their ideas, emotion is necessary to move someone to action; which somewhat relates to what the book was saying about enargia.  The use of specific language to incite a response intrigued me in that I have always found word choice to be incredibly important when writing anything because a single word can imply a lot about an issue; for example if describing something where the desired reaction in the audience is dislike one would not use a word like 'grand' or 'generous' to describe a large amount they would use something the audience is less likely to see as a good thing like 'excessive.'

I also found the Rhetorical Traditions reading particularly interesting in that the writing of letters has changed so much over time.  For example the long winded complimentary salutations they used to use we have replaced with Dear N___, at the beginning and Sincerely and the end; or Respectfully, Love, Your Friends, or some other closing appropriate to our purpose.  Nowadays we are so quick to finish whatever it is we are doing, we are so go, go, go that we rarely write letters anymore and even if we do we hardly raise them up into the realm of an art form.  Instead we write each other short, to the point e-mails, or post something on each other's wall on facebook, or text, the point is we do not take the time to really say much if anything and the way we write is by no means art.  That is not art unless you count it as being art to see how many words you can fit into 200 characters by using replacements such as '4' instead of 'for,' or 'u' instead of 'you,' or 'r' instead of 'are,' or 'b/c' instead of 'because,' etc; in which case texts can resemble a piece of art more than a string of words at times and almost need translation to decode at other times.

September 20 After Class

 In response to my response I would first like to say that after class I found, in my opinion, that all six of the six parts of oration could be applied to rhetorical writing, that is after partition was explained in class as thinking about in parts, which could lend itself to a well organized paper, and peroration was explained as conclusion, and if one does not have some form of conclusion for their paper I have to wonder what they have been learning all their schooling years.  I also mentioned us talking about the five cannons and three systems of rhetoric in class and in other readings, but did not mention that these were basically the same ideas sometimes by different names and presented by different rhetoricians;  I was pointing out they were the same or at least similar but did not fully explain.

Well for my classmate response entry I do not really have anything considering I tried 7 different blogs (and that's only the actual blogs, not including people who have not yet caused the link to pop up for their blog) and found no postings for today's reading.

September 20

In the Rhetorical Traditions reading for today I found the An Overview of the Structure of Rhetoric section particularly interesting.  I found the three species, as the author called it, of rhetoric interesting because we have mentioned them somewhat in class and they have been mentioned somewhat in other readings, but this particular reading went a little more in depth into their uses.  It was clear to me which applies to what after reading "Anything seeking just for its goal is judicial; anything dealing with what is useful or proper in public action is deliberative; and anything treating of the propriety, justice, or goodness of an ac already performed in a matter of public interest is demonstrative." (489).

This section also discussed the five parts or cannons of rhetoric, another topic both class time and reading has been devoted to.  It was interesting to me that the author said they were called parts because if the rhetor is lacking any then their use of rhetoric is imperfect because a number of the parts are no longer used for the most part yet rhetoric as a whole still thrives.

I also found the six parts of oration interesting namely because most, if not all, of them can be applied to rhetorical writing.  Rhetoric still requires and introduction, argument, proof, and a refutation (if it is a very strong argument at least).  As for the other two, partition and peroration, I would need to have a more clear understanding of what they were before I could decide whether they are currently used or not.

Including the audience and the rhetor in the consideration of goals was another good point the author made.  This way the rhetor is not only making the argument which they choose to the extent which they choose but they are also persuading the audience along the way.

September 15 After Class

I thought that the idea talked about in class of politicians using their own authoring of books to create ethos was rather interesting, and totally true.  To me it seems like a good way for them to get their names out there but at the same time it does not really force them to own up to their ideas; in the sense that first are they really writing their own book and with how much help from the background crew designed to make them look good, and also because how many people actually read those books or have any idea what the majority of the contents has to do with?  On a side note, honestly when I wrote my entry it was kind of late and I was tired, so I said things I may not have said under normal circumstances, particularly the self-proclaimed mini-rant, but in a way I am glad it made it into my posting, one cannot always be rainbows and butterflies.

My randomly chosen classmate to respond to for today was Katie Beason.  I think she did a really good job summarizing the chapter, and included a little of how some of it, specifically the use of big words relates back to her, both of which were good.  It would be nice if she split things up into paragraphs though, since reading one big block of text made it easy to lose place and also was a bit overbearing.  I would like to see some more of her ideas in her posts as well.

September 15

The discussion of ethical proof in Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students was quite interesting.   I thought it quite sensible that a rhetors persuasion capabilities related to their character considering if you do not trust someone then why would you believe or listen to them.  The same applies to character appearance, who will the audience be willing to listen to?  Not to mention how much of it is actually character and how much is simply perceived character, I mean if you do a good thing and no one sees it how do they know you did a good thing?  I do disagree that acting a way makes you that way to an extent, you won't become a good person just because you act like one if your doing it for bad reasons, but at the same time doing good things may influence someone in a good way.  The concept of invented ethos as a whole was interesting to me, especially that it was so important in arguments when people doubted that side.  I also find it appealing that ethos operates on the idea that the rhetors "must seem to be intelligent, to be of good moral character, and to possess good will toward their audiences." (201) considering I see these as good traits to begin with.

It was mentioned that ancient rhetoricians "were interested in the virtues that counted in public affairs: courage, honesty, trustworthiness, modesty, intelligence, fair-mindedness," (199) but that we do not put so much emphasis on these things any longer in our public figures or politics and I wondered, why?  Should we not also think about these things?

The idea of intimate distance meaning closer identification and more persuasive potential and that more attitude meant more intimate distance was also interesting as was the flip side.  The flip side being formal distance meaning less identification and less persuasive power while less attitude, or more formal, meant more formal distance.

I also really liked the quote from Isocrates' Panegyricus " if all athlete should acquire twice the strength which they now possess, the rest of the world would be no better off; but let a single man attain to wisdom, and all men will reap the benefit who are willing to share his insight." (196).  I really liked this because it is totally true to, you can't share strength, but you can help someone to learn.

Now time for critique in the form of a mini-rant.  The second part of the chapter was repetitive of many of the things most, if not all, of us learned years ago; such as informal versus formal language and how it can help our audience identify with us, or the concept of first, second, and third person, or tense, or word size, or qualifiers, or punctuation.  Maybe I (first person) was just in a bad mood when I read (past tense) this part of the chapter (qualified) but I found it REALLY (punctuation) unnecessary (all in informal language and without big words).  Hypothetically, therefore, the sentence immediately proceeding this one should considerable shorten the rhetorical distance between my audience and I.  Speaking of things we learned a long time ago, how do the authors not know that long block quotes are a big no no if you want to keep your audience awake.

September 13 After Class

After class I found the differences between induction and deduction interesting, as they were explained in class.  Through the reading I understood that induction was from a specific and deduction was from a general rule, but I did not think of induction as asiatic and deduction as attic.  I also did not think about induction in relation to influence and deduction in relation to law.

The classmate's blog post I looked at was titled English 360 Rhetoric, I'm not sure who it belonged to.  The writer did a good job summarizing the reading, but did not put much of their opinion or thoughts into it; which made it kind of dry for me, I did the reading so I didn't need it summarized.  Of course, this is only my opinion I just prefer/find it more interesting when people include their own thoughts on the material rather than just restating it.  However, she did include some of her own input on Quintillian and how she did not particularly find him worthwhile, and I respect that some opinion was included, but maybe a little more would be good.

September 13

In the Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students this week, I found the importance they put on premises, or the basis of an argument interesting in that it makes perfect sense, one must have a good foundation before building something.

The difference between deduction and induction was somewhat interesting in that two methods that are essentially opposites could both be used for argument support.  Induction seems to be building up, or widening, support for the argument while deduction seems to be narrowing through reasoning to support the argument.

I found it interesting that rhetors commonly use a community belief to support their argument, if gives rise to the idea that audience is a major part of an argument.  They would not use a community belief if it would not work, and it would not work unless part of that community was to hear and support it.  This was an idea repeated throughout the chapter whether it was called "common sense about the way people generally behave," (161) community belief, "common opinion of humankind" (160), or something else.  I think these ideas mirror the idea of commonplace which we talked about in class.  Both in class and book mentioned how these ideas of what is normal or acceptable change over time such as the examples in the book of men opening doors or women asking for dates.

I thought the idea that enthymemes were a powerful tool for persuasion whether the statements being used were true or not could be a very dangerous idea in our society.  If things are not being supported by fact, such as Bush's claim of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, bad things can happen as a result of those claims being supported, such as an unnecessary war we cannot seem to get out of.

After doing the reading I found that I understood some of the topics we talked about during the last class a little better; specifically syllogisms and enthymemes.  This was especially helped along by the repetition of the syllogism used in class of "1. All people are mortal.  2. Socrates is a person.  3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal." (162)

September 8 After Class

After class I found that I understood the concept of artistic and non-artistic proofs a little better, especially Maxims and enthymeme.  The example of assuming that when something is in the possession of someone it is their property made things more understandable.  Looking at the chart a second time after talking in class about the fact that the left side was more factually based and the right was more conjecture or assumption based, I found it somewhat interesting that an appeal to logos would fit under the category of artistic proofs.  The placement of the appeal to logos was interesting to me being that it is an appeal to logic, and the way I see an appeal to logic is through fact rather than conjecture or assumption.

My classmate's blog to respond to for the September 8th reading is entitled Life's Diversions! (with a side of ENGL 360), I don't know who it belongs to.  I found the part about mood effecting judgment and how that can be related to the post writer's life interesting.  However, the first thing I noticed was that in the list of things Aristotle "delved into" proofs was repeated; if it was purposeful then fine, if not, just because it is a blog doesn't mean one does not have to proofread; though I have also probably had my fair share of mistakes.  Honestly, the grammatical errors made it hard for me to focus on what the blog post actually said.  Also, the writer did not seem to put in much of their own interpretation or view on the reading but rather simply summarized.

September 8

While reading Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students it took me a little time to understand what was meant by topics.  This was probably fed by my inclination to think of topics in the way that we use the word today.  The idea of topics in the world of ancient rhetorics is rather interesting in the idea of preparing talking points to use in anytime when they may be needed.  It is interesting to me how much the single word of topics has changed in what it means or how one would go about the use.  What I mean is that in the time of ancient rhetorics topics were used as memory devices and to facilitate arguments.  On the other hand, though topics today are still used to facilitate arguments they are usually researched with a specific use in mind rather than learned for general use, and are not typically used for memory.  At the same time, however, even people today have go to talking points when discussing certain and/or common issues.

I found it interesting that the conjecture portion of topics did not seem much interested in facts of evidence but rather seemed focused around whatever ideas someone had; like the book's example of the unsupported idea that Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

Considering that apparently ancient Athenian agreed on common public values I wonder who would decide such a thing today.  Is there just a common unspoken idea of what values are the most important?  How much does this differ between people?  Generally speaking there are definitely values which a considerable number of people today hold as important, like truth, justice, goodness, etc. but my list might differ greatly from someone else's of what people today hold as important values.  I also found it interesting that after making this list I looked down at my book and two were the same as the ancient Athenians, goodness and justice.  Also looking at the list of important values regularly represented in rhetoric texts I found that one of the other two, honor, could be easily added to my makeshift list of important values of today.

I do not really have anything to say about the possibility section, so I will only say, I liked that it was short.  One quick side note, I think that the examples used in this book are a little long winded and ideas are over-explained.

I found the ever changing dominance and sizes of ideologies rather interesting.  Also interesting was the different types and degrees within ideological groups.

September 6 After Class

During the class discussion I found the further explanation of Plato's views on philosophy rather interesting.  Specifically I found the idea that philosophy was reality, but reality was different from fact intriguing.  This lead me to the question, can reality really exist, the way we see it today, without fact though?  I also found Plato's preference of philosophy over everything else interesting.  It was interesting that poetry was viewed as nothing more than emotional fiction, and even rhetoric was viewed as considerably less worthy than philosophy because of the emotional appeals included.  The apparent resentment of emotion led me to wonder, why was Plato so against emotion, and is emotion really that bad?  The idea of a table not really being a table but rather there being a true form of a table that is unseen and that the table we see is only a representation was also interesting, if only to get one thinking about what constitutes reality.

For the response to a classmates blog I chose Travis Porter, mostly because he was the only blog I was able to find with a post.  I agree that the reading was a little more confusing than it necessarily needed to be but I never found myself lost either, and to properly explain stasis theory it may have been necessary to go into that depth.  I also thought he had a good point about being able to defend either side of an argument if the occasion to do so arose.  Finally, I also agree that the abortion was a good example of when stasis theory does not work because the two sides are not actually arguing the same topic.  

September 6

I found the concept of stasis theory explained in Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students and exploring an argument from all angles very interesting.  I also found the idea of implied questions within or behind the major questions interesting.  It brought up the idea of what is really being said?  To use a example from the book as an example here; is the argument about a specific person and whether it is good for them to marry, or is it about the benefits or drawbacks of marriage in general?

Particularly interesting was the idea of exploring viewpoints other than those which would support the composer’s argument.  I found this point particularly interesting because I agree completely that in order to make the best possible argument it is important to understand the issue from all angles.  It is also important to know what the opposing side may say in order to refute your ideas so that you may potentially discredit or weaken these arguments.  Furthermore it could be important to understand the opposing side in order to weaken the major points of their argument in order to make your argument appear stronger.

The four questions of stasis theory were also interesting.  It seems to me if these four questions were used in an argument it would make it considerably stronger.  When the book talks further about the questions which support each of the four main questions it adds further depth to these concepts which already could potentially be powerful tools when making an argument.  I particularly found the question of quality of the four questions interesting especially when paired with the book’s example of someone taking alcohol from their alcoholic friend’s house.  Without deciding whether something is right or wrong an argument is useless, it cannot exist without a basis of some form of opinion.  When the book got into the questions behind the question of quality it was further interesting to consider what is right and wrong, what is better or worse, since most times there is really a moral gray area can one ever really know for certain?  Who decides what is right or at least better?  The individual?  Society?