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.