Aristotle's definition of rhetoric, "the faculty of observing, in any given case, the available means of persuasion", presupposes a distinction between an art (τέχνη, techne) of speech–making and a cognitively prior faculty of discovery. That is so because, before one argues a case, one must discover what is at issue. How, for example, does one discover available means of persuasion? One does not simply frolic through fertile fields of τόποι (topoi), randomly gathering materials with which to build lines of argument. There is a method endemic to rhetoric which guides the search for those lines of argument that speak most directly to the issue at stake.[further explanation needed]
George A. Kennedy explains the distinction when he writes that the work of rhetoric, in Aristotle's view, is
to discover [θεωρησαι (theoresai)] the available means of persuasion" (1.1.1355b25–6). It is thus a theoretical activity and discovers knowledge. This knowledge, which includes words, arguments, and topics, is then used by the orator as the material cause of a speech. There is thus a theoretical art of rhetoric standing behind or above the productive art of speech-making. (1980, p. 63)
Inventio (rhetorical invention) then, involves more than a techne; it is also a faculty of discovery (dunamis (δύναμις) to theoresai).
The Aristotelian approach to inventio further assumes that reasoning employed in decision-making is a kind of probable reasoning.
It assumes that, although the contingencies of nature and of individuals prevent our obtaining certainty about future political and social affairs, we still can use our reason to discover the best course to pursue. Such reasoning applied to human affairs to make decisions about what should be done is rhetorical reasoning issuing in praxis. (Moss 1986, pp. 2,3)
Moral inquiry
Judgments about what should be done in the future are generally matters of shared inquiry and are always contingent (based on probability). Shared inquiry, following Wayne C. Booth, can be understood as "the art of reasoning together about shared concerns" (1988, p. 108). It is shared because the judgment is discursively negotiated with reference to both the crux of the matter and in light of what is in the best interest of oneself or some other.
Accounting for both Moss and Booth, rhetorical reason may be conceptualized as a method of "shared moral inquiry", but with a special meaning of the word "moral". Moral inquiry, within the present context, means inquiry into practical matters (as opposed to mere speculation or scientific inquiry). Hans-Georg Gadamer uses "moral" in this sense in Truth and Method (p. 314). Albert R. Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin write that "moral knowledge is essentially particular" (1988, p. 330). Shared moral inquiry is moral, not because it involves questions of morality, but because it attempts to determine what is the right thing to do in contingent cases, where such judgments are not made deterministically. Moral inquiry is conducted in the contingent realm, and is concerned with the particular case.
Understood with precision then, rhetorical reason guides and φρόνησις (phronesis) drives moral inquiry. The aim of moral inquiry is sound moral judgment, but judgment in hard cases is frustrated because the crux of the matter is hedged in by a potentially limitless parade of particulars.
Rhetorical reason manages particulars by systematically determining the relevance of issues and identifying the στάσις (stasis, which is the most relevant of the relevant issues). Ascribing relevance is an act of phronesis (Tallmon, 2001 & 1995a,b). Hence, rhetorical reason is a modality of phronesis and also, as Aristotle famously notes, a counterpart of dialectic. That is, it depends upon practical wisdom for its proper work, and, in that work, it operates much like dialectical inference, only its proper domain is the particular case as opposed to the general question.
Hence, viewed as a guide to resolving tough cases, rhetorical reason is constituted by:
topical logic (which guides inquiry by managing particulars)
stasis (which guides inquiry toward the crux of the matter)
sensitivity to maxims (which signal when the inquiry has taken a turn away from the instant case)
dialectical inference (which helps clarify the issue at stake), and the entire enterprise is driven by
Aristotle. On Rhetoric (1991) George Kennedy. trans. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Aristotle. Rhetoric. (1954) W. Rhys Roberts. trans. Aristotle: Rhetoric and Poetics. Friedrich Solmsen. ed. New York: Modern Library.
Booth, Wayne C. (1988) The Vocation of a Teacher. Chicago: U Chicago Press.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1986) trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, Truth and Method 2nd ed. New York: Crossroad.
Jonsen, Albert R. and Stephen Toulmin. (1988) The Abuse of Casuistry. Berkeley: U California Press.
Kennedy, George. (1980) Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition From Ancient to Modern Times, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Moss, Jean Deitz. ed. (1986) Rhetoric and Praxis: The Contribution of Classical Rhetoric to Practical Reasoning. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic U of America Press.
Tallmon, James M. "Casuistry." (2001) Ed. Thomas O. Sloane. New York: Oxford University Press Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, 83–88.
Tallmon, James M. (1995a) "Casuistry and the Role of Rhetorical Reason in Ethical Inquiry", Philosophy and Rhetoric, 377–87.
Tallmon, James M. (1995b) "Newman's Contribution to Conceptualizing Rhetorical Reason", Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 197–213.
Applied ethics refers to the practical application of moral considerations. It is ethics with respect to real-world actions and their moral considerations in the areas of private and public life, the professions, health, technology, law, and leadership. For example, the bioethics community is concerned with identifying the correct approach to moral issues in the life sciences, such as euthanasia, the allocation of scarce health resources, or the use of human embryos in research. Environmental ethics is concerned with ecological issues such as the responsibility of government and corporations to clean up pollution. Business ethics includes questions regarding the duties or duty of 'whistleblowers' to the general public or their loyalty to their employers.
Casuistry is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and jurisprudence. The term is also commonly used as a pejorative to criticize the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions. It is the "[s]tudy of cases of conscience and a method of solving conflicts of obligations by applying general principles of ethics, religion, and moral theology to particular and concrete cases of human conduct. This frequently demands an extensive knowledge of natural law and equity, civil law, ecclesiastical precepts, and an exceptional skill in interpreting these various norms of conduct." It remains a common tool for applied ethics.
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic, is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. Taking place in Athens in the early fifth century, the demos "the people" created "a strategy for effectively talking to other people in juries, forums, and the senate". Aristotle defines rhetoric as "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion" and since mastery of the art was necessary for victory in a case at law, for passage of proposals in the assembly, or for fame as a speaker in civic ceremonies; he calls it "a combination of the science of logic and of the ethical branch of politics". 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 or phases of developing a persuasive speech were first codified in classical Rome: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.
Prudence is the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason. It is classically considered to be a virtue, and in particular one of the four Cardinal virtues. Prudentia is an allegorical female personification of the virtue, whose attributes are a mirror and snake, who is frequently depicted as a pair with Justitia, the Roman goddess of Justice.
In Greek mythology, Pistis was the personification of good faith, trust and reliability. In Christianity and in the New Testament, pistis is the word for "faith". The word is mentioned together with such other personifications as Elpis (Hope), sophrosyne (Prudence), and the Charites, who were all associated with honesty and harmony among people.
Techne is a term in philosophy that refers to making or doing, which in turn is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root "Teks-" meaning "to weave," also "to fabricate". As an activity, technē is concrete, variable, and context-dependent. The term resembles the concept of epistēmē in the implication of knowledge of principles, in that "both words are names for knowledge in the widest sense." However, the two are distinct.
Phronesis, translated into English by terms such as prudence, practical virtue and practical wisdom is an ancient Greek word for a type of wisdom or intelligence relevant to practical action. It implies both good judgment and excellence of character and habits, and was a common topic of discussion in ancient Greek philosophy, in ways which are still influential today.
In philosophy, practical reason is the use of reason to decide how to act. It contrasts with theoretical reason, often called speculative reason, the use of reason to decide what to follow. For example, agents use practical reason to decide whether to build a telescope, but theoretical reason to decide which of two theories of light and optics is the best.
Speculative reason, sometimes called theoretical reason or pure reason, is theoretical thought, as opposed to practical thought. The distinction between the two goes at least as far back as the ancient Greek philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, who distinguished between theory and practice (praxis), as well as techne.
Inventio, one of the five canons of rhetoric, is the method used for the discovery of arguments in Western rhetoric and comes from the Latin word, meaning "invention" or "discovery". Inventio is the central, indispensable canon of rhetoric, and traditionally means a systematic search for arguments.
Dispositio is the system used for the organization of arguments in the context of Western classical rhetoric. The word is Latin, and can be translated as "organization" or "arrangement".
Stephen Edelston Toulmin was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought to develop practical arguments which can be used effectively in evaluating the ethics behind moral issues. His works were later found useful in the field of rhetoric for analyzing rhetorical arguments. The Toulmin model of argumentation, a diagram containing six interrelated components used for analyzing arguments, and published in his 1958 book The Uses of Argument, was considered his most influential work, particularly in the field of rhetoric and communication, and in computer science.
A dilemma is a problem offering two possibilities, neither of which is unambiguously acceptable or preferable. The possibilities are termed the horns of the dilemma, a clichéd usage, but distinguishing the dilemma from other kinds of predicament as a matter of usage.
Aristotle's Rhetoric is an ancient Greek treatise on the art of persuasion, dating from the 4th century BCE. The English title varies: typically it is titled Rhetoric, the Art of Rhetoric, On Rhetoric, or a Treatise on Rhetoric.
Aristotle first used the term ethics to name a field of study developed by his predecessors Socrates and Plato. In philosophy, ethics is the attempt to offer a rational response to the question of how humans should best live. Aristotle regarded ethics and politics as two related but separate fields of study, since ethics examines the good of the individual, while politics examines the good of the City-State, which he considered to be the best type of community.
Chaïm Perelman was a Polish-born philosopher of law, who studied, taught, and lived most of his life in Brussels. He was among the most important argumentation theorists of the twentieth century. His chief work is the Traité de l'argumentation – la nouvelle rhétorique (1958), with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, translated into English as The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, by John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver (1969).
Owing to its origin in ancient Greece and Rome, English rhetorical theory frequently employs Greek and Latin words as terms of art. This page explains commonly used rhetorical terms in alphabetical order. The brief definitions here are intended to serve as a quick reference rather than an in-depth discussion. For more information, click the terms.
Rhetoric of science is a body of scholarly literature exploring the notion that the practice of science is a rhetorical activity. It emerged following a number of similarly-oriented disciplines during the late 20th century, including the disciplines of sociology of scientific knowledge, history of science, and philosophy of science, but it is practiced most fully by rhetoricians in departments of English, speech, and communication.
In philosophy, lexis is a complete group of words in a language, vocabulary, the total set of all words in a language, and all words that have meaning or a function in grammar.
Common sense is sound, practical judgment concerning everyday matters, or a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge in a manner that is shared by nearly all people.
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