Rhetoric: Greek for public speaking, rhetoric is everything we do to persuade others.
I. History of Rhetoric
A. Corax teaches Tisias about rhetoric so that he can defend himself in court. Their
deal is that if he wins his first court case, he will have to pay for his lessons. Tisias
then sues Corax. Rhetoric is not about finding out the truth. It is about winning.
B. Democracy requires rhetoric, in order to convince public opinion that you are
right, so you can influence the vote your way.
C. Aristotle wrote Rhetoric, classifying the strategies of rhetoric into the three
categories of strategies and three reasons to use rhetoric.
1. The categories are...
a. Logos- The use of logic, claims, and evidence
b. Ethos- Convincing the audience of our credibility, accuracy, and
character
c. Pathos- The swaying of opinion through the use of any emotional
appeal
2. The reasons one might use rhetoric are...
a. To find out something that happened in the past, called judicial.
b. To praise or insult people, called epidetic.
c. To propose what should happen in the future, called deliberative.
D. Cicero writes that civilization depends on rhetoric, but that nothing is so
unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable. Essentially, rhetoric is a
powerful, double edged sword. Cicero also establishes the five elements of
rhetoric, which are...
1. Invention or generation of ideas for arguments and evidence
2. The arrangement of ideas into an organizational structure
3. The style or tone, the equivalent of voice in writing
4. Memorization of what we want to say
5. And proper spoken delivery of our message, using appropriate pitch, tone,
loudness.
II. Logos
A. When trying to convince someone using logic, we use claims. They are basically
the thesis of an argument. There are six types of claims.
1. Categorical- is X a Y? Here the definition of Y is agreed upon, we are trying
to place X in that category.
2. Definitional- Is X a Y? Here the argument is over what the meaning of Y
really is.
3. Cause/Consequence- Does X cause Y?
4. Resemblance- Is X like Y? These are extended metaphors, and are usually
arguments where a current situation is compared to a historical one.
5. Evaluation- Is X good or bad? Is X a good or bad Y?
6. Proposal- Should we do X?
B. In order to back up our claims, we have reasons, sometimes called data. Reasons
need to be supported by additional evidence.
C. A warrant is an implied assumption behind a reason, the connection between the
reason and the claim. The reason and the warrant must be true for the claim to be
true. For example, if you wanted to convince someone that global warming should
be stopped because it causes extinction, you are assuming that extinction is bad,
and should be stopped.
D. Grounds is the term for evidence that explains why reasons are true.
E. Backing is the term for evidence that explains why the warrant is true.
F. Both backing and grounds are types of evidence.
1. Fullerson's Criteria evaluates if the evidence we have is good. It asks us if
the evidence is...
a. Sufficient. Is there enough evidence to make a claim?
b. Typical. This the evidence representative of the whole?
c. Accurate. Is the evidence correct and recent?
d. Relevant. Does the evidence really connect with the claim?
2. What types of evidence can we use?
a. Personal experience
b. Observation or field experience
c. Interviews, questions, or surveys
d. Data from research
e. Testimony
f. Statistics
g. Hypothetical cases and scenarios
h. Reasoned sequences of ideas
G. The rebuttal is the opposing argument against your claim
H. The qualifier is the degree of confidence in your claim. Is this definite? probable?
possible? The more qualified a claim is, the less confident you are in it.
I. Logical fallacies are errors in reasoning that obscure the argument and mislead
the audience. They can be used to mislead even if you know they are fallacies...
1. The strawman fallacy attacks the weakest argument, even if it isn't
representative of the opponent's argument (or even if the opponent didn't
say it!)
2. Post Hoc means believing that because B happened after A, A caused B.
Implies causation with correlation.
3. The slippery slope argument says that if one thing happens, it will cause
another thing, which causes another thing... and you don't want that to
happen!
4. Anecdotal fallacy is telling a story, illustrating a point. Using only one data
point to draw a conclusion, insufficient data.
5. Either/or fallacy argues that you're either in agreement with the
argument... or you are certainly evil! Setting up a situation to make it look like
an option of two choices. One is awful and the other is ok.
6. Ad hominem is attacking the opponent, not their argument, reducing their
credibility.
7. Tu Quoque is the fancy word for saying 'look who's talking!' Claiming the
opponent is a hypocrite.
8. Hasty generalization is drawing a conclusion from too little information
9. Circular arguments restate the claims in other words. Support for the
claim is rewording the claim--there is no support.
10. Gambler's Fallacy is expecting that a random event will occur with more
likelihood after a string of the opposite type of event has occurred (ex. after
flipping seven heads, I'm due for a tails!) Believing the past has bearing on
the future when it does not.
III. There are three strategies of Pathos, or emotional argumentation.
A. Rhetorical Figures, of which there are six categories.
1. Repetition Figures, creating aesthetically pleasing patterns.
a. Alliteration, repeating the first letter
b. Anaphora, repeating the first word
c. Anadiplosis, repeat the last word of the last sentence as the first
word of the next sentence
d. Epistrophe, repeating the last word
e. Epizeuxis, three words in a row
f. Polysyndeton, repeat a bunch of conjunctions in a list (shows
abundance)
g. Asyndeton, using no conjunctions in a list (trailing off)
h. Symploce, repeating the first and last words, anaphora +
epistrophe.
2. Contrast and Parallelism, comparing.
a. Antithesis- Balanced Opposites (like either/or)
b. Antonomasia- Changing a name, using a nickname
c. Diazeugma- Clusters of verbs following one subject
d. Isocolon- Items in a series in equal length and sentence form
e. Paranomasia- Puns/double meaning
f. Tricolon- Three items in a series with the same form
g. Zeugma- Of describing a subject, uses literal first then
metaphorical next
3. Amplification, making big.
4. Disruption, surprising the audience.
a. Aporia- real or pretended uncertainty
b. Apoplanesis- digressing or evading
c. Aposiopesis- Pretending to be unable to speak
d. Chiasmus- X-figure "comfort the disturbed and disturb the
comfortable"
e. Tmesis- Inserting other words inside of words
5. Argument, using fallacies.
a. Apodioxis- Your argument is ridiculous
b. Concessio- At least one part of your argument makes sense
c. Enumeratio- Listing or detailing of the parts
d. Horismus- offering a definition by making a distinction between
two things
e. Correctio- Changing or pretending to change your mind mid
argument/sentence
6. Address, directing arguments towards a specific audience.
a. Anamnesis- recall something that has happened in the past
b. Argumentum ad populum- arguing that popularity is on your side
c. Comprobatio- flattering your audience
d. Epiplexis- rhetorical questions designed to hurt
e. Erotema- rhetorical questions
f. Apostrophe- directly speaking to a person or figure
g. Paralepsis- Ironic denial "let's not talk about this. Let's not talk
about this."
h. Paraprosdokian- Surprising ending
B. Framing is restating your argument in another form using...
1. Metaphors. George Lakoff studied conceptual metaphors, or innate,
unconscious metaphors we all have in our minds, which spawn off
sub-metaphors. Some examples are:
a. Life is a journey. Over the hill, fork in the road, road to success.
b. Debate is a war. Shooting down arguments, winning debates, right
on target.
c. Social groups are plants. Growing communities, uprooting your
family, withering club.
d. American politics is a family. Democrats are the nurturing
mothers. Republicans are the tough fathers.
2. Word associations. Frank Luntz studied how something is worded affects
our responses. Politicians use this all the time. It also includes using words
like freedom, liberty, and justice.
a. Death Tax vs. Inheritance Tax
b. Drilling for oil vs. Exploring for energy
c. Illegal aliens vs. Undocumented immigrants
d. Tax cuts vs. Tax relief
e. Affordable Care Act vs. Obamacare
f. The Government vs. Washington
C. Appeals to emotion
IV. Ethos is used to convince the audience that you are worth listening to.
A. Someone who uses ethos effectively understands the kairos, or situation in
which they are speaking. The kairos includes...
1. Exigence: What has happened? Why are you compelled to speak?
2. Persons: who is involved in the exigence and what roles do they play?
3. Relations: what are the relationships, especially differences in power,
between the persons involved?
4. Location: Where is the site of discourse?
5. Speaker: Who is compelled to speak or write?
6. Audience: Who is the speaker talking to and why?
7. Method: how does the speaker choose to address the audience
8. Institutions: what are the rules of the game surrounding/constraining 1-7
B. There are three categories or strategies of ethos:
1. Phronesis: speaker suggests that they have practical skills, wisdom,
common sense. They are just an everyday person like the audience.
2. Arete: virtue, goodness, or saying something against your interest, going
where truth takes them, they know their stuff. They are intelligent and
perfect.
3. Eunoia: goodwill towards the audience, they care about the audience.
They really have the audience’s best interests at heart.
C. Code Grooming and Dog Whistling are two ethos strategies used to signal that
you are part of a group. To others who are not part of the group, the code word
seems innocuous. They are very similar, but the difference is that Dog Whistling
signals you are part of a subset of an audience, whereas Code Grooming is a
reference the whole audience will understand.
D. Does a speaker have to establish ethos?
1. A speaker who already has credibility has situated ethos.
2. A speaker who has to establish credibility can created invented ethos
during the argument itself.
Words that work
Imagine
Hassle-free
Lifestyle
Results
Can-do spirit
Innovations
Renew
Efficiency
The right to...
Jonathan Haidt
Six values
Care/Harm
Fairness/Cheating
Liberty/Oppression
Loyalty/Betrayal
Authority/Subversion
Sanctity/Degradation