Modern Rhet – Week 1

Booth, Wayne. The Rhetoric of Rhetoric.

Booth had to explain his field, but “eighteenth cent. Lit” needs no explanation

Who does it, how is it done, and in what language? (spec. in terms of Comp/Rhet PR, but major Q’s for any rhetorical study [I think])

Rhetoric’s ups and downs – rhet flourished in ancient Greece, but also denounced by “philosophers”

Three appeals – ethos – speaker’s credibility, logos – evidence of the content, pathos – emotions of the audience

Three kinds of rhetoric – deliberative – political, achieve certain goal, about future, epideitic – ceremonial, public occasion, celebrate past but done in present, forensic – legal rhetoric

5 cannons – invention, arrangement/organization, style, memory, delivery

translation in terms of context – what counts as “epideictic” in a modern context? In terms of our new understandings of politics and society
If we’re talking about the rhetoric of Rhetoric, how does Rhetoric fit within the modern society and how do we explain that fit? Rhetoric has bad name, so do we go with rhetorology as Booth suggests? Or go with something like discourse studies or semiotics?

Rhet provides vocabulary or terms to use when talking about writing, joining the conversation, rhet is a long conversation, don’t forget that we are constructing rhetoric from a disciplinary POV.

Booth definition of Rhetoric on p xi – “entire range of resources that human beings share for producing effects on one another” … “primary resource for avoiding violence and building community”

language and reality are separate, traditionalist view
language is used to create reality – structuralist/Sasseure, booth is following in this, community is built (created) by the language, signs, gestures, etc., BUT Booth walks away from this a little by stating that there are some (basically ethical) non-contingent truths.

Rhetoric and ethics have been at contention as long as we know (Sophists just want to make a lie seem true)

Discusses ups and downs, seen as high during Aristotle’s times, then seen as more trivial (trivium), but still taught, then high again during Renaissance, then down again during the enlightenment b/c of positivism or scientism (Francis Bacon), tended to create a strict divide between science (testable or provable) and rhetoric (unsubstantiated), Locke and Rousseau also anti-rhetoric. Need to find true self instead of being corrupted by societal rhetoric. 20th cent. We have structuralist, semiotics, social construction of reality, produces a new kind of rhetoric. Civil rights and women’s rights movements, decolonialization, all grew up in this new era of thought, no room for single truth

Booth concerned about power to rhetoric to bring people together, Aristotle saw this as function of epideictic rhetoric.

Different discourse communities have different truths/realities.  Booth talks about domains of rhetoric. In order to be effective, (Stanley Fish – interpretive community), you have to share the tacit assumptions of the discourse community. (“if you don’t know the answer, you smile – you have nothing to hide”)

How do we create the “unquestionable” truths? How do we change or affect those tacit assumptions?

International Rhetoric Culture project – rhet and cult. Anthropology scholars working together.

Listening Rhetoric – Booths major “addition” with this book (I think thus far). It’s the rhetoric that he is proponenting. Way to reduce understanding and avoid violence.

Chpt 3 – kinds of rhetoric (acc. To booth) and how to “judge” it as good or bad 43-end of chapter
1. win-rhetoric
2. bargain rhetoric
3. listening rhetoric