Whately presents rhetoric as an "offshoot of logic." Google defines offshoot as a "a side shoot or branch on a plant." I am aware that the definition has probably changed since the nineteenth century, but if I am interpreting this right, Whately considers rhetoric to be a sub-discipline of logic. This doesn't sound right to me.
So many rhetorical theorists concern themselves with finding exactly what practices fit into the realm of rhetoric, as well as finding where rhetoric belongs in relation to other fields. Is it a part of philosophy? or is philosophy a part of it? Does logic belong inside or outside of the rhetorical discipline? Are all five canons belonging to rhetoric and rhetoric only?
Trying to sort all of this out seems like a big waste of time to me.
If rhetoric is the art of speaking or writing well, (the definition I prefer) then it is obvious that rhetors and rhetoricians will have relationships with many other practices and disciplines. Try giving a speech to thousands of people which contains nothing but logical arguments. You would have them either snoring or booing within first two minutes. Try giving a speech to the same group of people, using the absolute best methods of delivery, but no meaningful content. You'll see a lot of crooked eyebrows. Try giving them sob story after sob story in an attempt to rattle their emotions. You might have them crying, but if that's your only content, you'll have a confused lot when they dry their eyes.
My point in all of this, is that if you want to be a good rhetor, you better be good at all of these things. Whately was right in that logical arguments are crucial to the rhetor. But they are not the end all be all of rhetoric, unless your aim is to put the reader or audience to sleep.
I think you just summed up everything I was trying very messily to say in my blog post. You need to have a knowledge of "all these things" in order to be a good rhetor; staying strictly in one discipline truncates your knowledge base.
ReplyDeleteI like applying that to the writing major, actually. Everyone of us in there are there for different reasons: rhetoric, creative writing, journalistic, etc - but a knowledge of all these different things, despite your own preferences, enhances your own knowledge base for writing. It's good to be a well-rounded, Renaissance woman, Jill-of-all-Trades.
I understand both your and Autumn's point of view about being well-rounded. By having a lot of material to choose from, writers/rhetors can easily bridge gaps in knowledge through the use of metaphor and by just being knowledgable on any subject. But isn't there a downfall to that? For one thing, it's impossible to be knowledgable on every subject; we just don't have the time to look into every single thing - and also, while knowing a little about a lot of things gives us breadth of knowledge, what about depth? If we're trying to hard to know something about everything, then wouldn't that make us inept at trying to delve into one particular topic? I'm just trying to point out that I don't think it's that easy to say that we should be a little knowledgable in all aspects, although that may be ideal.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing I wanted to touch on was about your opening paragraph. While it may or may not be pointless to try and determine within which field rhetoric falls (and you do an excellent job nullifying the argument entirely), to me it makes sense to say that rhetoric is a sub-discipline of logic because we would characterize rhetoric as a particular set of tools that allow us to speak well - these tools include logic and reasoning to create arguments, as well as the five canons, etc, which as you've pointed out are necessary to deliver a persuasive speech/writing to a particular audience.