Rhetoric

The art of persuasion

Why Art?

• Rhetoric has a ‘poetic’, ‘aesthetic’ and moral element.

• What works in one circumstance will not work in another

• Ambiguity of human speech is the key to rhetoric

A brief history• 5th BC teacher of Tisias (who Courtier of Hieron In

Syracuse. • Introduction; narration; argument; digression and

epilogue • Giorgias emigrated to Athens and worked as a rhetoric

teacher training ‘citizens’ for politics and court cases. The first ‘sophist’

Corax

Giorgias

• Put some order to rhetoric as a ‘teachable’ skill’.• Ethos, Pathos and LogosAristotle

Cicero

Ethos

• Ethos: the foundation, the connection between you and your audience: Can I trust you? Are you like us?

• JFK was a berliner;• Bill Clinton: ‘I feel your pain’

• ‘Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.’ Margaret Thatcher

Human, civic and community

• Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears………. I am no orator as Brutus is, but as you know me all, a plain blunt man, that love my friend,

Logos:

• Beyond reasonable doubt. Logos is not always logic.

• For Aristotle, sounding reasonable is not the same as possessing reason.

• Enthymemes, cultural scripts and beliefs are all important…

Before the Iraq war

• Iraq was constantly compared to Nazi Germany

• Party treasurers are compared to Andalucian ERE’s

• Logos is about persuasion not truth.

Pathos: Make them laugh, make them cry, make them agree…

• Pathos appeals to emotion, shared emotion, and here’s a fine example:

• Emotions provide the structure for most cognition. Without emotions, there is no thought.

Blair on Diana's death

Pathos

• ‘Tricky Dickie’ Nixon resorted to Checkers, the dog the dog after being accused of illegal financing

• Winston Churchill famously spent ‘most of his adult life preparing impromptu (spontaneous) speeches.’

Activity

Mind

Heart

Hand