Aristotle's prominent feature in both reading selection elaborated his various methods of rhetoric and its application. Though I was already familiar with his penchant for taxonomy, and his division of rhetoric approaches into ethos, pathos and logos as well as the different categories of speech, I was not aware that he divided rhetoric into artistic and inartistic. In my own personal argument style I feel that out of the ancient rhetoricians that Aristotle has the most draw because I favor logical appeals and tend to be skeptical of appeals to pathos and ethos. It is stated in RH that Aristotle's system that pathetic and ethical appeals are viewed as being practically disposable- personally I wouldn't go that far as to completely discredit them, but I do think that the strongest arguments are based in attempts to prove empirical facts.
In the section of ARCS that discussed commonplaces, I was intrigued by the explanation because as I understood it, commonplaces are generalities distinct to an ideology. Further, that people "subscribe" to them unconsciously was questionable to me. A description denotes a long-term commitment, and I think that people are usually aware of what they believe to be true if they are to be considered a subscriber to the idea. In my perception, commonplaces are enigmatic, because they can shift over time as individuals adopt or abandon them. I don't think that people are static in character or belief. Yes, certain generalities will always be true for certain groups, but the example of patriotism among Americans presented by the authors was subjective. No one can control where they were born, and is patriotism to be assumed of every American based on a factor they cannot control? I did like that there were two different versions of patriotism to get an idea of the generalities. Also, I thought that the discussion of political correctness was provoking, and generally agreed with the sense that it is a topic that deters free speech because it inhibits people from stating their true opinions. I think that the learning environment of the ancient rhetoricians who placed an emphasis on the importance of opinions contributing to knowledge must have been much more stimulating than the attitudes present in modern day classrooms.
After class, I felt that I derived a clearer sense of commonplaces and their function in rhetoric. Again, the importance of audience was made clear by how essential it is to understand the commonplaces of various groups, even if as an individual you are of a different persuasion of thinking. Commonplaces of a group are overgeneralized a lot of the time, but there is enough merit in them to structure arguments in a manner that they will most likely succeed in the given context.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Hannah. I felt like this classroom discussion was especially helpful in understanding how to appeal to an audience with an argument of our own. Commonplaces were not as clear to me before this lecture, and I feel like they are not understood as deeply as they should be, because oftentimes, as Hannah states, people conform to ideas without fully understanding them first.
ReplyDelete