QQC 1 - 5/17

Quote:
“One improves one’s thinking by doing the analytic and synthetic groundwork for speaking, and one’s speaking cannot be truly good, cannot communicate knowledge, unless it is informed by careful thinking. The rhetor should also apply analysis and synthesist the subject of rhetoric itself, but not for such useless purposes as cataloging the parts of a speech. Rather he should catalog the kinds of human soul so that he can adapt his discourse to whomever he addresses.”

Question: do you believe rhetoric is most often used to be persuasive and solicitous or elicit and descriptive about the news in the media?

Plato-Rhetoric

Quote:
"But persuasion-to-knowledge--good rhetoric--is like love, which seeks only to make the beloved a better person, to bring the beloved closer to transcendent good, and not to satisfy the carnal desires of the lover."

Question:
Most of the time a composer's goal of rhetoric is to better the audience in one way or another. On the other hand, if "good" rhetoric's goal is to make the "beloved" i.e. the audience, a "better person", does that mean that rhetoric whose composer's goal is not necessarily to better the reader, is not classified as "good" rhetoric?

QQC #1

Quote: "Plato viewed the Sophists as moral relativists who therefore had no reason not to be manipulative, deceitful, or downright corrupting in the use of their discourse. He associated their uses of rhetoric with the kind of political discourse that, he believed was corrupting Athens under democratic rule"

Question: What role do you think rhetoric plays in politics? Does the role of rhetoric increase as an individual gains power?

QQC 1 - Plato

Quote: "Callicles responds to Socrates' condemnation of rhetoric as a tool of exploitation by arguing that exploiting other people is not evil if one is strong enough to do it. Since rhetoric enhances one's strength, it is clearly beneficial" (Plato, 83).

Question: Would you agree with Socrates when he says rhetoric is harmful, or with Callicles' opposition?

Plato - QQC 5/17

Quote: "Oral dialogue between congenial souls is far superior to writing because it can lead to the truth."

Question: If persuasion leads to true knowledge, basing off of Socrates assumptions, what makes our own knowledge distinctive?

QQC 1

Quote: "Those who have learned have been persuaded, as well as those who have believed."

Question: How is rhetoric being used when we believe in something and as well as in learning, and is powerful enough to say what is right or wrong in what we have learned and believed (in western culture)?

Rhetoric- Plato

"For they imparted their skill with a view to its rightful use against enemies and wrongdoers, in self-defense, not provocation; whereas the others have perverted their strength and art to an improper use." -Plato (page 93)

How do you think people differ in using rhetoric ("rightful use" and "improper use") today?