The main point of Villanueva's essay, "On the Rhetoric and Precedents of Racism" is to show that rhetoric is not a purely objective thing, there are many causes for subjectivity in rhetoric, and racism is an issue that, even if we are not aware of it, causes much subjectivity in rhetoric. Some of the subjectivity pointed out is regard to credibility, or more accurately what our ideas of credibility are as have been built from the past. We tend to give more credibility to philosophers who follow western thinking, as demonstrated with the analogy of a Mexican philosopher vs. a French philosopher.
Part of this is that Western philosophers tend to be more well known. The beginning of Villanueva's essay discusses non-European influenced rhetoric in Peru and Mexico. The article demonstrates that the Aztecs and Incas were capable of intelligent rhetoric that is not totally unlike our own rhetorical strategies, but until reading the article last week, I hadn't known that at all. On the flipside, even those who have never taken a philosophy or rhetoric class have probably heard of names like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The way our culture's research and education is currently focused, western rhetoric and philosophy definitely has an advantage over non-western.
Even Google seems to share a bias towards western rhetoric. The other part of our homework was to search for non-Greek, non-traditionally western rhetoricians. This proved to be a bit tricky. Let me demonstrate this: When I type "Ancient Greek Rhetoricians" into Google, the search results give me much about Greek rhetoric and specific Greek rhetoricians, and the first search result is a Wikipedia page with a list of 3 possible subcategories to ancient Greek rhetoric and 55 ancient Greek rhetoricians, including names we have seen in our readings such as Protagoras and Gorgias.
Now what happens when I change my Google search to "Ancient Chinese rhetoricians"? The first search result is the exact same Wikipedia page as the previous search. Never mind that I specified "Greek" nowhere in the search terms, the word rhetoric is so tangled with Greece that Google figured that must've been what I meant. The next search results, rather than offering specific Chinese rhetoricians, instead offer suggested articles under the helpful heading of "Non-Greek Rhetorics." After that, there were only a few links that could be useful. It took several attempts at narrowing my search down before I began to find truly useful info.
If you're thinking that this simply means Chinese rhetoric is just not at thing, this is simply not so. I have found a fair amount of articles and dissertations analyzing specific aspects of Chinese rhetoric, though with the exception of Confucius, very few names are mentioned. Still, this doesn't excuse the relative lack of research I found, on Chinese rhetoric, vs. the amount found on Greek rhetoric.
When we live in a digital age where the potential for so much information is at our fingertips, we sometimes forget that the information we are shown through technology is as subject to social and cultural biases as anything else, and our worldview can become limited through this ignorance. Creating equality in research and digital technology search results, including in issues discussed in Villanueva's essay regarding the relationship of race and ethos, is just one more bridge that will hopefully be crossed at some point in the future.
Finally, here are the articles I found on Chinese rhetoric and rhetoricians:
-Reading the Heavenly Mandate: Dong Zhongshu's Rhetoric of the Way (Dao)
- Cultural Factors and Rhetorical Patterns in Classical Chinese Argumentation
Also, this next link is a super long dissertation that I admittedly haven't looked into much yet, but it seems too interesting to not mention:
- A Comparison of Greek and Chinese Rhetoric and Their Influence on Later Rhetoric
Monday, March 31, 2014
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Burke Introduction
The reading of Burke we did seems to focus a lot on motive, semantics, and how arguments can be differently framed. He reminded me of one of the Sophists we originally read about, Prodicus, who had a personal obsession with finding the exact meanings of words. Unlike Prodicus however, Burke seems to enjoy the ambiguity of language, or at least feel that ambiguity isn't something that needs to be completely eliminated, saying that "what we want is not terms that avoid ambiguity, but terms that clearly reveal the strategic spots at which ambiguities necessarily arise" (xvii). Basically, Burke is arguing that you can still have ambiguity in language, as long as the ambiguity or source of ambiguity is clear.
Burke also speaks of three conventions in language that he called Grammar, Symbolic, and Rhetoric. The reminded me of Aristotle's three canons, Logos, Pathos, and Ethos; while they are not exact equivalents, they are similar. I had a bit of a difficult time understanding what he means by Grammar, since he doesn't seem to mean it in an identical way as we use it today -- in regards to punctuation and whatnot -- but rather as a something like facts or fitting exactly within the intended definition or rules of a convention. Something similar to how we see grammar today, but Burke's version seems to encompass a broader spectrum of language. After that, Symbolic seems to mean expression within language, and Rhetoric is of course equal to persuasion in language. As he points out though, the three often overlap.
I thought Burke's point about how an argument or statement can be portrayed differently depending on the person looking at it, for example his example of how a portrait painter would see the body as an agent versus the medical man who would see the body as the scene of an action/motive, or the more interesting example of the counter-agent being a necessity for the agent. It's sort of an interesting continuation of the "revolutionary" (at the time) discovery way back, the idea that "on every argument there are two sides." What Burke is doing is explaining how both individual people can see a subject or argument differently, or how someone could intentionally take the ambiguity of an argument or statement and twist it into something completely different.
So Burke's point is both a positive thing and a worrisome thing. On one hand, he helps to explain how someone with a different viewpoint isn't inherently wrong, but that there is enough flexibility in whatever word/title/subject that they see it differently. On the other hand though, you can get some pretty crazy arguments from this sort of thing. The reading used the argument how Judas and the crucifixion of Jesus was a necessity for the resurrection of Jesus and the salvation of mankind, therefore you could turn Judas into a positive sort of figure. In that way, you can make all kinds of positive arguments for various dictators and tyrannies of history, since some good thing likely emerged from them. You can argue that these arguments can be easily outweighed by negative points about the thing, and I can grant you that. However, less extreme versions of this argument could be interesting, you could take something bad but not as obviously bad, but again be able to twist it about and make it seem good -- war, questionable legislation, things like that.
It is good that Burke talks about this though, since he obviously didn't create this, this is a rhetorical device that has likely been used for ages. By bringing it into the open and analyzing it, we are able to consider this strategy and be aware of what it is, how it is used, and the moral/immoral potential of it. So regardless of the point Burke is making with his work (if he is making one), it is a good discussion to have.
Questions:
1. What do you think Burke means when he talks about Grammar? Do you agree with what I said I think he means, or did he mean something different?
2. Would it be ideal if we could strike all ambiguity from language, and every word/argument has one precise meaning we could all understand? What would be sacrificed for this total clarity?
Burke also speaks of three conventions in language that he called Grammar, Symbolic, and Rhetoric. The reminded me of Aristotle's three canons, Logos, Pathos, and Ethos; while they are not exact equivalents, they are similar. I had a bit of a difficult time understanding what he means by Grammar, since he doesn't seem to mean it in an identical way as we use it today -- in regards to punctuation and whatnot -- but rather as a something like facts or fitting exactly within the intended definition or rules of a convention. Something similar to how we see grammar today, but Burke's version seems to encompass a broader spectrum of language. After that, Symbolic seems to mean expression within language, and Rhetoric is of course equal to persuasion in language. As he points out though, the three often overlap.
I thought Burke's point about how an argument or statement can be portrayed differently depending on the person looking at it, for example his example of how a portrait painter would see the body as an agent versus the medical man who would see the body as the scene of an action/motive, or the more interesting example of the counter-agent being a necessity for the agent. It's sort of an interesting continuation of the "revolutionary" (at the time) discovery way back, the idea that "on every argument there are two sides." What Burke is doing is explaining how both individual people can see a subject or argument differently, or how someone could intentionally take the ambiguity of an argument or statement and twist it into something completely different.
So Burke's point is both a positive thing and a worrisome thing. On one hand, he helps to explain how someone with a different viewpoint isn't inherently wrong, but that there is enough flexibility in whatever word/title/subject that they see it differently. On the other hand though, you can get some pretty crazy arguments from this sort of thing. The reading used the argument how Judas and the crucifixion of Jesus was a necessity for the resurrection of Jesus and the salvation of mankind, therefore you could turn Judas into a positive sort of figure. In that way, you can make all kinds of positive arguments for various dictators and tyrannies of history, since some good thing likely emerged from them. You can argue that these arguments can be easily outweighed by negative points about the thing, and I can grant you that. However, less extreme versions of this argument could be interesting, you could take something bad but not as obviously bad, but again be able to twist it about and make it seem good -- war, questionable legislation, things like that.
It is good that Burke talks about this though, since he obviously didn't create this, this is a rhetorical device that has likely been used for ages. By bringing it into the open and analyzing it, we are able to consider this strategy and be aware of what it is, how it is used, and the moral/immoral potential of it. So regardless of the point Burke is making with his work (if he is making one), it is a good discussion to have.
Questions:
1. What do you think Burke means when he talks about Grammar? Do you agree with what I said I think he means, or did he mean something different?
2. Would it be ideal if we could strike all ambiguity from language, and every word/argument has one precise meaning we could all understand? What would be sacrificed for this total clarity?
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Cicero, Initial Impressions of De Oratore
This is just what I've gathered from reading the assigned Wiki articles, I could be completely wrong about all of this. D: Also, all quotes are from said Wiki articles.
So what strikes me as particularly interesting in Cicero's work, De Oratore, is that while the dialectic style is very similar to Plato's (aside from it being portrayed in a more novel-like format rather than a script format), it is not as clear as it is in Plato's works of who the "good guy" or "inherently right" person is. With Plato's works, it's pretty much obvious from the start that Socrates will be in control of the conversation at pretty much all times and is (according to Plato) always right. In De Oratore though, it is not quite as clear who the main protagonist is. I assumed for a good while that it was Crassus, as he was the one doing most of the speaking, and appeared to be filling a Socrates-like role as the wise instructor tutoring the younger students through dialogue. However, it appears towards the second half of the first book that it may actually be Antonious who may be the lead here, as he talks for a good portion of both the first and second book. But the nice thing is that while these men are debating, both of them appear to be portrayed as intelligent, and even those in smaller roles (with the possible exception of Scaevola) appear to be portrayed mostly positively, not quite as the straw men that Plato could be guilty of creating at times.
We definitely see some very different veiws between Crassus and Antonious though, and I'll go into analyzing the two for a bit:
So Crassus seems to hold some very Platonic views here, and reminded me a bit of Socrates with his overall humility, intelligence, with a hint of snark (though he doesn't seem to be quite the amusingly sarcastic jerk that Socrates could be at times). Crassus' view of the perfect orator seems as idealistic and impractically unrealistic as Plato's ideas of ultimate truth and knowledge -- sweet, well-meaning, but laughably unrealistic. Crassus feels that being an orator requires natural talent more than anything else, that being an orator requires "the subtility of a logician, the mind of a philosopher, the language of a poet, the memory of a lawyer, the voice of a tragic actor and the gesture of the most skilled actor" as well as also as natural gifts of "the ability to invent, richness in talking, strong lungs, certain voice tones, particular body physique as well as a pleasant looking face." Oh, and the perfect orator also knows everything. EVERYTHING. For can you speak of something you don't know about?
Crassus seems to be an interesting blend of Plato and Aristotle, for while Crassus is, like Aristotle, more practical and forgiving of rhetoric and the rules for rhetoric he gives seem very similar to some of the ones Aristotle laid out, he also does support philosophy, have many larger, semi-distant from reality ideas, and seems to be a strong advocate for a moral orator (consideration of morality being something Aristotle left out during his long rhetoric book of "hey, here's this big book on human psychology and how to manipulate people").
Antonious on the other hand, seems to be far more practical than Crassus. While he clearly admires Crassus and supports most of his points, Antonious' views seem to be less extreme. He disagrees with Crassus' idea that an orator must know everything, and instead feels that he only need to be able to speak well on the subjects he does know. He does seem to be not as kindly inclined towards philosophy as Crassus, feeling that philosopher "pretends to know everything about everything," and that Plato's ideals were "very far from common life."
Again, these two characters seem to be portrayed intelligently enough to tell who's going to end up "right" in this debate, or if a winner will even be picked. Reading what I have about Cicero though, I hesitantly feel that his views align more with Crassus, and that he will be the ultimate winner of the debate, but I am not positive about that. If nothing else though, I do approve of Cicero's seemingly lesser use of strawmen arguments.
Questions:
1. Do you believe Cicero's personal beliefs align closer to Crassus or Antonious?
2. Do you believe that a person must know absolutely everything about a subject in order to speak/debate about it? Or is it possible to only know part of a subject, but still be able to speak knowledgeably enough? And is it morally wrong to speak of a subject that you don't fully understand?
So what strikes me as particularly interesting in Cicero's work, De Oratore, is that while the dialectic style is very similar to Plato's (aside from it being portrayed in a more novel-like format rather than a script format), it is not as clear as it is in Plato's works of who the "good guy" or "inherently right" person is. With Plato's works, it's pretty much obvious from the start that Socrates will be in control of the conversation at pretty much all times and is (according to Plato) always right. In De Oratore though, it is not quite as clear who the main protagonist is. I assumed for a good while that it was Crassus, as he was the one doing most of the speaking, and appeared to be filling a Socrates-like role as the wise instructor tutoring the younger students through dialogue. However, it appears towards the second half of the first book that it may actually be Antonious who may be the lead here, as he talks for a good portion of both the first and second book. But the nice thing is that while these men are debating, both of them appear to be portrayed as intelligent, and even those in smaller roles (with the possible exception of Scaevola) appear to be portrayed mostly positively, not quite as the straw men that Plato could be guilty of creating at times.
We definitely see some very different veiws between Crassus and Antonious though, and I'll go into analyzing the two for a bit:
So Crassus seems to hold some very Platonic views here, and reminded me a bit of Socrates with his overall humility, intelligence, with a hint of snark (though he doesn't seem to be quite the amusingly sarcastic jerk that Socrates could be at times). Crassus' view of the perfect orator seems as idealistic and impractically unrealistic as Plato's ideas of ultimate truth and knowledge -- sweet, well-meaning, but laughably unrealistic. Crassus feels that being an orator requires natural talent more than anything else, that being an orator requires "the subtility of a logician, the mind of a philosopher, the language of a poet, the memory of a lawyer, the voice of a tragic actor and the gesture of the most skilled actor" as well as also as natural gifts of "the ability to invent, richness in talking, strong lungs, certain voice tones, particular body physique as well as a pleasant looking face." Oh, and the perfect orator also knows everything. EVERYTHING. For can you speak of something you don't know about?
Crassus seems to be an interesting blend of Plato and Aristotle, for while Crassus is, like Aristotle, more practical and forgiving of rhetoric and the rules for rhetoric he gives seem very similar to some of the ones Aristotle laid out, he also does support philosophy, have many larger, semi-distant from reality ideas, and seems to be a strong advocate for a moral orator (consideration of morality being something Aristotle left out during his long rhetoric book of "hey, here's this big book on human psychology and how to manipulate people").
Antonious on the other hand, seems to be far more practical than Crassus. While he clearly admires Crassus and supports most of his points, Antonious' views seem to be less extreme. He disagrees with Crassus' idea that an orator must know everything, and instead feels that he only need to be able to speak well on the subjects he does know. He does seem to be not as kindly inclined towards philosophy as Crassus, feeling that philosopher "pretends to know everything about everything," and that Plato's ideals were "very far from common life."
Again, these two characters seem to be portrayed intelligently enough to tell who's going to end up "right" in this debate, or if a winner will even be picked. Reading what I have about Cicero though, I hesitantly feel that his views align more with Crassus, and that he will be the ultimate winner of the debate, but I am not positive about that. If nothing else though, I do approve of Cicero's seemingly lesser use of strawmen arguments.
Questions:
1. Do you believe Cicero's personal beliefs align closer to Crassus or Antonious?
2. Do you believe that a person must know absolutely everything about a subject in order to speak/debate about it? Or is it possible to only know part of a subject, but still be able to speak knowledgeably enough? And is it morally wrong to speak of a subject that you don't fully understand?
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