Discussion Responses Required - Urgent. A+ Work Required. 12 Hours

Scientific analysis over spiritual ideology ?

COLLAPSE

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Aristotle views rhetoric as the skill of finding the best possible means of persuasion in regard to any topic. He views the practice as only worthwhile when the orator is focused on the essential facts avoiding the temptation to craft a personal appeal. He believes that a speaker must master enthymeme making it more like dialectic so as to avoid using it for the purpose of appealing to emotion or conveying non-essential information. He felt it important to explain how rhetoric was to be used by describing how to craft the rhetorical speech which he felt should lean toward scientific analysis, must be concerned primarily with the modes of persuasion and have reasonable structure that considers argument types which should be addressed  through a scientific analysis of appeals.

Like Plato, Aristotle regards that which serves the spirit to be, “the higher good” (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001, p.176). Unlike Plato, Aristotle places emphasis on the empirical means used to obtain knowledge while Plato emphasizes knowledge as coming from transcendent origins (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001, p.170). Plato’s rhetoric is defined as the, “study of souls and occasions for moving them (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001, p.170). Plato describes rhetoric in Phaedrus as persuading others to true knowledge while Aristotle considers rhetoric as useful for decision making where true knowledge cannot be obtained. (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001, p.170). Aristotle relies on the, “analysis of formal logic,” to “arrive at absolute truth” (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001, p.169). Plato’s search for truth began with a, “process of inquiry,” that, “takes place through verbal exchange” (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001, p.81). Similar to Aristotle, Plato sought after a rhetoric whose discourse was, “more analytic, objective and dialectical,” however Aristotle was less philosophically minded when it came to the spiritual nature of discourse and less ambivalent about the, “function of language” in rhetorical speech (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001, p.81).

When discussing rhetoric as an art, Aristotle speaks on discerning real means of persuasion from apparent means of persuasion (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001, p.181). Often when studying for ourselves what the Bible is actually trying to teach us, we filter our perception through influences that affect our biblical views. Much of what we believe can be attributed to our views on authority as was common in the culture of the early Roman republic, relying on authority to justify what an orator was saying. For most of us, when it comes to the word and how it speaks to our lives, we justify the preacher’s message because we perceive him as having some access to higher knowledge that we do not, or we look up to the mega church because it has thousands of members. We also tend to center our thoughts around an emotional appeal, because much of what we experience is tied to how those experiences make us feel, and what beliefs those feelings strengthen in us. In defending or explaining our biblical worldview we are dealing with subjects where “true knowledge is not available” in the sense that we do not have empirical proof and faith factors in to what we believe and not only must we be able to adequately summarize our reasoning for what we believe based on demonstration and dialectic, but we must use our ability to form rhetorical arguments that take into consideration what assumptions others may hold (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001, p. 170). Aristotle designed a way to create rhetorical arguments that did not rely on appeals to authority and instead wanted to dignify rhetoric as a tool for, “making decisions about matters on which true knowledge is not available” (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001, p.170). Through his methods of human inquiry, we can come to stronger conclusions about our own biblical worldview without relying solely on the authority of someone who defines biblical ideas for us and without relying on our ability to stir in someone else the same emotions that we feel in order to explain what we believe.

My question has to do with Aristotle’s understanding of particular law and universal law. Universal law is described as “the law of nature,” “binding to even between people who are not united politically” (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001, p.176). I wonder if or how he would reconcile this idea of universal law with Plato’s idea of transcendent truth and whether he would see universal law as being more empirical.

References:

BIZZELL, P. & Herzberg, B. (Eds.). (2001). Rhetorical Tradition: readings from classical times to the present (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: BEDFORD/ST. MARTIN'S.

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