The Nature of Truth

Leff and Scott both went into some interesting territory with their essays. It was easy to see how the Aristotelian idea of rhetoric that Leff started out discussing is visible in the real world context. Political rhetoric is everywhere. The only non-theoretical things we've examined have been have been infused with the political as they worked to persuade the intended audience of something. However, since Leff is opposed to the too limiting definition of rhetoric associated with the neo-Aristotelians, I'll move on to the ideas he's trying to push.
Leff's consideration of rhetoric as a process that is not a concrete thing stems from the the neo-sophistic and accordingly is reminiscent of Poulakas. It is somewhat difficult to consider rhetoric in the terms Leff sets before us. If rhetoric exists in a process and is an activity in its purest form, it becomes difficult to consider studying it when the physical examples of the rhetoric are, by their nature, pushing one into the rigid Aristotelian model of examining speech as unit for analysis. The danger of examining the thing instead of the speech act as a live moment seems to be the possibility of losing the art in it.
Nuance is lost when and the binding characteristic of decorum is overshadowed. The idea of decorum as the center of all rhetoric is remarkably simple and applicable. It is easily present in all discourse, perhaps most noticeably when it is absent, and it is defined by its relationship to the present and rhetoric as an action.
I found Scott's piece interesting in the way that it seemed to have so little to do with rhetoric at points. I understood how if truth is apparent and readily available rhetoric has little value. It was the framing of the argument in terms that really struck me. There was almost a moral imperative to accept the uncertainty he was defending. Uncertainty as the reason for toleration and acceptance of personal responsibility is an idea I'm familiar with, and I suppose it surprised me to encounter those ideas in the context of rhetoric. The argument for rhetoric was almost lost in the idea of how to understand truth and face a multitude of uncertainties in the world. This essay made me think about the philosophic roots of rhetoric more than the previous ones.