Defining Rhetoric

This blog is late, but late is better than never! This evening I finished the last few pages of chapter 4 that I had set aside a week or two ago - and I have a few things to say.

First, the main point of the Olbrechts-Tyteca/Perelman article is that these two people basically redefined rhetoric and gave it credibility again. I think it's funny that every now and again everything needs to be redefined, from rhetoric to marriage. In a humorous sort of way, it makes me think of the awkward beginning stages of a dating relationship when one or the other (usually the girl) is in a constant state of unrest because she wants to know "where we are" or "what we are" or whatever. In much the same way, rhetoric was acceptable in the Greek culture at its beginnings, but later on they rejected it...and since it never went away, it came back and asked us, "so...where are we in this relationship?" Olbrechts-Tyteca and Perelman sat down with Rhetoric and had the talk, so to speak, and now everyone seems to be happy.

Second, the idea of audiences - this is perhaps what sets rhetoric apart. And we already knew that, but didn't know we knew it. Olbrechts-Tyteca/Perelman put it into words for us: there is a particular audience, a universal audience and a composite audience; depending on when the rhetoric is heard, and by whom, and even where the audience is, it will be received differently.

Another example of something that we may have taken for granted but was put into words for us is the connection we make with people and what they do, whether or not we mean to: "the relationship between person and act assumes that an act is an outward manifestation of the person" (100). That is, that a bad person will do bad things and a good person will do good things. In some cases this is legitimate, but not all - and so this argument can be faulty. Just this week a man was arrested in Arkansas for numerous brutal murders that had been committed over decades - all the while the murderer led a boyscout troop and went to church.

In summary, can I just ask why so many of the articles we have read end this way? "In summary..." then they give THAT SENTENCE that we were told in high school to stop using! In this article it ends like this: "In summary, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca present a coherent picture of argumentation" (106). That doesn't need to be said, because they've been saying it for pages already. Is that some sort of rhetor's code? Just curious.