The vagaries of my own education had led me to connect literature and math in some seemingly strange ways…You see I was lucky enough to find out this connection: Logic – Rhetoric-Argument early enough such that it had a huge impact upon how I became a fledging thinker…way back in high school. As a result I have always had a bit of a soft spot in my heart for the idea that learning Rhetoric has profound value in today’s world.
We are all end users/consumers of a lot of stuff in life…political influence, product advertisements (in a growingly subtle array of places), and there is a need to develop some real sophistication in how we perceive the information which may influence us…
In this regard, I have been looking over this overview of Classical Rhetoric coming from (of all places) a site called ‘the Art of Manliness’. IT is an overview worth reading closely, in gaining a sense of how argument is used (and even sadder, misused) to gain or to sway your opinion.
For close readers to this blog (all three of you), the notion that I might be more averse to Post-Modernism than some should show you how serious I am when I say that using to examine arguments is the only valid use of deconstruction that I know of…
The last link in this post takes you to an overview of the whole series put forth by this site (a great job, by the way!).
Classical Rhetoric 101: Logical Fallacies
http://artofmanliness.com/2011/05/26/classical-rhetoric-101-logical-fallacies
For true civil and effective debate to take place, citizens must understand not only how to argue, but how not to argue as well. Every man should know how to avoid the pitfalls and traps of faulty arguing and how to recognize fallacies in the rhetoric of others as well.
What Are Fallacies?
According to Aristotle in his treatise, The Art of Rhetoric, a speaker or writer has three ways to persuade his audience: ethos (appeal to the speaker’s character), pathos (appeal to emotion), and logos (appeal to logic). Aristotle believed that out of the three means of persuasion, logos was superior and that ideally all arguments should be won or lost on reason alone.
Here is just a taste:
Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise:
· No cats are dogs.
· No dogs can purr.
· Therefore all cats can purr.
Just because there aren’t any dogs that can purr doesn’t necessarily mean all cats can purr.
Negative conclusion from affirmative premises:
It’s impossible for a negative conclusion to be reached with affirmative premises.
· All gods are immortal.
· All immortals have beards.
· Therefore, no gods have beards.
Rhetoric
http://artofmanliness.com/tag/rhetoric/
