Editing Rhetoric (section)

===Scope===
[[File:Schnorr von Carolsfeld Bibel in Bildern 1860 126.png|thumb|right|[[Ezra]] calls for the rebuilding of the temple in this 1860 woodcut by [[Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld]].]]
Scholars have debated the scope of rhetoric since ancient times. Although some have limited rhetoric to the specific realm of [[Discourse analysis|political discourse]], to many modern scholars it encompasses every aspect of culture. Contemporary studies of rhetoric address a much more diverse range of domains than was the case in ancient times. While classical rhetoric trained speakers to be effective persuaders in public forums and in institutions such as courtrooms and assemblies, contemporary rhetoric investigates human discourse [[wikt:writ large|writ large]]. Rhetoricians have studied the discourses of a wide variety of domains, including the natural and social sciences, fine art, religion, journalism, digital media, fiction, history, [[cartography]], and architecture, along with the more traditional domains of politics and the law.<ref>{{multiref2
|1=John S. Nelson, Allan Megill, and Donald N. McCloskey ''[http://hhs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/citation/3/2/305?ck=nck The Rhetoric of Human Sciences: Language and Argument in Scholarship and Public Affairs] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091124163114/http://hhs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/citation/3/2/305?ck=nck |date=24 November 2009 }}'', London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987. "In the last ten years, many scholars have investigated exactly how rhetoric works within a particular field."{{clarify|reason=the link goes to a review of a book, and it's not clear from the citation whether it is the review itself or the book being reviewed that forms the correct citation|date=September 2023}}
|2={{cite journal |doi=10.1111/j.1469-5812.2005.00136.x |volume=37 |title=Educational Theory as Theory of Culture: A Vichian perspective on the educational theories of John Dewey and Kieran Egan |year=2005 |journal=[[Educational Philosophy and Theory]] |pages=475–494 |last1=Polito |first1=Theodora |issue=4 |s2cid=143830059}}
|3={{cite book | last=McCloskey | first=Deirdre N. | author-link=Deirdre N. McCloskey | title=The Rhetoric of Economics | publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press | year=1998 | isbn=978-0-299-15813-2 }}
|4={{cite journal | last=McCloskey | first=Donald N. | title=The Rhetoric of Economics | journal=Journal of Economic Literature | publisher=American Economic Association | volume=21 | issue=2 | year=1983 | issn=0022-0515 | jstor=2724987 | pages=481–517}}
|5={{cite book | last=Nelson | first=John S. | title=Tropes of Politics | publisher=[[University of Wisconsin Press]] | year=1998 | isbn=978-0-299-15833-0}}
|6={{cite book | last=Brown | first=Richard Harvey | title=Society as Text | publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] | location=Chicago | year=1987 | isbn=978-0-226-07617-1}}
}}</ref>

Because the ancient Greeks valued public political participation, rhetoric emerged as an important curriculum for those desiring to influence politics. Rhetoric is still associated with its political origins. However, even the original instructors of [[Western culture|Western]] speech—the [[Sophists]]—disputed this limited view of rhetoric. According to Sophists like [[Gorgias]], a successful rhetorician could speak convincingly on a topic in any field, regardless of his experience in that field. This suggested rhetoric could be a means of communicating any expertise, not just politics. In his ''[[Encomium to Helen]]'', Gorgias even applied rhetoric to fiction by seeking, for his amusement, to prove the blamelessness of the mythical [[Helen of Troy]] in starting the [[Trojan War]].<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Encomium of Helen|author=Gorgias|translator-first=George|translator-last=Kennedy|editor-first=Rosamond Kent |editor-last=Sprague |title=The Older Sophists: A Complete Translations by Several Hands of the Fragments |location=Columbia, South Carolina |publisher=[[University of South Carolina Press]] |edition=first|year=1972 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/oldersophists0000unse/page/50 50]–54 |isbn=0-87249-192-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/oldersophists0000unse|url-access=registration}}</ref>

[[Plato]] defined the scope of rhetoric by discarding any connotation of religious ritual or magical incantation, simply taking the term in its literal sense, which means "leading the soul" through words.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cleary |first=John Joseph |title=Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy: Volume XXIV (2008) |last2=Gurtler |first2=Gary M. |date=2009 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-17742-0 |location=Leiden |pages=236 |language=en}}</ref> He criticized the Sophists for using rhetoric to deceive rather than to discover truth. In ''[[Gorgias (dialogue)|Gorgias]]'', one of his [[Socratic Dialogues]], Plato defines rhetoric as the persuasion of ignorant masses within the courts and assemblies.<ref>{{cite book|author=[[Plato]]|title=Gorgias|url=http://www.classicallibrary.org/plato/dialogues/15_gorgias.htm|publisher=The Classical Library|translator-first=Benjamin|translator-last=Jowett}}</ref> Rhetoric, in Plato's opinion, is merely a form of flattery and functions similarly to [[culinary arts]], which mask the undesirability of unhealthy food by making it taste good.{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}} Plato considered any speech of lengthy [[prose]] aimed at flattery as within the scope of rhetoric. Some scholars, however, contest the idea that Plato despised rhetoric and instead view his dialogues as a dramatization of complex rhetorical principles.<ref name="KBB">{{multiref2
|1={{Cite book|last=Kastely|first=James|title=The Rhetoric of Plato's Republic|publisher=Chicago UP|year=2015|language=en}}
|2={{Cite journal|last=Bjork|first=Collin|date=2021|title=Plato, Xenophon, and the Uneven Temporalities of Ethos in the Trial of Socrates|journal=Philosophy & Rhetoric|volume=54|issue=3|pages=240–262|doi=10.5325/philrhet.54.3.0240|jstor=10.5325/philrhet.54.3.0240|s2cid=244334227|issn=0031-8213}}
|3={{Cite book|last=Bengtson|first=Erik|title=The epistemology of rhetoric: Plato, doxa and post-truth|publisher=Uppsala UP|year=2019}}
}}</ref> Socrates explained the relationship between rhetoric in flattery when he maintained that a rhetorician who teaches anyone how to persuade people in an assembly to do what he wants, without knowledge of what is just or unjust, engages in a kind of flattery (''kolakeia'') that constitutes an image (''eidolon'') of a part of the art of politics.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zuckert |first=Catherine H. |title=Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-226-99338-6 |location=Chicago |pages=40 |language=en}}</ref>

Aristotle both redeemed rhetoric from Plato and narrowed its focus by defining three genres of rhetoric—[[Deliberative rhetoric|deliberative]], [[forensic rhetoric|forensic]] or judicial, and [[epideictic]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Rapp|first=Christof|at=[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/#StruRhet §2 "The Structure of the Rhetoric"]|title=Aristotle's Rhetoric|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/|website=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]|year=2022}}</ref> Yet, even as he provided order to existing rhetorical theories, Aristotle generalized the definition of rhetoric to be the ability to identify the appropriate means of persuasion in a given situation based upon the art of rhetoric (''technê'').<ref>{{Citation |last=Rapp |first=Christof |title=Aristotle's Rhetoric |date=2023 |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/ |access-date=2024-03-21 |edition=Winter 2023 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |editor2-last=Nodelman |editor2-first=Uri}}</ref> This made rhetoric applicable to all fields, not just politics. Aristotle viewed the [[enthymeme]] based upon [[logic]] (especially, based upon the syllogism) as the basis of rhetoric.

Aristotle also outlined generic constraints that focused the rhetorical art squarely within the domain of public political practice. He restricted rhetoric to the domain of the [[Contingency (philosophy)|contingent]] or probable: those matters that admit multiple legitimate opinions or arguments.<ref>{{Citation |last=Rapp |first=Christof |title=Aristotle's Rhetoric |date=2023 |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/ |access-date=2024-03-14 |edition=Winter 2023 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |editor2-last=Nodelman |editor2-first=Uri}}</ref>

Since the time of Aristotle, logic has changed. For example, [[modal logic]] has undergone a major development that also modifies rhetoric.<ref>{{cite book |first=George A. |last=Kennedy |title=Aristotle, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse |location=New York |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1991}}</ref>

The contemporary [[Neo-Aristotelianism (literature)|neo-Aristotelian]] and neo-Sophistic positions on rhetoric mirror the division between the Sophists and Aristotle. Neo-Aristotelians generally study rhetoric as political discourse, while the neo-Sophistic view contends that rhetoric cannot be so limited. Rhetorical scholar [[Michael Leff]] characterizes the conflict between these positions as viewing rhetoric as a "thing contained" versus a "container". The neo-Aristotelian view threatens the study of rhetoric by restraining it to such a limited field, ignoring many critical applications of rhetorical theory, criticism, and practice. Simultaneously, the neo-Sophists threaten to expand rhetoric beyond a point of coherent theoretical value.

In more recent years, people studying rhetoric have tended to enlarge its object domain beyond speech. [[Kenneth Burke]] asserted humans use rhetoric to resolve conflicts by identifying shared characteristics and interests in symbols. People engage in [[Identification (psychology)|identification]], either to assign themselves or another to a group. This definition of [[Identification in rhetoric|rhetoric as identification]] broadens the scope from strategic and overt political persuasion to the more implicit tactics of identification found in an immense range of sources{{Specify|reason=which sources? what kind of things are "sources"?|date=September 2023}}.<ref>{{cite book |first=Kenneth |last=Burke |title=A Rhetoric of Motives |location=Berkeley |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |year=1969}}</ref> Burke focused on the interplay of identification and division, maintaining that identification compensates for an original division by preventing a strict separation between objects, people, and spaces.<ref name=":11">{{Cite book |last=Jensen |first=Kyle |title=Kenneth Burke’s Weed Garden: Refiguring the Mythic Grounds of Modern Rhetoric |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |year=2022 |isbn=9780271092928 |language=en}}</ref> This is achieved by assigning to them common properties through linguistic symbols.<ref name=":11" />

Among the many scholars who have since pursued Burke's line of thought, [[James Boyd White]] sees rhetoric as a broader domain of social experience in his notion of [[constitutive rhetoric]]. Influenced by theories of [[social construction]], White argues that culture is "reconstituted" through language. Just as language influences people, people influence language. Language is socially constructed, and depends on the meanings people attach to it. Because language is not rigid and changes depending on the situation, the very usage of language is rhetorical. An author, White would say, is always trying to construct a new world and persuading his or her readers to share that world within the text.<ref name=WhiteWords>{{cite book |first=James Boyd |last=White |title=When Words Lose Their Meaning |location=Chicago |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |year=1984}}</ref>

People engage in rhetoric any time they speak or produce meaning. Even in the field of [[science]], via practices which were once viewed as being merely the objective testing and reporting of knowledge, scientists persuade their audience to accept their findings by sufficiently demonstrating that their study or experiment was conducted reliably and resulted in sufficient evidence to support their conclusions.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Vernon |first1=Jamie L |title=Leveraging rhetoric for improved communication of science: a scientist’s perspective |journal=Poroi |date=31 January 2014 |volume=10 |issue=1 |page=3 |doi=10.13008/2151-2957.1181|doi-access=free }}</ref>

The vast scope of rhetoric is difficult to define. Political discourse remains the paradigmatic example for studying and theorizing specific techniques and conceptions of persuasion or rhetoric.<ref>{{cite book |first=Michael |last=Leff |chapter=The Habitation of Rhetoric |title=Contemporary Rhetorical Theory: A Reader |editor1-first=John Louis |editor1-last=Lucaites |display-editors=etal |location=New York |publisher=[[Guilford Press]] |year=1993}}</ref>