What is Rhetoric Part III

As much as European thinkers struggled with the application of rhetoric in various fields such as law or medicine, going into the Renaissance, they began again to try to define what Rhetoric itself actually is basing ideas off of the great Greek and Roman thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Gorgias, Cicero, and Quintilian. As we explore the Renaissance, we learn that Roman Catholic church’s stranglehold on Europe began to loosen (a little), and Renaissance rhetoric is associated with Italian Humanism and the poet Petrarch who “sought a model for thinking, writing, and acting in society that was faithfully Christian, yet more conducive to the development of individual talents than scholasticism seemed to be” (557). As people began to debate ideals, two writers who discussed what rhetoric itself  as a discipline where Ramus and Bacon.

Peter Ramus lived from 1515-1572 and studied at university of Paris. Ramus “worked his way through school as a servant to wealthier students” (674). While he studied the classic thinkers, he was banned from teaching until 1547 because he thought Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian was useless. “Aristotle’s logic both lacked many virtues and abounded in faults…yet now Quintilian follows Aristotle’s and cicero’s confusion of dialectic and rhetoric” (681). He believed the ability to reason is innate in normal humans and one did not need to learn it from Aristotle.  He also felt Philosophy or dialectic should be considered separate from rhetoric, and that rhetoric consisted only of style and delivery. Dialectic, on the other hand, included arrangement, invention and memory. Although memory was not seen as important, however, because arrangement has natural structure of human mind. This reminded me of my speech teachers in past who insisted on an outline rather than learning the speech word for word. Ramus also though arrangement is based on a syllogism starting with general principals and working down through levels of generality to particulars (676). This reminded me of the introduction of an academic essay where one gradually works through various definitions of the topic, becoming more and more specific as they work their way toward the thesis. Interestingly, Ramus did not have a specific profession, such as a politician, in mind in his ideas on rhetoric, which is very different than most previous thinkers leading up to him that we have discussed who constantly debated the fields in which rhetoric should be applied.

Almost shockingly, Ramus felt that studying classical rhetoric was a waste of time, and one could see how his ideas seem radical to the status quo. In fact, his ideas are still radical today in that regard. Ramus states in his diatribe against Quintilian, “For how many days, indeed how many years and ages do we suppose are wretchedly spent on false conjectures about these disciplines [dialectic and rhetoric]? I wish I had not known the wretchedness of wasting so much of my youth in this way” (681). This does not sound like a guy who liked school. Quintilian, conversely, stated that we should spend all our extra time studying and not waste it on other pursuits, “But if all these hours were allotted to study, [and not visits, idle conversations, private amusements, etc.] our life would seem long enough and out time amply sufficient for learning” (427). Definitely polar opposite positions on the benefits of studying.

Francis Bacon, on the other hand, had a more level-headed view on things than Ramus, but he also debated on the nuances of what rhetoric actually is rather than its application. He lived from 1561-1626 and was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, and author. He served both as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England. He also never met a bribe he did like, and his political stance seemed mainly to be self-preservation. Unfortunately, he did not invent bacon, but his name does make me hungry (ha ha).  Bacon divided knowledge into two branches: Theology and philosophy and “then divided the latter into theoretical inquiry, which investigates causes and practical inquiry, which seeks effects” (737). He used Ramus’ binary opposition, but saw Ramus’ dialectic as a version of the Scholasticism Ramus claims to condemn. Also, Bacon did not subscribe to Ramus’ separation of dialectic and Rhetoric. He felt that the disciplines needed to overlap. In the The Advancement of Learning  he states, “The duty and office of Rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of the will” (743). He felt that men’s minds should fortify themselves against the assaults of the four classes of idols which beset them (745). He said there are Idols of the Tribe, which is the tribe or race of man “human understanding is like a false mirror, which receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolours the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it” (745).  This sounds a lot like Plato’s concept of reality as not fully perceptible by humans.  Idols of the Cave are the idols of the individual since everyone has a cave of their own. Idols of the Market Place is the association of men with each other on account of commerce. The most troublesome of all the Idols. The idol of the Theatre is dogma of philosophy “all received systems are but so many stage plays” (746).