SEPTEMBER 3, 2018 (Stanley Fish)

SEPTEMBER 3, 2018 BLOG POST
"Rhetoric" By Stanley Fish

I had a little bit of background information coming into this essay. I recall discussing Stanley Fish in one of my introductory writing classes with Professor Scott Parker. During class he mentioned a recent book by Fish titled "How to Write a Sentence," which was actually just a book of sentence workshop methods for the common writing student.

With the background information applied, I suppose I should probably begin to comment on Fish's essay about rhetoric. When I began reading, I found the epigraph interesting. The epigraph from John Milton's Paradise Lost seemed somewhat out of place, but once Fish went about explaining his selection I couldn't help but nod in appreciation. Milton was defining rhetoricians in the classical sense, that is, intelligent and manipulative conversationalists, or orators, perhaps. This tradition began with the Greeks, with the people before Socrates who did ask for payment to educate young people and to speak to crowds. Socrates didn't ask for payment for his speaking or his conversations with the young aristocracy. The difference here is that Socrates was interested in simply sharing his wisdom and the truths that he believed arrived from achieving that intellect. Although he himself was a brilliant rhetorician, it is believed, based on the dialogues of Plato, that he was not maliciously manipulative, i.e. he had no interest in stealing or cheating people. Socrates was even proven to be morally sound in his decision not to flee his execution in the second to last dialogue, Crito.

I suspect the assumption here was that manipulating others, in any way, was immoral, even if this was done with words, and not for any particular reason besides an intellectual challenge. Plato's Euthyphro demonstrates the Socratic Method, which I understand to be an cooperative, but argumentative educational dialogue between two people attempting to find a question's answer.

A few thinkers later and we arrive at Aristotle, who proposed that rhetoric is "the art of persuasion," which many people cling to for the sake of understanding rhetoric. I am tempted to take this quote at surface level, but I'm also tempted to ask what a person's definition of "persuasion" is, and how it may affect the way we view or think about rhetoric. Also, how do we define "art," and what does it mean to think of rhetoric as an "art"? Anyway, Aristotle, in Fish's essay, defines a difference between the Homo seriosus and the Homo rhetoricus. 

Aristotle defines Homo Seriosus, the Serious Man, as possessing "... a central self, an irreducible identity," while he defines Homo rhetoricus, the Rhetorical Man, as "... an actor" (127). What kinds of implications or misguided notions is Aristotle under when he defines a difference between these two types of men? Are all people not "serious" and "rhetorical" at the same time? Is being authentic and being an actor not something everyone does depending on the situation?

Continuing on in the reading, I'm tempted to explore the dilemma of manipulation when it comes to rhetoric. Is this a misunderstanding, or a fear from society? Rhetoric, in my terms, is a form of expression. All communication is a form of expression with some intended purpose. The purpose of rhetoric is too broad to refine, but I still view it as an expression. Now, rhetoricians are no necessarily manipulative, that is, verbally manipulative. It boils down to intention and presentation, like Aristotle's steps of rhetoric, invention, arrangement, and style. With persuasive ability comes a certain amount of desire, which rhetoric promises delivery from. Rhetoric is built on persuasion, but it also deals widely in influence, and we see full circle that influence creates persuasion and rhetoric can construct its own tower, giving the rhetorician a place on top.