ENG205H1 Lecture Notes - Deductive Reasoning, Basic English
Document Summary
Phaedrus restricts rhetoric to forensic and deliberative discourse. Socrates says that rhetoric is a method of in uencing minds by means of words. To him, rhetoric deals with all matters-- serious and trivial. It is all-pervasive; not just con ned to law or politics. Every kind of discussion covered by the art of rhetoric. Socrates says that even those who would mislead others without being misled themselves must know the real likenesses or differences among things. If you want to master rhetoric, you have to understand the true nature of things. If you don"t, you won"t know how to make that gradual removal from the truth that will allow you to persuade people. If you don"t know the truth, you can"t deceive. Every detail should be necessary--you shouldn"t be able to cut something off from a discourse. Everything should have an internal coherence: principle of unity.
