MDIA3000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Discourse Ethics, Discourse Analysis, University Of New South Wales
Document Summary
Intellectual assessments of the relationship between ethics, rhetoric, and discourse date back to the ancient greeks and their concern with the ethical function of public moral argument in the workings of the body politic. Rhetoric must become scientific in scope and function; it must know itself to be a true medicament of the soul. + aristotle modifies this claim somewhat so as not to destroy what he takes to be rhetoric"s true nature (physis) rhetoric is not a science; it has no definite subject matter to call its own. Makes its living by dealing with what is in the main contingent (aristotle, rhetoric, trans. , 1357a15) There to help human beings deliberate about the certainty of their uncertain existence. It stands ready to answer the call of those who find themselves in situations where definitive evidence that can guide moral action is lacking, but where such action, nevertheless, is required (blumenberg, 1987)
