What Is Rhetoric?

this video is intended to serve as an introduction to rhetoric rhetoric is the art of persuasion rhetoric was defined by the greek rhetorician and philosopher aristotle as finding the available means of persuasion now disclaimer rhetoric is way too complex way too big way too complicated to define in one video so that is not

really going to be the goal of this presentation rather the goal of this presentation is going to be to introduce you to rhetoric so you can explore it more deeply and in more complexity throughout the remainder of the semester so this is simply an introduction to rhetoric it can't be defined in just one

definition but though it cannot be defined in just one definition it can be hinted at or explored in multiple definitions so let's look at a couple of different definitions rhetoric at its most uh basic definition is the available means of persuasion as i mentioned that is the definition uh that is the so rhetoric in his most

basic form is uh the available means of persuasion that is the definition that is supplied by aristotle in roughly 400 bc the available means of persuasion you'll see that we have our two speakers here on the left hand side of your screen they are speaking to an audience they are persuading that audience

in uh explicit and implicit ways through their emotions through their words through their tone through their attitude through what they include and what they exclude from their topic of conversation so that is rhetoric in its most basic form uh our second definition is from the greek poet sappho persuasion is aphrodite's daughter it is

she who beguiles our mortal hearts so i love this definition it really captures the emotion and the affectability that rhetoric contains and alternatively can inspire in people so our next definition rhetoric is the art practice and study of human communication from andrea lunsford this is a fantastic definition it is quick clear it is sushi it is um direct it's not