A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples
"
Socrates: The fact is, as we said at the beginning of our
discussion, that the aspiring speaker needs no knowledge of
the truth about what is right or good... In courts of justice no
attention is paid whatever to the truth about such topics; all that
matters is plausibility... There are even some occasions when
both prosecution and defence should positively suppress the
facts in favor of probability, if the facts are improbable. Never
mind the truth -- pursue probability through thick and thin in
every kind of speech; the whole secret of the art of speaking
lies in consistent adherence to this principle.
Phaedrus: That is what those who claim to be professional
teachers of rhetoric actually say, Socrates.
--Plato, Phaedrus 272
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" Socrates: The fact is, as we said at the beginning of our discussion, that the aspiring speaker needs no knowledge of the truth about what is right or good... In courts of justice no attention is paid whatever to the truth about such topics; all that matters is plausibility... There are even some occasions when both prosecution and defence should positively suppress the facts in favor of probability, if the facts are improbable. Never mind the truth -- pursue probability through thick and thin in every kind of speech; the whole secret of the art of speaking lies in consistent adherence to this principle. Phaedrus: That is what those who claim to be professional teachers of rhetoric actually say, Socrates.
--Plato, Phaedrus 272
- bill 2-15-2001 4:15 pm