Platon s'est inspir? des travaux philosophiques de certains de ses pr?d?cesseurs, en particulier Socrate, mais aussi Parm?nide, H?raclite et Pythagore, pour d?velopper sa propre philosophie, qui explore les domaines les plus importants, notamment la m?taphysique, l'?thique, l'esth?tique et la politique. Avec son professeur Socrate et son ?l?ve Aristote, il pose les bases de la pens?e philosophique occidentale. Platon est consid?r? comme l'un des philosophes les plus importants et les plus influents de l'histoire humaine, ?tant l'un des fondateurs de la religion (...) et de la spiritualit? occidentales. La philosophie qu'il a d?velopp?e, connue sous le nom de platonisme, est bas?e sur la th?orie des Formes connues par la raison pure comme une solution au probl?me des universaux. La philosophie de Platon s'inscrit dans la lign?e des pr?socratiques, des sophistes et des traditions artistiques qui sous-tendent l'?ducation grecque, dans un cadre nouveau, d?fini par la dialectique et la th?orie des Id?es. Pour Platon, la connaissance est une activit? de l'?me, affect?e par des objets sensibles, et par des processus internes. Dans La R?publique de Platon, la forme la plus ?lev?e est consid?r?e comme la Forme du Bien, la source de toutes les autres Formes qui pourraient ?tre connues par la raison. Le th?me central du livre est la justice, argument?e ? l'aide de plusieurs th?ories platoniciennes, dont le mythe all?gorique de la caverne, la doctrine des Id?es, la dialectique, la th?orie de l'?me et la conception d'une cit? id?ale. Sa dialectique est un type de connaissance, ? r?le ontologique et m?taphysique, qui s'atteint par la confrontation de plusieurs positions pour d?passer l'opinion (doxa), un passage du monde des apparences (ou ? sensible ?) ? la connaissance intellectuelle (ou ? intelligible ? ) aux premiers principes. Le mod?le ?ducatif de Platon (paid?ia) diff?rencie le niveau d'?ducation selon les comp?tences des ?l?ves. Selon les principes socratiques, pour faire justice, il faut savoir ce qui est bien, et c'est ce que le philosophe sait le mieux. Platon a d?taill? ce concept en soulignant la distinction entre le philosophe (qui cherche les principes de v?rit? sans pr?tendre les poss?der) et le sophiste (qui se laisse guider par l'opinion comme seul param?tre valable de la connaissance). (shrink)

Language and politics go hand in hand and learning and comprehending political genre is to learn a language created for codifying, extending and transmitting political discourse in any text/talk. Drawing upon the theoretical framework of Fairclough’s CDA and Rhetoric, the current study aims at investigating Donald Trump’s First Speech, from the point of frequency and functions of some rhetorical strategies (Parallelism, Anaphora and the Power of Three, Antithesis and Expletive, etc.), Nominalization, Passivization, We-groups and Modality as well as Lexical and (...) Textual Analysis, presented to the UN delivered on Sep. 19, 2017. Specifically, the study seeks to determine: (1) how President Trump succeeded in conveying his notions and assumptions to his intended audience, and in convincing and negotiating, (2) how he attempted to explicitly and implicitly pass his attitudes on his targets, and (3) how those orientations, intended notions and assumptions were seamlessly presented to his addressees in discoursal and lexico-grammatical levels; (4) and finally in this underlying trend how he achieved his own ends. The results of the study hope to enhance reading comprehension and writing in academic registers for EFL/ESL students. (shrink)

Drawing upon the recent theoretical framework of Burkean concept of identification (ID), the current study aims at probing the interaction of content and form in two letters penned by Iran’s Supreme Leader and addressed to the Youth on Jan. and Nov. 2015. To this end, the study seeks (i) to determine a role ID takes in the conveyance of intended assumptions to the targeted readers; and (ii) to observe if the writer’s objectives, i.e. to identify himself with the readers and (...) to realize his politically-religiously-infused creeds, result in success or failure; moreover, (iii) it seeks to determine how he achieved his end to attenuate the impacts of blazing inferno of Islamophobia and anti-Islam sentiments in his addressees. The whole corpus (about 3000 words), in light of van Dijk’s Socio-cognitive approach, is critically perused to seek out contextually-coded expressions. The study tries to set out a manner in which political text/talk could be analyzed rhetorically employing ID concept. It was found that ID as a two-way process is a key component for both parties to identify with. It makes the readers align themselves with the writer and helps the writer to associate with the readers and accomplish his goals. (shrink)

It is a commonplace of discussion about the impact of visual media, whether visual images in print, televisual images or the images of the internet, to claim that it functions irrationally. This paper argues against that claim. First, the assumptions about the connection between rationality and linear, written, unemotional prose are unjustified. Secondly, using analytic techniques analogous to those used in identifying argumentation in verbal text, is possible to discern arguments in visual text, in particular in image based advertisements.

Argumentation mining aims to automatically detect, classify and structure argumentation in text. Therefore, argumentation mining is an important part of a complete argumentation analyisis, i.e. understanding the content of serial arguments, their linguistic structure, the relationship between the preceding and following arguments, recognizing the underlying conceptual beliefs, and understanding within the comprehensive coherence of the specific topic. We present different methods to aid argumentation mining, starting with plain argumentation detection and moving forward to a more structural analysis of the detected (...) argumentation. Different state-of-the-art techniques on machine learning and context free grammars are applied to solve the challenges of argumentation mining. We also highlight fundamental questions found during our research and analyse different issues for future research on argumentation mining. (shrink)

How has philosophical reflection contributed to the ways that we think about teaching? In this paper I explore two forms of narrative reflection on teaching—genealogies and portraits. Genealogies tell a story about the origins of teaching; portraits find expression in myths and other narrative forms. I explore two genealogies of teaching—one deriving from the sophist, Protagoras, in which teaching is viewed as a technical skill employing methods of instruction; the other, deriving from Plato, in which teaching is seen fundamentally in (...) terms of a special relationship between teacher and pupil. The Platonic account of the origins of teaching that finds expression in the myth, recounted in the dialogue Phaedrus, gives rise to a tradition of pedagogic portraiture that views the teacher/pupil relationship as foundational and presents the teacher as a wounded healer. This paper explores the grounds of this image and suggests that a tradition of portraiture in which the teacher is represented as a wounded healer can be traced back from Plato to the myth of Chiron and forward to St Augustine, Rousseau, and Nietzsche. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.2 (2003) 109-118 [Access article in PDF] Editing the Rhetorical Tradition Patricia Bizzell The rhetorical tradition is always being edited. I know because I have edited it myself—that's a sort of pun, in which the words "the rhetorical tradition" refer both to a book and to the cultural phenomenon the book represents. Bruce Herzberg and I (2001) have co-edited an anthology entitled The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings (...) from Classical Times to the Present. That project also involved editing the tradition itself, because, at least since the days of Isidore of Seville, it is through inclusions and exclusions in anthologies such as ours that the rhetorical tradition is established, grows, and changes. Anthologies seem always to have played a large role in the definition of the rhetorical tradition because the accessibility of texts has so often been an issue in the study of rhetoric, whether transmission problems have been caused by the dissipation of classical learning at the end of the Roman period or are caused by the vagaries of print publication today. Then and now, the changing shape of the tradition may be discerned from the tables of contents of anthologies, a circumstance that has become especially evident to me now that we have had the opportunity to edit our volume twice. The tables of contents of the first edition, appearing in 1990, and the second, in 2001, show both some enduring similarities and some interesting differences.It is important to remember that what we inherit as the "rhetorical tradition," for blessing or curse, comprises at least three modalities: texts deemed worthy of rhetorical study, methods of analyzing those texts, and methods of teaching rhetoric according to precepts and principles derived from those texts. Such a description of our cultural legacy would seem to put texts at the center of the tradition, and indeed, anthologies focus our attention on the rhetorical tradition as a set of texts. Tables of contents organized chronologically suggest a neat progression of supposedly major works marching through the centuries, but why those particular works? In [End Page 109] the study of rhetoric as in the study of imaginative literature, scholars now realize that these supposedly inevitable textual monuments to an unbroken and progressively more sophisticated discipline are in fact quarried from among the masses of material each era produces by traditions, that is, methodological and pedagogical traditions, in how to study rhetoric. Although the tradition appears to be text-based, how we wish to analyze verbal productions and how we prefer to teach the art of producing them govern our choices of rhetorical texts to preserve, elevate, or delete. And modern histories of rhetoric have shown that the preferences governing these choices arise out of complex cultural factors relating to gender, race, social class, national identity, and more.Once upon a time, these choices were dominated by the preferences of socially privileged men who saw Western culture as the best in the world, and that culture itself as springing primarily from Greek and Roman roots. As Walter Ong (1981) has explained in Fighting for Life, these men believed that education in rhetoric must be for men only and that boys must be introduced to it via agonistic competition. From these assumptions sprang buttresses for what we might call the "traditional tradition" in the study of rhetoric, a progression of texts written by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, Augustine, Erasmus, Bacon, Blair, and so on. This kind of study of rhetoric required extensive education, first, in Latin and Greek, often inculcated with the aid of corporal punishment, as Ong describes, and it persisted well into the twentieth century (though, one trusts, with much less flogging—that went out with co-education, as Ong explains). For example, until 1936, Greek was a graduation requirement at the Jesuit college where I teach, the College of the Holy Cross, and Latin was not dropped as a graduation requirement there until 1959 (the college was still all male, but the rationale for dropping the requirement appears to have centered upon the need to make room in the curriculum for pre-professional studies). Here... (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to invigorate debate concerning the nature of analogy, and to broaden the scope of current conceptions of analogy. We argue that analogizing is not a single or even a fundamental cognitive process. The argument relies on an analysis of the history of the concept of analogy, case studies on the use of analogy in scientific problem solving, cognitive research on analogy comprehension and problem solving, and a survey of computational mechanisms of analogy comprehension. Analogizing (...) is regarded as a macrocognitive phenomenon having a number of supporting processes. These include the apperception of resemblances and distinctions, metaphor, and the balancing of semantic flexibility and inference constraint. Psychological theories and computational models have generally relied on (a) a sparse set of ontological concepts (a property called “similarity” and a structuralist categorization of types of semantic relations), (b) a single form category (i.e., the classic four-term analogy), and (c) a single set of morphological distinctions (e.g., verbal vs. pictorial analogies). This article presents a classification based on a “naturalistic” exploration of the variety of uses of analogical reasoning in pragmatically distinct contexts. The resultant taxonomy distinguishes pre-hoc, ad-hoc, post-hoc, pro-hoc, contra-hoc, and trans-hoc analogy. Each will require its own macrocognitive modeling, and each presents an opportunity for research on phenomena of reasoning that have been neglected. (shrink)

The deliberative ethics guidelines elaborated and implemented by members of the IFOM-IEO Campus (Firc Institute of Molecular Oncology (IFOM) and the European Institute of Oncology (IEO)). These should serve the dual purpose of establishing a minimal set of standard rules for bioethical debate and any ensuing decision-making process, especially for the perspective of providing real instruments to foster public engagement and public awareness on the ethical issues involved in biomedical research. It is shown that these guidelines instantiate the scheme of (...) one of the correct ways of debating formalised by the western thought. (shrink)

Ghostwriting is viewed by some as a necessary element for crafting an effective public image. Defenders of ghostwriting see no ethical dilemma in the practice because the audience knows the speechgiver is not necessarily the speechwriter. Alernatively, those regarding ghostwriting as unethical view the practice as deceitful. This group argues that the audience does not recognize the employment of a speechwriter and thus a speechgiver relies on the words of another to fortify personal ethos. This article examines several positions regarding (...) the ethics of ghostwriting and discusses an empirical study testing three major positions found in ghostwriting literature. Findings from the study indicate that respondents do recognize the use of speechwriters by certain individuals in certain circumstances. (shrink)

This study is a corpus analysis of nominal uses of ‘public’ as a reference to a group of humans, a category of reference that has animated the debate over membership in the body public among theorists of publicity and deliberative democracy. The study finds that the public metonym is the most common nominal use of ‘public’ as a reference to a group of humans in ordinary English. In addition, it presents a fine-grained analysis of the discourse features of the public (...) metonym based on the corpus results, finding that three features characterize the public metonym: definiteness, non-assignability, and anthropomorphism. It shows how these features are encoded by linguistic constructions, then extends the analysis by drawing attention to some basic contradictions among these three features. Finally, it shows how these contradictions can be accounted for by describing ‘public’ as metonymic. The paper draws together public sphere research, discourse studies, and rhetoric in order to describe the features of a central trope of civic identity. (shrink)

Contrary to the notion that the human mind has some sort of tendency toward the abstract processes of classifying, analysing and synthesising, this paper suggests that these processes are historically and socially constructed. Because these processes (in particular, synthesising) are brought about to serve specific purposes and agendas, we need to pre-examine them periodically to see if they still serve our needs. In the past, synthesis had an important function as a symbol, among alchemists, for example. We have all but (...) forgotten that symbolic functioning and treat it now only in its material manifestations. Having done so, we use the material sense to explain the symbolic sense. In that way, synthesis may no longer be a helpful way to look at our abstract processes. Insofar as the needs of the future may be different than the needs of the past or present, it may indeed be time to abandon ideas of abstract synthesis. The author suggests that in its place, we consider the notion of ‘shuttling’. Shuttling allows us to adopt different positions, and even contradictory positions within our individual thinking, without feeling the need to immediately characterise the contradiction as ‘wrong’. And insofar as we may have multiple present positions, shuttling opens up the possibility for multiple future positions as well. (shrink)

In this article, a preliminary investigation will be conducted in order to try to discover whether or not Aristotle’s the Art of Rhetoric can have any relevance as a handbook for the rhetoricians of the twenty-first century and in particular for advertising designers. First, the background against which this question is posed will be set out. Second, the chosen methodology will be explained. Thereafter, some qualitative data will be presented and discussed. Finally, some conclusions will be drawn suggesting that The (...) Art of Rhetoric may be just as relevant and influential today for advertising professionals as it was for the lawyers and politicians of classical times. (shrink)

My paper aims to find potential elements of comparison between ancient oratoria popularis and modern populist oratory. I will consider case studies drawn from Gracchan speech style and from the oratory of Donald Trump.

In looking toward the futures of Europe, the focal point of the legal and governmental aspects of European life has recently become the Treaty Establishing a Constitution of Europe - or just the "Constitution" as it has become colloquially known. That socio-linguistic act of referring to a document as a constitution is a mammoth move. First, it ignores all of the concerns and handwringing around the idea of producing a legal document called a constitution that might immediately be thought of (...) as a sovereign-building document, such as the German constitution of the Irish constitution. Second, it suggests that the people of Europe are in some way similarly situated as together to constitute something. In this article, the author continues a series of reflections on words regarding futures, and takes an extensive look at the use, misuse and power of the word "constitution". (shrink)

Recent theorizing and research concerning the pragmatics of analogy in persuasion posits that it serves two communicative functions. Specifically, rebuttal analogy instrumentally functions as argument and also as a social attack device used to demean the competence or character of opponents. The study reported here empirically investigated message receivers' perceptions of rebuttal analogy users. Participants were exposed to one of four messages employing rebuttal analogy or to one of the same four messages with a nonanalogy version of the rebuttal argument. (...) As anticipated, the findings revealed that participants perceived the communicator employing rebuttal analogy as less ethical and less competent than communicators using nonanalogy counterparts. These results are discussed and future research is proposed. (shrink)

This paper examines the argumentation strategy prolepsis: anticipating and subsequently responding to an argument before it has been made. Although prolepsis is common to a variety of arguments, it seems insufficiently studied or understood—or, worse, misunderstood as simply a “feint.” Drawing on scholarship in rhetorical theory and cognitive and social psychology, I offer a new understanding of prolepsis, recognizing the technique’s potential in argumentative discourse—especially in the search for “common ground.”.

When people engage in conversation, they tailor their utterances to their conversational partners, whether these partners are other humans or computational systems. This tailoring, or adaptation to the partner takes place in all facets of human language use, and is based on a mental model or a user model of the conversational partner. Such adaptation has been shown to improve listeners' comprehension, their satisfaction with an interactive system, the efficiency with which they execute conversational tasks, and the likelihood of achieving (...) higher level goals such as changing the listener's beliefs and attitudes. We focus on one aspect of adaptation, namely the tailoring of the content of dialogue system utterances for the higher level processes of persuasion, argumentation and advice-giving. Our hypothesis is that algorithms that adapt content for these processes, according to a user model, will improve the usability, efficiency, and effectiveness of dialogue systems. We describe a multimodal dialogue system and algorithms for adaptive content selection based on multi-attribute decision theory. We demonstrate experimentally the improved efficacy of system responses through the use of user models to both tailor the content of system utterances and to manipulate their conciseness. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question how to analyze multimodal public discourse in such a way that the resulting reconstruction of the rhetor’s accountability either obliges the rhetor to acknowledge the argumentative reconstruction as valid or to refute its validity in a meta-discussion. This is a challenge for discourse theory as well as for argument theory because multimodal discourse seems far removed from the ‘standard’ propositional format of an argument. We argue that multimodal discourse should be analyzed as a coherent and (...) relevant discourse, assuming the possibility of instant interactions between all modes. We introduce a method that allows us to account for an argumentative reconstruction in a systematic way. We illustrate our method by analyzing the ABC news item titled Hu Jintao Visit: Economics and Panda Bears of January 20, 2011, holding ABC news as a rhetor accountable for several far reaching standpoints that are implied in the multimodal format. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the processing of informal arguments, that is, arguments involving “probable truth.” A model of informal argument processing is presented that is based upon Hample's (1977) expansion of Toulmin's (1958) model of argument structure. The model postulates that a claim activates an attitude, the two components forming a complex that in turn activates reasons. Furthermore, the model holds occurrence of the reason, or possibly the claim and the reason, activates values. Three experiments are described that provide (...) support for the model. (shrink)

The documentary genre is one of the audiovisual mechanisms with the greatest media efficiency in the transmission of reality. However, depending on the nature of the story, the construction of the textual and audiovisual discourse is altered. In this article, we consider the following questions: Is the documentary a format that is faithful to reality? What modifications does the discourse undergo so that the story is enhanced? To go deeper into this aspect, we intend to analyse the different elements that (...) make up the documentary discourse in its transition from reality to fictionalised narrative. To this end, an inspection of the environmental dissemination documentary My Octopus Teacher (Netflix, 2020) will be carried out. An audiovisual proposal in which the coexistence between human and animal life turns environmental dissemination into a powerful instrument for transmitting scientific knowledge. (shrink)

The article discusses the nature of humanistic knowledge. Analyzing the relation between aesthetic judgment, literacy and knowledge as defined by the French seventeenth-century Jansenist school of Port-Royal, the article argues that Port-Royal’s interpretation of the enthymeme can be used to define the cognitive basis of aesthetic judgments in the various disciplines of the humanities. The article concludes with arguments that the literacy provided by the humanities explains their value as a necessary foundation for understanding the global world.

When people engage in conversation, they tailor their utterances to their conversational partners, whether these partners are other humans or computational systems. This tailoring, or adaptation to the partner takes place in all facets of human language use, and is based on a mental model or a user model of the conversational partner. Such adaptation has been shown to improve listeners' comprehension, their satisfaction with an interactive system, the efficiency with which they execute conversational tasks, and the likelihood of achieving (...) higher level goals such as changing the listener's beliefs and attitudes. We focus on one aspect of adaptation, namely the tailoring of the content of dialogue system utterances for the higher level processes of persuasion, argumentation and advice‐giving. Our hypothesis is that algorithms that adapt content for these processes, according to a user model, will improve the usability, efficiency, and effectiveness of dialogue systems. We describe a multimodal dialogue system and algorithms for adaptive content selection based on multi‐attribute decision theory. We demonstrate experimentally the improved efficacy of system responses through the use of user models to both tailor the content of system utterances and to manipulate their conciseness. (shrink)

The term dunamis, by which Aristotle defines rhetoric in the first chapter of The Art of Rhetoric, is a "power" term, as its various meanings in Aristotle's corpus—from vernacular ones like "political influence" to strictly philosophical ones like "potentiality"—attest.1 In the Rhetoric, however, dunamis is usually translated as "ability" or "faculty," a designation that, compared to other terms that describe persuasion in ancient Greek poetics and rhetoric (such as "bia" ["force"] or "eros" ["seduction"]), marks rhetoric as a neutral human capacity (...) rather than the use of language entangled in the vagaries of violence and desire.2 John Kirby calls Aristotle's definition "one of the boldest moves in the history of .. (shrink)

The classical Greek term pistis is presented as a relevant norm in the analysis of parliamentary debate. Through exploration of pistis apparent similarities to the term ethos have appeared. It is proposed that pistis can be viewed as the equivalent to ethos, concerning the common space or connection between the speaker and the audience. Tentatively "truth", "faith" and "respect" are proposed as the elements equivalent to phronesis, areté and eunoia.

For several millennia now, the enthymeme has been taught, on the putative authority of Aristotle, as "a kind of syllogism" —that is, a rhetorical syllogism—that consists in a three-part unit of deductive reasoning that parallels the inductive reasoning of the example. The rhetorical syllogism is said to be imperfect or incomplete because it relies on probable or particular rather than certain or universal premises and because the speaker suppresses one premise or the conclusion, usually the major premise, leaving it with (...) only two stated terms as follows:Socrates is a manSocrates is mortalOne premise is left unstated because it is known to the members of the audience (they... (shrink)

Should we continue to support publicly funded research on genetically engineered herbicide resistant crops? In Part One, I discussed the difference between science and ethics, presented a brief history of weed control, and explained three moral principles undergirding my environmentalist perspective. I then argued that unqualified endorsement (E) of the research is unjustified, as is unqualified opposition (O). In Part Two, I argue against qualified endorsement (QE), and for qualified opposition (QO).

This article explores the rise and fall of an Afrikaner psychological association: the Psychological Institute of the Republic of South Africa. It presents rhetorical, discursive and social analyses of presidential addresses delivered at PIRSA congresses between 1962 and 1977, identifying the emergence of a discourse of volksdiens during the 1960s that called for the ethnic-national relevance of the discipline. With the Afrikaner nation vulnerable to the triple threat of communism, capitalism and egalitarianism, PIRSA insisted that psychological research be dedicated towards (...) addressing these and other dangers. In the 1970s, however, such appeals became less prominent as discussions of South African issues slipped off the agenda. Curiously, at a time when the apartheid state was in decline, PIRSA’s psychologists were concerned with everything but the survival of Afrikanerdom. The unraveling of PIRSA’s quest for ethnic-national relevance mirrored the disintegration of the state’s apartheid rationality, which resulted from a concatenation of political, economic and cultural upheavals. (shrink)

As a relatively young profession, public relations seeks a realistic ethics foundation. A continuing debate in public relations has pitted journalistic/objectivity ethics against the advocacy ethics that may be more appropriate in an adversarial society. As the journalistic/objectivity influence has waned, the debate has evolved, pitting the advocacy/adversarial foundation against the two-way symmetrical model of public relations, which seeks to build consensus and holds that an organization itself, not an opposing public, sometimes may need to change to build a productive (...) relationship. A similar battle between adversarial advocacy and symmetry occurred during the emergence of rhetoric in the Athens of the 4th century B.C. Plato and Aristotle favored adversarial/advocacy rhetoric, whereas Isocrates favored a symmetrical rhetoric. Four criteria of comparison of those rhetorics are examined: success of the respective schools, success of the respective graduates, the evaluation of later Roman rhetoricians, and the impact on the future of education. History shows that Isocrates's symmetrical rhetoric clearly was more effective than its adversarial/advocacy rivals. Recent studies of the two-way symmetrical model concur, indicating that it may well be the most effective foundation for public relations ethics. (shrink)

College writing classes are the ideal site for teaching argument. Writing students develop arguments with a frequency and insistence not present in other disciplines. Typically, however, when their curricula include reasoning instruction, composition courses over-emphasize deductive syllogisms and en-thymemes. Inductive logic, the recognition of a pattern within a data set or an ampliative inference, is more useful in composition, and an effective composition curriculum makes ample room for the study and prac-tice of inductive arguments.

Our aim was to employ a critical analytic lens to explicate the role of nursing research in supporting the notion of caring realities. To do this, we used case exemplars to illustrate the infusion of such discourses. The first exemplar examines the fundamental concept of caring: using Florence Nightingale's Notes on Nursing, the case study surfaces caring as originally grounded in ritualized practice and subsequently describes its transmutation, via competing discourses, to a more holistic concept. It is argued that in (...) the many and varied attempts to define the dynamic concept of care, caring has now become paradoxically, a more fragmented concept despite attempts to render it more holistic and inclusive. In the second exemplar, one of the authors draws on her personal experience of the gap between theory and practice, so pronounced that it pushed the author to revisit the concept of evidence‐based practice and nursing education. In our third and final exemplar, we refer to the absence of knowledge and practice generated through natural enquiry and curiosity, an absence which has led to production of corporate led rhetoric. Drawing together the central arguments of the three exemplars, we reflect on the influential role of nursing research in enabling the deconstruction of taken for granted assumptions such as caring, evidence‐based practice and empowerment; assumptions which have been generated by discourses riddled with confusion and alienation from the reality of practice and the natural spirit of professional enquiry. (shrink)

The paper first presents a short survey of ancient and modern logical, rhetorical and argumentative approaches (e.g. Aristotle, Quintilian, Quine, Anscombre and Ducrot) studying the properties of paradoxical utterances. This survey is followed by a tentative definition of paradoxes as seemingly contradictory utterances triggering conversational implicatures in the sense of Grice. A specific group of paradoxes, namely, persuasive paradoxes, is further characterized by the specific implicatures which they trigger: the implicatures of persuasive paradoxes serve the interest of the (political) speaker (...) because they either convey a sharp criticism of the political opponent(s) or praise the political activities of the speaker in a highly effective way.The second part of the paper takes a corpus of about 80 paradoxical utterances from Cicero's speeches to show how they are used 1. for a devastating criticism of Cicero's political enemies, 2. a milder form of criticism in the case of his friends, when their political activities have failed, 3. a praise of successful policies of Cicero and his political friends and 4. a defense of unsuccessful activities started by Cicero and his friends. (shrink)

The goal of the text was to indicate the image characteristics of an author of a verbal expression which were communicated through expressing generalising judgements, and to establish the difference between such generalisations depending on the given image characteristic. I used constructivism as the leading theory. In terms of methodology, I applied mixed methods: quantitative and discourse analysis. The analysis indicated that generalisations are used for communicating the characteristics of: intelligent, critical, bluntly states her/his bold judgements, insightful, writes in an (...) interesting way, realist, frank, while the receivers assign some of the characteristics depending on the degree of evaluation emphasis, reference to a taboo, utilisation of negation, and expressions using the 1st person plural. (shrink)

Stasis is a process of classical rhetoric that identifies the core issue in a trial or a similar debate. Hermagoras of Temnos included the first comprehensive analysis of stasis in his second-century BCE treatise on rhetoric, now lost. Modern scholars tend to echo George Kennedy, who maintains that Hermagoras’ inspiration for the hierarchical structure of stasis is indeterminate. This article, however, employs scholarship in legal semiotics, including the work of Miklós Könczöl and Bernard S. Jackson, to argue that Hermagoras based (...) stasiastic structure on Aristotle’s first-figure syllogism. Ideally, knowledge of that structure can enhance modern applications of stasis. (shrink)

_Discusses philosophers Mencius and Aristotle as socio-ecological thinkers._ Mencius (385–303/302 BCE) and Aristotle (384–322 BCE) were contemporaries, but are often understood to represent opposite ends of the philosophical spectrum. Mencius is associated with the ecological, emergent, flowing, and connected; Artistotle with the rational, static, abstract, and binary. Douglas Robinson argues that in their conceptions of rhetoric, at least, Mencius and Aristotle are much more similar than different: both are powerfully socio-ecological, espousing and exploring collectivist thinking about the circulation of energy (...) and social value through groups. The agent performing the actions of _pistis_, “persuading-and-being-persuaded,” in Aristotle and _zhi_, “governing-and-being-governed,” in Mencius is, Robinson demonstrates, not so much the rhetor as an individual as it is the whole group. Robinson tracks this collectivistic thinking through a series of comparative considerations using a theory that draws impetus from Arne Naess’s “ecosophical” deep ecology and from work on rhetoric powered by affective ecologies, but with details of the theory drawn equally from Mencius and Aristotle. (shrink)