Category Archives: Rhetoric

Paul Echoes Aristotle on Friendship

24__Paul_the_ApostleReading Aristotle’s Rhetoric II.4 on “friendship” is like reading an expanded version of  the Apostle Paul’s 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, which reads:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

2__AristotleIt is not hard to show that every single phrase in this Bible passage alludes to some portion of that section from Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Read more here: Rhetoric 2.4 & I Cor 13.

Either the Apostle Paul knew his Aristotle, or they have a nearly identical understanding of the love between friends.

Rhetoric-2.4-I-Cor-13

Shakespeare’s Use of the Liberal Arts: Rhetoric

81Few4FQ9cL[1]In her invaluable book Shakespeare’s Use of the Arts of Language, Sister Miriam Joseph tells us that, according to Shakespeare scholar T. W. Baldwin, William Shakespeare “was trained in the heroic age of grammar school rhetoric in England, and he shows knowledge of the complete system, in its most heroic proportions. He shows a grasp of the theory as presented by the various texts through Quintilian.” In fact, a contemporary reported that Shakespeare was a country schoolmaster before he came to London, and at that time the grammar school would have significantly familiarized him with the arts of language.  Many passages in Shakespeare’s plays show such a familiarity with the technical vocabulary of rhetoric. Continue reading Shakespeare’s Use of the Liberal Arts: Rhetoric

Defining Terms from Birmingham Jail

A good introductory logic course will discuss the importance of defining terms in any argument. One clear demonstration of using definition in argument is Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” a letter which King directed at Christian pastors in Alabama in 1963 defending his campaign of nonviolent direct action. Continue reading Defining Terms from Birmingham Jail

10 Ways to Thwart Copiousness

  1.  Be too cool to ask questions or learn anything new.
  2.  Try not to think hard, but if you must think, compartmentalize your thoughts.
  3.  Spend your free time indoors staring at a screen.
  4.  Fear ideas that differ from your own, and never read anything you disagree with.
  5.  Only be friends with people your own age who think like you.
  6.  Avoid people who know more than you.
  7.  Have no heroes.
  8.  Never travel far from home, but if you must, stay only in comfortable places.
  9.  Never think through what the Bible says about anything.
  10.  Never pray.

HT: Brian Daigle.

If you are interested in 10 ways to increase copiousness, you might be interested in Fitting Words. Continue reading 10 Ways to Thwart Copiousness

#20 – Failure and Success

“If at first you don’t succeed then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.” – Steven Wright

“We are never defeated unless we give up on God” – Ronald Reagan

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” – Michelangelo Buonarroti

“By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.” – Ben Franklin

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value” – Albert Einstein

#19 – More Christmas

“Santa Claus has the right idea: visit people only once a year.” – Victor Borge

“Roses are reddish, violets are bluish. If it weren’t for Christmas, we’d all be Jewish.” – Benny Hill

“When we were children, we were grateful for those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?” – G. K. Chesterton

“Most people want Jesus as a consultant rather than a king.” – Timothy Keller

Four More Informal Fallacies

Formal logic gives us standards by which we can distinguish good reasoning from poor reasoning. Most often, when someone reasons poorly, they are not making an error in formal reasoning, but rather sidetracking their hearers with an informal fallacy. Informal fallacies are less structured errors made in the everyday use of language.

The Introductory Logic text identifies eighteen different types of fallacies, but of course there are many more ways to go wrong than that. My new rhetoric text Fitting Words includes a few popular fallacies not included in Introductory logic. Let me summarize them. Continue reading Four More Informal Fallacies

#18 – On Christmas

“It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty founder was a child Himself.” – Charles Dickens

“Christmas is the only time of the year when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ” – Bart Simpson

“When death is thick upon the world, our lives are thick with play. We laugh because there is something that death does not know or cannot remember. That is Christmas.” – Nate Wilson

“There was only one Christmas; the rest are anniversaries.” – W. J. Cameron

 

#17 – On Reading

“Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.” – Edmund Burke

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.” – Attributed to Mark Twain

“Outside of a dog a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx