Rhetoric

Rhetoric, in its classical form, has been the art and science of verbal forms of presentation such as the oration or argument. Its objectives were esthetic on the one hand and on the other, by logic or sophistry, to achieve conviction or credence. Rhetoric, for these reasons, was simply dismissed from being a branch of philosophy, or the search for truth, by Plato. However, the mainstrean of Greek, Roman and Hellenistic culture embraced rhetoric and defended it with such notable practitioners as Quintillian and Cicero and theorists beginning with Aristotle. Medieval Christian thinkers made rhetoric one of the hand-maidens to theology and assured its place among the seven liberal arts. In its modern form rhetoric is concerned not only with the genesis of certain verbal forms of presentation, oral and written, for it also affords excellent analytic tools to distinguish between factual and argumentative content in argument and it is inseparably connected with logic and dialectics for this purpose. It has been suggested that the intent to persuade, which gives rise to considerations as to how best to present, is an inherent motivation in all human communications from a monosyllabic cry for help to a lengthy appeal to the minds or consciences of a multitude. In this sense the communications of an infant have their rhetorical aspect. Rhetoric has been insufficiently investigated in this connection and in connection also with non-verbal and animal communication-behaviour.