Aristotle
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1efF9BTnHYlW5d01ivrBtarrq_zhgIFB_gkc-nAvPJ_w/edit
13. What is an enthymeme?
(Kai) Per text and glossary: a rhetorical syllogism (or reasoning) and is a function of dialectic. A statement with a supporting reason introduced by for, because, since, or an if... then statement. The premises and conclusion are ordinarily probable, not necessarily logically valid.
14. What is a paradigm?
(Kai) Per text and glossary: an inductive argument. To produce logical persuasion, one must use a paradigm (by inducing) or enthymeme (by syllogizing). Paradigms are meant to show if some premises are true, the conclusion beyond them results from these because they are true, either universally or for the most part.
15. "Since the persuasive is persuasive to someone ... no art examines the particular.... neither does rhetoric theorize about each opinion. . . but about what seems true to people of a certain sort." (41). What can you say about the above passage?
(Kai) I believe Aristotle is making a similarity between rhetoric and art (the art of a practice like medicine) when it comes to an audience. The example he uses is "for example, the art of medicine does not specify what is healthful for Socrates or Callias but for persons of a certain sort." He means that medicine is not specifically looking to cure Socrates or Callias but is broadly looking at how to cure people. In terms of rhetoric, one should focus on the broad, general audience than the individual as "particulars are limitless and not knowable." To be persuasive to an audience (by using paradigms or enthymemes), one must look at the type of audience that they will be speaking to and what commonalities they have (" a certain sort"). After analyzing the audience that they will be capturing, they then leverage what type of rhetoric (examples, voice, tone, delivery, words, reasoning, etc.) would best persuade them.
16. Comment on the following quotation: "[Rhetoric's] function is concerned with the sort of things we debate and for which we do not have other arts and among such listeners as are not able to see many things all together or to reason from a distant starting point. And we debate about things that seem to be capable of admitting two possibilities; for no one debates things incapable of being different either in past or future or present, at least not if they suppose that to be the case; for there is nothing more to say. . . thus it is necessary for an enthymeme and a paradigm to be concerned with things that are for the most part capable of being other than they are" (41-2).
(Kai) From my interpretation, the text is saying that rhetoric is concerned with situations that cannot be proven through other means. Artistotle uses the word art which I believe would mean sciences and such in this case. Since it is not provable through exact means, it leaves these "things" up in the air. Debate (or discourse) then steps in to sort what best course of action, decision, framework, etc. would work best in the given instance or situation. Once a path has been chosen, one must then use rhetoric to persuade the everyday people of this (the audience). The speaker utilizes paradigm and enthymeme in their rhetoric to effectively persuade.