Schoeck's Practical Tradition notes

Richard J. Schoeck
The Practical Tradition of Classical Rhetoric
In Rhetoric and Praxis, Ed Jean Dietz Moss, 23-41
1986, The Catholic University of America Press
Washington, D.C.
24 “…[T]he art of rhetoric is one of our oldest and most enduring inheritances from the classical period, and it has never lost its usefulness or its relevance to the widest possible spectrum of problems and situations in a long sequence of changing societies.”
Riff: it has been of use for thousands of years, it still will be of use; regardless of how people may respond to the names and labels given to it, it would be silly to ignore its importance and applications.

25 “During the long stretch of time from its beginnings twenty-five centures ago until today, rhetoric has always been thought to be highly practical, and the rleation between the theory and practice of rhetoric and the society it serves is one which will tell us much about the value that society puts upon rhetoric, recognizing its need and its potential value—especiially in the estimation of the individual’s capacity and responsibility for making decisions and responding rationally to eloquence.”
Riff: tradition of being highly practical and valued; link to paideia as not just part of Greek culture, but also of the educational tradition of the west; it has been highly valued, like rhetorical skill, and needs to be attended to (this may be weak, but it’s worth thinking about).

25 rhetoric as one of most practical application because it develops three kinds of eloquence:
Judicial; deliberative; panegyrical/epideictic

29 Cites a professor Michel that from Greek rhetoric flowed two modes of enquiry that must be distinguished: dialogue and manual (Phaedrus and Aristotle’s Rhetorica) [near word for word here]
Riff: Does this mean that the two most basic modes for persuasion were initially the dialogue and manual? It would seem that was what Michel is stating. Then again, it is a how-to and a let’s talk. Part of me wonders if this not also be one of the reasons why how-to/DIY shows are so popular—the manual—and talk shows/dialogue are so popular. Do they go back to cultural patterns which are so familiar that we embrace them without thinking about them too much?
30 Quintilian stressed that “…the first essential of a perfect orator was that he be a good man…”
Riff: that begs the question what is a good man? This appears to link to the importance of being in integrity with yourself and your ideas so that what you have to say has ethos, has credibility, and rings as true isntead of setting off the bullshit detectors.
30-34 Because Cicero and Quintilian’s works influenced the construction of arguments used in courts and in gov’ts (see essay again for particulars laid out there) as well as later impact in the construction of sermons in the Christian religion, rhetoric has been a very vital, active, practical and engaged tool in the construction of society and cultures. In short, people in positions of power and influence used and adapated classical rhetorical methods to their own circumstances and situations of power/institutions and created their own using these same tools.
These are patterns of thinking/construction/ argumentation throughout western thought.
40 Rhetoric: another defintion
“…it is the use of language which comes into being in response to human needs, which is born out of the urgencies of a particular human situation in a moment of history, which forms uniquely the expression and discovers the necessary means and form for the confrontation of human beings with other human beings and then moves through language and rhetoric toward understanding each of the other.”
Riff: wow. Use this. Think about it.

Kinneavy's Kairos: Neglected notes

James L. Kinneavy
Kairos: A Neglected Concept in Classical Rhetoric
In Rhetoric and Praxis, Ed Jean Dietz Moss, 79-105
1986, The Catholic University of America Press
Washington, D.C

80 Goal of essay to assert importance of Kairos in contemporary theory of composition and provide an extended def of Kairos
“…provisionally it might be defined as the right or opportune time to do something, or right measure in doing something. Often the two notions are joined…”
Riff: save and mark this defintion. It is important.

81 presocratic ethic Kairon gnothi: know the opportunity
81 kairos important to pre-socratics, esp. Pythagoereans
Kairos as the most important thing in every action; a low of the universe [go back for exact citation]
Gorgias: made Kairos conernerstone of his work and efforts

82 Kairos merged with prepon (propriety or fitness) in Stoicism
Dominating concept in Cicero’s ethics/rhetoric
82-3 Four scholars who helped bring Kairos back:
Augusto Rostagni; Doro Levi; Mario Untersteiner; Paul Tillich
83 situational context is modern term for Kairos
84 “…some consideration in any rhetorical theory must be given to the issue raised by the concept of kairos—the appropriateness of the discourse to the particular circumstances of the time, place, speaker, and audience involved.”

85 two basic elements in Greek kairos: right timing and the principle of a proper measure
87 kairos linked to ethics and justice (pythagoras, especially)
89 referring to Pindar, kairos was the critical moment of a story and building around that
92 Kairos linked to education in classical Greek world
Education was oriented to training people for life in the polis
“the importance of the city was the common bond of humanity that it afforded those living together and the strangers who visited them.”
Essence of polis: freed and the ability to persuade/be persuaded. Given this, education to the life of polis is heavily grounded in persuasion and kairos.
93 “Kairos, the god, was thus symbolically linked to the public educaiton program that prepared the young man for initiation into citizenship—the program, incidentally, dominated by rhetoric.”
94 Kinneavy wrote “Freshman English: An American Rite of Passage” in 1977
98 incorporating kairos means including consideration of the ethics of a situation, evaluating the values of a specific situational context
Thus, the Ss should write about ethical concerns of their interests and career choices
Ethical consequences are both social and individual
102 “Each profession as a subculture has a rhetorical obligation to alert the culture as a whole to new benefits and to new dangers.”
“And the rhetoric of the discipline means the ability to address the populace in persuasive language that will be listened to.”
103 “There is no more immediate application of the principle of kairos than establishing a real audience distinct from the classroom situation.”

Paideia/ Jaeger: Vol 3 Ch 3

Read for 5364
Print out of scan
Need to get page numbers

Jaeger defines rhetoric:

"RHETORIC is, to begin with, an instrument of practical politics. But as soon as it is able to formulate ideals of statesmanship, it becomes the representative of a political form of culture."

Useful to have a collection of definitions of rhetoric. Interesting that it is inherently linked to politics.

"Again and again, Isocrates stresses the point that for the speaker or writer everything depends on the greatness of the subject with which he has to deal."

Note the above; put into a collection of writing tips/notes.
This could also be used in an FYC course. It is a good way to focus on the topic and the interesting, or not, nature of the materials.


For Isocrates, the subject of rhetoric had to always be political, i.e. centered on the polis, the community, and that which helped or hurt the community.

"The new partnership between culture and awakening national sentiment is immortalized in the Panegyrics of Isocrates."

"It is his [Isocrates'] faith in the unique mission of Athenian culture that is triumphant in his philosophy of history, and above all in his interpretation of hte legendary past. Isocrates' nationalistic ideology (in which Athens is the founder of all civilization), along with all the other ideas implicit in his paideia, was later taken over by humanism as part of its general view of history."

In short, it appears that humanists swallowed Isocrates vision/view of Athens as the source of civilization. Given the current acceptance and roots of this in western culture, he appears to have been quite successful.

"It is deeply interesting to see how Isocrates again and again conceives the essence of culture as a purposeless intellectual and spiritual activity--an ideal parallel to that of the gymnastic contests. Rhetoric does not define; it represents, through contrast and comparison. And so, although rhetoricians constantly extol its pracical usefulness for the community, its real meaning continues to be epideixis--the speaker's display of his own intellectual powers: an activity of which no barbarian ever feels himself in need."

Another definition of rhetoric.
The role of culture. It is interesting that it is the process of culture, not the end result, which has the emphasis. Similarly, it is interesting that the emphasis excludes the physical.


"Every useful attempt to raise the condition of mankind, whatever be its content, must take its form from language; and so the logos, in its double sense of 'speech' and 'reason', becomes for Isocrates the symbolon, the 'token' of culture. That was a happy conception: it assured rhetoric of its place, and made the rhetorician the truest representative of culture."

Western emphasis on importance of rhetor/language?

Quote from Isocrates:

"'The man who shares our paideia is a Greek in a higher sense than he who only shares our blood."

"But he [Isocrates] believes that intellectual nationalism is nobler than racial nationalism."

"In fact, that ideal contains a higher justification for the new national imperialism, in that it identifies what is specifically Greek with what is universally human. This is not actually said by Isocrates; and some may object to our interpretation. But the only meaning that can possibly be given to the universal exaltation of Greek paideia which fills Isocrates' thought is this: the Greeks, through the logos, over which they naturally have command, have revealed to other nations a principle which they too must recognize and adopt because its value is independent of race--the idea of paideia, of culture."

Jaeger Paideia Vol 3 Ch 2

Read for 5364; notes from a print out of scanned text; relocate page numbers

Rivals rhetoric and philosophy are rooted in poetry (46)

for Isocrates, rhetoric was the best solution to the post-Periclean age

Discussion and persuasion as a way to handle all of the chaos.

Isocrates sought, like platonic Socrates, to

"initiate much-needed reformation in some other way than by entering an active career as an orator in the assemblies and the law courts."

Consider using the above in terms of addressing/ applying paideia or expanding it outside of the schools and working in non-traditional environments of gyms, dojos, etc.

"The new rhetoric had to find an ideal which could be ethically interpreted and which at the same time could be translated into practical political action."

In Isocrates, form and content were inseperable.

Isocrates attacked philosophers for not trusting their own students.

"Perfect eloquence must be the individual expression of a single critical moment, a kairos, and its highest law is that it should be wholly appropriate. Only by observing these two rules can it succeed in being new and original."

Note this in order to attempt to improve my own work.

"Naturally, Isocrates' view of the educational value of rhetoric is defined by this conception of its true character. Being an act of creation, oratory in its highest ranges cannot possibly be taught like a school subject. And yet he holds that it can be employed to educate young men: because of his own peculiar view of the relation between the three factors which, according to the pedagogic theories of the sophists, are the foundation of all education. They are: (1) talent, (2) study, and (3) practice."

This could be compared to martial arts training--how similar are current teachers/schools in their applications? How distant? Has much changed?

"For Iscorates, the real difficulty of rhetoric is in the "right choice, commixture, and placing of the 'ideas' on each subject, in the selection of the correct moment, in the good taste and appropriateness with which the speech is decorated with enthymemes, and in the rhythmic and musical disposition of the words."

Use the above for me. Refer to these writing tips again.

"Here, the general Greek idea, that education is the process by which the whole man is shipaed, is enunciated independently of Plato, and variously expounded in such imagery as 'model' or 'patttern', 'stamp', 'imitate.' The real problem is how this process of 'shaping' can be converted from a beautiful image into a practical reality--that is, what is to be the method of forming the human character, and ultimately what is the nature of the human intellect."

Greeks on education as interpreted by Jaeger. Important

"For him [Isocrates], rhetorical training is worked out simply by Opinion, not by Knowledge. But he frequently claims that the intellect possesses an aesthetic and practical faculty which, without claiming absolute knolwedge, can still choose the right means and the right end. His whole conception of culture is based on that aesthetic power."

I am not sure what to do with this, but it seems important.

"The superiority of rhetoric, as Isocrates conceives it, is that it is entirely political culture. All that it has to do to attain spiritual leadership in the state is to find a new approach to life and its problems."

Rhet bashes philosophy. Bomb to drop.

Article: Oswyn Murray "Classical Tradition and the Creation of Values"

Read this article for 5364 in relation to Isocrates.

Murray attempts to link Jaeger and his book on Paideia to the rise of Hitler. Weak discussion, weak proof.

Acknowledges duality/dualism of classical tradition:

"Here it seems is the ultimate meaning of the ancient quarrel between thetoric and philosophy; for the classical tradition has a double heritage of conformism and liberation, embodied in these two traditions. We can construct any view of the relation between education and power out of selective use of the past. But in brining the past to bear on the present we must be careful of what we are doing: what future do we want?"

Mentions a call to the classics like a religious experience.

Asserts that "the idea that the study of the classics was once widespread elsewhee [not in Italy] is an exaggeration: only perhaps in the period from 1850 to 1914 was this even remotely true for most western countries."


While riffing on the specialized knowledge necessary to study the classics:

"Yet there is a dangerous confusion here: because special knowledge is required to understand a discipline, that does not imply that the discipline is necessarily a secret in the possession of a group of the elect. Skill may be difficult and confined to a small group, without in any way creating secret knolwedge with a higher status."

Classical tradition as providing both access to esoteric truths and as being a weapon against orthodoxy.

"In the 21st century, when most forms of intellectual persecution are at least temporarily in abeyance, our answer to this question of the continuing purpose of the classical tradition must be to consider how far its traditional function as a counter-culture is still useful; in what should that counte-culture consist, and how can we distinguish it from the idea of an esoteric sect with secret wisdom?"


"The advantage of the humanist tradition is that it has a wide range of influence on action, and sufficient flexibility to engender new solutions from within its intellectual framework."

"Similarly, we do not passively recieve that which is handed on to us. A living tradition works like influence: it is we who take from the past, not the past which dictates to us. And a living tradition will therefore always and wilfully reinterpret the past, shape it to its own expectations and needs. For such reasons I do not believe that the future of humanism is in any danger at all."

Potential uses:

Role of humanities in 21st century for broad overview
Apply last quote to the application of paideia and expanding it beyond the traditional notion of school reform (20th century)
Value of dual traditions, tensions between rhet/phil and esoteric vs. counter-culture mirrors Lanham's notions of oscillation

Selting: Conversations with Technical Writing Teachers: Defining a Problem

Selting, Bonita R. “Conversations with Technical Writing Teachers: Defining a Problem.” TCQ, Summer 2002, vol 11, no. 3 (251-266)

A teacher lore based discussion of the standard positions held on just how much technology and software to teach in the TW classroom. The key issue: how to balance instruction in rhetoric, editing, writing, and reading of the documents with familiarity with the actual tools (software and hardware) that students will use in the TW jobs. Related: what should have a priority since some skills and not others can carry over in to other fields—especially since not every student in a TW course is going to be a TW. 261

Few deny the importance and role of technology, but nobody seems sure of just how to make sure the students obtani the necessary set of skills and abilities they need. Some folks spend minimal class time on it; others teach students, others have students teach students and still other think students should learn it elsewhere. 258

The machine and software is taught by some as an integral art of the course and is engaged with rhetorically.260

Most useful, I thought, was that some instructors incorporate the writing of instructions for software to context-specific applications. This seems to engage both the rhetorical concerns as well as the students' need to develop their familiarity with software. 262

Author: too many folks treat the issue as not problematic too regularly. 263

Get Selber, Stuart. “Beyond Skill Building: Challenges Facing Technical Communication Teachers in the Computer Age.” TCQ 3 (1994): 365-90.

Rich: A Rhetoric of Fitness: Persuasion and Perspiration

Rich, Susanna. “A Rhetoric of Fitness: Persuasion and Perspiration.” Et cetera. Fall 1996. 266-274.

Very accessible voice—not formal academic.
267 cites three rhetorical routines on contemporary fitness: divide and conquer; measure up

267 forms of measurement: time; weight; counts from a trainer; numbers of reps; heart rate
268 states a core message is More, Farther, Faster, Now
268-9 the pressure generates/ results in a form of dependence upon externals like videos, gyms etc
270 “Instead of getting into it, we are always struggling to get it over with.”
271 fitness conversations are one way, from the instructor or trainer down to the person—it is not a dialogue
272 we are isolated from one another; genders are often isolated; muscles are often isolated for development (spot exercises)

273 sisyphus as model for current fitness programs
274 put out makes us self-conscious and dependent
divide and conuer keeps us vulnerable and malleable
measure up helps to calculate and collocate thousands of clients.
we are meant to work for the programs, they are not meant to work for us (almost literal quote)