Elements of Rhetoric; Comprising the Substance of the Article in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, with Add

by Richard Whately

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370 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1963

About the author

English rhetorician, logician, economist, academic and theologian who also served as a reforming Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin. He was a leading Broad Churchman, a prolific and combative author over a wide range of topics. Whately was an important figure in the revival of Aristotelian logic in the early nineteenth century. Whately's view of rhetoric as essentially a method for persuasion became an orthodoxy, challenged in mid-century by Henry Noble Day.

Reviews

[Jake Yaniak · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very useful work on the art of persuasion. It is a huge help insofar as it teaches you how to organize your arguments in a strictly logical way. The only problem, and it is not a problem with the book, is that you cannot make other people see reason. But a study of Rhetoric will at least allow you to put your best foot forward. Even if you are not understood, and even if your arguments are ignored and ridiculed, you will know (for yourself) that you treated your subject matter fairly.
What is truly remarkable about Richard Whately is his ability as an educator to truly accept the formal nature of logic and rhetoric. He is able to distance himself from the subject matter enough to really impress upon the reader that he is teaching a science and an art, not giving you conclusions. He certainly has his prejudices and his presuppositions, and they certainly appear in this book, but he NEVER lets them cloud the subject - he never lets them interfere with the reader's ability to learn.

[Michael Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whately's work is an important contribution to the art of Rhetoric, an investigation that begins with Plato in the Gorgias and continues to this day, especially with the important works of Brian Vicker (1998), Paolo Valesio (1980), Victor Vitanza (2011). What might a contemporary reader come to expect from Whately's book?

1. Whately is a clergyman so you will encounter an "ecclesiastical rhetoric." The primary reason, excepting always the Body and Blood of Our Lord and Savior, for going to church is the sermon. A gifted clergyman is a gifted orator, working persuasive sermons on his audience. No one cares to attend a church if the oratory is neither provocative nor stimulating. Nietzsche, for all his faults, was correct when he revealed how sermons tend to alienate people. Rather than providing a purpose for our actions, sermons today tend to do the work of doctors and nurses, consoling our troubled souls. Church has now become just another modern "hospital" for the disturbed minds in attendance.

2. At the time of this writing, Whately was concerned with arming the clergyman with all the weapons necessary for dealing with those who are illiterate. Today vast numbers of people are illiterate because "unchurched." The attitude of those who are unchurched is to see only senseless ceremony, thereby missing the true vitality of truth expressed in the sermon. Perhaps one person in a hundred can name an excellent sermon. The only exception is "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," by Jonathan Edwards, a remarkable rhetorical composition on all levels.

3. The editor of this fine volume has his own way with Dame Rhetoric. Rather than stating the Rhetoric is the art of persuading the unlettered with powerful arguments, he writes that Rhetoric is "reasoned discourse...governed by conclusions that follow from premises according to the laws of logic." How eighteenth-century, yet how civilized in our current barbarism.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whately introduces the purpose of his Elements as “to treat of ‘argumentative composition,’ … considering Rhetoric (in conformity with the very just and philosophical view of Aristotle) as an off-shoot from Logic” (16). The subsequent text is divided into four primary sections: “conviction,” “persuasion,” “style,” and “elocution.” Keeping with his notion of rhetoric as logic’s “off-shoot,” Whately begins his conviction section by identifying rhetoric with “the process of conveying truth to others by reasoning” (33). Because logical reasoning is not always persuasive, rhetoric follows logical investigation, taking up the task of representing that investigation in a manner aimed at producing conviction. Given its connection with logic, the conviction section thus focuses primarily on the invention and arrangement of inductive and deductive logical proofs. Whately defines “persuasion” as “the art of influencing the Will,” and his persuasion section treats proofs that would fall under the Aristotelian headings of “ethos” and “pathos” (135). On the morality of pathetic appeals, Whately sides with Campbell rather than Aristotle: “there can be no Persuasion without an address to the Passions” (137). Whately turns next to style, treating--in descending order of priority--“perspicuity,” “energy,” and “eloquence.” For Whately, “energy” encompasses the “Choice,” “Number,” and “Arrangement” of words, and thus tropes and figures, and is preferable to eloquence if a choice between the two must be made (192). In his final section, “On Elocution,” Whately expresses admiration for, but primarily argues against, Thomas Sheridan’s highly systematic approach to elocution (261). Whately prefers the “natural manner” (272). Throughout the text, he cites copious classical and biblical examples and takes numerous opportunities offer rhetorical examples supporting Christianity and connecting his points to the art of preaching.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

The founder of the (sarcastic boo, hiss) current-traditionalist method of writing. But you know what? He was actually pretty tough ol' Commonsenser. Yeah, he separates and prioritizes reasoning, but it's kind of a move to incorporate reasoning in rhetoric by making it so important. In fact, says that rhetoric is a subspecies of logic. Do you know who else says that? 1996 MLA O'Shaughnessy Prize winner James Crosswhite. Hmm.

Bit annoying to read, in some places because he is trying to teach future-preacher undergrads. The chapter on elocution reminded me of a whole world that I don't often think of as part of my discipline but what hugely influential for a hundred years.