Exploring the Origins of Rhetoric and Sophistry in Historical Context

Is modern communication leaving us more divided than ever? What can the writings of ancient philosophers teach us about persuasion? How can ancient wisdom illuminate today's polarized political discourse?

Robin Reames is an associate professor of English at the University of Illinois Chicago. She is also an author and co-author. Her latest book is titled, The Ancient Art of Thinking For Yourself: The Power of Rhetoric in Polarized Times.

Robin and Greg discuss the topic of spontaneous speaking. Robin's expertise leads us through the historical corridors of Grecian sophists, as we ponder whether a meticulously scripted statement can ever match the raw resonance of impromptu oratory. Together, Robin and Greg examine the power dynamics embedded in everyday language, underscoring the transformative potential of rhetoric to foster critical thinking and elevate public debate. 

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

 How studying rhetoric makes you a toughest customer

41:58: One of the effects of studying rhetoric is that you become a tougher customer, but not because there's something you're clinging to, not because there's some idea that you've decided is absolutely correct, fixed, and immovable, but because you can see how the sausage is made in the language. You can see how the persuasion is attempting to gain your credence and your conviction, and it makes it harder for you to persuade. That was the whole idea of creating an art where those techniques and moves are given names, and we can learn the names, and when we learn the names, we can identify when they happen in the language. Well, all of a sudden, it just demystifies it. I'm noticing that the language is making me feel angry, right? And rather than just assume that that's because the language is telling me something that's true in the world, I'm noticing, oh, this is the language that made me feel angry. Why did that make me feel angry? What in the language provoked that response, right? Those are the sorts of things that happen when you learn to identify the skills of rhetoric

Language can never give you reality

25:09: Language can never give you reality itself. It can only package it in a way that makes it recognizable to you.

Language on autopilot

46:17: To be a language user is, in many ways, to be on autopilot, but it is possible also, as a rhetorical language user, to be on autopilot and also to recognize the effects of that, to see how the effects of that work their way into our way of seeing and viewing the world and understanding and responding to it.

Analyzing arguments as arguments, not political alignments

32:02: It is possible, through using a mechanism like rhetoric, which was designed to have great utility in political discourse, to think about arguments as arguments and language as language, political arguments and political language as political arguments and political language, as opposed to thinking of them entirely in terms of whether they originate from the right or the left, whether I agree with them because I'm on the right or the left. Rhetorical thinking is about thinking language in other terms, in the terms that are supplied by the rhetorical tradition. The way the rhetorical tradition developed over the course of its long, centuries-long, millennia-long life was by noticing, cataloging, and naming the moves that happen in language.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• Techne
• Aristotle
• Rhetoric
• Plato
• Socrates
• Sophist
• Alcidamas
• Gorgias
• Protagoras
• Homer
• Kenneth Burke
• Stephen Toulmin
• Hannah Arendt
• Aspasia

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at the University of Illinois Chicago

Her Work:

• Amazon Author Page
• The Ancient Art of Thinking For Yourself: The Power of Rhetoric in Polarized Times
• Seeming and Being in Plato’s Rhetorical Theory
• The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present