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Rhetoric Study Guide

Which subjects make up the Trivium?
Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric
Which subjects make up the Quadrivium?
Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astronomy
What is Logic?
The art of thinking
What is Grammar?
The art of inventing symbols and combining them to express thought
What is Rhetoric?
The art of communicating thought from one mind to another, the adaptation of language to circumstance
What are the three classes of goods?
Valuable, Useful, and Pleasurable goods
What are Valuable goods?
Valuable goods are those which are not only desired for their own sake but which increase the intrinsic worth of their possessor; knowledge, virtue, and health are valuable goods
What are Useful goods?
Useful goods are those which are desired because they enable one to acquire valuable goods; food, medicine, money, tools, and books are useful goods
What are Pleasurable goods?
Pleasurable goods are those which are desired for their own sake because of the satisfaction they give their possessor; happiness, and honorable reputation, social prestige, flowers, and savory food are pleasurable goods
How can we define a liberal art?
Each of the liberal arts is both a science and an art in the sense that in the province of each there is something to know (science) and something to do (art)
How can we define the Trivium?
The Trivium is the organon, or instrument, of all education at all levels because the arts of logic, grammar, and rhetoric are the arts of communication itself in that they govern the means of communication--namely, reading, writing, speaking, and listening
How can we define communication?
Communication, as the etymology of the word signifies, results in something possessed in common; it is a oneness shared. Communication takes place only when two minds really meet.
Which of the liberal arts is the master art?
Rhetoric is the master art of the Trivium, for it presupposes and makes use of grammar and logic; it is the art of communicating through symbols ideas about reality
What is the function of rhetoric?
The adaptation of language to circumstance
What are the functions of language?
Communicating thought, volition, and emotion
What is volition?
Volition, or appetition, may be expressed by cries or exclamations, as when a baby cries or a dog barks for food. Since, however, desires multiply as knowledge increases, humans usually express their desires, choices, and commands in sentences.
What are the different means of communication?
There are possible only two modes of communicating ideas through a physical or material medium--by imitation or symbol
What is an imitation?
An imitation is an artificial likeness, for example: a painting, photograph, cartoon, statue, pantomime, a gesture such as threatening with a clenched fist or rejecting by pushing away with the hands, and picture writing
What is a symbol?
A symbol is an arbitrary sensible sign having a meaning imposed on it by convention. All words are symbols with the exception of a very few imitative or onomatopoeic words, such as boom, buzz, hiss, plop, ticktock
What are common symbols?
Common symbols or words, such as French, German, Chinese, or Greek words, constitute the common languages (one invented by the common people to meet all their needs of communication in the course of life). Common languages are not understood internationally but require translation
What are special symbols?
Special symbols are designed by experts to express with precision ideas in a special field of knowledge, for example: mathematics, chemistry, music. Such special languages are international and do not require translation.
What is the nature of language?
It is the nature of language to communicate through symbols. Language is a system of symbols for expressing our thoughts, volitions, and emotions
How can we define a word?
A word, like every other physical reality, is constituted of matter and form. A word is a symbol.
What is the matter of words?
The matter of words in spoken language is the sound. This aspect of language is treated in phonetics.
What is the matter of language?
Voice. The human voice alone is symbolic, having a meaning imposed upon it by convention.
What is the form of language?
The form of language is meaning. Words can symbolize both individuals and essences. The individual is any physical being that exists. Essence is what makes a being what it is and without which it would not be the kind of thing that it is. Essence is that in an individual which makes it like others in its class, whereas its individuality is that which makes it different from others.
What is a species?
A species is a class made up of two or more different species that have in common the same specific essence or nature.
What is a genus?
A genus is a wider class make up of two or more different species that have in common the same generic essence or nature.
What is an aggregate?
An aggregate or group of individuals must be clearly distinguished from a species or genus. An aggregate is merely a particular group of individuals, such as the trees in Central Park.
Important to note!
A species or a genus always signifies a class nature or essence and includes all the individuals of every place and time having that nature and essence. On the other hand, an aggregate is a particular group of individuals that may or may not have the same essence or class nature; but in either case, the aggregate does not include all the members that have that nature.
How do we create a concept?
First the external senses operate on an object present before us and produce a precept. The internal senses, primarily the imagination, produce a phantasm or mental image of the individual object perceived, and this phantasm or mental image of the individual object perceived, and this phantasm is retained an can be reproduced at will in the absence of the object.
What are the external senses?
Sight, hearing, touch, small, and taste.
What are the internal senses?
The imagination, the sensuous memory , the common or central or synthesizing sense, and instinct.
How does the intellect produce concept?
Through abstraction
What is the imagination?
The meeting ground between the senses and the intellect.
What is a general concept?
A general concept is a universal idea existing only in the mind but having its foundation outside the mind in the essence which exists in the individual and makes it the kind of thing it is.
What is a percept?
The image created by the external senses upon encountering reality
What is a phantasm?
The mental image created by the internal sense, primarily the imagination.
What is a concept?
The abstraction created by the intellect through recognition of he essence.
Why is a general concept universal?
Because it is the knowledge of the essence present equally in every member of the class, regardless of time, place, or individual differences.
What is the difference between a concept and a real object?
The real object and likewise the corresponding percept and phantasm, is individual, material, limited to a particular place and time; the concept is universal, immaterial, not limited to a particular place and time.
What are Aristotle's ten categories of being?
Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Action, Passion, When, Where, Posture, and Habiliment
What is substance?
Substance is that which exists in itself, for example, man.
What is quantity?
Quantity is a determination of the matter of substance, giving it parts distinct from parts, for example, tall
What is quality?
Quality is a determination of the nature or form of a substance, for example: dark, handsome, chivalrous, intelligent, athletic
What is relation?
Relation is the reference which a substance or accident bears to another, for example: friend, near
What is action?
Action is the exercise of the faculties or power of a substance so as to produce an effect is something else or in itself, for example: clicking a camera, standing up, smiling
What is passion?
Passion is the reception by a substance of an effect produced by some agent, for example: being invited to return, being drafted
What is "when"?
When is position in relation to the course of extrinsic events which measure the duration of a substance, for example: Sunday afternoon
What is "where"?
Where is position in relation to bodies which surround a substance and measure and determine its place, for example: on a bench, beside the lake
What is posture?
Posture is the relative position which the parts of a substance have toward each other, for example: sitting, leaning forward
What is habiliment?
Habiliment consists of clothing, ornaments, or weapons with which human beings by their art complement their nature in order to conserve their own being or that of the community (the other self), for example: in gray tweeds
Important to note!
These categories can be organized into three subcategories by what they predicate about the subject
What is the predicate?
The predicate is the subject itself. If the predicate is that which is the subject itself and does not exist in the subject, the predicate is a substance. (Suzanne is a human being)
How does the predicate exist?
The predicate exists in the subject. If the predicate exists in the subject absolutely as flowing from matter, the predicate is a quantity