Aristotle and Confucius on Rhetoric and Truth

The Form and the Way

Haixia Lan (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

228 Seiten

2019
Routledge (Verlag)
978-0-367-88478-9 (ISBN)

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Readings of Aristotle’s and Confucius’ teachings reveal that both philosophers’ rhetorical thinking contain vital similarities which can help us understand cultural differences today. Much has been said about Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric as ‘the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion’ but few studies have

The current study argues that different cultures can coexist better today if we focus not only on what separates them but also on what connects them. To do so, the author discusses how both Aristotle and Confucius see rhetoric as a mode of thinking that is indispensable to the human understanding of the truths of things or dao-the-way, or, how both see the human understanding of the truths of things or dao-the-way as necessarily communal, open-ended, and discursive. Based on this similarity, the author aims to develop a more nuanced understanding of differences to help foster better cross-cultural communication. In making the argument, she critically examines two stereotyped views: that Aristotle’s concept of essence or truth is too static to be relevant to the rhetorical focus on the realm of human affairs and that Confucius’ concept of dao-the-way is too decentered to be compatible with the inferential/discursive thinking. In addition, the author relies primarily on the interpretations of the Analects by two 20th-century Chinese Confucians to supplement the overreliance on renderings of the Analects in recent comparative rhetorical scholarship. The study shows that we need an in-depth understanding of both the other and the self to comprehend the relation between the two.

Haixia W. Lan received her PhD in English from Purdue University with an emphasis on Rhetoric and Composition and Literary Theory. She works at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, teaching writing as a process of learning; theories of rhetorical invention; the grammar, politics, ethics of style; and comparative rhetoric. Her research is in all of these areas, and she is the academic director of 2+2 English degree program.

Introduction: Living the Form and Knowing the Way

Similarities and Differences

Rhetoric and the Other

Rhetoric and Truth

Rhetoric and Sophistry

A Twofold Argument

Translations of Works by Aristotle and Confucius

Chapter One: Aristotle and Rhetorical Invention: A Legacy of Probable Inquiry

Episteme and Techne

Sophistical Reasoning

Dialectical Reasoning

Both Sophistical and Dialectical Reasoning

Classical Rhetoric

Rhetorical Invention Today

Conclusions

Chapter Two: Interpreting the Analects: The Need to Address Rhetorical Invention

Confucius and Rhetoric

Confucius as a Rhetorician

Confucius on Rhetorical Invention

Studies of Confucius’ Analects

Religious and Philosophical Interpretations

Literary Interpretations

Rhetorical Interpretations

Two Approaches

Difficulties with Focusing Exclusively on Differences

Importance of Studying Differences within Cultures

Conclusions

Chapter Three: Rhetorical Probability: Form, Eikos, Tianming, and Rendao

Form and Eikos in Aristotle:

Truth, Form, and Logos

Form, Logos, and Nous

Form, Logos and Pa

Erscheinungsdatum	16.12.2019
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	440 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Altertum / Antike
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie Altertum / Antike
ISBN-10	0-367-88478-X / 036788478X
ISBN-13	978-0-367-88478-9 / 9780367884789
Zustand	Neuware