Toward a Sophistic Definition of Rhetoric

by John Poulakos

style = "an inescapable reality of speech" (27)

Aristotle says about style: "It is not sufficient to know what one ought to say, but it is necessary also to know how one ought to say it" (qtd. on 27).

Style/How = "a matter of the speaker's choice" borne out of "the peculiar expression of [the speaker's] personality" (27).

kairos = opportune moments; knowing the rhetorical situation; knowing "whether now is the time to speak" (28).

Timely speech is more persuasive (29).
Kairos = speaking appropriately at the right time (29).

to prepon = the appropriate; conforming what is said to both audience and occasion (29); sense of propriety.

Timeliness and appropriateness are a matter of feeling; elastic in application; relative (29-30)
In determining these two elements, a speaker must factor in:

• Their discretionary powers
• The Cultural norms
• The reading of the situation
• The image of the audience
• The prediction of the potential effects of the speech

to dynaton = what's possible; what a rhetorician must move towards in a speech after timeliness and appropriateness are assessed.

Why articulate the possible? (30)
1. Driving forces in a man's life = "desire to be other and to be elsewhere"
2. Here/Now is lacking; future holds potential; audience participates in both at once

[um, what does this say about fate? Free will? Is this the driving force for humankind?]

"This is where the rhetorician steps in and helps him resolve his existential dilemma" (30)

"A special dimension of the possible, then, is afforded by the novel" (30)
Novel = not like novels/books, but what is "new"; what has never been heard before (30)