Canyon High School
19300 W. Nadal Street
Canyon Country, CA

ph: 661-252-6110
fax: 661-251-1419

khill@hartdistrict.org

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Introducing Kairos

Toward a Sophistic Definition of Rhetoric

by John Poulakos

 

 

 

"Rhetoric is the art which seeks to capture in opportune moments that which is appropriate and attempts to suggest that which is possible (26)."

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)

Actual
individual
permanence
being
Possible
manifold
change
becoming

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webmaster: khill@hartdistrict.org

Canyon High School
19300 W. Nadal Street
Canyon Country, CA

ph: 661-252-6110
fax: 661-251-1419

khill@hartdistrict.org