After reading the various texts of Gorgias/The Sophists, Plato, and Aristotle I am still being pulled toward more of a platonic definition as to how I myself define rhetoric. I have immense respect for Aristotle, as i believe he went far more in depth to study and define what rhetoric truly was then anyone else before him. However i don't 100% agree with his conclusion. In the text it mentions, "but while Plato emphasized its [true knowledge] transcendent origins, Aristotle emphasized the empirical means by which it is obtained(170)." This is where I start to stray from Aristotle, even though i agree that science and logic can give us some helpful truths here on Earth, it does little to nothing to define the "bigger picture" that Plato was getting at.
As i mentioned earlier, I do believe Aristotle defined rhetoric as a physical tool used for teaching, persuading, and learning better than anyone had before him. Nevertheless, I think he recognized rhetoric and its uses to be only for that of logic and and science, and didn't think there was any "Truth" outside of that worth finding. So I prefer to stand by Plato, in the idea that even though we may learn a good deal of smaller truths here on Earth, hidden behind what we know about rhetoric and the search for an overall truth, is something greater than we have ever known.
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