Ah, but I have an ulterior motive. I'm here in part because I want to read discussions of a rationalist approach to rhetoric. And we can't create new posts until we hit 20 I believe.

But I'm really curious about how a rationalist group would approach rhetoric, so I want to get the discussion started. :-)

That's why I care about my karma score so much.

Got it in one. I remember SoullessAutomaton saying that rhetoric was called one of the "Dark Arts" in the originating post, so it had to have been this one.

I should chat with Yvain sometime: it sounds like he? she? knows the old myth of Rhetorica as the dark sister of the goddess Philosophy. Yes, Rhetoric is very much one of the "Dark Arts"--for, unlike Philosophy--Rhetorica looks to derive her knowledge by paying attention to what actually works in the observed world. Her light sister Philosophy derives her knowledge from some great "Truth"--be it a deity, Plato's Forms, or such. Or so one can read the myth.

Not to say that Rhetoric hasn't fallen prey to the great truths repeatedly over the centuries--St Augustine, for instance, was a trained rhetor before he converted, and one of his major treatises is his attempt to Christianize rhetoric so that it would reify the "great truth" of his religion.

Yet as I read the history of Rhetoric, I find that it fits very nicely with Science, thank you very much. Yes, Rhetoric is the study of how to persuade, but that study assumes that all comers can learn the techniques, and so they can learn to disregard those techniques when the substance of a communicative act necessitates it. And Rhetoric has mostly been using observed results to establish its knowledge, not imposing philosophical ideals onto the perceived world.

(Well, mostly. We do go through periods when Rhetoric is subsumed by some of those groups that believe deeply in "great truths"--right now the political "truths" of a particular stripe has Rhetorica in chains. And don't get me started on that soapbox of mine.)

I will. My main advice to SoullessAutomaton was having a clear statement of context/purpose right at the top of the page, preferably followed by a table of contents. Wikipedia's format is the inspiration here, and it is a good one: the format is familiar and it handles the immediate question "what is this?" that is likely to be first on a new person's mind.

But, if I'm going to be a usability tester, I may be of more use if I leave the wiki alone until you all feel it's ready for a usability tester. I'm far less likely to be biased/predisposed to unhelpful reactions if I've not been watching the development process.

I've tried to find the thread that inspired SoullessAutomaton to chat with me about the thread, and I can't find it. I gather that the thread occurred a few weeks ago. So I don't have that context.

A rhetorical analysis assess the persuasiveness of a text/speech/communication act. Rhetorical analyses use the rhetorical concepts (ethos/logos/pathos, for instance, or concepts from Burke's Grammar of Motives, or any of the rest of the tools of the trade) to pick apart the communicative act to see how it makes its meaning (both the substance and style). I gather that somewhere on one of the previous threads, a subset of you were attempting to make such an assessment, but no one happened to know those tools of the trade. I could have given pointers to resources for making that sort of analysis and for keeping the terms used clear for everyone involved.

I specifically remember from my conversation with SoullessAutomaton that the parties involved in the thread were trying to understand some element of the kairos of the communicative act (kairos is best translated as "situatedness", which is not the same as being only "situated"--"situatedness" assumes that the context is impacted by the text, not merely having the text be impacted by the context).

I also gather that there was some discussion between that communication act's kairos and the logos involved (logic and truth tied together--verity and veracity as a single unit). I also gather that somewhere in the discussion, someone may have implied some thoughts about the relationship between the kairos and the communicative act's pathos (appeals to emotion--we get the word "pathetic" from it for a reason, in my mind ;-) ).

But I don't know the details, and I was receiving the information through someone who was not a direct participant in the original thread. (I also believe that my conversation with SoullessAutomaton occurred after a glass and a half of wine, so my memory is a bit blurred by alcohol, as well as by time.)

Nevertheless, if you all do need to pick apart a communicative act to see how it creates the impacts it creates, I can certainly point you towards useful ideas/tools for doing it consistently.

I live with one of that merry band, and a series of comments came up that inspired him to ask me about the content. (I gather you all stumbled onto and into the concepts of a rhetorical analysis, kairos, and pathos appeals the hard way.) So I'm going to lurk, learn, and see if there's a place for a PhD in Rhetoric to add her two cents.