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Rhetoric has had many definitions; no simple definition can do it justice.[1] In fact, the very act of defining has itself been a central part of rhetoric It appears among Aristotle's topoi, heuristics for rhetorical invention.[2] For Aristotle, rhetoric is the art of practical wisdom and decision making, a counterpart to logic and a branch of politics. [3] The word is derived from the ancient Greek eiro, which means "I say." In its broadest sense, rhetoric concerns human discourse.[4] In eras of European history, rhetoric concerned itself with persuasion in public and political settings such as assemblies and courts. Because of its associations with democratic institutions, rhetoric is commonly said to flourish in open and democratic societies with rights of free speech, free assembly, and political enfranchisement for some portion of the population. [5] As a course of study, rhetoric trains students to speak and/or write effectively. The rhetorical curriculum is nearly as old as the rhetorical tradition itself. Over its many centuries, the curriculum has been transformed in a number of ways, but, in general, it has emphasized the study of principles and rules of composition as a means for moving audiences. In Greece, rhetoric originated in a school of pre-Socratic philosophers known as Sophists circa 600 BC. It was later taught in the Roman Empire and during the Middle Ages as one of the three original liberal arts or trivium (along with logic and grammar). [6] The relationship between rhetoric and knowledge is one of its oldest and most interesting problems. The contemporary stereotype of rhetoric as "empty speech" or "empty words" reflects a radicial division of rhetoric from knowledge, a division that has had influential adherents within the rhetorical tradition, most notably Plato in ancient Athens, and Peter Ramus in 16C Renaissance Europe.[7] It is a division that has been strongly associated with Enlightenment thinking about language.
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