In G.A. Kennedy’s New History of Classical Rhetoric, something on page 221 stood out to me.
I’ll start with some background information. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates tries to define righteousness. He doesn’t believe that righteousness should be done to receive a reward and avoid punishment, for what if a person had a ring that could make him invisible and allow him to do whatever he wanted? (So that’s where Tolkein got the idea!) That person would suffer no negative external consequences for his evil, so why should he refrain from doing bad things?
Socrates then turns his attention to a just state. He says that the state consists of three elements: the rational rulers, the passionate army, and the masses. When the masses rule, the result is a disaster, for the masses don’t know what they need. Their undisciplined appetites can lead to them setting up a tyrant! The army ruling a country also leaves much to be desired. For Socrates, the just state is one in which the rational rulers are in charge, directing the passionate army and the masses.
And Socrates applies this insight to the human soul: the soul has a rational element, a spirited element, and base appetites for such things as food and sex. When we allow our appetites to dominate us, the result can be disastrous. The same goes for us letting anger get the best of us. And so, for Socrates, a just and healthy soul is one in which rationality governs the spirited element of the soul as well as the appetites.
According to the fourth century rhetorician Hermogenes, one can apply Plato’s delineation of the just society/just soul to certain kinds of rhetoric.
I’m relying on the Internet right now for definitions of certain forms of rhetoric, which isn’t sufficient, but that will have to do for now.
Deliberative rhetoric is applied to the appetitive part of the soul. It’s the rhetoric that embellishes and appeals to people’s honor and advantage to get them to do something. Perhaps it speaks to the appetites to motivate people, and that’s why Hermogenes applies it to the appetitive part of the soul.
Judicial rhetoric is rhetoric that judges what is right and wrong, and it’s used by lawyers in court. Hermagones applies this to the spirited part of the soul. I’m not sure why, but the reason may be that the spirited part enforces the rules of reason, which is what courts do.
The rational part of the soul is applied to panegyrical rhetoric, which is eulogistic or laudatory discourse. Why this applies to rationality, I have no idea. Maybe the idea is that panegyrical rhetoric exalts the good, which is what rationality leads us towards.
For Hermogenes, the noblest rhetoric is epideictic rhetoric, which is used to praise or blame somebody. I’m not sure how that’s different from panegyrical rhetoric.
I’m not sure how helpful this post is to my readers, but it’s good for me to define these terms, and to see what gaps are in my knowledge.