ARCS
chap8
In chapter8, the author discussed intrinsic proofs and extrinsic
proofs. He also discussed how these proofs are used in courts. One thing I find
interesting is that he said “laws must be interpreted and reinterpreted -----
that is why we have judge” (p.205). I feel like in modern days, judges cannot
be law makers and interpreters at the same time and their roles are rigid and
limited, but if in ancient time their duties are less constrained. This
actually reminds me of Game of Thrones. The storyline is based on an ancient
time and the king could play both the law enforcer and the law creator. For instance,
in Game of thrones, the king Taiwin sentenced his son Tyrion to death during a
trial even though the law didn’t state the punishment, but the king just made
up the law by out of unjust. In contrast, modern judge cannot just make up a law
whenever he or she needs to.
In addition, I think it’s interesting that ancient rhetors test the
credibility of testimonies based on the witnesses’ motives. Quintilian said “rhetors
need to know whether or not a witness favors or opposes a point of view, and
whether the witness has held this position for a long time or has only recently
adopted it” (p. 206). I think it’s very smart to use this way to test the
credibility of proofs. It gives me the idea of how sophisticate rhetoric was in
the ancient time. I think in some situation, if the witness hold strong
opposition or agreement to a opinion, the testimony from that witness may be
doubtful; this is because the witness’s attitude maybe biased based on strong
one-sided point of views. In addition, the testimony can be biased due to both holding
long time and short time positions. If a person hold an opinion about the issue
for a long time, just like many elderly people did while holding traditional
stereotypes for so long, it is very likely his testimony is biased and less
credible. Same as short period opinions, if he just thought about the idea or
made up an idea in an instinct, such idea he gives is likely to be suspicious.
The chapter also includes the ideas of community authorities and
proximate authorities. I think it’s interesting that many commercial campaigns
use community authorities while many court cases use proximate authorities. This
shows that community authority and proximate authority can be more or less
effective based on different situation. Political campaign and commercial campaign
need a speaker who has good reputation and genuine quality (community
authority) more than they need a truly honest witness (proximate authority)
because they want to use appeal to reputation to attract consumers instead of
revealing their true purpose behind the campaigns. Differently, cases deal with
lawsuit, court trial, and criminal justice need more truthful evidence and less
to no political or commercial propaganda for solving the case, so that a speaker
who witness the crime maybe more valuable in these situations than a credible
but ideological speaker.
RT
Margaret Fell 748-760
In this reading I think it’s interesting that the rhetor holds a
woman’s voice. I realized that the reading addressed stereotypes against women.
Fell discussed words based on objections against women including “Let your
women keep silence in the Church” and “they are commanded to be in obedience.”
These words all show the inequality between men and women; many ancient
rhetoric shows women shall not speak in public (which is decided by law) and should
be subordinate to their husbands. Fell challenged the ideas about traditional
femininity by stating good female qualities and the good qualities in women’s
words. One major importance of this speech is that it is based on women’s point
of view instead of men. This may create conflicts with many male rhetor’s
voices but it also pulls the situation closer to resolutions of the issue such
as liberation and women’s rights. One thing I like about this writing is that
Fell gave a lot of positive examples for women such as the ancient story of
Priscilla; she said men did not despite what Priscilla said because she is a
woman.
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