[MD] The Art of Rhetoric

[X Acto]

 In Nietzsche Humanist (1998: 129), Claude Pavur explains that "[t]he Greek prefix 'anti' does not merely
 designate opposition, but it can also mean 'in place of.'" When Aristotle characterizes rhetoric as the 
antistrophe of dialectic, he no doubt means that rhetoric is used in place of dialectic when we are 
discussing civic issues in a court of law or in a legislative assembly. The domain of rhetoric is 
civic affairs and practical decision making in civic affairs, not theoretical considerations of operational
 definitions of terms and clarification of thought – these, for him, are in the domain of dialectic.
 
"Today the term rhetoric can be used at times to refer only to the form of argumentation, 
often with the pejorative connotation that rhetoric is a means of obscuring the truth. 
Classical philosophers believed quite the contrary: the skilled use of rhetoric was essential 
to the discovery of truths, because it provided the means of ordering and clarifying 
arguments" -wiki
 
I am becoming more aware that we can glean more from the study and the history of rhetoric
rather than the study and the history of metaphysics and  Pirsig's work has more power within
the subject matter of rhetoric than that of either philosophy or metaphysics.
 
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