General Introduction
– What’s on the blog?
– Listener feedback
Plato Gets Hostile
– Nathan explains Weaver
– Why does Plato hate rhetoric?
– Structure vs. content
– What is pleasant and what is good
– Giving the sophists a bad name
Weaver’s Platonic Allegory
– Farmer gets insulting
– Interpretation of the performances
– Good lovers, bad lovers, and non-lovers
– Hook-up culture
– Divine madness and lovesickness
– The move toward something higher and better
– Is Weaver overly simplistic?
– The return to sophistry
Weaver, Plato, and the Soul
– Rhetoric’s proper effect
– The Divine Mind
– Rhetoric and dialectic
– Weaver’s philosophical relativism
The Discourse of Business and the Discourse of the Poet
– Is this dichotomy out of date?
– Shop talk and the pitch
– Official style
– Scientific histrionics
– Is flat rhetoric active or passive?
– Academic BS
Analogy and Truthful Exaggeration
– Talking about things that are not yet
– Richard Weaver reads Hebrews
– Why it’s important to define the good
Teaching Composition
– The problem with Freshman Comp
– Assigning Phaedrus
– How to use the dialectic of good in the classroom
– Sneaking it into nonsectarian schools
– Nathan’s Plato/Boethius class
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Derrida, Jacques. Dissemination. Trans. Barbara Johnson. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983.
Frankfurt, Harry G. On BS. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 2005.
Plato. Gorgias. Trans. Chris Emlyn-Jones and Walter Hamilton. New York: Penguin, 2004.
—. Phaedrus. Trans. Christopher Rowe. New York: Penguin, 2005.
Weaver, Richard M. Language Is Sermonic: Richard M. Weaver on the Nature of Rhetoric. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1985.
Good show fellas. I for one am really glad that you are spending time specifically on the subject of rhetoric, which one can find in college english programs but that is about it. Specifically for the Christian I think rhetoric is a very useful subject but is unfortunately overlooked. I couldn’t agree more on the state of much “critical” writing in the humanities. Much of that kind of critical output has reduced the humanities (whether literature, art, or philosophy) to very dry topics indeed. Looking forward to the next discussion about scientific social rhetoric. I was also curious if you’re thinking of discussing philisophical rhetoric. Perhaps comparing the dryness of Kant or Heidegger to the fervor of Nietsche or the deep meditational style of Camus. hang tough,
chris
There seems to be a problem with downloading this episode…it keeps saying that I do not have permission to access the file, which is a real shame because I am very interested in this one in particular.
SPRieley Are you going through iTunes, the FeedBurner feed, or some other source? It’ll be easier to treat if I can locate where the bad download is happening.
SPRieley Never mind; I found the problem. Our web space was attacked some time ago, and the program or person reset several of the site’s file-permission settings. You should be able to download it now.