Occasions, Proofs, and Topoi: Jacob, Josh, and Andrew

We want to point to three things that we are pulling from classical rhetoric (i.e. Aristotle and Plato). Our three things are occasions, inartistic proofs, and topics – topoi. We are going to rehash those three things in terms of Plato and Aristotle (as relative to the thing). Then, we are going to show how Foucault changes the thing or differs from Plato and Aristotle. Finally, we are going to posit our understanding of the thing in light of the three rhetoricians.

Occasions

Aristotle’s rhetoric was based on the idea that occasions arise wherein someone might speak. His rhetoric (guidebook) was designed to give the rhetor material for speaking in the occasion, a way to address the audience in the occasion, and what material might be successful for the occasion. His guidebook is partially a taxonomy of kinds of audiences, situations, and lines of argument based on common traits of those audiences and situations. Foucault’s rhetoric is much more contingent on the specific features of discursive communities. Foucault does not suggest that there is a universal commonality between audience and occasion or kinds of audiences and occasions. Foucault denies that the qualities of an audience or occasion can be extracted or abstracted to allow for a universal taxonomy. It also seems like Foucault would say that a rhetor is not granted an occasion to speak, but they are granted permission to speak. The source of permission comes from the institution and the relations that constitute that institution.

Like Aristotle, we suggest that there are kinds of occasions that are similar enough to create categories and think about what kinds of messages, styles of messages, and ways of delivering messages might be most appropriate for a future occasion. But like Foucault, we recognize that no set of categories are universal. Just because the occasion presented itself once does not mean that it will present itself again. Although we are admitting that categorization is possible, we are acknowledging the limits of the productive power of categorization.

Inartistic Proofs

Two of the categories that Aristotle creates are inartistic proofs and artistic proofs. Inartistic proofs are factual proofs (something like data or quantitative information) or pieces of information that are taken as a given. For Aristotle, these proofs are things that can be used to create the material for an argument. Foucault seems to collapse Aristotle’s categorization of inartistic proofs and artistic proofs. He points to things like math equations. He classes them as statements (1447). Since statements are the “atoms of discourse” (1445), and as atoms of discourse, they are not isolated units that do not pre-exist for the rhetor to use. As such, all proofs (statements in discursive practice) are constructed (artistic) rather than interpreted (inartistic). “The object… does not preexist itself, held back by some obstacle at the first edges of light. It exists under the positive conditions of a complex group of relations (1439).

We’re going with Foucault on this. And we’d like to point to Aristotle’s and Foucault’s competing epistemologies. For Aristotle, things like knowledge are relatively fixed and knowable through observation. For Foucault, things are in flux, and are knowable insofar as they are created through discursive practice.

Topics

A major feature of Aristotle’s epistemology and his rhetoric is the existence of topics or topoi (commonplace knowledge and arguments) that can be used as material for arguments (not generative). Foucault may seem to suggest that topics exist in institutions’ power relations. Using his example of psychiatric discourse, it seems like topics might be located in a complex set of relations between communities (e.g. justice and medicine) and the writing that creates/sustains those relations (1438). We are preserving topics but as situational and generative (used for invention, meaning-making, and knowledge-making). Topics are particular to certain groups as they engage in certain discursive practices, and they do not exist outside of those groups and their relations/practices. Thus, topics are contingent and malleable.

Glossary||

Plain text = From the text/based on the text

Underline = Us

Italics = Asides

	Foucault	Aristotle	Plato	Leftovers
Purpose	Rhetoric is knowledge-making through discourse. Rhetoric defines who make speak within a certain discursive field and what they must do/belong to [institutions and roles] to have the power to speak.	Find available means of persuasion; Persuade others	Lead to Truth; Persuade others	Foucault seems to suggest that all discourse is institutional. Spaces like the domestic are defined by laws and religion. Because of the way Foucault is relating discourse to power authorized by institution, there doesn’t seem to be a vernacular in his understanding of rhetoric. We do not agree. They are also defined by what they are not – so a home is not a workplace.
Source	Discourse is not a relationship between a symbol  (sign) and a referent  (object) (1441). So the source of rhetoric (knowledge-making) is the practice of discourse as it occurs between speakers who occupy institutional positions in institutional sites (1441-42). Through the power granted by institutions, speakers can change rules (1442).	Topoi, Occasions (genres), Audiences, Proofs (inartistic or commonplaces), Memory	Use the dialectic to find the material	Re: Foucault – ethos is not persuasive as is the case in other rhetoricians (Aristotle in particular). For Foucault, ethos (authority) grants the speaker/rhetor the power to speak in certain situations and to certain people (1442).
Process	The first step seems to be the acquisition or negotiation of power for the right/authority to speak.	Follow the handbook, remember commonplaces, remember kinds of arguments	Solitary w/ teacher; Division (a form of dialectic); making divisions (analyzing) and synthesizing is a method of discovery
What’s natural?	Statements have a material existence: “The statement is always given through a material medium” (1457).	categories, behaviors, ethos/pathos, characteristics of different ages, topoi/occasions, commonplaces	Observing the soul (this may make the transcendent available); oral (medium); ethical	Re: Foucault; whether or not the things described in the statement actually exist.
What’s the role of language?	The statement, the unit of discourse, cannot be isolated. It is understood in terms of its relations to other statements in a discursive act. Statement are associated with rules [not just logical, & grammatical] that govern its use (i.e. social things like who may speak, the purpose of the speech, and how it is used situated in a discourse). Like the statement, these rules are not stable (e.g. cannot be fixed). The rules of a statement are subject to change.	Persuade, discover	Lead the soul
What are the metaphors?	Archeology – language and discourse in particular are constructs (things) that Foucault is unearthing from wrong assumptions about the relationship between language and stuff. Part of this metaphor is a spatial arrangement in his argument: a movement downward (1470). He calls statements the “atoms of discourse” (1445).	the everyday, metaphors that add clarity (e.g. fables)	Transcending chariots, fountains