Ramage's Introduction: Chapter 1

If I understood Ramage correctly, which is questionable, method is a basic essential to what rhetoric is. He claims that the Greek word for method is "hodos," which translates into "way." He later, on page 20, defines the "way" of rhetoric as "an organized attempt to discover ambiguity and to use those discoveries to leverage new possibilities and meaning." In other writing classes I've had, I was taught that "quality" writing papers are ones that successfully pinpoint problems/confusions and attempt to bridge the gaps that those problems have created. I didn't know that this was the "way" of rhetoric. I limited rhetoric to the manner in which my method was presented, rather than my method as a whole. I assumed rhetoric only focused on stylistic factors of communication such as tone, vocabulary, genre, presentation, etc. I am beginning to understand how those qualities should be caused and affected by my paper's method as a whole. Ramage presents the idea of acts versus motion. An act, which may contain some elements of motion, is voluntary and results in something new happening. Motion is the result of an act. I am starting to see how the stylistic aspects of writing can be considered, not only acts, but motions caused by the act, or purpose, of why I am trying to communicate the paper that I am writing. I knew that rhetoric focused on the relationship between an author and his/her audience, but I didn’t think about how it can also be about the relationship between the method and manner of what I am trying to communicate.

A definition of rhetoric, that Ramage proposes and that I have never thought of, is “the art of proving opposites.” On page 27, he uses a metaphor of a judge to symbolize an author’s audience, “The quality of a judge’s opinion rests on her ability to imaginatively identify with and actively listen to all the arguments and produce an argument that goes beyond them.” I came into this class with the general idea that rhetoric is the art of persuasion. My method of persuasion has never been to persuade opposites. If I ever presented the opposite side of my argument, it was only to prove that the opposite side is flawed and that my argument is better. Ramage is saying that a part of our rhetorical method, in order for the reader to produce a “quality opinion,” should be to encourage the audience to produce an opinion that surpasses my paper’s argument. This is reached through presenting and proving both sides of an argument. Ramage proves this with his made up anti-rhetorician, who portrays the cons of rhetoric, and by doing so, he allows me, as the reader, to form my own opinion and thoughts of rhetoric.

Overall, Ramage's first chapter has taught me that have entered this class with an oversimplified view of rhetoric. The definitions that I have known in the past have limited my understanding of what rhetoric is and what it can be to me, as a writer.