The 8008 1791

I don't think I can do a better treatment than Dave's in twenty-five words, but if you're still interested...

Rhetoric is one of the oldest academic disciplines, originally formalized by the Socratics (in Greece; there are other traditions in other parts of the world) and most famously developed by Aristotle. In medieval times it was part of the trivium, the medieval version of the liberal arts, along with grammar and logic. Study of the trivium was followed by study of the quadrivium - arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy - and then philosophy and theology; rhetoric was understood as a basic skill for educated people in that period.

The emphasis on persuasion is present in some of Aristotle's work on rhetoric, but it's not an overriding theme. In some eras rhetoric is seen primarily as about persuasion; in others it emphasizes the analysis of writing techniques (particularly prose, though rhetorical figures are also used in prosody and poetics); and these days rhetoric is deeply involved with matters such as effective communications, presenting information in different media, sociolinguistics and ethnography of language use, epistemology, and so on.

At its core, rhetoric is the study of how people convey ideas to one another and try to make them compebreastive in the market of ideas.

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Unfortunately, as a software professional, tradition requires me to spend New Years Eve drinking alone, playing video games and sobbing uncontrollably. -- Peter Johnson