Achieving Personal Perfection through Rhetoric

Abstract

Rhetoric demands that the orator supply evidence to the listeners in order to persuade them about his claims; moreover, it demands that he make sensible experience the departing point in his search of proofs. But in a modern culture nurtured by empiricism, the orator not few times mistakes proofs with sensible experience itself. This error leads to a disaster in contemporary discourse: the dismissing of any rationality. To come out from this error, the orator should look for the proof in things themselves. Things’ being will inform all about things’ nature, existence, and goodness. It will also inform all about things’ and the person’s possible perfection which the orator aims at when persuading his audience.