"Now we see that in all these cases the listener is being asked not simply to follow a valid reasoning form but to respond to some presentation of reality. He is being asked to agree with the speaker's interpretation of the world that is."
Does the notion of "interpreting the world" apply to your definition of rhetoric? Does presentation surpass, override or completely displace the task of rationalizing?
The notion of "interpreting the world" is fundamental to how I see rhetoric. I agree with Weaver's statements that no utterance is without some kind of representation of the world, and this representation does in many ways surpass reason. Rhetoric, in my view, functions independent of logic or rationality, for its entire goal—explicit or implicit—is to bring the reader or listener closer to the way you are seeing the world. Sometimes reasoning can be helpful to achieve this goal, but often it is far more beneficial to make appeals to emotion or to get an audience to identify with you.
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