Courtney, your examples of cause and effect are also great representations of the almighty enthymeme, which I had no idea happened so often in oratory, writing, and everyday life. Let's take a look at a couple that are different from the ones you mentioned:
1) In paragraph three, Gorgias says that
- Helen's father "was in fact the god...Zeus"
- "was the foremost of the foremost men and women."
Because everyone in ancient Greek society held the view that the gods were greater than man, and Gorgias knew that, he leaves out the premise "gods are the foremost of, or better than, all mankind" (in this case, the middle premise).
2) In paragraphs 18 and 19, Gorgias discusses how
- perfect bodies are "a pleasant sight to the eyes"
- Helen "[took] pleasure" in seeing Alexander.
Again, because Gorgias understands the knowledge his audience has--about the story of Helen in general--he need not add "Alexander had perfect abs" or whatever he would have added (also the middle premise).
Now, as Adam says, we're not really persuaded by this stuff. Gorgias unfortunately didn't have any knowledge about US, about this new and different audience, and our feelings and views. Because of this, he couldn't tailor his enthymemes to appeal to us (kind of going into the topic for the next post). Gorgias was, however, incredibly aware of his audience of ancient Greeks. Thus, his speech would have been more (though maybe not entirely) persuasive to them. Interestingly enough, we still understand the enthymemes Gorgias uses because the story of Helen and the ways of ancient Greeks are still known topics today. Plus, it's easy to determine the middle premises because enthymemes are so familiar to us anyway. (So familiar that we hardly notice them).
You're right that we hardly notice enthymemes- even while keeping that in mind while looking at the writings about Helen or Pericles, I had a hard time identifying anything out of the ordinary. It took me quite a while that although the sentence flowed well and it made sense, there was a premise missing. I liked the examples you found from Helen.
ReplyDeleteOne of my big points why Gorgias isn't convincing is exactly because he lacks credibility to us, his current audience. You do prove a good point that if he was around again, he probably would make a second edition of his Encomium aimed at US if he could.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Gorgias did write a second edition of the Enconium, aimed as us as Adam says, would anyone really read it? Maybe! But probably not. Unless he revamped the argument to proving that Taylor Swift is a good dancer.
ReplyDelete