Isocrates: Good Rhetoric Essay

Submitted By dtieding
Words: 581
Pages: 3

If teachers would stop making up ridiculous stories people would believe them more often. However even the teachers that don’t make up stories spend all their time trying to persuade reckless people, instead of those who take study seriously.

These teachers claim to be talking about truth but they stray away from it immediately; no one knows the future not even Homer.

These teachers claim that if people will follow them these teachers will show them exactly what will happen in their futures. They claim they don’t want money but that’s what their whole world revolves around. All of this dishonesty really damages their reputation and know one believes them.

These teachers are the biggest hypocrites ever, and we should dismiss their studies as garbage that looks to lead people astray.

But the sophists aren’t the only ones, almost everyone who teaches discourse have no regard for the truth and are certain that their “art” is the best way to persuade someone of anything, and they give all of these false promises that no one could ever deliver on; and not only that they also aren’t even good at persuading people anyways.

I wish that philosophy had as much power as they claim but obviously it doesn’t, and so their ridiculous claims only harm the reputation of the study of philosophy and rhetoric.

It is sad that these young men follow such horrible teachers who promise to teach the young men to manipulate language, even though language cannot be manipulated. They should be teaching these young men to manipulate rhetoric, which is much easier since rhetoric is an art and meant to be manipulated.

But I don’t want to just bash on these teachers I also want to show them a solution to their problem. You cannot train all people the same way, not to mention that formal training does not work well to teach people rhetoric.

Learning the parts of speech is not difficult if you have a good teacher, but learning rhetoric and when and how to employ it is very difficult. It is essential that the student practice constantly and that the teacher instruct him in every possible aspect of