Ancient Greek rhetoric gave rise to and contributed to the (initial) development of many terms that even today attract the interest of philosophers and rhetoricians round the globe. Among those terms is logos, perhaps most characteristically described by Aristotle in his Rhetoric. But Aristotle is not the sole ancient Greek representative of rhetoric who considered the term. In this essay, I explore how selected ancient Greek figures—i.e. the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, and a few others—understood logos in the context of rhetoric. I assert that, despite some differences, they essentially viewed the term similarly, as connected to discourse involving argumentation intended to exert influence for socio-political or philosophical purposes.

The aim of this article is to present an original didactic concept that integrates the classical ideal of vir bonus dicendi peritus with the theory of rhetorical ethos and contemporary positive psychology, represented by the VIA character strengths model. The point of departure is the assumption that the speaker’s ethos – as a rhetorical category – has deep roots in the tradition of virtue ethics, developed from Aristotle through Quintilian to contemporary philosophers such as MacIntyre, Nussbaum, and Hursthouse. The article demonstrates that contemporary psychological tools, such as the VIA test, can serve as practical instruments for cultivating ethos in rhetorical education. The proposed didactic project, implemented within the framework of practical rhetoric classes, is based on an individual analysis of students’ character strengths and their mapping onto various rhetorical genres. The article seeks to build a bridge between rhetorical theory and the ethical and psychological formation of the speaker.

Excerpts from the most comprehensive ancient textbook on the theory and art of oratory, namely the Institutionis oratoriae libri XII by Marcus Fabius Quintilian, accompany the author in briefly presenting a (self)analysis of two university courses: Practical Rhetoric (offered in the field of e-editing and editorial techniques, publishing specialization) and Media Rhetoric (and Eristic) (Polish philology, editorial and media specialization).

W artykule przeanalizowano współczesne polskie podręczniki retoryki, które przedstawiają entymemat (sylogizm retoryczny) jako właściwy retoryce sposób argumentowania. Entymemat jest w tych publikacjach właściwie bez wyjątku rozumiany jako sylogizm asertoryczny z ukrytą przesłanką, przy czym autorzy często powołują się na Arystotelesa, równocześnie jednak nie zamieszczają przykładów podawanych przez samego Stagirytę. Przykłady te bowiem w oczywisty sposób nie pasują do przyjmowanej definicji. Z tego samego powodu w podręcznikach wykład na temat entymematu jest prawie zawsze rozdzielany od nauczania o toposach (topoi). Zamieszczane w podręcznikach przykładowe entymematy – pomimo dedukcyjnego schematu wnioskowania – są często odbierane jako albo mówiące o rzeczach oczywistych („Sokrates jest śmiertelny, ponieważ jest człowiekiem”), albo manipulacyjne, ponieważ przemilczana przesłanka okazuje się fałszywa. W artykule zostaną przedstawione współczesne ustalenia – zwłaszcza autorstwa Sary Rubinelli (Ars Topica. The Classical Technique of Construcing Arguments from Aristotle to Cicero, 2009) – odnośnie do znaczenia toposów dla formułowania entymematów, co może pomóc w przezwyciężeniu wąskiego rozumienia entymematu jako sylogizmu asertorycznego oraz w ponownym zintegrowaniu sposobu nauczania o sylogizmie retorycznym z wiedzą o toposach (topoi).

Artykuł podejmuje próbę oceny zasadności powrotu do klasycznego modelu edukacji opartego na trivium w kontekście współczesnych wyzwań edukacyjnych i technologicznych. W oparciu o założenia klasycznej edukacji, w której gramatyka, dialektyka i retoryka tworzyły podstawę do racjonalnego i obywatelskiego kształtowania jednostki, autor analizuje, na ile powrót do tych fundamentów może odpowiedzieć na problemy związane z powierzchownym i schematycznym myśleniem młodego pokolenia. Autor zwraca uwagę na znaczenie rozwijania krytycznego myślenia, umiejętności logicznego rozumowania i skutecznej argumentacji jako antidotum na dezinformację i uproszczenia pojawiające się w dobie cyfrowej. Ponadto przedstawia propozycję implementacji trivium jako metody wspierającej holistyczne kształtowanie wiedzy i osobowości.

The conquest of America brought with it the introduction of rhetoric as a model of teaching and as a practice in the different manifestations of religious discourse, of which the preaching or sermon was the most important for scholars of the colonial era (16th-18th centuries) who, on the other hand, gave little importance to the three political genres: deliberative, epideictic and judicial or forensic, although these had not disappeared as discursive practices. The great classical deliberative oratory had taken a backseat in New Spain but continued to develop in the consistories of the mayoralties and in public debates; the judicial genre continued to be exercised in lawsuits before the Inquisition and local judicial bodies and the epideictic genre was manifested in the lives of saints and praises of various kinds. This situation changed during the 19th century, particularly in the second half, when great parliamentary oratory, civic and patriotic speeches that flooded the republic and judicial oratory flourished because of the new political conditions brought about by the struggle for independence and the triumph of liberalism, in addition to other important genres such as history and journalism. The purpose of this essay is, first, to offer an outline of oratory practices and rhetorical teaching during the Colony, emphasizing the importance of sermons and the oblivion of other discursive expressions and, second, to show the emergence of political genres during the 19th century, which reached their greatest splendor in discursive practices and liberal education.

The article focuses on the paragraph 30 from the epideictic speech of Gorgias The Defense of Palamedes (B 11a in: Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker 1956, 291), where the noun μνήμη ("memory") appears. Through a contextual philological analysis, the Author manages to establish the full semantic range of mneme and determine the role it plays in this passage (B 11a, lines 188-198). The title character of the speech, Palamedes, defending himself against a false accusation, presents his inventions as the main argument for his innocence. One of the most important inventions is writing, which mneme - "memory" entrusts stored information, becoming its confidant. Based on a detailed contextual analysis, it can be convincingly concluded that the proper meaning of mneme in the examined fragment is "intellectual ability, power" to collect, organize and store messages, understood as a "reservoir" of remembered facts and events. Written word is the real guarantor of their preservation in an unchanged form. In this way it becomes the guardian of "memory", moreover, as its confidant, writing removes the "troublesome" excess of information from it and thus makes it regenerated, efficient and accessible for humans to acquire new information and knowledge.

This paper considers the possible parallels between Aristotle’s Rhetoric and the doctrine of “issues” (staseis) as developed in Hellenistic rhetoric. It is argued that while present in Aristotle’s thought, the issues are not built into a comprehensive system but rather integrated into his method of invention focused on topics. The different approaches in Books I and III seem to be due mainly to their respective contexts, and complement one another by focusing on different aspects of the issues.

This article explores the adaptation of Gérard Genette's concept of narrative prolepsis in the realm of social media as the proleptic technique, demonstrating its effectiveness as a tool for anticipatory rhetoric in digital communication. By analysing selected instances from Twitter and Facebook, the study illustrates how digital utterances employ proleptic cues to capture audience attention and potentially engage audiences. The concept of prolepsis, traditionally associated with narrative foresight in literature, is shown to be effectively transposed into the digital context, where it functions as a mechanism to attract user attention. This adaptation highlights the dynamism of rhetorical strategies in the evolving landscape of digital communication, underscoring the continuity of classical rhetorical principles in new media environments. Future research should incorporate a corpus study, which would allow for an in-depth examination of the diverse array of proleptic cues employed by social media influencers. Furthermore, an exploration into the persuasive efficacy of prolepsis, along with its potential links to reasoning fallacies, could provide intriguing insights. Additionally, an analysis of audience reactions to these cues could contribute to a more holistic understanding of their impact.

Reviewer Frederik Appel Olsen takes issue with the approach we present in The Virtues of Green Marketing: A Constructive Take on Corporate Rhetoric (Palgrave Macmillan). In this response, we point out three aspects where Appel Olsen paints a misleading picture of our book. They concern a) the role of history in contemporary thinking, b) the role of Aristotle in our argumentation, and c) the legitimate place of rhetorical criticism. Thus, our response treats fundamental questions for the field of rhetoric.

Much rhetorical research in the Nordic region has a strong foundation in the rhetorical tradition dating back to Aristotle (sometimes even predating him), even when researching phenomena unfolding contemporarily with crises and opportunities that the wise men of Athens and Rome could never have imagined.Researchers who write from this traditionalist standpoint explicitly or implicitly argue that classical rhetoric holds timeless potential for understanding and improving society.The Virtues of Green Marketing: A Constructive Take on Corporate Rhetoric by Swedish scholars Erik Bengtson and Oskar Mossberg aligns with this trend.The book (published open access) proposes that we not only see the limitations in green marketing (that is, a company's public branding efforts in sustainability and climate contexts) but also the possibilities for a more virtuous business rhetoric for the common good.Through ten chapters, one devoted to three cases, the authors argue that a green marketing rhetoric informed by the ideals of Quintilian, Cicero, and Isocrates about the good speaker can push modern consumer society in the right direction in current and future climate and environmental crises.Bengtson is a rhetorical scholar at Uppsala University as well as lecturer at Södertörn University.His research activities have an impressive range, including climate rhetoric, AI-based language models, and more theoretical discussions of the concept of doxa.Oskar Mossberg, also employed at Uppsala University, conducts research in law, including environmental and climate marketing, and the connection between law and rhetoric.The book thus draws on both authors' fields of expertise, and it also incorporates various research fields such as economic and sociological theory and marketing studies in an interdisciplinary approach.1.

Epideictic rhetoric has been traditionally stigmatized as fl attery or empty show without any practical goal. Where does such attitude towards epideictic come from? To answer this question, we explore the ancient debate about the nature and the function of the epideictic genre. In the second part of this paper, we discuss the recent reappraisal of the epideictic among classical scholars and fi nally focus the attention on a promising fi eld of research: epideictic speeches in honor of women.

After a brief historical-methodological overview, this study is meant to prove that the theory of rhetorical genres (deliberative, judicial and epideictic), connected to that of the literary genres, offers scholars more insightful critical opportunities. The nouvelle rhétorique, applied to the analysis of rhetorical and literary genres, permits to unveil the argumentative dimension in literature. We have evaluated some passages of the Decameron and I promessi sposi [The Betrothed], two of the great classics of Italian literature, differing by historical settings, genres and contents. The two books have been analyzed from the rhetorical perspective. I promessi sposi [The Betrothed] may be interpreted as an instance of judicial genre, while the Decameron as deliberative and epideictic genres.