What is #rhetoric for?

There exists a simplistic distinction between "convincing someone of something" and "proving it". One is about being right (att ha rätt); finding a conclusion that's true independent of what others think, via logic/philosophy/research. The other is about showing yourself right (att få rätt); getting the listeners to believe in something independently of whether it's true or not.

This is a common view, but even for Aristotle it was a too simple distinction. It's actually about two separate kinds of questions:

1. where the answer can only be one way
2. where the answer could be in any way (can never be settled once and for all). "That which could be different". This, he means, is where rhetoric can be applied.

If I understand correctly, the sophists would have merged both and then said that rhetoric both creates knowledge and proves it. See Knowledge production.

Borde inte använda retorik för att framföra en förutfattad åsikt, utan hitta den rätta åsikten. Vi kan använda konsten för att driva ett produktivt samtal.

Orbits Terra.

On [1969-07-16 Wed] ([1969-07-20 Sun]?), Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to set foot on the Moon.

And they left a golden plaque that said, "We come in peace for all mankind".

• 460–370 BCE Hippocrates
• 130–200 Galen
• 160–210 Sextus Empiricus
• 980-1037 Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
• 1514-1564 Andreas Vesalius
• 1749-1797 Edward Jenner
• 1818-1865 Ignaz Philipp Semmelweiss
• 1822-1895 Louis Pasteur
• 1827-1912 Joseph Lister
• Alexander Fleming
• 1918-2011 Robert Ettinger

Healing arts started being written about with Hippocrates, Galen, Empiricus(?). Then came the 15th century in which Copernicus and Vesalius published their works on astronomy and anatomy, respectively, in the same year. Vesalius had stolen dead bodies to analyze how they work. Smashed many preconceptions that ancients like Galen had.

Then came the germ theory. Semmelweiss, Jenner, Lister were early figures advocating hygiene.

Then Fleming found penicillin (apocryphal story?).

Ancient debate continues to this day, between "rationalist" and "empiricist" medicine (these terms have specific meanings in the context of medicine).

Earth is a planet.