TPT 2: Advanced Logic and Rhetoric

Trivium-Philosophy-Theology 2: Advanced Logic & Rhetoric  The student who has been learning advanced grammar and syntax in the Latin cycle, and who has taken Logic will find a completion to our introduction to the mediaeval trivium in this class. First, we cover material logic; that is, we look at how to think about the content, rather than the form of logical reasoning.  Then, drawing upon Aristotle's Rhetoric and other Greek and Roman works, we continue the exploration of what language and thought are, now focusing upon thought as expressed to others with the goal in mind of bringing other minds to truth.

Rhetoric the "modes of persuasion," beginning with logos already studies in logic class and then moving on to how we are motivated by what is attractive to our emotions (pathos) and noble to our wills (ethos).  This necessitates an introduction to the philosophy of human nature in order to understand the faculties of reason, will, appetite, and sensation. In addition, the course offers a defense of rhetoric reliant upon beauty and lays out a practical imitative approach to composition, using the five canons.