Rhetorical Leadership David Erland Isaksen

Over 300 years BCE, Isocrates warned Athenians about the curse of empire in his oration "On the Peace." The central claim was that ruling over an empire was as devastating to the moral well-being of Athens and their potential subject states as tyranny is to a leader and his subjects. He draws a contrast between domination and leadership and points out a future for Athens where they can again lead a benevolent alliance of free city states that will be more stable and more mutually beneficial for all involved.

Perelman made a category of arguments that he termed to be "based on the structure of reality." Dr. Steven B. Katz joins us to discuss each of the arguments within this category, and how they rely on culturally accepted connections termed "liasons of succession" and "liasons of co-existence" in order to gain acceptance of other claims.  Essentially, you find structures of reality that are already there (already accepted) and then apply them to a specific situation. As Kenneth Burke points out, these structures may only be "natural" in the sense that a path made through a field is natural. Nevertheless, as soon as that structure or path has been made it is there as a structure that can be used to pass from A to B. This episode builds on the episodes "Chaim Perelman's Theory of Argumentation" and "Perelman's Quasi-logical Arguments." 

Isocrates believed most knowledge needed for practical judgement was contingent and more easily found by internal and external arguments. Plato believed all true knowledge can be derived from first principles. Both were righthttps://intelligenceofpersuasion.blogspot.com/2012/10/seeking-light-for-ourselves-in-darkness.html?m=1

Dr. Ivana Stradner, who grew up in Serbia, discusses the rise of Serbian nationalism, Putin's strategy of increasing ethnic tensions in the region, and why we may be close to a new war in the Balkans.  

Perelman made a category of arguments that he termed "quasi-logical." Quasi does not mean "fake" in this context, but just that they are similar to the arguments made in formal logic. Dr. Steven B. Katz joins us to discuss each of the arguments within this category, and how they rely on some of the most basic cognitive patterns that humans use to make sense of the world around us. Because we can perceive similarity, difference, and the relations of parts to the whole, we are able to use these as basis for arguments to move others. This episode builds on the episode "Chaim Perelman's Theory of Argumentation." 

In just a few years, India has been transformed from a vibrant liberal democracy to a majoritarian autocracy under Narendra Modi. Under his Hindu majority rule, Muslims and Christians are subjected to extrajudicial killings and mosques and churches are burnt to the ground. Dr. Ashok Swain, a Hindu and Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, joins Dr. Isaksen and Noor Jahan Khan, who has a Master's degree in Mass Communication from Bangalore University and grew up as a Muslim in India, to talk about how this change came about and what can be done to save Indian democracy.