Blog #12 --Erasmus

Erasmus, connecting with Augustine, also had a huge influence on rhetoric through religion. Erasmus believed that a few different things contributed to rhetoric, including arrangement, delivery, emotion, and figures of speech. You can actually see how this connects with Aristotle's idea of logic.

I will focus my blog today on Arrangement. There were 5 steps to making an argument with Arrangement including:
1) Word order
2) Order of propositions
3) Parts of individual arguments
4) Large section
5) Whole sermon

Word order seems like the most logically important aspect of rhetoric. You need to organize your sentences, paragraphs, and thoughts to make sense. Scattered arguments won't get anywhere. Order of propositions is along the same lines, because you need to order your thoughts to make the most sense. He thought they should go in a stepwise order.

Parts of individual arguments breaks off a bit. He thought that you should separate your arguments, and even break up each individual argument. Keep the ideas the separate and join them later.

Large section and whole sermon go together. Since Erasmus was into religious rhetoric (like Augustine), he believed in the whole thing connecting to both religion and sermons. Sermons were his way of rhetorically influencing people. He saved the best arguments for the end of his sermons.