Boethius, Post #6

Boethius’s mentality is much like his predecessors, focusing on the good of a man, and exploring commonplaces in order to divulge arguments and sustain them; however, he also was enriched by his religious background of Roman Catholicism, entreating into the philosophies of organized religion as opposed to the polytheistic mythology of the classic rhetoricians.  His concentration of Aristotle and Cicero was by means of imitation in order to deal with contemporary questions of his time, much like what we are doing in class with him, with the ancients, with all those whom which we study.  Understanding how we as students can learn from past rhetorician’s tactics, and implore their knowledge of rhetoric will only allow us the space to develop arguments, similar to how it allowed the opportunity for Boethius.

He claims that the structure of rhetoric is regarded better as the conjoining of the whole as opposed to its individual parts; yet within in each discipline there need be separate “species of rhetoric” as he says, each with their own principles and oratorical avenues. Regardless of the specifications, each discipline must contain the “five parts: inventions, disposition, style, memory, and delivery,” and each serves to complete the other, the whole arguments cannot be truly successful without each part.  The entire organism of rhetoric lives off of the capacity for the orator, or moreover, the rhetor to conceptually collaborate each part.  Not only must the rhetor be of good character and speak well but he must also possess the quality to synthesize each component into one unified argument, where each aspect is developed, conjoined, and implemented—together.