Extrinsic Proofs and the Ancient Rhetors

This section talks about extrinsic proofs and how Aristotle divided proofs into intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic was invented by the speaker whereas extrinsic has to do with fact and testimony along with other empirical evidence. Though it may seem like a long shot I instantly was curious if Peter Ramus agreed with extrinsic proofs. Obviously one cannot contradict fact, however the chapter mentions that Aristotle is often credited with the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic evidence. This interested me since last week we read that Peter Ramus objected to Aristotle’s views of the way rhetoric should be structured, however it seems impossible to picture rhetorical proofs in any other way. The innate nature of humans to reason that Ramus mentions is highly based off of both extrinsic and intrinsic proofs. He gained his Master of Arts degree using a thesis ridiculing Aristotle and other classical philosophers. Once graduated he began to teach students in colleges and gained quite a following. Ramus attacked Aristotle and scholasticism. His claim was that ability to reason was innate and one didn’t need to learn from Aristotle or other classical sources (Herzberg 675).He said it was a waste of time to study the classical readings and texts because a person’s own thought process and pursuit of knowledge is what’s important. This is all fine, but what if Aristotle and the classics were a way for people to understand intrinsic proofs rather than just stringing extrinsic proofs together.

Additionally, I was very interested in the section about evaluation of data. It seemed to exclaim that evaluation of data is an action based both extrinsically and intrinsically and that all rhetors must understand who compiled the evidence for facts and who compiled the ideas for concepts. This only further enforces the checks and balances that the ancient rhetors seemed to use on one another in contrast with the free nature of Ramus`s views where one reasons for and by themselves. Could be nothing but I found it interesting.