Published 2025-02-04
Keywords
- rhetorical error,
- pedagogy,
- post-truth,
- nihilism,
- discourse
Copyright (c) 2025 Whitney Jordan Adams

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
Abstract
Using the classical pedagogical strategies of Isocrates as a framework, this paper investigates how a renewed focus on civic rhetoric in the classroom will allow for increased dialogue and active discourse production between those inside and outside the Academy. Although Isocrates did not use the word “rhetoric” himself, reading his translated texts through a current lens allows the application of rhetoric through renewed frameworks. As we find ourselves mainly existing in a post-truth world, there is a proclivity among many to replace facts with pathos. As Lee McIntyre (2018) explores in his work Post Truth, heightened reliance on emotion, social media, and fake news represents a dangerous form of nihilism. Connected to this is the abandonment of traditional media, the dismissal of evidence, and a blatant disregard for the truth—all of which can be considered “rhetorical error.” As individuals become more and more distanced from others through a reliance on the digital, they retreat into what McIntyre calls “information silos” (2018). Active discourse production, building on Isocrates’ notion of classical pedagogy, can directly challenge these information silos. Hart (2006) argues for returning to classical pedagogy in the writing classroom. This paper builds on this work, suggesting that pedagogy grounded in ideals put forth by Isocrates can directly challenge both post-truth nihilism and rhetorical error.
References
- Bakhtin, M. M. (2010). The dialogic imagination: Four essays. University of Texas Press.
- Bakó, R. K. (2022). Argumentor Conference 2022, A R G U M E N T O R. Available at https://argumentor.wordpress.com/2022/07/25/argumentor-conference-2022/ (Accessed: 29 May 2023).
- Benoit, W. (1990). Isocrates and Aristotle on rhetoric. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 20(3), 251–259. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3885845
- Biesecker, B. A. (1989). Rethinking the rhetorical situation from within the thematic of ‘différance’. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 22(2), 110–130.
- Bishop L. (2023) A computer wrote this paper: What ChatGPT means for education, research, and writing SSRN https://ssrn.com/abstract=4338981
- Brizee, A. (2015). Using Isocrates to teach technical communication and civic engagement. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 45(2), 134−165. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047281615569481
- Crosswhite, J. (1996). The rhetoric of reason: Writing and the attractions of argument. University of Wisconsin Press.
- Dubinsky, J. M. (2002). Service-learning as a path to virtue: The ideal orator in professional communication. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 61−74 https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/items/82d86062-0f86-493d-8c3f-76352e6c7c6c
- Edbauer, J. (2005). Unframing models of public distribution: From rhetorical situation to rhetorical ecologies. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 35(4), 5−24.
- Gonzalez, W. J. (2022). Biology and the internet: Fake news and Covid-19 1. In The internet and philosophy of science (pp. 195−207). Routledge.
- Gunn, J. (2020). Political perversion: Rhetorical aberration in the time of Trumpeteering. University of Chicago Press.
- Hallsby, A. (2022) Appendix: Definitions of rhetoric. In Reading Rhetorical Theory: Speech, representation, and power. Pressbooks. https://open.lib.umn.edu/rhetoricaltheory/back-matter/definitions-of-rhetoric/
- Hart, R. (2006). Increasing academic achievement with the trivium of classical education: Its historical development, decline in the last century, and resurgence in recent decades. iUniverse.
- Haskins, E. (2004). 4. Logos and power in Sophistical and Isocratean rhetoric. In T. Poulakos & D. Depew (Eds.), Isocrates and civic education (pp. 84−104). University of Texas Pres. https://doi.org/10.7560/702196-006
- Kumar, N., & Karusala, N. (2021, May). Braving citational justice in human-computer interaction. In Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1−9).
- Kwon, D. (2022). The rise of citational justice: How scholars are making references fairer. Nature, 603(7902), 568−571.
- Lunsford, A. (2012). The role of rhetoric (and social and other media): Writing in 21st Century Universities [Lecture], California State University, Long Beach Composition Program Lecture. 5 October 2013.
- McComiskey, B. (2017). Post-truth rhetoric and composition. University Press of Colorado.
- McIntyre, L. (2018). Post-truth. MIT Press.
- Poulakos, T. (2004). 2. Isocrates’ civic education and the question of doxa. In T. Poulakos & D. Depew (Eds.), Isocrates and Civic Education, 44−66. University of Texas Press. https://doi.org/10.7560/702196-004
- Poulakos, T., & Depew, D. (Eds.). (2004). Isocrates and civic education. University of Texas Press.
- Rummel, E. (1979). Isocrates’ ideal of rhetoric: Criteria of evaluation. The Classical Journal, 75(1), 25–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3296831
- Sawyer, L. L. (05.06.2012). Biesecker—Rethinking the Rhetorical Situation from within the Thematic of Differance, LaToya Lydia Sawyer. https://latoyasawyer.com/2012/06/05/biesecker-rethinking-the-rhetorical-situation-from-within-the-thematic-of-differance/ (Accessed: 20 May 2023).
- Scott, J. B. (1995). Sophistic ethics in the technical writing classroom: Teaching nomos, deliberation, and action. Technical Communication Quarterly, 4(2), 187−199.
- Shidiq, M. (2023, May). The use of artificial intelligence-based ChatGPT and its challenges for the world of education; from the viewpoint of the development of creative writing skills. In Proceeding of International Conference on Education, Society and Humanity 1(1), 353−357.
- Simmons, W. M., & Grabill, J. T. (2007). Toward a civic rhetoric for technologically and scientifically complex places: Invention, performance, and participation. College Composition and Communication (pp. 419−448).
- Terry, O. K. (2023). Opinion: I’m a student. You have no idea how much we’re using CHATGPT. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/im-a-student-you-have-no-idea-how-much-were-using-chatgpt (Accessed: 28 May 2023).
- The Citational Justice Collective, Ahmed, S. I., Amrute, S., Bardzell, J., Bardzell, S., Bidwell, N., Dillahunt, T., Gaytán, S., Karusala, N., Kumar, N., Guzmán, R. L., Mustafa, M., Nardi, B., Nathan, L., Parvin, N., Patin, B., Reynolds-Cuéllar, P., Rouse, R., Spiel, K., et al. (2022). Citational justice and the politics of knowledge production. Interactions, 29(5), 78–82. https://doi.org/10.1145/3556549
- The Innovation Classroom. (2023, January 13). 5 Ways to Use Chat GPT as a student without getting caught [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atiL5utiBrs
- Walton, R., Moore, K., & Jones, N. (2019). Technical communication after the social justice turn: Building coalitions for action. Routledge.
- Yu, H. (2023). Reflection on whether ChatGPT should be banned by academia from the perspective of education and teaching. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1181712