Reading Guide for Week 7

Tuesday: Trust Me, I’m a Rhetorician

Jay Heinrichs, “Get Them to Like You,” “Make Them Listen,” “Show Leadership,” and “Win Their Trust,” p. 46-78.

1. What is ethos? How does it relate to character, credibility, ethics, and decorum? 

2. What are Aristotle's three essential characteristics of ethos?

3. What are some specific strategies to enhance your ethos?

Thursday: Toward an Ethos of the Extraordinary

Rebecca N. Goldstein, “In the Shadow of the Acropolis,” in Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away (New York: Pantheon Books, 2014), p. 123-62.

*This is the most difficult reading we will be doing all semester. Power through it.

1. How does Goldstein's account of ethos differ from Heinrichs? Where do their different conceptions overlap?

2. How does arete and kleos connect to ethos?

3. What is the "ethos of the extraordinary"? What are examples of it in action?

4. How might we understand the "will to matter" in an age of Facebook and Twitter?