Old Exams: Exam 1

Question 1

When Socrates engaged an individual in rigorous questioning in hopes of attaining a clear definition or the essence of a concept, he was using:

Answer 1

Dialektike

Question 2

Whose motto was: “I can make the weaker claim appear stronger?”

Answer 2

Protagoras

Question 3

The Sophists were itinerant teachers with a skeptical and relativistic view of certain, or absolute, truth. T/F?

Answer 3

True

Question 4

The Sophists believed that cosmological speculation was just as important as societal affairs and knowing the way to make the best possible decisions in practical living. T/F?

Answer 4

False.

Question 5

Who said, “The unexamined life is not worth living?”

Answer 5

Socrates, in Plato’s Apology

Question 6

Who said the following and what was he advocating?

“For I think it is manifest to all that foreknowledge of future events is not vouchsafed to our human nature, but that we are far removed from this prescience…..”

Answer 6

Isocrates and phronesis

Question 7

Who said the following: “the effect of speech upon the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the body?”

Answer 7

Gorgias, in Encomium of Helen

Question 8

Which one of the Cosmologists argued, “all things flow, nothing abides?”

Answer 8

Heraclitus

Question 9

Who compared rhetoric to “attiring” (cosmetic)?

Answer 9

Socrates, in Plato’s Gorgias

Question 10

The greek term ______________ emphasized the right and responsibility of all free male citizens to speak publicly, a core value among Athenians during the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.

Answer 10

Parrhesia

Question 11

According to Aristotle, if a prosecutor exhibits a bloody knife as part of her case against someone accused of murder, the bloody knife is a type of:

Answer 11

inartistic proof

Question 12

Socrates provides his own definition/ description of rhetoric in which part of the Gorgias?

Answer 12

In his conversation with Polus

Question 13

Who is the most famous logographer and considered by some to be the father of lawyers?

Answer 13

Lysias

Question 14

Who was the first important Sophist in the larger Sophistic Movement?

Answer 14

Protagoras

Question 15

As a contest society, the Greeks were obsessed with:

Answer 15

Arete

Question 16

The study and practice of rhetoric in the Western world comes primarily out of the Parmenidian tradition. T/F?

Answer 16

False

Question 17

The charges at Socrates’ trial were that:

Answer 17

He did not believe in the gods and he was a corrupter of youth

Question 18

What was not a characteristic of the Sophists?

Answer 18

Opponents of democracy

Question 19

Isocrates represents the middle ground between the sophists and socratics. T/F?

Answer 19

True

Question 20

Although Isocrates was in many ways a Sophist himself, he wrote a major treatise titled “Against the Sophists” in an effort to create a Panhellenic or internally unified, Greece. T/F?

Answer 20

True

Question 21

Who defined rhetoric as “Adjusting ideas to people and people to ideas?

Answer 21

Donald C. Bryant

Question 22

This sophist advocated ideas and concepts that formed the basis of the adversarial system of legal practices found in law courts in the United States today. Who was he?

Answer 22

Protagoras.

Question 23

Who argued the following: “Then when the rhetorician is more persuasive than the physician, the ignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant than he who has the knowledge? Is not that inference?

Answer 23

Socrates, in interrogating Gorgias

Question 24

Who defined rhetoric as the faculty of observing in any given situation all of the available means of persuasion?

Answer 24

Aristotle

Question 25

The Greek word rhesis, when translated into English, means______?

Answer 25

A speech

Question 26

Socrates began his speech of self-defense as recorded in Plato’s Apology, by arguing that although he was an eloquent public speaker, he was not going to try to flatter his listeners, as his accusers had done.

Answer 26

False

Question 27

According to the Encomium of Helen, the effect of speech is like

Answer 27

A drug

Question 28

Isocrates was more concerned about his students character than:

Answer 28

Protagoras, Gorgias, or Lysias

Question 29

Empedocles is known as the father of rhetoric? T/F

Answer 29

False

Question 30

In Gorgias’ on Nature, he argued, “nothing exists;” ‘if is did exist, we couldn’t know it;” “If we could know is, we couldn’t communicate it.” what do you think Gorgias meant?

Answer 30

We do no experience reality directly. We only experience reality through the words we use to call it into existence. It is impossible to communicate perfectly with others.

Question 31

When Isocrates taught his students to develop phronesis, he was teaching them to develop”

Answer 31

Practical wisdom

Question 32

Which Sophist had a reputation for specializing in ceremonial oratory and even won the olympic contest for public speaking?

Answer 32

Gorgias

Question 33

Gorgias taught that the power of language was evident by the fact that language can be used to harmonize what appears to be a contradiction. T/F?

Answer 33

True

Question 34

Who argued the following: “A flattery I deem this to be and of an ignoble sort because it aims at pleasure without any thought of the best.”

Answer 34

Socrates, in Plato’s Gorgias

Question 35

Who argued that for every perspective there was at lease one other opposing perspective?

Answer 35

Protagoras

Question 36

Which of the following was not one of the reason Athenians placed a high priority on public speaking?

Answer 36

The Sophists taught it so well.

Question 37

Who said the following: “Man is the measure of all things, of the things that they are, and of the things that are not that they are not”

Answer 37

Protagoras

Question 38

To Isocrates, “Kairos” meant:

Answer 38

Truth is relative to specific situations because every situation in time is different therefore, every speech should be written for its specific situation

Question 39

Protagoras was heavily influenced by Empedocles a shamon or type of witch doctor who practiced incantations over the sick to heal them, whichin turn gave protagoras his love of the power of language to move the human soul to new opinions. T/F?

Answer 39

True

Question 40

Plato seemed to dislike Democracy because it allowed people like the sophists to deceive the mass of people that they were wise enough to make the best decisions for their lives and the lives of their fellow citizens. T/F?

Answer 40

True

Question 41

In the opening lines of his Rhetoric, Aristotle writes that rhetoric is the _______ of dialectic

Answer 41

Antistophos

Question 42

Protagoras coined the term rhetorike in Socrates Apology. T/F?

Answer 42

False

Question 43

Which of the following was not one of the five lessons we can learn from Socrate’s Apology?

Answer 43

Although we can’t know absolute truth we can become wise by seeking it

Question 44

By the end of his conversation with Gorgias, Socrates concludes that the only possible use one could have for rhetoric would be to:

Answer 44

Use it to deceive ignorant audiences

Question 45

While preparing for a job interview, you’re thinking about how you might use your experience, education, examples from previous jobs, and comments about your job performance from previous bosses to answer questions during that interview in such a way as to demonstrate your qualifications for the job. Aristotle would say you are focusing on:

Answer 45

Inartistic proofs

Question 46

Who said the following? “Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body effects the divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity…”

Answer 46

Gorgias in his speech, “Encomium of Helen.”

Question 47

What educational technique did Protagoras invent and emphasize that led later scholars to ascribe to him the title, “Father of debate?”

Answer 47

Having each student argue opposing sides of an issue

Question 48

Which of the following is a good synonym for Socrates and Platos concept of “dialectic?”

Answer 48

Dialogue

Question 49

Which stylistic device is evident in the following assertion?

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil. Who put darkness for light and light for darkness. Who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” - isaiah 5:20

Answer 49

Chiasmus

Question 50

Which sophist delivered a famous speech praising the wife of Menalaus king of sparta and excused her for succumbing to paris because paris may have used the power of persuasion to seduce her?

Answer 50

Gorgias