Every fact, value, or idea vitally depends on being communicated effectively. Even the Absolute Truth, if such a thing exists, would remain obscure if it nobody would make the effort to persuasively argue in its favor.

The study of effective speaking and writing is called rhetoric. Studying rhetoric greatly increases your understanding of the ocean of communication in which you are submerged on a daily basis – ranging from theories to commercials and from private conversations to public debates.

This course teaches you the fundamentals of rhetoric and argument analysis. You learn to apply those theories and techniques in practice: first, by analyzing a public debate; second, by shaping and presenting your own philosophically informed position in that debate in a rhetorically sound way.

At the beginning of the course, you select a public debate that you want to work on during the semester. Through a series of assignments (at home) and exercises (in class), you analyze the arguments and the rhetoric that characterize it. This leads up to a final presentation in which you use your findings to take up your own position in that debate.