10th Homework: Vocab 6 A and B
Class notes (partial)
Romanticism was to some extent a reaction to, and a rebellion against, rationalism.
Rationalist world view Romantic world view
1. Reason = light, soul, spirit Passion and imagination – light, soul, spirit
Romanticism saw reason as an incomplete approach, even dangerous: hence the birth of the mad scientist motif. Where the rationalist tends to look for solutions to problems and answers to needs in science, technology and rational methods, the Romantic believes that science and technology can’t satisfy the human heart. Romantics believe in our need for mystery, inspiration, vision, passion in order to be whole and fulfilled.
2. Nature is rational: the ‘clockwork’ or Nature, the created world, is full of
mechanistic view of life and nature mystery and power, and of forces and events that can’t be explained in purely rational terms—belief in the supernatural, ‘uncanny’, mystical and magical
The rationalist believes that all events can be explained scientifically, at least in principle; the natural world is all a matter of physics, like a billiard table. The romantic tends to believe there is some sort of life, soul, or spirit that inhabits the physical world and can’t be accounted for in strictly scientific and/or rational terms.
3. Civilization is rational, orderly, and Civilization is a corrupting force, unnatural, full of
fends off savagery pretense and temptation
In many cases, Romantics sought peace, insight, vision by withdrawing into nature to commune with its purity and wildness.
4. Nobility of mind and character Nobility
comes from reason, civilization comes from inner impulses, the natural
and established order—people without purity of soul—and can be corrupted by
benefit of civilization become savage education and social compliance
--people are good only when taught to --people (at least some people) are naturally good
be so. and noble.
5. Abhors paradoxes embraces paradoxes.
11/12
Write a ‘status report’ on your research project. (Re-read the final assignment if you need to.)
1. Your basic conclusions at this time—explain as specifically as you can the CLAIMS you expect to make in your final paper.
2. Some of the evidence supporting your claims
3. Any gaps you see in your evidence
4. How your efforts at research have been going. LET ME KNOW OF PROBLEMS.
8th: Vocab 6 A and B. Write: which topic would you like to research first (list top 3) and how would you approach the task?
9th: Background of the Iliad reading—why the Trojan war started; why Patroclus was killed by Hector and Achilles seeks revenge; role of the gods in the conflict.
RHETORIC
Rhetoric Assignment, Nov. 1, 2011
We are instructed, in 1 Peter 3:15 (NKJV):
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always [be] ready to [give] a defense [Grk. apologia] to everyone who asks you a reason (Grk. logos) for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.
This verse has been used as the justification for the discipline of apologetics, which aims to use the rhetorical appeal to logos, or reasoning, in the defense of our faith in God and our hope in Jesus.
Jesus, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, instructed his apostles not to prepare their arguments beforehand, when they knew they would be examined and required to give witness for the gospel, but rather to let the Holy Spirit give them the words they should speak at the time.
Paul reminds the Corinthians (1 Cor. chs. 1 & 2) that he did not preach the gospel with eloquent words or man’s wisdom, but in the ‘power and demonstration of the Spirit’.
Drawing from the handout, from your class notes, and most of all from your own thinking and writing on this topic, discuss how Christians should go about ‘being ready to give a defense’ to those who ask about the reason for the hope that is in us.
Some specific things to pay attention to:
- Typed, double-spaced, 1.5 to 2 pages. Neatly edited—take some time on this, since it counts as a major test grade.
- This paper is for a class in rhetoric, not Bible. Be sure to address the role of rhetorical logos, as Aristotle defined it, in the spread and defense of the gospel. You can do this by discussing the role of apologetics in our witnessing.
- Be sure to make one or more specific claims or assertions, and to support them with arguments from scripture and elsewhere.
- Do not quote directly from my writing in the handout. My thoughts are not meant to serve as research sources, but as a stimulus for your own thinking and writing.
- If you want to use ideas, information, or quotations from outside sources other than the Bible, then do your own research, and include a bibliography to document the source(s) you use.
Due dates TBA after class discussion.
