Creative Commons Photo Credit

The following is a post that I wrote a week ago for my Rhetorical Theory class. It wasn't intended to fully address the question of "Does language create reality?" but it does touch on that topic:

"I think that Gorgias was right on when he said that "the effect of speech upon the condition of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies. For just as different drugs dispel different secretions from the body, and some bring an end to disease and others to life, so also in the case of speeches, some distress, others delight, some cause fear, others make the hearers bold, and some drug and bewitch the soul with a kind of evil persuasion." I don't think this was exceedingly dramatic, but I do think that most of the time, language is just a communicator of a greater reality. IE, I don't think it is reasonable to believe that language creates reality.

Let me use an example to clarify:

The following is a short assignment that I wrote for my "Rhetorical Theory" class:

"I agree with Isocrates' claim that education does not directly result in moral improvement.

Creative Commons photo credit

A week or so ago I read this post by Silouan that is full of quotations from the ancients about how bad the youth of their day were. It's funny, because much of the same language that those ancients used is being used by the parents and elders of today.