France Première Humanities, Literature and Philosophy
Chapters: 2
1. Semester 1: the powers of speech
The art of speech (rhetoric) · The authority of speech · The seductions of speech
- Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasive Speech – Rhetoric is the art of using words to persuade an audience. Every speech has a speaker, an audience, a message and an occasion. Speakers persuade through three appeals: ethos (trust in the speaker), logos (reasons and evidence) and pathos (feelings). A speech is built in five steps — invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery — and figures of speech make it memorable. Rhetoric has power: it can teach and unite, but it can also seduce and manipulate, so a good listener checks the evidence.
2. Semester 2: representations of the world
Discovering the world and cultural plurality · Describing, depicting, imagining · Humans and animals
- The Challenges of Cultural Diversity – India has many languages, religions, regions and tribes. Diversity means difference, not inequality. Communities give people belonging, but when they compete, a nation-state must decide how to treat them. India chose to accept and protect diversity through linguistic states, federalism, minority rights and a special kind of secularism. This lesson explains cultural communities, regionalism, religion and identity, communalism versus secularism, and why a strong civil society keeps an 'authoritarian state' in check.
- Philosophy of Nature: Nature, Culture and Human Nature – Philosophers use the word "nature" in three ways: everything that grows by itself, the basic character of a thing (human nature), and a model to copy. Culture is what people add: language, tools, rules. Thinkers also ask how humans differ from animals, and what we owe to nature.