Quintilian Institutes Book 2 Chapter 18 What Kind of Art?

In this brief chapter Quintilian categorizes arts as 1) those concerted with knowledge, theoretikē, or contemplative arts, the primary goals of which is study; his example: astronomy; 2) The active arts, praktikē, those arts that are more concerned with the immediate experience than producing something, such as dance or theater; 3) and the  productive arts, poetikē, such as painting, which are concerned with the creation of an object that exists after the creative moment.

We immediately recognize that each art may have attributes of the other. Quintilian did as well, claiming that rhetoric had attributes of all three:

"for the subject of it may sometimes be restricted to contemplation, since there will be oratory in an orator even though he be silent . . . There is some enjoyment, and perhaps the greatest of all enjoyments, in retired meditation, and the pleasure derived from knowledge is pure when it is withdrawn from action . . . But oratory will also effect something similar to a productive art in written speeches and historical compositions . . . Yet if it must be classed as one of the three sorts of arts which I have mentioned, let it, as its performance consists chiefly in the mere act and as it is most frequently exhibited in act, be called an active or a practical art, for the one term is of the same signification as the other."

http://rhetoric.eserver.org/quintilian/2/chapter18.html

Institutes Book 2 Chapter 17 Quntilian's Defense of Rhetoric (Cont.)

It’s not clear whether Quintilian is directly answering Plato or simply a tradition of thought that follows from Plato. Here he answers Plato’s argument that the rhetor must know all things he speaks of. Instead, Quintilian makes the post-structuralist argument, than none of us can ever be certain. 

“Oratory is the art of speaking well, and the orator knows how to speak well. But it is said he does not know whether what he says is true; neither do the philosophers, who say that fire, or water, or the four elements, or indivisible atoms are the principles from which all things had their origin, know that what they say is true; nor do those who calculate the distances of the stars, and the magnitudes of the sun and the earth, yet every one of them calls his system an art.”

http://rhetoric.eserver.org/quintilian/2/chapter17.html

Institutes Book 2 Chapter 16 Quntilian's Defense of Rhetoric

In Book Two, Chapters 16 through 20, Quintilian defends rhetoric against all comers. First, he takes on Plato’s complaint that rhetoric can be used as easily for ill as for good with a bit of satire. 

“In the hands of physicians poisons have been found, and among those who abuse the name of philosophers have been occasionally detected the most horrible crimes. We must reject food, for it has often given rise to ill health; we must never go under roofs, for they sometimes fall upon those who dwell beneath them; a sword must not be forged for a soldier, for a robber may use the same weapon.”

His deeper argument, however, is to question the definition of rhetoric as persuasion, redefining it is eloquence. Though this sets him up for Ramus’s attack later, it allows him to connect rhetoric to virtue. 

"But these points may perhaps be left to the consideration of those who think that the substance of eloquence lies in the power to persuade. But if eloquence be the art of speaking well (the definition which I adopt), so that a true orator must be, above all, a good man, it must assuredly be acknowledged that it is a useful art."

As yet, Quintilian hasn’t explained why it requires a good man to be a rhetorician, other than the “true” rhetoric argument. But, that’s what Weaver argues Plato is actually arguing in “Phaedrus.” 

http://rhetoric.eserver.org/quintilian/2/chapter16.html

The Seeds of Vico and Grassi

In this brief statement, Quintilian places the imaginative above the analytical, or at least before the analytical, a theme that is repeated and elaborated on in Vico and Grassi. At question in Quintilian is whether the imaginative is elementary or the foundational. If elementary it can be left behind when analysis comes to the fore; if foundational provides much of the framework for invention.

"Exuberance is easilv remedied, but barrenness is incurable, be your efforts what they may. To my mind the boy who gives least promise is one in whom the critical faculty develops in advance of the imagination. I like to see the first fruits of the mind copious to excess and almost extravagant in their profusion."

Book II, Chapter 4

Quintilian Institutes: Verisimilitude and Narrative

At the beginning of Book II, Quintilian categorizes narrative 

verisimilitude according to the categories "fictitious" and "true." 

Later he questions the "truth" in some historical narratives, 

even though he classifies them as true here. It's going to be 

interesting to see how his different categories play out when he 

get to the "best method of narration" later. Will he, like 

Corax and Tisias play truth games with the probable and make 

the worse the better? 

"Now there are three forms of narrative, without 2 
counting the type used in actual legal cases. First 
there is the fictitious narrative as we get it in 
tragedies and poems, which is not merely not true 
but has little resemblance to truth. Secondly, there 
is the realistic narrative as presented by comedies, 
which, though not true, has yet a certain verisimili- 
tude. Thirdly there is the historical narrative, which 
is an exposition of actual fact. Poetic narratives 
are the property of the teacher of literature. The 
rhetorician therefore should begin with the his- 
torical narrative, whose force is in proportion to its 
truth.I will, however, postpone my demonstration 3 
of what I regard as the best method of narration 
till I come to deal with narration as required in the 
courts."