We can make a broad distinction between two 
schools of classical thought on communication. The first school sees communication as a way 
to discover the truth of things. This school started with the famous philosopher 
Socrates and his student Plato. They put a huge emphasis on the role of 
discourse and logical argumentation in the communication 
process. It is called the dialectic method: which is simply put that logical and rational 
discussion will help us resolve differences by finding out 
which viewpoint is true. Therefore mans ability to reason is paramount 
for a civilization to flourish and advance. Here we have, in a nutshell, the purpose of 
communication, to express and critically weigh the value of 
ideas, and eventually to discard or perfect them in 
correlation with their objective worth. As models go, this one is obviously quite linear. Good communication is rational communication 
that helps us to find ‘the truth’ in ideas. It' easy to see why so many philosophers, who 
were also interested in natural science and finding out how the world worked, were 
attracted to this school of thought. Later, Medieval monks were also charmed by this classical idea of communication to reach 
the truth. It was in their opinion a way for pre-Christian 
Greeks and Romans to see the greater truth of God. So even though they were not Christians, the writings of Plato and such were copied by 
Christian monks and have survived while so many books of their contemporaries 
haven’t. Usually we only know about these other books  
because Plato and such refer and react to them. This second school of Greek communication 
science was called rhetorica. Derived from the Greek ῥήτωρ (rhḗtōr) which 
means "public speaker". Rhetorica taught the ability to perceive all 
means of persuasion in any given scenario, according to Aristotle in one of his books on the 
topic. So it was very much an applied science, where 
the practicality of theories decided their worth. The main purpose was not to find truth but to 
persuade someone, so essentially to make something seem like the 
truth even if it wasn’t. Proponents of this school were also called 
sophists, and were often attacked vehemently by natural 
philosophers like Socrates and Plato, who above all else searched for the truth. Later, many sophist writing was purposely not 
copied by Medieval monks for this same reason. Despite the disapproval among natural 
philosophers, rhetorica was extremely popular in the Classical 
world. Not only in Greece but in Rome too the ability to win people over through speeches 
was crucial for political or social advancement. Caesar, Marc Anthony, Octavian, they were all 
trained in and sometimes wrote about the art of 
persuasion. Usually they had studied the basics of rhetorica 
in Greece itself. Luckily some books on rhetorica did survive. Most notably those by the Greek philosopher 
Aristotle and the Roman statesman Marcus Cicero. So what exactly did they teach? We’ll talk about some basic rhetorical theory in 
the next section.