Dicaeologia, Essay Example

Dicaeologia (from Greek “plea in defense”, pronounced as /di-key-o-lo-gia/) – is a figure of argumentation based on admission of a charge along with dismissal of it out of necessity (Howard, 2010, p. 80) or “an excuse showing an absolute necessity by the doer” (Myers & Wukasch, 2003, p.100). Zimmerman (2005) identifies dicaeologia as device of vehemence “defending one’s words or acts with reasonable excuses; defending briefly the justice of one’s cause” (184).

Example:

“A: I got your message. One more promise broken. One more weekend blown off! B: I’m sorry. Yes, it’s true–one more promise broken.  I should’ve told you in my message why I can’t come up. I have poison ivy all over my legs. They’re coated with lotion and they’re so swollen that I can’t drive. In fact, I can hardly walk. I really don’t have a choice about coming up. How about next weekend? I hope the poison ivy will be gone by then” (Dicaeologia).

Original example:   Prince: Father, you cannot disinherit me.

If you be king, why should not I succeed?

King Henry: Pardon me, Margaret, pardon me, sweet son,

The Earl of Warwick and the Duke enforc’d me.

Shakespeare, Henry VI Act I Scene I (as cited in Howard, 2010, p. 80).

“And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of perverseness. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart – one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself – to offer violence to its own nature – to do wrong for the wrong’s sake only – that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree – hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart – hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence – hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin – a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it – if such a thing were possible – even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God” (“The Black Cat” by E. A. Poe as cited in Zimmerman, 2005, p185).

A: You can’t deny that you stole white bread from the shop. The camera shot you

pocketing it. You should pay before leaving the shop with food? It is a theft.

B:  I’m sorry about that. I did it to bring something to eat to my children. My family is starving.

A: Do you know how barbarian is Drize eye irritation test applied in animal experimentations to check the ability of a cream, shampoo or detergent to irritate mucous membranes and cutaneous coverings, to test their general toxicity. The scientists give substance by small doses into eyes of a conscious rabbit and observe the process of irritation of the cornea.

It is a long-term process and means several weeks of suffering for the subject of experiment.

B:  We realize that many research methods are cruel towards animals. However, we would

stop involving animals in testing if we had some alternative.

References

Dicaeologia. (June, 2008). Retrieved November 16, 2010, from http://dailytrope.com/2008/06/13/dicaeologia/

Howard, G. T. (2010). Dictionary of Rhetorical Terms. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation. Print.

Myers, J. E., & Wukasch, D.C. (2003). Dictionary of poetic terms. Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press. Print.

Zimmerman, B. (2005). Edgar Allan Poe: Rhetoric and Style.  Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen’s Press – MQUP. Print.