I guess my suggestion that it's rhetoric that makes philosophy look good needs some fleshing out. I was thinking of the historical resistance to the rhetoricity of language that philosophy (among others) tends to exhibit. See, for example, Paul de Man's essay "The Resistance to Theory" in which he makes this case. If this young woman understood that her 'enlightenment' is more a function of letting go of her resistance to 'reading' and her joy in writing, i.e., that the rhetorical interaction of these activities is where her ideas spin out, perhaps she would not credit logic with the power it has historically enjoyed...when the un/truth of the matter is that power exercises itself in the languaging of language, and empowerment comes from letting go of the illusion of logic 'as' power.

Thanks for the link to the story! It's an interesting read, although it reduces "philosophy" to one-liners by the end. I would problematize your judgment that it's rhetoric that makes philosophy look good. I doubt that's the case, as I also doubt that rhetoric is "mere manipulation" as many paint it. I also don't think it's just logic that takes center stage in many of these stories (I always found that a painful subject!)--this story in particular seems badly framed, as she gets into the "big questions" on the meaning of life toward the end. I'd buy that as more life changing than modus ponens.

I do think there's something interesting here in terms of how the 2 disciplines can "grab" some of their students. For instance, take Hume's arguments against the teleological argument for God's existence. Assume a reader loves these. Such arguments could be loved because they challenge held beliefs of that reader, and they could be loved because they provide a positive position for someone to take (viz., as a non-theist). Now, take something akin to this in the rhetoric of religion. Would this also have the same positive or constitutive import(I don't mean this in a valenced sense)? Would it convince one to believe p over non-p, or would it tell us why people do certain things in arguing for p?

Being a participant in both philosophy and rhetoric circles, I often wonder about the different ways these fields energize (some of) their students (neither would be exclusive, or better, than/of the other). In describing the differences, say, at least at the intro to phil and intro to rhet crit levels, I think Habermas may be onto something when he talks about hermemuetic approaches objectifying arguments. A section on the philosophy of religion would (supposedly) haggle over which arguments one should accept in reforming/forming their theistic, etc. beliefs, whereas a unit on the rhetoric of religion (or the criticism of religious rhetoric) would objectify the arguments of others (remove their illocutionary force on the critic) to study how such contexts of arguments "work." Different inquiries, different enlivening effects, I guess. Both would function to open eyes and widen engagement with the world, in their best case scenarios.