What is meant
Elocution here means the capacity for expression and understanding, not merely the organ of speech. It is a capacity that a person acquires through teaching and learning.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Argument type: definitional
- Argument movement: It defines elocution as an ability acquired through education, not merely an organ of speech.
- Key terms: elocution, expression and understanding, education, speech.
- Degree of centrality: secondary.
This atom makes elocution an acquired cognitive faculty, not merely an organic trait; in this way, it links language to learning and cognitive responsibility.
Links to assist reading
Support
- Supporting text: “Elocution: the capacity for expression and understanding, and it is acquired through education, not merely the organ of speech.”
Place of support in the book
- Book: Religion and Authority.
- Location: in the first section of the book
- Type of support: close evidence.
- Verification marker: acquired through education
- Reading note: This location is suitable as support because it links elocution with knowledge and learning, and it is close to the atom in terms of the meaning of acquisition.
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom rests on a clear witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of reading: the formulation above is an analytic summary, and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted textually.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Editorial note
The definition expands the meaning of elocution from the body to knowledge.