Whenever I give a talk about the Rhetoric, audiences ask about rhetorical deception and fraud, about the morality of rhetoric, and about how to tell a good rhetorician from a sophist. The first and most important thing to say about the Rhetoric in connection with such questions of the morality of rhetoric is that Aristotle has very little to say about them, and, as far as I can tell, very little interest in them. Contemporary readers of the Rhetoric see people constantly duped by slick commercial and political advertisements, and hope that the Rhetoric can help them become conscious of hidden persuasion, or to make more morally based discriminations between decent appeals, which they should trust, and immoral ones, which they should reject. Rhetoric is often promoted today as an equivalent to defensive driving. It is worth asking why these questions have so little interest for Aristotle.

Whatever dates Composition historians suggest as the beginning of modern composition studies whether it's 1949-50 with the founding of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, or 1961 with the publication of Richard Braddock, Richard Lloyd-Jones, and Lowell Schoer's Research in Written Composition, or 1971 with the publication of Janet Emig's The Composing Processes of Twelfth Graders they all agree that the modern study of written communication is at least two decades old, with its gradual emergence occurring over decade or so. One way of marking the emergence of this new discipline is to look for the rise of what Robert Connors has called a coherently evolved of composition (Introduction xii). In fact, the journal literature of the 1950s and early 1960s is full of suggestions for theoretical foundation for the study and teaching of writing. Finding coherent theory that the field could embrace, however, was problematic.

Defining the New Rhetorics, edited by Theresa Enos and Stuart C. Brown. Newbury Park: Sage, 1993; pp. 243 + Introduction, Index Nineteenth‐Century Scottish Rhetoric: The American Connection by Winifred Bryan Horner. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993. 211 Rhetoric and the Origins of Medieval Drama by Jody Enders. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992;xiv; 281. Rhetoric and Society Series, ed. Wayne A. Rebhorn. Peter Ramus's Attack on Cicero: Text and Translation of Ramus's Brutinae Quaestiones. Ed. James J. Murphy.Trans. Carole Newlands. Davis, CA: Hermagoras P, 1992. Literate Culture: Pope's Rhetorical Art by Ruben Quintero. Newark: U of Delaware Press, 1992; 187. Cast by Means of Figures: Herman Melville's Rhetorical Development by Bryan C. Short. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992.

Central to an understanding of the history and theory of classical rhetoric is an understanding of the keywords the ancients used to discuss their art. Keywords are those terms which are integral to a text's argument and which often resonate with complex denotations and connotations (Welsch). Keywords carry a heavy freight of meaning that simple, single-word definitions often cannot render. Furthermore, single-word conceptualizations tend to foist the reader's own associations onto the ancient and foreign words. The solution to this problem is not to translate

(1994). A closer look at education as epideictic rhetoric. Rhetoric Society Quarterly: Vol. 23, No. 3-4, pp. 70-89.

Abstract: This essay discusses four pivotal moments in the consideration of whether rhetoric is an art. Section I sets the stage by briefly discussing the charge against rhetoric found in the Gorgias. Section II sketches the arguments of Sextus Empiricus and shows how they can be traced back to a single objection implicit in the Socratic charge, namely that the putative subject matter of rhetoric is indeterminate. Section III reviews several arguments presented by Quintilian, most of which can be usefully formulated as responses to Sextus. Section IV shows how Quintilian in fact reflects a line of thought first presented by Isocrates in Against the Sophists. The essay articulates what is common in the “common stock” of arguments about whether rhetoric is an art, and why the argument is one of intrinsic importance.

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to show, by examining the exercise books of Beata Rosenhane, how a woman of the salons was educated in the mid-seventeenth century, to compare her learning to that of boys from the same period, and by doing this, to give a brief description of a little-noticed species of rhetorical training—the methods and means used for preparing young girls to take part in the rhetorical practices of the salons. The essay shows that different rhetorical repertoires existed during the seventeenth century according to the different futures envisioned for various groups of students,and that changes in the understanding of rhetoric as a field have obscured the accomplishments of women trained to meet the demands of the salon.

Many authorities have come to recognize the critical importance of the Greek notion of kairos (right timing and due measure) in contemporary rhetoric. But Aristotelian scholars have generally ignored or demeaned Aristotle's use of kairos in his rhetoric, often contrasting it especially to Plato's full treatment in the Phaedrus. This lack of attention has been partially due to faulty indexes or concordances, which have recently been corrected both by Wartelle and programs like PERSEUS and IBICUS. Secondly, no one has hitherto attempted to go beyond the root kair- and examine the concept as expressed in other terms. This article will attempt to meet both of these concerns. It will first examine carefully the 16 references to kairos in the Rhetoric and show that the term is an integral element in Aristotle's own act of writing, in his concept of the pathetic argument, and in his handling of maxims and integration. There are also important passages using kairos in his treatment of style, often in conjunction with his use of the notion of propriety or fitness (to prepon). Possibly the two most important indirect uses of the concept of kairos can be seen in his definition of rhetoric and in his treatment of equity in both the Rhetoric and in the Nicomachean Ethics, probably the two most important treatments of the concept in antiquity.

he generally prevailing concept of the enthymeme, or the one most frequent in the world of rhetoric and composition studies, tends to define it either as a of elliptical, informal based on probable rather than certain premises and on tacit assumptions shared by audience and rhetor, or as a of Toulmin argument, or as a general mode of intuitive reasoning representable in syllogistic or Toulminian terms, or, most simply, as the juxtaposition of any idea with another that is offered as a reason for believing it. All such thinking starts from Aristotle's famous dicta that the enthymeme is a kind of syllogism or rhetorical syllogism, and that rhetoric is a counterpart of dialectic (Rhetoric 1.1 [1355a]; 1.2 [1356b]; 1.1 [1354a]).' This prevailing definition, however, has recently been put in question (see in particular Conley, Enthymeme; Gage, Theory). And, as we will see, it is inadequate. In what follows, we will first reexamine the primary (and not exclusively Aristotelian) ancient sources from which a more adequate concept of the enthymeme can be derived. Then, we will consider the relevance of that concept to the analysis of modern discourse-specifically, to the analysis of Roland Barthes' The World of Wrestling and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail, both of which appear in popular anthologies used in composition courses, and both of which provide good examples of modern-but unrecognized-enthymeming.

Two articles in the December 1992 College English presented historical perspectives on the field of Basic Writing. In "Conflict and Struggle: The Enemies or Preconditions of Basic Writing?" Min-Zhan Lu argued for the value of a pedagogy in which conflict and struggle help Basic Writers to reposition themselves; she suggested that resistance to such a pedagogy is traceable to three pioneers in the field, Kenneth Bruffee, Thomas Farrell, and Mina Shaughnessy, and the historical context in which they worked. In "Waiting for an Aristotle, " Paul Hunter analyzed the special issue of the Journal of Basic Writing published in 1980 as a memorial to Mina Shaughnessy, finding a conservative impulse both in its structure and in its reading of Shaughnessy's message. This symposium presents several commentaries on Lu 's and Hunter's articles, followed by the authors' responses. Sources for all contributions to the Symposium are combined in a common Works Cited list at the end.

Ethos is generally associated with individual rhetors.1 Certainly that's association Aristotle had in mind when he recorded most influential usage of term (Rhetoric 1356a). But there is ample warrant for moving to a broader level-the level adopted in this paper, a case study of outrageous of a group of generative linguists on cusp of sixties and seventies. There is ample warrant for identifying not simply with specific individuals in specific orations but also with identifiable communities. In ordinary language, for instance, has always been far more communal than individual: Ethos.... [ 1.] The characteristic spirit, prevalent tone of sentiment, of a people or community; 'genius' of an institution or system (OED, 1933 reissue) . And it has a similar sense among our academic neighbors-in literary criticism, where books have titles like The Ethos of Restoration Comedy (Schneider); in sociology, where books have titles like The Ethos of Hong Kong Chinese (Siu-Kai), or, more famously, in Merton's discussion of general ethos of science (268). Coming closer to home, consider Augustine's notion of a Christian ethos, which presupposes that rhetor stands for group values (De Doctrina 4.27-29). Consider similarly presupposing admonition of George Campbell about influence of party-spirit (97). Consider Black's above-epigramitized talk of patterned commitments and stylistic proclivities, which, as Halloran tells us, is essentially projection of to communal level (Black 85; Halloran, Molecular Biology 71). Elsewhere, Halloran tells us more: the word has both an individual and a collective meaning. It makes sense to speak of of this or that person, but it makes equally good sense to speak of of a particular

Research Article| August 01 1993 The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy: Plato's Gorgias and Phaedrus Seth Benardete, The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy: Plato's Gorgias and Phaedrus (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991), viii + 205 pp. Harvey Yunis Harvey Yunis Department of Classics, Rice University, PO Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251, USA. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1993) 11 (3): 343–344. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1993.11.3.343 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Harvey Yunis; The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy: Plato's Gorgias and Phaedrus. Rhetorica 1 August 1993; 11 (3): 343–344. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1993.11.3.343 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1993, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1993 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Abstract: Historically, the Renaissance marks a transformation in wfiich the elite classes come to define themselves by their aesthetic refinement, taste, and good manners. Accompanying this change is a special vision of the human body which is distinguished from that of artisans and peasants. This opposition has been described by Bakhtin as one between the classical body and the grotesque one, and it appears in the most unportant book for the Renaissance redefinition of the upper classes, Castiglione's II libro del cortegiano. Castiglione's view of the body actually derives from the rhetorical tradition of antiquity, in particular from Quintilian and Cicero's De oratore. A similar view appears in the works of Renaissance rhetoricians and can usefully be illustrated by analysis of Thomas Wilson's The Arte of Rhetorique (1553), although the latter also retains a vision of the grotesque body as a result of the ambiguous social position of its author.

Abstract: Although “community” has become an important critical concept in contemporary rhetoric, it is only implicit in ancient rhetorics. In the rhetorical thought of the sophists, Plato, and Aristotle, the polis stands as a presupposition that was both fundamental and troublesome. Various relationships between the faculty of speech and the social order are revealed in different tellings of the history of civilization by Protagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, as well as in more formal discussions of rhetoric and politics. These ancient disagreements about the nature of community can help us reformulate the current debate between liberalism and communitarianism. A rhetorical community as a site of contention can be both pluralist and normative.

Abstract: The concem with progress and utility is shared by nineteenth-century scientists, philosophers, and rhetoricians, leading to significant correspondences among their discourses. This concern is manifest, for example, in the way in which several rhetorical treatises of the nineteenth century regard the distinction between a figure and a trope, which had been a common part of rhetorical theory since the time of Quintilian, as useless and anachronistic. By examining three nineteenth-century articulations of the justifications for erasing the trope/figure distinction from the cultural repertoire, this essay reveals structural and semantic parallels between these rhetorical treatises and the discourses of evolution and utilitarianism. Thus, the essay locates the source of the synonymity which the terms “trope” and “figure” have acquired in contemporary critical metalanguage in Victorian ideologies of progress and of the unprofitability and consequent discardability of the ancient.

Abstract: Like the Church Fathers before him, Petrarch was forced to defend secular learning against its detractors, and his defenses draw on many of the same arguments that Augustine and Jerome had used. In these defenses he blends classical rhetoric and Christian values, and his procedures also follow the traditions of classical rhetoric, relying on the epistolary form and utilizing the Ciceronian manner of debating all topics from opposite standpoints. Perhaps, however, because his indecisiveness complemented the classical rhetorical premise that many issues present many possible resolutions, Petrarch also rejects secular learning in some of his writings. His arguments are therefore conclusive only within their unique rhetorical situations.

Abstract: Gregorio Mayans y Siscar's Rhetórica (Valenda, 1757)must be regarded as a pivotal work in the evolution of eighteenthcentury Spanish rhetorical theory. Since Mayans' ideas did not appear without precedent in the Rhetórica, this article begins by tracing the development of his principles through his earlier writings about the state of discourse in Spain. A detailed analysis of the Rhetóricaitself is followed by a demonstration of how Mayans modified classical rhetoric into a rhetoricized poetics whose history became integrated into the history of Spanish literature. Thus Mayans' transformation of classical rhetoric takes its place in the development of Spanish cultural history, in which rhetoric increasingly came to be regarded as a part of the larger study of the national literature.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes We would like to acknowledge Richard L. Enos for his careful readings of initial drafts and for his thoughtful suggestions along the way. We would also like to thank James Murphy for his useful comments regarding our manuscript. Finally, we are especially grateful to Takis Poulakos not only for his scholarship that works to open up a space for Isocrates but even more so for his insightful readings and challenging comments that indicated a tincture of hope in earlier drafts of our paper.

(1993). The epideictic character of rhetorical criticism. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 339-349.

Abstract: In Book 4 of De doctrina Christiana St. Augustine suggests that the three levels of style in Christian oratory should reflect the level of emotional impact on the audience, which would result in frequent variation through the course of the speech. Augustine's literary theory seems to be in complete agreement with contemporary oratorical practice, not only Latin, in the West, but Greek too—witness St. Gregory of Nazianzus, whose Oration 42, The Last Farewell,is used as an example in this article. Finally, a comparison between Augustine's views and those of some later Greek rhetoricians suggests that he may have been influenced as much by their ideas as by his acknowledged source and predecessor, Cicero.

On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, Aristotle, translated, with introduction, notes, and appendixes by George A. Kennedy Janet M. Atwill Rhetoric and Irony: Western Literacy and Western Lies, C. Jan Swearingen Beth Daniell Composition and Resistance, C. Mark Hurlbert and Michael Blitz Alice Calderonello Written Language Disorders: Theory into Practice, Ann M. Bain, Laura Lyons Bailet, and Louisa Cook Moates Patricia J. McAlexander Faking It: A Look into the Mind of a Creative Learner, Christopher M. Lee and Rosemary F. Jackson Patricia J. McAlexander Reading and Writing the Self Autobiography in Education and the Curriculum, Robert J. Graham Lynn Z. Bloom Textbooks In Focus: Advanced Writing Rethinking Writing, Peshe C. Kuriloff Evelyn Ashton-Jones About Writing: A Rhetoric for Advanced Writers, Kristin R. Woolever Evelyn Ashton-Jones Process, Form, and Substance: A Rhetoric for Advanced Writers, Richard M. Coe Evelyn Ashton-Jones Beginning Writing Groups Daniel Sheridan

Technical-professional communication as praxis, or social action, is extended beyond skill or amoral art into the realm of phronesis, concerned with reasoning about ends rather than means. However, praxis and phronesis are sociologically constructed and, like social-epistemic rhetoric, ideologically defined in the political context by the ethic of expediency enabling deliberative rhetoric. Hitler's use of propaganda to construct praxis and define phronesis in Nazi Germany is examined in terms of the rational but open-ended nature of Aristotle's political-ethical thought, and the implications for our understanding of Aristotelian praxis is discussed. Finally, the failure of professional discourse surrounding the siting of a low-level nuclear waste facility to create a persuasive reality and yet ideologically construct praxis is examined, raising questions concerning the possibility of a deliberative technical rhetoric in U.S. democracy.

By now there seems widespread consensus among scholars on rhetoric that Protagoras and Gorgias, the leading sophists of the fifth century B.C.E., made significant progress in building a theory of discourse that excluded any absolute standard for the judgment of truth. These ancient sophists thus anticipated today's prevailing school of rhetoricians, who hold that absolute standard for the judgment of truth can never be found ... because the individual mind can never transcend personal emotions, social circumstances, and historical conditions.1 This position prevented the two sophists from adopting, as it now impels us to set aside, the terms knowledge and truth in their classic objective sense since neither consciousness nor discourse can be supposed accurately to represent an absolute and non-contingent external reality. Robert Scott's famous 1967 article On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic, from which we often date the current renaissance of anti-foundationalism in rhetoric, repeatedly acknowledged Protagoras and Gorgias as pioneers. And the resonance has been repeatedly acknowledged since (Jarratt &9, Crowley 332, Meiland 51, Newman 47). Patricia Bizzell has pointed out, however, that something is missing from today's anti-foundationalist rhetoric:

Imitation has long been a method and theoretical basis for rhetorical instruction. It has also enjoyed a complex, if not always glorious, history-a lineage which extends from the apprenticeship of sophists in Plato's Greece to the moral education of orators in Quintilian's Rome; from the nurturing of abundant expression in a Renaissance text by Erasmus to the cultivation of taste in an Enlightenment text by Hugh Blair. In the last few decades, however, we have witnessed dramatic changes in how we look upon imitation-changes largely influenced, we think, by the process movement, with its various emphases on invention and revision, expression and discovery, cognition and collaboration. In the wake of shifting so much of our attention to writing processes, we might well expect imitation to have been pronounced as dead as Nietzche's God was a century ago. But if the literature reviewed here is any indication, rumors of imitation's death have been greatly exaggerated. Most of the studies in our survey are favorablyand surprisingly-disposed to imitation's continued practice. Such studies typically call for a revised understanding of imitation, a novel approach which reveals the proponent's understanding of the need to somehow demonstrate imitation's acceptability to a community which presumably resists its use. Why? Most likely because imitation turns on assumptions about writing and learning which many find discomforting, if not altogether objectionable. There are, of course, fairly complex historical, cultural, and theoretical reasons for our current aversion to imitation, many of which we explore later in our review. But the important point for us is that those who argue for imitation-however much they may differ in their various arguments-share an awareness that its use must be justified in answer to, and anticipation of, its critical refusal by the community at large. What we infer from this awareness is the community's largely tacit rejection of imitation. That's not to say, of course, that explicit criticism of imitation is wholly absent from the literature.' But in a context where many readily assent to the idea that almost any form of direct imitation leads to a distortion of the writing process, there is little urgency to speak against its use in the writing classroom (Judy and Judy 127). Indeed, only those who desire a reevaluation of imitation need

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(Inter)views: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives on Rhetoric and Literacy, Gary A. Olson and Irene Gale Douglas Vipond Contending with Words: Composition and Rhetoric in a Postmodern Age, Patricia Harkin and John Schilb Stephen M. North Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured, Susan C. Jarratt James D. Williams Portfolios: Process and Product, Pat Belanoff and Marcia Dickson Edward M. White Assigning, Responding, Evaluating: A Writing Teacher’s Guide, Edward M. White Karen L. Greenberg Evolving Perspectives on Computers and Composition Studies: Questionsfor the 1990s, Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe Mary G. French Pain and Possibility: Writing Your Way through Personal Crisis, Gabriele Rico JoAnn Campbell

This book is a critically informed challenge to the traditional histories of rhetoric to the current emphasis on Aristotle Plato as the most significant classical voices in rhetoric. In it, Susan C. Jarratt argues that the first sophistsa diverse group of traveling intellectuals in the fifth century B.C.should be given a more prominent place in the study of rhetoric composition. Rereading the ancient sophists, she creates a new lens through which to see contemporary social issues, including the orality/literacy debate, feminist writing, deconstruction, writing pedagogy.The sophists pleasure in the play of language, their focus on historical contin-gency, the centrality of their teaching for democratic practice were sufficiently threatening to their successors Plato Aristotle that both sought to bury the sophists under philosophical theories of language. The censure of Plato Aris-totle set a pattern for historical views of the sophists for centuries. Following Hegel Nietzsche, Jarratt breaks the pattern, finding in the sophists a more progressive charter for teachers scholars of reading writing, as well as for those in the adjacent disciplines of literary criticism theory, education, speech communication, ancient history.In tracing the historical interpretations of sophistic rhetoric, Jarratt suggests that the sophists themselves provide the outlines of an alternative to history-writing as the discovery recounting of a set of stable facts. She sees sophistic use of narrative in argument as a challenge to a simple division between orality literacy, current discussions of which virtually ignore the sophists. Outlining similarities between ecriture feminine and sophistic style, Jarratt shows that contemporary feminisms have more in common with sophists than just a style; they share a rhetorical basis for deployment of theory in political action. In her final chapter, Jarratt takes issue with accounts of sophistic pedagogy focusing on technique the development of the individual. She argues that, despite its employment by powerful demagogues, sophistic pedagogy offers a resource for today s teachers interested in encouraging minority voices of resistance through language study as the practice of democracy.

Research Article| November 01 1992 St. Paul's Epistles and Ancient Greek and Roman Rhetoric C. Joachim Classen C. Joachim Classen Seminar für Klassische Philologie der Georg-August-Universität, Humboldtallee 19, D-3400 Göttingen, Germany Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1992) 10 (4): 319–344. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1992.10.4.319 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation C. Joachim Classen; St. Paul's Epistles and Ancient Greek and Roman Rhetoric. Rhetorica 1 November 1992; 10 (4): 319–344. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1992.10.4.319 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1992, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1992 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

he question of the existence of a Hebrew concept of per­ suasion arises as a subordinate pofrit in James BCinneavy's book, The Greek Rhetorical Origins of Christian Faith. Kmneavy's thesis is that the Christian notion of TTIO-TIC, faith as dis­ tinct from the Hebrew concept of faithfulness or trust, 'emunâ, owes its origin the Greek concept of TTIO-TIC, beUef as persuasion or proof. In the process of proving this thesis, Kinneavy cites G. Berfram's Hebrew supplement Rudolf Bultmann's essay on -rreidu} in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Berfram comments that bibUcal Hebrew has no word corresponding TTeidu), to persuade (Bultmann 1). From this, and from the con­ cordance the Septuagint which indeed shows that no Hebrew verb was franslated with Greek ireido) in its active fransitive form, Kirmeavy draws the conclusion that this apparent lack is conceptual—that what is lacking is an awareness of a reflective and analytical concept of persuasion as such (54). In my opinion, this conclusion, whUe not in itself incorrect, is unwarranted by the evidence Kinneavy attests, which instead points a more specifie difference between disparate concepts of persuasion, whether pragmatic and impUdt, as in the Hebrew fradition, or reflective and analytical, as in the Greek.

In recent years, a new pedagogical model has arisen in the teaching of technical writing, one of “technical writing as enculturation.” A close examination of this model reveals not only its relation to the workaday world of modern technology but also its roots in classical, especially Ciceronian, rhetoric. Our awareness that the model is both modern and classical may, in fact, enable us to carry its amplification and refinement even further.

Writing in the Academic Disciplines, 1870–1990: A Curricular History. David R. Russell. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois UP, 1991. 383 pp. The Politics of Writing Instruction: Postsecondary. Ed. Richard Bullock and John Trimbur. Gen. Ed. Charles Schuster. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 1991. 311 pp. Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured. Susan Jarratt. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1991. 154 pp. Gender in the Classroom: Power and Pedagogy. Ed. Susan L. Gabriel and Isaiah Smithson. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1990. 196 pp. Technology Transfer: A Communication Perspective. Ed. Frederick Williams and David V. Gibson. New York: Sage, 1990. 302 pp. Writing Strategies: Reaching Diverse Audiences. Laurel Richardson. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1990. 65 pp. Computers and Writing. Ed. Deborah H. Holdstein and Cynthia L. Selfe. New York: MLA, 1990. 150 pp. Perspectives on Software Documentation: Inquiries and Innovation. Ed. Thomas T. Barker. Amityville: Baywood, 1991. 279 pp. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Jay David Bolter. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1991. 258 pp. Design of Business Communications: The Process and the Product. Elizabeth Tebeaux. New York: Macmillan, 1990. 516 pp.

The uses of postmodern theory in rhetoric and composition studies have been the object of considerable abuse of late. Figures of some repute in the field-the likes of Maxine Hairston and Peter Elbow-as well as anonymous voices from the Burkean Parlor section of Rhetoric Review-most recently, TS, graduate student, and KF, voice speaking for a general English teacher audience (192)-have joined the chorus of protest. The charges have included willful obscurity, selfindulgence, elitism, pomposity, intellectual impoverishment, and host of related offenses. Although my name usually appears among the accused, I am sympathetic with those undergoing the difficulties of the first encounter with this discussion. (I exclude Professor Hairston in her irresponsible charge that its recent contributors in College English are low-risk Marxists who write very badly [695] and who should be banned from NCTE publications.) I experienced the same frustration when I first encountered the different but closely related language of rhetoric and composition studies some fifteen years ago. I wondered, for example, if I would ever grasp the complexities of Aristotle or Quintilian or Kenneth Burke or I. A. Richards, not to mention the new language of the writing process. A bit later I was introduced to French poststructuralism, and once again I found myself wandering in strange seas, and this time alone. In reading rhetoric, after all, I had the benefit of numerous commentators to help me along-the work of Kinneavy and Lauer and Corbett and Emig, for example. In reading Foucault and Derrida in the late seventies, on the other hand, I was largely on my own since the commentaries were as difficult as the originals, and those few that were readable were often (as even I could see) wrong. Nonetheless, with the help of informal reading groups made up of colleagues and students, I persisted in my efforts to come to terms with this difficult body of thought. I was then, as now, convinced that both rhetorical studies and postmodern speculation offered strikingly convergent and remarkably compelling visions for conducting my life as teacher and citizen. It is clear to me that rhetoric and composition studies has arrived as serious field of study because it has taken into account the best that has been thought and said about its concerns from the past and the present, and I have found that postmodern work in historical and contemporary rhetorical theory has done much to further this effort.

(1992). Disassembling Plato's critique of rhetoric in the Gorgias (447a‐466a) Rhetoric Review: Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 205-216.

George A. Kennedy, trans. Aristotle: On Rhetoric (subtitled A Theory of Civic Discourse). Oxford University Press, 1991. 335 + xiii pages. The Importance of George A. Kennedy's Aristotle: On Rhetoric Kennedy's Aristotle: On Rhetoric as a Pedagogical Tool Kennedy's Rhetoric as a Contribution to Rhetorical Theory Kennedy's Aristotle: on Rhetoric as a Work of Translation∗ James J. Murphy, ed. A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Twentieth‐Century America. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1990. 241 + v pages. Teaching the History of Writing Instruction Thomas Miller. The Selected Writings of John Witherspoon. Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. 318 + viii pages. Patricia Harkin and John Schilb, eds. Contending with Words: Composition and Rhetoric in the Postmodern Age. New York: Modern Language Association, 1991. iv + 242 pages. Sandra Stotsky, ed. Connecting Civic Education and Language Education: The Contemporary Challenge. New York: Teachers College Press of Columbia University, 1991. Janis Forman, ed. New Visions of Collaborative Writing. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1992. 200 pages. $23.50.

Rhetorical criticism, as it has developed over the past five decades or so, has taken on many agendas-for example, neo-Aristotelian criticism, movement studies, dramatistic criticism, genre criticism-all of which have been attempts to apply, reconstruct, or improve on a long tradition. What is striking about this body of critical literature is that none of it takes very seriously one of the paramount concerns of that tradition-namely, style. Indeed, a survey of the periodical literature shows that there persists a fundamental neglect of in both the theory and the practice of rhetorical criticism.1 Various theoretical and critical practices represented in this body of literature suggest that is a frustratingly elusive and amorphous creature, stubbornly resisting description. Most of the material does not venture much beyond theory and is, for the critic, consequently inadequate, for it falls short of a level of analysis that would reveal how rhetoric works. As a result, rhetorical criticism does not provide a useful critical approach to reading a discursive text. In one respect, this shows that some incisive remarks about the importance of in criticism and the neglect thereof which Donald Bryant made over thirty years ago have been either disregarded or forgotten. Moreover, I argue that both the interpretation of discourse (criticism) and the production of discourse (composition) can profit from careful attention to rhetorical style. For if, as Bryant2 has suggested, style is the final elaboration of meaning, then surely is the initial encounter through which auditors apprehend meaning. Does it not seem reasonable that ought play a major role in the critical act of the analysis of discourse? However, granting that has been neglected, I now must explain what I mean by style. To begin, Bryant has urged us to regard it not as the mere department of elocutio but that in dispositio and even inventio participate. Bryant argues: It is difficult at best to consider the functioning language of discourse without becoming involved at once with the ordering of the discourse. Furthermore, if we go beyond the static idea of disposition as arrangement, to the potentially dynamic idea of disposition as disposing, as Wagner thought necessary, we may conclude that for the critic the two names signify the two lenses for a stereopticon view of a

Research Article| August 01 1992 Aristotle on Persuasion Through Character William W. Fortenbaugh William W. Fortenbaugh Dept. of Classics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903-0270. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1992) 10 (3): 207–244. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1992.10.3.207 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation William W. Fortenbaugh; Aristotle on Persuasion Through Character. Rhetorica 1 August 1992; 10 (3): 207–244. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1992.10.3.207 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1992, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1992 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

This article collects several examples of technical and creative writing in order to examine whether the differences which have been assumed to exist between the two genres do in fact exist. The formulation of such a dichotomy is traced from I. A. Richards' definition of “poetic vs scientific” writing through C. P. Snow's Two Cultures to Coleridge's Biographia Literaria (Richards' acknowledged source). Coleridge in turn has been shown to be heavily influenced by, in fact to have plagiarized, the work of German idealists, particularly the Schlegels. The German idealists, finally, were working with dichotomies which originate in Cartesian dualism and thus ultimately in the mind/body dichotomy with whose invention Nietzsche credits, or discredits, Plato. The differences and similarities discovered and discussed between the object texts turn out to be governed by Richards' elements of writing—“sense, feeling, tone and intention”—as these elements have been used to dichotomize technical and creative writing. Such previous formulations have attempted to show differences in what Aristotle termed “material cause.” The material causes—the tropes and devices of description—are in fact the same in technical and creative texts. The actual differences and similarities discovered between and among the object texts are, rather, differences governed by Aristotle's “final cause” ( telos).

Two recent books that extend the claim that scientific inquiry is rhetorical are compared and contrasted: Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society by Bruno Latour, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987, and The Rhetoric of Science by Alan G. Gross, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990. Latour argues the importance of social networks in science: claims become facts when numerous resources and allies are gathered to support them. Gross applies rhetoric as defined by Aristotle to scientific texts and argues that the claims of science are solely the products of persuasion.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

An interpretive strategy used in several recent studies of Gorgias involves attending to his style as a means of understanding his substantive ideas. This hermeneutic approach is not confined to studies of Gorgias, of course, for critics have frequently explored the ways in which a philosopher's manner of writinghis or her use of the aphorism, meditation, dialogue, philosophical poem, or remark, for example-may elucidate the content of his or her thinking. But the strategy has proved especially inviting for interpreting Gorgias for two reasons. First, the substance of Gorgias's thought is particularly elusive, not only because much of his writing is lost and his few extant texts are frequently fragmentary and corrupt, but because he leaves many key terms undefined and ambiguous, and he appears to make contradictory assertions and claims. In this context, a strategy of reading that purports to clarify and render coherent his enigmatic thought is understandably appealing. Second, the hermeneutic strategy is particularly inviting because Gorgias himself seems to have attached enormous importance to his style, one often associated with such figures of speech as antithesis, anadiplosis (repetition of words), homoeoteleuton (likeness of sound in final syllables of successive words or clauses) and parisosis (arrangement of words in nearly equal periods). Given Gorgias's attention to matters of style, it is not unreasonable to presume that they may offer a clue to understanding his enigmatic In this essay, I will examine two prominent schools of critics who employ this hermeneutic strategy, and who arrive at conflicting interpretations of Gorgias's overall philosophy. I then argue that each of these readings misconstrues the nature of Gorgias's writing, and I present an alternative reading of his style. I conclude by suggesting that given his stylistic practice, Gorgias may possess a different conception of philosophy than that presumed by many of his interpreters. Before examining these two schools of interpretation, it is useful to place them in respect to what may be termed the traditional construal of Gorgias's style and its implications about his putative For traditionally, most critics have seen Gorgias's style as poetic, and have viewed his apparent preoccupation with style as an indication that he not a serious philosopher at all, but rather a mere stylist, an orator who deploys poetic devices to embellish his speeches. This view is first suggested by Plato, who describes Gorgias's style as an elegant feast designed to please an audience rather than explore philosophical issues (Gorgias 447a). Aristotle echoes this portrayal of Gorgias as a poetic stylist lacking serious ideas, asserting that: