All Journals

5442 articles
Year: Topic: Clear
Export:
editorial matter ×

August 2013

  1. Back Matter
    doi:10.1525/rh.2013.31.3.bm
  2. Identifying core principles and expectations
    Abstract

    I'd like to add my brief response to your discussion about research questions facing our discipline. I can immediately name two.

    doi:10.1145/2524248.2524256

July 2013

  1. Editorial Board EOV
    doi:10.1080/15362426.2013.832030
  2. Editorial Board
    doi:10.1016/s1075-2935(13)00024-x
  3. In this issue
    doi:10.1016/j.asw.2013.06.001
  4. The State of Speech
    Abstract

    The acknowledgments preceding The State of Speech illuminate much about the subtext of the book and the very real-world problems to which the author hoped to find a solution in writing it. The problem: the disjunction in post-9/11 America “between the daily practices of citizenship and the exercise of political power” (xi). Joy Connolly's solution: Cicero's ideal orator. Here Connolly's goal is not simply to provide a clearer explanation of Cicero's entwined political and rhetorical theory as read through his ideal orator but also to extract from Cicero's works a rival to current republican thought entrenched in “individual liberty” (1). For Connolly, as for Cicero, this model is based in rhetorical practices.Ultimately, accepting Connolly's argument depends first on the reader's acceptance that Ciceronian theory provides a model that values personal experience (including nonelite experience), that the orator is positioned through civility or decorum to recognize others' experiences, and finally that the orator prioritizes the common good of all (Roman) people. This requires that Connolly reconcile the Roman masses with the oratorical practices of the elite in the Roman republic and de-essentialize gender and class as the basis of full, participatory citizenship. These topics are the frequent focuses of the early chapters of the book and by far the most controversial lines of argument. Second, the reader must accept that the Ciceronian model can extend beyond the theoretical to actual political practice, presumably, in post-9/11America. While the success of Connolly's argument may hinge on the acceptance of these claims, the success of the book, a theoretically dense reading of republican rhetorical and political theory, primarily, though not exclusively, through the works of Cicero, does not. It is much of the work necessary to underpin the major arguments of the book that holds the greatest value for readers interested in oratorical performance, citizenship, gender, class, and rhetorical theory in ancient Rome.The introduction of the book begins to establish the major lines of argument and to build the claim that “Roman rhetoric makes a major contribution to the way that the western tradition thinks about politics” (262). In support of this claim, Connolly moves between Roman and early American and even contemporary rhetorical and political theory (Habermas, Marx, Mouffe, Arendt, Benhabib, Gramsci, and Žižek among others are all frequently cited). The introduction emphasizes the significance of the Roman republic in American political theory by detailing how republicanism has served to mediate between “radical and liberal approaches” to American history (7–10).The first chapter, “Founding the State of Speech,” is an exploration of two key questions in republican Rome, the relation between the orator and the masses—how the Roman populace was taken up, represented, ruled, formed, and guided by the speech act—and the basis of authority for the speaker. Connolly's examination of these issues leads to the major claim of the chapter—that for the orator of the Roman republic authority was performative and firmly rooted in the charismatic, elite body. That is, until the shift in the early first century and the influx of Greek rhetorical theory represented in the handbooks of the Rhetorica ad Herennium and Cicero's own De inventione.This shift, according to Connolly, was a move to, as the title of section header makes clear, “rationalize the republic,” in that handbooks were able to “put rhetoric forward as a model of rational and rationalized public discourse,” which “constrain[ed] expressions of authority” inasmuch as the orator was no longer “relying on ancestry or wealth, but [instead] recouping elite charisma in a logical discourse of style” (67–68). For Connolly, this shift transferred authority from the bodies of Rome's elite and conflicts among them to a “learnable code” (69). The role of the people, who Connolly argues were once “moral judges,” also shifts, through the genre of judicial oratory, to deliberation about what is “just and honorable” with the jury functioning as “a microcosm of the just city” (70). According to Connolly, these shifts moved Rome from conflict to consensus by grounding conflict in law, judicial rhetoric, and deliberation and reconciled Hellenistic rhetorical theory, namely status (or stasis) theory, with the oratorical practices of the Roman republic (73–75).Chapter 2, “Naturalized Citizens” begins with a discussion of the origins of Roman civil society using myth, specifically Virgil's Aeneid, to frame the tensions between nature and culture before moving to a similar and, Connolly argues, related tension in discussions of eloquence as resulting from nature or art in the prefaces of Cicero's De oratore. This chapter establishes two major arguments. First, that Roman citizenship underwent a transformation, necessitated by expansion of the Roman empire in the first century BCE, from an Aristotelian model of “a virtuous, homogeneous citizenry intimately linked by geographic proximity and the shared experience of living together” to a more flexible Ciceronian model that sought “to represent civic bonds as rooted in nature but activated and reinforced through human acts and their memorialization in text” (88, 89).Second, and much more significant to the remainder of the book (and scholars of rhetorical history), Connolly makes the case that Cicero's concept of republican citizenship can be unearthed from the nature/art debate regarding rhetorical training in De oratore. This reading leads to the claim that the shift in “eloquence's status as an art to its identity as a product of nature” is not “a matter of wholesale transformation” as much as “a hybridization of the categories ars and natura” (103). Interestingly, Connolly argues that those who need the art are, in Roman rhetorical treatises, “demasculinized” and not “eligible for full citizenship” (104). Because experience (apprenticeships, practice in the forum) is privileged by Cicero (and his Antonius), rhetorical training is unnecessary: “Naturalization of rhetoric amounts to a claim of natural domination in terms of class and ethnicity … [by the] male, well-educated, and wealthy” Roman citizen (111). However, Connolly argues that ultimately Cicero's characters are concealing rather than naturalizing rhetorical training, an obscuration that is symptomatic of “eloquence as stability born of instability” and “Cicero's view of the res publica.” This conflict leads Connolly to clearly articulate her reading of Cicero's ideal orator: “As Cicero closes the gap between eloquence and virtue, the orator's speaking body becomes the virtuous body of the citizen and, by extension, a microcosm of the virtuous body politic: eloquence emerges as a performative ethics that embodies and enacts the common good for the instruction and pleasure of the republic” (113). Perhaps surprisingly, there is very little consideration of Cicero's own position as a new man, though there is a brief suggestion that Cicero might be guilty of a “tactical misreading” of the bounds of Roman citizenship (90).Chapter 3, “The Body Politic,” builds on a conclusion of the previous chapter, that Cicero's ideal orator is “embodied proof of republican virtue,” by developing the implications of Cicero's philosophy of rhetoric as fundamentally performative. The chapter makes two theoretical claims about republican practices based on Cicero's ideal orator. First, while the orators of De oratore are all upper-class men, Cicero's rhetorical theory manages to “encompass a more generous circle,” his “universalizing language” broadening civic identity (125). She develops this idea, returning to the relationship between the people and the orator from the first chapter, by arguing that Cicero's orator is meant to offer a “mirror of the good life” that the audience can accept (or reject) and that in doing so the orator opens himself to the judgment of the people. Connolly's second major claim of this chapter, which follows from the first, is that Cicero's focus on the body is a largely a response to Plato's arguments against rhetoric as found mainly in the Gorgias. Here, Connolly puts forward Cicero's model as a “historic ally for theoretical work” that seeks to problematize the mind/body dualism that has connected men to logic and women to the body, arguing that Cicero's model of “rhetoric opens up a view of subjectification that is usually overlooked in examinations of the Western tradition; the positive moments of subject construction, as opposed to purely negative practices of subjection” (150–51).The arguments leading to this claim center on the body of the orator. First, Plato's questioning of the epistemic function of rhetoric is answered, according to Connolly (building on Habermas), because the orator's “beliefs and practices are not fully his own.” Rather they are a combination of history and perception, and his “virtue is constructed through interactions with others” that break down public and private communication, as the orator's “self” “emerges in the context of communal belief and practice” (144, 151). “Communal observation and supervision,” then, function as a check on the potentially unchecked power of the orator (147). This positioning of the orator is rather precarious both physically and psychologically, with the “orator's body … embedded in republican networks that anchor communicative practices … serving as site of connection for elite and mass” (154). Though Connolly does not elaborate on this claim, the potential vulnerability of the body (and mind) of the orator becomes a recurring theme in the book (152–56).Chapter 4, “The Aesthetics of Virtue,” begins with a discussion of two Roman concepts: libertas, which, although similar to the contemporary concept of negative liberty, is here positioned as free as opposed to slave, and the related dignitas, that is, the freedom not only of speech but the “accrual of standing” to see one's ideas put in place (160). These two terms open a discussion of the tension between tyranny, both of the senatorial class and of the self-interested elite, and the common good of the lawful republic. “Oratorical training and performance,” then, according to Connolly, offer a means of “self-mastery” by which to balance these polarities, in part because the orator, whether in public or private performances, seeks the “label of vir bonus” (161). “Republican patriotism,” a term coined by Connolly, is defined as the process of training the self through “self-love,” repeated performance, and the display of emotion, which, for Cicero, “brings relations of power into the realm of aesthetics” (162). Connolly develops these ideas through several sections. First, she ties together the role of passion in political speech and the idea of “civic love” or “natural sociability.” She makes the case that Cicero regards decorum as the virtue that allows the orator to control his passions (165–66, 169), a virtue similar to the Greek sophrosune, which, Connolly claims, essentializes class. She goes on to address Cicero's “paradoxical solution,” which roots “aesthetic sensibility” in nature, and finally turns to Catullus, who Connolly claims balances decorum and passion (169–85).Returning to notions of libertas through the ideal of self-control and performativity, Connolly stresses that because law played a limited role in constraining domination by the elite and the will to power, “the social conventions that regulated ethics, behavior, and deportment played a correspondingly important role” (187). This section then follows up on the risks of such self-mastery, such as that it might lead to the desire to “exploit the spectacularity of the self” or a dangerous “contempt for others” that forces one to withdrawal from civic life or self-destruction (189). Continuing with the idea of the destabilizing power of the passions, Connolly turns to the role of the passions in contemporary political thought to address the issues of “widespread civic disengagement” and “fragmentation,” particularly as articulated by Iris Marion Young, who is concerned that in using “historical polities that privileged public discourse as models” we risk excluding people based on bodily difference (192–93).1 Connolly offers a slightly different model of a “deliberating republic, one that is a constant repetitive performance…. Communal acts and witnessing of character are pivotal in the constant self-reminding of identity and sentiment that citizens must perform in order to strengthen and reconstitute civic ties” (196). Connolly's “argument in this chapter is intended to suggest that the Roman rhetorical tradition provides a model. What that tradition tells us, above all, is that speech is married to the learned, learnable techniques of emotion control” (193).Chapter 5, “Republican Theater,” begins with the anxieties about the orator as an actor who can perform virtuosity without living virtuously. The first part of the chapter explores the nature of the oratorical performance in relation to stage acting and its role in Ciceronian thought. Connolly argues that while in Cicero's model the orator must be virtuous, a certain duplicity is necessary in republican life, and ultimately the orator's training, which teaches him to pass his performance off as natural, constrains him by demanding that he conceal his education both by not discussing it and not revealing it when speaking (202–6). Connolly argues, “The student of such a curriculum was in a position to learn that the authority granted by eloquence is not the manifestation of free men's natural superiority, and that its tactics are identical to those of actors and women, who exist outside the charmed circle of the political class” (206). While this anxiety over the tension between authenticity and artifice is often expressed in language reflecting gender panic, Connolly argues that the anxiety is more complex, in that, it “emerge[s] out of a recognition precisely that the republic exists in the act, the show, the display of plausible authority, the theatrical presentation of ethos” (206). Here Connolly takes exception with John Dugan, who, according to Connolly, argues that “Cicero advocates a transgressive aesthetic that undermines conventional Roman notions of masculinity” (199n4).2 Connolly's own position has evolved from her earlier article “Mastering Corruption,” which considers gender as defining the “panic” discussed here rather than one factor among many. Though in the article she is primarily interested in Quintilian and declamation, Connolly suggests citizenship in Rome gender and class to a much than is in her discussion of Cicero's in State of “The two and were in a of that then as as the and social that them men, free to the practices of women and that they in the that the speech they was a the State of as in “Mastering Corruption,” Connolly Greek and Roman discussions of in rhetorical theory that or of with the Here, she her Cicero's anxiety is not about or discourse has the it does not because is and … but because civic of to a political what we In what Connolly the between her view that … is the in and by of gender that out what are civic and and that of others who establish “the nature of civic only its in of of this chapter shift to focus on and in and which Cicero power was Connolly's argument here is but She that as the republic Cicero moved beyond to the more and of Here Connolly as Cicero on oratorical in the law in an to to and in in order to a or that the audience not to as but to … the of the In the on particularly in Cicero's was meant to to the of the and, in doing to of an that the with one's citizens that was necessary for civil life chapter of State of Speech moves from Cicero to how the republican political on the performance of the orator, was forward into Rome in the of Here, Connolly focuses on the works of and argues that the were of the up by Ciceronian rhetorical discourse and its performative ethics of republican the that there in the first the of a in In to the significance of in terms of social and as a of to the new Connolly in several from earlier chapters here In chapters and for Connolly argues that because the orator's performance is based in experience and depends on emotion, he may his by in public This idea is connected to the of who even than the republican orator to Connolly also argues that the are symptomatic of social in their to his on and of She then suggests that with his on control of the body, represented a against the and a to the discussed in chapter According to Connolly, this rhetorical education served as a training for a of people, which ultimately Cicero's public orator. In as a way to establish social and control” brief discussion of in which Connolly scholars who Cicero is Marion and are “Cicero's on decorum lead him to that the public must his audience of citizens as in an of to be because he that they are his but because the of him to the of communal and to the decorum as the virtue, one that down the of class and Connolly the claim that to control to that and among his Cicero's ideal citizen is in a position to political before she with a for an view of claims that Cicero's orator requires and is performance are and provide a for Cicero's political to contemporary The of This of the of De oratore as Connolly with to of the the nature/art debate and the While he these very from Connolly, the debate as an an Aristotelian model of rhetoric, with Cicero down firmly on the of the he Connolly, that Cicero is a model of rhetoric that is based in as opposed to theoretical and that this is necessary in order to with the audience Perhaps the one difference between them that a is that Connolly's belief that “the debate is in terms of difference and in tension with the of (103). While this focus on difference allows Connolly to Cicero's of citizenship from it also the that Cicero, as argues, has a Greek model in Cicero's to the way in which rhetoric was Rome suggests all rhetorical training it is a Connolly's focus on Cicero's connection to contemporary political theory her from reading Cicero through so on Cicero Though Connolly that the Roman republic was by she claims that “Cicero's of civility is a place to the terms of social because it the tension of and social class, it is not by of class or what is Cicero the common but how he intended that good to be is, more than Connolly of ultimately Connolly's of the people into the performance of the values were and by rhetorical handbooks and oratorical in law as in the of the elite control of in the as the orator their and the masses to be in elite oratorical While this reading is for the role of the people in relation to in Rome, Connolly's reading is limited by the on the orator's bodily performance and his (and of the people. This the people must be for in the oratorical rhetorical their role as an and rhetorical practices that might more represent the Roman people. Connolly elite control of language as a of class to for the means by which to the masses into the oratorical Though Connolly the significance of political the “Roman to see positioning rhetoric as a art that the of among its before to Cicero's she does not or of the Roman people into oratorical practice as a model for contemporary Connolly's arguments about civic to of the for are In the what Cicero ideal orator, one who through his turns conflict into of as Connolly frequently a a response to unchecked that was the republic and, all Cicero's ideal orator and the resulting republic Connolly's reading of Cicero is by the need to Cicero a way to which scholars of the history of rhetoric will be as a model solution to contemporary political a that with the common While the arguments necessary to so may not be fully they are and lead to a consideration of gender and class in ancient Rome and work on the of the particularly those as a way to bodily charisma and as a means by which to the audience to consideration of and of the vulnerability of the orator's body and those stage and withdrawal from political life and the risk of to to audience are and of a there is in Connolly's recouping of Ciceronian theory, though it is not the it is its of negative has so the common good as to such a The The State of Speech was and the it was political in and though much of the rhetoric of the has one need no than the of control to public by to find that the disjunction that first Connolly has and a recognition of are a good place to and one than to to Cicero for of

    doi:10.5325/philrhet.46.3.0367
  5. John Dewey and the Artful Life: Pragmatism, Aesthetics, and Morality
    Abstract

    During his long career, John Dewey produced an almost endless number of pages of dense philosophical prose, giving those interested in his work plenty to do. Even scholars of rhetoric have found a host of reasons to return to Dewey's corpus, despite the fact that Dewey himself seemed, at best, uninterested in rhetoric. Two recent works—Robert Danisch's Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric and Nathan Crick's Democracy and Rhetoric: John Dewey on the Arts of Becoming—have already fruitfully mined Dewey's writings for insights on how pragmatist philosophy intersects with the rhetorical tradition. Now comes Scott Stroud's John Dewey and the Artful Life. Like Danisch and Crick, Stroud explores the nexus of American pragmatism, human communication, and civic life. Also like Danisch and Crick, he focuses much-needed attention on how Dewey's understanding of art—or, better, the artful life—connects to his understanding of language, symbols, deliberation, and discourse. Taken together, these books provide a strong foundation for those interested in continuing the conversation about rhetoric and pragmatism.Yet it would be a mistake to suggest that Stroud's book is merely an extension of the work begun by Danisch and Crick, for Stroud approaches Dewey's thought from a distinct perspective. Whereas Danisch and Crick utilize Dewey's insights for decidedly rhetorical projects, Stroud begins from philosophical ground and builds toward communication and the artful life. Both approaches are valuable in their own ways, but it is important to note that Stroud's primary interest concerns aesthetic experience, which then leads to a consideration of communicative practices. It is also important to note that whereas Danisch and Crick foreground the rhetorical tradition, Stroud is content—and understandably so—to leave rhetoric lurking around the periphery. Scholars interested in pragmatism, aesthetics, ethics, and communication will find in John Dewey and the Artful Life a compelling treatment of the artistry of experience from a Deweyan perspective. Scholars will also find a clear, engaging, well-developed discussion of how Dewey's work informs aesthetics and moral philosophy. At the same time, however, Stroud's book raises significant questions about the place and character of rhetoric in a Deweyan view of the world.Stroud begins with the relationship between art and morality—or, in Deweyan terms, aesthetic experience and moral cultivation. In response to scholars who implicitly or explicitly erect barriers between art, morality, and life, Stroud persuasively argues that aesthetic experience can lead to moral growth. He turns to Dewey's work because Dewey locates “the moral value of aesthetic experience in the experience” itself (6). Whether through an immediate encounter with an “art object” or through subsequent reflection on the encounter, the individual's experience with art can, does, and should lead to “a progressive adjustment or growth … in light of some concrete situation” (6). For both Stroud and Dewey, aesthetic experience can be morally cultivating because it involves absorbed attentiveness to particular situations as well as “the constant and ongoing adjustment of individual to environment” (8).Central to the “ongoing adjustment of individual to environment” are the pragmatist notions of habit and attitude—notions that William James and John Dewey, among others, spent considerable time explicating. In Stroud's treatment, moral cultivation hinges on the habit and attitude of “orientational meliorism,” which concerns the way individuals attend to and adjust their “deep-seated orientations toward self, others, and the value of an activity” (9). Put somewhat differently, orientational meliorism is a mental, attitudinal adjustment to the rich particulars of experience. For example, instead of viewing an activity as simply the means for attaining a long-term goal, one should, Stroud argues, pay attention to “the material of the present situation, while maintaining a flexibility to new ways of reacting to such material and to the myriad meanings resident in such a situation” (157). By attending to the rich particulars of the situation at hand, one can make one's experience aesthetically and morally meaningful. Moreover, because orientational meliorism is tied to one's attitude and habits, it can be employed in almost any situation, which means that almost any experience can become aesthetically and morally meaningful. Art, Stroud insists, does not lie in a particular object; rather, it emerges from the way we approach and tend to the qualities of experience.Stroud explores aesthetic experience, moral cultivation, and orientational meliorism across six substantive chapters in addition to an introduction and conclusion. The early chapters explore such topics as the meaning and dimensions of aesthetic experience, Dewey's thoughts on the connection between experience and value, and the ways aesthetic experience can function as moral cultivation. Among readers of Philosophy and Rhetoric, however, the later chapters will likely attract the most attention. In chapter 5, “Reflection and Moral Value in Aesthetic Experience,” Stroud explores how art works communicatively—that is, how it can be “used by an artist or by an auditor to force consideration of values, beliefs, and action strategies” (95). In this conceptualization, art exists in the relational space between speaker and audience, writer and reader, producer and consumer, rhetor and auditor. To illustrate the point, Stroud draws on three disparate but compelling examples—the film Saving Private Ryan, the sculpture Tilted Arc by Richard Serra, and the haiku poetry of Bashō. These art objects are purposively evocative of experience itself, making audiences aware of the aesthetic encounter taking place and eliciting from them reflective judgment. The result is a bond between artist and audience, a shared way of attending to the moral meanings of the situation.In chapter 6, Stroud explores the concept of orientational meliorism at length, showing the problems associated with “nonpresent goals” and how Dewey's philosophy can properly attune individuals to the depths of everyday experience. One way Stroud illustrates orientational meliorism is through common attitudes toward work, labor, and one's occupation. One could, and many do, view work as drudgery, as simply a means to a paycheck. Conversely, Stroud argues, one could view it “as something that is suffused with the value of a larger goal. One could consciously tie one's activity to the goal of the organization in which one is located” (160). Similarly, one could focus on the personal relationships associated with one's occupation (161). The key is how the individual orients himself or herself to the present situation. Orientational meliorism thus allows individuals to make meaning out of the particulars they encounter—whether those particulars be in traditional art objects or in the more mundane aspects of everyday life.Chapter 7 ties together Stroud's themes of aesthetic experience, moral cultivation, and orientation meliorism in communicative encounters. And here Stroud, as many before him have done, underscores the importance of Dewey's philosophy for the study and practice of communication. According to Stroud, the key to artful communication, whereby ordinary symbolic exchanges become aesthetic, is “the orientation of the individual communicator”; it is the “attitude the subject brings into the communicative experience that will render it aesthetic” (171). By attending to “means and ends as integrally connected” and by valuing “means and ends in a connected fashion,” one is able to see and develop the aesthetic threads of almost any form of communication. Stroud provides three specific guidelines for making communicative activities more aesthetic. “First, a communicator is well served to avoid focusing on a remote goal” (186). Seeing one's interlocutors as intrinsically valuable, for example, can keep one grounded in the exchange itself. Second, “one ought to consciously cultivate habits of attending to the demands of the present communication situation” (186). This means, on Stroud's account, not only considering one's personal needs and interests but the needs and interests of others (family, friends, coworkers, etc.). Without considering these wider interests, one can quickly cut oneself off from the possibilities at hand. Third, “one should avoid the pitfall … of focusing too much attention on the idea of a reified, separate self” (187). Stroud's caution here is important for his project and for pragmatist philosophy more generally. While Stroud, like Dewey and other pragmatists, focuses extensively on individuals and subjective dispositions, he is careful to note that selves are integrally linked to communities and wider relational networks. Individuals are inseparable from the communities through which they exist, and properly attending to the specifics of a situation can coordinate meanings across individuals.All of this suggests that John Dewey and the Artful Life is as much about ethical life as it is about aesthetic experience and moral cultivation. These concepts are integrally linked, especially in the ways we communicate. Indeed, human communication is, or can be, one of the most fully developed expressions of an aesthetic, moral, ethical life. Perhaps the best way to think about John Dewey and the Artful Life, then, is as a guidebook for infusing everyday life with new meaning. By seizing on the particulars of experience—of almost any experience—one can make the world richer and more meaningful, so long as one adopts the proper orientation. Orientational meliorism is an attitude anyone can adopt, even in the most horrific circumstances (see the example Stroud develops on 163–67), which means that aesthetic experience is close at hand. In the end, Stroud merges communication studies and philosophy into a provocative pragmatist whole—and he does so in a way that Dewey himself would likely applaud.Yet in accord with Dewey's own philosophy, John Dewey and the Artful Life centers on communicative practices writ large, leaving the art of rhetoric, more narrowly conceived, at the periphery. In fact, readers of Philosophy and Rhetoric may come away from Stroud's book asking the question long asked about Dewey's work: “Whither rhetoric?” If we follow Stroud's lead in theorizing about aesthetic experience, moral cultivation, and orientational meliorism, rhetoric's role is ambiguous at best. At worst the art of rhetoric may impede the aesthetic, moral, ethical life.To be clear, Stroud never claims that his book will address the connection between Dewey's work and the art of rhetoric. Indeed, his treatment of John Dewey and the Artful Life stands admirably on its own terms, offering a compelling study in how everyday experience can be infused with meaning and possibility. So my question about the place of rhetoric is not a criticism of Stroud's book. But it is a question with which Stroud's book leaves us—a question that follows directly from Dewey's philosophy. It is also a question that readers of Philosophy and Rhetoric ought to consider, especially given the ongoing conversation about pragmatism and rhetoric. Does the art of rhetoric become less artful when considered in the context of Dewey's conception of the artful life? Is there a place for rhetoric in Deweyan aesthetic experience? More precisely, is there a place for certain kinds of rhetorical practice in the melioristic-communicative schema Stroud explicates?Scholars of Dewey's work will well remember the idealistic, romantic quality of his thoughts on communication. When Dewey insists that communication can liberate us “from the otherwise overwhelming pressure of events,” can enable us “to live in a world of things that have meaning,” and can allow us to share “in the objects and arts precious to a community,” all of which result in a profound “sense of communion” with those around us, he links the artistry of communication to moments of cooperative, level-headed, face-to-face exchange (1988, 159). Aesthetic communicative experiences thus hinge on individuals working deliberatively together for the common good. In this view of communication Stroud seems to concur, insisting that the key to aesthetically rich discourse is the proper orientation of communicants. Artistry depends, writes Stroud, “on orientations in the artist and the audience. Of particular interest to my argument is the orientation that the audience must take. This receiver orientation is crucial, as art's reception as valuable in the public sphere depends on the precondition that the audience attends to it in such a fashion that its uniquely communicative power is available” (102).Such a characterization nicely captures the artistry of many communicative exchanges, but it simultaneously pushes certain rhetorical encounters outside the boundaries of art. Indeed, rhetoric often operates in those moments when audiences lack the proper orientation. In many rhetorical encounters, speakers and audiences are misaligned, even hostile and antagonistic. And one could argue that rhetoric is most artful when it wrenches individuals away from their initial orientations, setting them aright about the basic goods of life. In Stroud's schema, however, the proper orientation is necessary for an aesthetic experience, which means that this framework may be unable to accommodate those profound moments when rhetoric is needed to wrench people away from what they think they know.Put somewhat differently, does the artful life include those times in a democracy when individuals do not collaborate and deliberate together but yell, decry, defame, lambaste, and try to start fights with words? Several scholars have already critiqued a Deweyan view of communication for failing to account for truly democratic rhetoric—namely, moments of protest, denunciation, and vituperation (e.g., Schudson 1997 and Roberts-Miller 2005). In such moments, does rhetoric fall outside the boundaries of art? What are we to do with rhetors like William Lloyd Garrison, whose powerful, profound, prophetic, vicious denunciations of slavery basically told the American people they were going to hell? Surely Garrison's audiences were thoroughly misaligned with his words. Surely they lacked the proper orientation. Does Garrison's rhetoric thus become inartistic? I hope not, considering that Garrison's pages overflow with eloquence, with wisdom speaking artistically. William Lloyd Garrison ought to have a place in Dewey's Great Community. His unflinching invectives against slavery ought to be affirmed as part of the nation's collective aesthetic experience. Artful living ought to incorporate those who yell at others, who condemn their foes, who disregard the orientations of the status quo and denounce evil.Stroud and Dewey would likely have a reasonable response to these concerns. Stroud himself begins to offer one when he notes that aesthetic experience accommodates those moments when artists “force consideration of values, beliefs, and action strategies” (95). Forcing consideration of values is one way of characterizing Garrison's project. But insisting that “it is the attitude the subject brings into the communicative experience that will render it aesthetic” (171) seems to leave little room for forcing people into a position where they must reconsider their beliefs. Orientational meliorism may mean that many rhetorical encounters fall beyond the pale of the aesthetic.Or maybe not. Stroud never claims that his view of aesthetic experience is all-encompassing, nor does he claim that he is interested in using Dewey's philosophy to account for rhetoric. So once again, my critique is not of Stroud's book. It is rather a prompt for scholars who wish to continue to pursue pragmatism and rhetoric. John Dewey and the Artful Life gives us a detailed, clear, and insightful account of how Dewey's work intersects with art, experience, and communication. At the same time, it encourages us to think further about Dewey's place in and around the rhetorical tradition.

    doi:10.5325/philrhet.46.3.0360
  6. Contributors
    doi:10.2190/tw.43.3.h
  7. From the Editor's Desk
    doi:10.2190/tw.43.3.a
  8. Business English as a Lingua Franca in Advertising Texts in the Arabian Gulf
    Abstract

    Scholars have become increasingly interested in how organizations communicate with external stakeholders, such as consumers. Recent studies have looked specifically at consumer response to the use of English in advertising texts in a number of different European countries. The use of English in such texts is part of a commonly used marketing strategy to standardize advertising campaigns that builds on the assumption that English is not only neutral but also widely understood. This article presents the results of a survey of the attitudes of Emirati consumers toward the use of English in advertising texts in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The survey findings are discussed in terms of the unique social and cultural fabric of the modern-day UAE, as well as of the Emirati community as an economically powerful Muslim population.

    doi:10.1177/1050651913479930
  9. Lessons in Service Learning: Developing the Service Learning Opportunities in Technical Communication (SLOT-C) Database
    Abstract

    Abstract We justify and describe our development of the Service Learning Opportunities in Technical Communication (SLOT-C) Database. The database broadens the range of organizations that instructors and students have for client-based communication projects. We argue in support of incorporating service learning into classes and facilitating partnerships among university instructors, their students, and nonprofits. We report strategies we learned for working with student interns and IT experts and strategies we developed as we worked with usability-test participants. Keywords: client-based communication projectsiterative designservice learning opportunitiestechnical communicationuser-centered design ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We sincerely thank the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication for awarding us a research grant in 2009 to build this database. We greatly appreciate Sam Singer, whose expertise in databases and Web development made the concept become a reality. We would also like to thank Stewart Whittemore, who contributed ideas in the early planning stage. Notes Waterfall design involves creating a design to which you are firmly committed early in development and letting all design decisions flow from the initial plan. Iterative design is more flexible, allowing the plan to change as needed in response to feedback. Additional informationNotes on contributorsSusan A. Youngblood Susan A. Youngblood teaches technical and professional communication at Auburn University, and many of her classes feature service learning. Her research addresses vulnerability, accessibility, and competing needs in communication, particularly in online environments. Jo Mackiewicz Jo Mackiewicz teaches editing at Auburn University. Her research applies linguistics to technical communication and focuses on politeness and credibility in evaluative texts such as tutoring interactions, editing sessions, and online reviews.

    doi:10.1080/10572252.2013.775542
  10. From the Editor
    Abstract

    Preview this article: From the Editor, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/75/6/collegeenglish23834-1.gif

    doi:10.58680/ce201323834
  11. Announcements and Calls for Papers
    doi:10.58680/ce201323838
  12. Femicide and Rhetorics of Coadyuvante in Ciudad Juárez: Valuing Rhetorical Traditions in the Americas
    Abstract

    This article analyzes the writings of activist women in modern-day Juárez, Mexico. I present their explanations about their own composition and delivery of two particular activist campaigns, highlighting the rhetorical strategies and practices they developed. Looking closely at these two campaigns, the article describes the rhetorical concept of coadyuvante developed by the activists in response to the rhetorical and material problem of femicide (the killing of women based on their gender) in Juárez.

    doi:10.58680/ce201323837
  13. Index to Volume 75
    doi:10.58680/ce201323840

June 2013

  1. Essays on the Sermons of Laurence Sterne by Divine Rhetoric
    Abstract

    Reviews Divine Rhetoric: Essays on the Sermons of Laurence Sterne. Edited with an introduction by W. B. Gerard. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2010. 284 pp. + CD. ISBN 978-1611491210 $62.50 The charge against Laurence Sterne (1713-68) as a sermon writer was once that he was somehow insincere—lukewarm, sensual, distractible— and that, as a result of these alleged moral failings, his religious writing was suspect. The very great successes of Tristram Shandy (1759-67) and A Sentimental journey (1768) further downgraded The Sermons of Mr. Yorick (1760, 1766, 1769). W. B. Gerard's Divine Rhetoric: Essays on the Sermons of Laurence Sterne continues the efforts of Melvyn New and others to repair the double neglect to which the sermons were subject. Dismissed by Victorians in light of Sterne's supposed character, diminished as sermons by changes in popular taste, and tolerated by disappointed Shandeans looking for greater specimens of literary genius, the sermons of "Yorick"—never out of print, but in some critical disfavor since the early nineteenth century—are now receiving renewed attention. The current interest in rhetoric, religion, and literature serves the sermons well, as scholars are now equipped to evaluate Sterne's sermons with an appreciation for their particular origins, audiences, and uses. The essays in Gerard's collection agree that the view of Sterne as a hypocritical sensualist, unserious about Christianity and somehow careless about his pastoral duties, is both historically suspect and not very relevant to the actual sermons. Gerard's introduction reviews the critical history of the sermons—their initial success, later reduction to "ancillary" status within Sterne's oeuvre, and more recent recovery as religious addresses worthy of attention on their own account, and not merely as moral essays by a genius (p. 24). The repair of Sterne's reputation as a sermon writer began with pioneering studies by Wilbur L. Cross, Lansing Van Der Heyden Hammond, Arthur H. Cash (whose historic essay on "The Sermon in Tristram Shandy" is included in the present volume), and James Downey, and was further enhanced by New's work in introducing and annotating the sermons for The Florida Edition of the Works of Laurence Sterne (p. 22). New argued that insufficient understanding of the nature of the Anglican sermon, with its late seventeenth-century influences and its special role in discouraging enthusiasm among ordinary parishioners, tended to distort reception, as did Rhetorica, Vol. XXXI, Issue 3, pp. 331-349, ISSN 0734-8584, electronic ISSN 15338541 . ©2013 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights re­ served. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintlnfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/RH.2013.31.3.331. 332 RHETORICA misplaced assumptions about the "comic" tendencies of Sterne's wit. Rather than looking for something uniquely Shandean, New suggested, readers should familarize themselves with the "the vast sea of sermon literature" and be attentive to Sterne's reworkings of tried-and-true messages.1 New s "Preface by Way of a Sermon," introducing the volume of notes, is a seminal essay for considering the sermons rhetorically, underscoring the need for deeper awareness of the contexts of Sterne's preaching, the demands of his pastoral duties, and the volumes of well-known sermons and homiletic writing that would have informed most preachers' compositions. Indeed, as most readers will rely at least in part on New's scholarship in tracking Sterne's influences, the two volumes of the Florida Edition are really the coordinate texts for this collection. The revolution of critical opinion has therefore brought us back to one of the original grounds for Sterne's popularity: his talents as a sentimen­ tal Christian moralist working in a popular genre of real importance to his contemporaries. The puerile criterion of "sincerity"—in which the lack of Methodist-style evangelical rhetoric is somehow held against a latitudinarian , antienthusiastic preacher—no longer obtains, and the romantic criterion of "originality" is reduced to its proper place, i.e., barely relevant in an age and to a form that sought to transmit approved, not innovative wisdom, as several of...

    doi:10.1353/rht.2013.0012
  2. Letter from the Editor
    doi:10.1016/s8755-4615(13)00034-0
  3. Index to Volume 64
    doi:10.58680/ccc201323669
  4. From the Editor: Past as Only Prologue
    Abstract

    The editor introduces the articles in this issue and previews upcoming special themed issues.

    doi:10.58680/ccc201323660
  5. CCCC News
    doi:10.58680/ccc201323667

May 2013

  1. Addresses of Contributors to this Issue
    Abstract

    Other| May 01 2013 Addresses of Contributors to this Issue Rhetorica (2013) 31 (2): 236–237. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2013.31.2.236 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Addresses of Contributors to this Issue. Rhetorica 1 May 2013; 31 (2): 236–237. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2013.31.2.236 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. © 2013 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved.2013 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

    doi:10.1525/rh.2013.31.2.236
  2. Back Matter
    doi:10.1525/rh.2013.31.2.bm
  3. Front Matter
    doi:10.1525/rh.2013.31.2.fm
  4. Information for Authors
    doi:10.58680/tetyc201323598
  5. Guest Reviewers
    doi:10.58680/tetyc201323609
  6. Author-Title Index: Volume 40
    doi:10.58680/tetyc201323610
  7. Announcements
    doi:10.58680/tetyc201323607
  8. Guest Reviewers
    doi:10.58680/rte201323636
  9. Author and Subject Index
    doi:10.58680/rte201323637
  10. Editors’ Introduction: Writing Research outside the U.S.: Our Final Introduction
    Abstract

    The editors introduce the articles in this issue and reflect on their editorship.

    doi:10.58680/rte201323630
  11. Announcements
    doi:10.58680/rte201323635
  12. <i>Uchi</i>/<i>Soto</i>in Japan: A Global Turn
    Abstract

    Abstract This essay presents a method for reconsidering identities linked to place and the rhetoric used to construct them. Drawing from Jane Bachnik's "uchi/soto dynamic" and Kaori Chino's study of Tang-dynasty Chinese art's place in early Japanese regional identity, it introduces a theory of inside-outside positionalities for engaging the meaning-making potential within tropes of inside-outside, foreign-local, and traditional-modern. This theory building is followed by a reading of the "invented tradition" (Hobsbawm) of the Japanese Christmas cake, one of many symbols constituting post-war Japanese identity. The Christmas cake gains its significance simultaneously through overt reference to a supposed foreign origin and from less overt citation of older Japanese traditions—while marked as coming from "outside" local culture, the Christmas cake has strong local meanings specific to Japan, meanings unfamiliar in the cake's supposed place of origin. While this essay focuses on meaning-making in Japan, inside-outside positionalities functions broadly as a comparative methodology for rhetorical study. Notes 1For examples of such work, see Damián Baca's Mestiz@ Scripts, Digital Migrations and the Territories of Writing and LuMing Mao's Reading Chinese Fortune Cookie. 2In this sense, inside-outside positionalities parallels the workings of "common sense" ideology as explained by Norman Fairclough (77–108). Additional informationNotes on contributorsDominic Ashby Dominic Ashby is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of English and is Coordinator of BUS102: Writing for Business Decision-Making in the Farmer School of Business at Miami University, 356 Bachelor Hall, Oxford, OH 45056, USA.

    doi:10.1080/02773945.2013.792695
  13. Announcements and Calls for Papers
    doi:10.58680/ce201323567

April 2013

  1. Audiences, Brains, Sustainable Planets, and Communication Technologies: Four Horizons for the Rhetoric of Science and Technology
    Abstract

    This response to papers by Leah Ceccarelli, Randy Harris, and Carl Herndl and Lauren Cutlip in the “Horizons of Possibility” panel at the 2012 ARST Vicentennial conference raises questions about each of the visions as they relate, respectively, to ARST audiences, brain science, and sustainable planets and programs. It also suggests renewed attention to communication technologies by scholars studying the rhetoric of science and technology, maintaining that rhetoricians need to come to terms with emerging twenty-first century communicative forms.

    doi:10.13008/2151-2957.1159
  2. "How Can We Act?" A Praxiographical Program for the Rhetoric of Technology, Science, and Medicine
    Abstract

    The future of the rhetoric of science—which will increasingly take the form of a rhetoric of technology, science, and medicine (RTSM)—will be shaped by its move away from its modernist, humanistic roots in response to institutional pressures and historical contingencies. This paper advocates a “praxiographical” emphasis on the ability to intervene in science policy and other STEM-related discourses for the field of RTSM. It describes four research foci emerging from this emphasis to be used as areas of programmatic concern at an Institute for Applied Rhetoric of Science and Sustainability at the newly organized Patel College of Global Sustainability at the University of South Florida.

    doi:10.13008/2151-2957.1163
  3. Horizon Myths
    Abstract

    In this short response to the papers in the “Horizons of Possibility” group, I first identify a dialectic between calls to disciplinarity and calls to engagement. Then, instead of offering a transcendent synthesis, I point to two recent narratives suggesting that stakeholders in scientific debates are starting to seek out rhetoricians as resources.

    doi:10.13008/2151-2957.1154
  4. Editorial Board
    doi:10.1016/s1075-2935(13)00011-1
  5. From the Book &amp; New Media Review Editor’s Desk
    doi:10.25148/clj.7.2.009351
  6. Guest Editors’ Introduction
    Abstract

    In modern usage, living “off the grid” means living totally independently, without the modern conveniences of publicly supplied gas, electricity, and water; it also refers to people who strive to remain unrecorded in governmental, financial, and medical documents. More generally, to live off the grid is to live against the grain of society, ideologically at odds with the mainstream. As we have put the idea to use for this guestedited issue, “Teaching Medieval Literature off the Grid,” instructors who incorporate noncanonical texts into their classrooms resemble the above definitions in several respects. For one thing, to teach “off the grid” is almost always to teach selfsufficiently — to locate the texts you think are important and figure out for yourself why they are important, to provide or create your own introductory notes, glosses, and other relevant contextualizing material for your students. It is to build a lesson literally from the ground up. You are certainly off the beaten path, without much assistance or advice from textbooks, teachers’ manuals, online resources, or other scholars’ work; there is little, if anything, to vouch for or justify your lesson plan. To put it simply, and most generally, to teach off the grid is to teach outside the comfort zone of the canon, without the builtin validations and pedagogies that literary tradition provides. The challenges of teaching off the grid are many, but this issue of Pedagogy argues that the rewards are great. Noncanonical texts can shed light on perspectives different from those represented by the culturally authoritative texts of the canon, often can serve the useful purpose of defamiliarizing traditional readings, and

    doi:10.1215/15314200-1958404
  7. A Note from the Editors
    Abstract

    Editorial| April 01 2013 A Note from the Editors Jennifer L. Holberg; Jennifer L. Holberg Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Marcy Taylor Marcy Taylor Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Pedagogy (2013) 13 (2): 203–204. https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-1963195 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Jennifer L. Holberg, Marcy Taylor; A Note from the Editors. Pedagogy 1 April 2013; 13 (2): 203–204. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-1963195 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter Books & JournalsAll JournalsPedagogy Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2013 by Duke University Press2013 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

    doi:10.1215/15314200-1963195
  8. Contributors
    doi:10.1215/15314200-13-2-407
  9. The “Agential Spiral”:
    Abstract

    ABSTRACT This article mines the work of philosopher Paul Ricoeur in order to construct a critical framework for the rhetorical analysis of public memory. Through a reading of Ricoeur's concept of “threefold mimesis,” I develop the idea of the “agential spiral.” The “spiral” frames a repetitive yet progressive process in which a series of agents or groups of agents both interpret and act in response to the past. When linked together, these moments of agency form a spiral that metaphorizes the process of creating and deploying public memories across time. I argue that the concept of the agential spiral enables scholars to focus not only on the ways that memories unite human agents synchronically but also on how those memories structure a relationship among agents across time through the performance and representation of agency. I situate this argument within scholarship on rhetorical studies and public memory.

    doi:10.5325/philrhet.46.2.0182
  10. On the Term “Dunamis” in Aristotle's Definition of Rhetoric
    Abstract

    The term dunamis, by which Aristotle defines rhetoric in the first chapter of The Art of Rhetoric, is a “power” term, as its various meanings in Aristotle's corpus—from vernacular ones like “political influence” to strictly philosophical ones like “potentiality”—attest.1 In the Rhetoric, however, dunamis is usually translated as “ability” or “faculty,” a designation that, compared to other terms that describe persuasion in ancient Greek poetics and rhetoric (such as “bia” [“force”] or “eros” [“seduction”]), marks rhetoric as a neutral human capacity rather than the use of language entangled in the vagaries of violence and desire.2 John Kirby calls Aristotle's definition “one of the boldest moves in the history of the philosophy of language: to redefine rhetoric, not as the use of peitho but as the study of peitho” (1990, 227). The presumption of rhetoric's ethical neutrality implied by dunamis has indeed become commonplace in interpretations of Aristotle's treatise itself and of rhetoric as a social phenomenon. As George Kennedy puts it in his authoritative translation of the Rhetoric, “Aristotle was the first person to recognize clearly that rhetoric as an art of communication was morally neutral, that it could be used either for good or ill” (1991, ix). In this article, I would like to probe another, perhaps not so reassuring, implication of dunamis as a term for rhetoric—that as “an ability to see all available means of persuasion,” it does not need to become (or emulate) practical oratory. In what follows, I suggest that Aristotle's terminology, however neutral it may appear, constitutes an intellectually and politically motivated act of naming that severs rhetorical knowledge from historically specific rhetorical practices and thereby erects a protective barrier between practical rationality and discourses of democracy.Defined as a capacity, rhetoric occupies a peculiar position with regard to existing practices of oratory and rhetorical instruction. In Metaphysics 9, dunamis describes “potentiality” of substances and nonrational animals and “ability” of humans. Among human dunameis, some are innate (such as the senses), some come by practice (such as flute playing), some are acquired through learning (such as the capacities of the crafts, technai) (see 1047b 33–35). Art “comes into being when out of many notions from experience we form one universal belief concerning similar facts,” and while experienced persons “know the fact but not the why of it,” those who possess a techne “know the why of it or the cause” (Aristotle 1979, 13). Accordingly, master craftsmen “are considered wiser not in virtue of their ability to do something but in virtue of having the theory and knowing the causes” (Aristotle 1979, 13). We see a similar logic at work in the opening chapter of the Rhetoric. As a rational capacity, rhetoric seems to be present among the general population, since most people are able to engage in verbal self-defense or attack. But their ability is often the result of random chance or habit rather than of a systematic art (Rhetoric 1354a). While one is unlikely to gain rhetorical dunamis through sheer experience, Aristotle insinuates that studying other currently available arts of rhetoric is even less preferable, for these arts give disproportionate attention to “matters outside the subject” (“ta exō tou pragmatos”) (Aristotle 1991a, 5, 7, 11). By offering a systematic investigation of “available means of persuasion” (Aristotle 1991a, 13) and stressing proofs (pisteis) and arguments (logoi), Aristotle sets up his version of the art above those purveyed by writers of rhetorical handbooks and other master teachers.Admittedly, the text of the Rhetoric disavows the first chapter's attack on other technai's treatment of emotions and matters “outside the subject” as it proceeds to furnish an extensive discussion of human emotions in book 2 and addresses style and delivery in book 3.3 However, the manner in which it presents rhetorical proofs and stylistic devices is detached from practices of oratory. Whether Aristotle considers rhetorical genres or emotions, his method of exposition is characterized by “surgical detachment and description” (Dubois 1993, 125). So, for example, he investigates the causes of anger without actually examining how this passion was stirred by a particular orator. According to Kennedy, the Rhetoric is one of Aristotle's “most Athenian works,” “for only in Athens did rhetoric fully function in the way he describes” (1996, 418), but the treatise contains little evidence of its author's direct contact with rhetorical practices of Athenian democracy. As J. C. Trevett has shown, “Aristotle fails … to quote from or allude to the text of a single deliberative or forensic speech” and instead “attributes statements or arguments to a particular speaker” or draws on various poetic genres such as epic, tragedy, and lyric (1996, 371, 372, 375). At the same time, Aristotle quotes extensively from epideictic compositions, including those written by Isocrates, for whom Aristotle reserves a minor place in the context of his discussion of style. This curiously inconsistent use of citations can be explained, in part, by the relative ease of access to literary genres and the paucity of deliberative and forensic texts, on the one hand, and Aristotle's lack of firsthand experience of oral practices of Athenian democracy due to his status as a resident alien, on the other.Yet Aristotle's many disparaging remarks about pandering orators and easily excitable and ignorant audiences indicate an entrenched suspicion toward the power of performed speech, the very power his rhetoric as dunamis is designed to guard against. The Rhetoric is indeed “the most Athenian” of Aristotle's works in the sense that in it the philosopher responds to an ideology that he regards as inimical to philosophical life and civic education.4 Aristotle is unequivocal that rhetoric would be of little use in a well-ordered state, since in such a state legislation limits the role of judges to a minimum and judges, in turn, are drawn from the ranks of prudent citizens. By contrast, in a corrupt regime such as Athenian democracy, judges are assigned their roles by lot and their decision making is often obscured by passion and self-interest (Rhetoric 1354a32–1354b12). It is the fickle and corrupt disposition of the demos that calls for the use of style and delivery that Aristotle considers vulgar and superfluous to proper argumentation (Rhetoric 1404a). Eager to meet their audience's expectations, orators worry more about securing the hearers' approval than about demonstrating the truth of their position. Aristotle observes the same deplorable state of affairs both in dramatic competitions and political contests, where a skillful performance, not the integrity of a tragic plot or a logically compelling demonstration, wins applause (Rhetoric 1403b).5 Not only does the audience influence the form and content of drama and oratory—it corrupts the very character of performers. Aristotle's association of performance in drama and oratory with pandering to a corrupt set of listeners is thus consonant with the conceptualization of rhetoric as a dunamis, a rational capacity that does not require imitation or practice.The status of rhetoric as a dunamis and a techne secures its position as a form of philosophically legitimate knowledge, for it allows its students to understand the “why” of persuasion without committing them to a morally precarious life of political performance in a corrupt regime. At the same time, rhetoric does not stand on its own as a “theory of civic discourse,” as the subtitle of Kennedy's translation (1991) of the Rhetoric calls it. Although the treatise's language, preoccupation with abstract categorization, and apparent detachment from the particulars of oratory might qualify it as a “theory” in our contemporary sense, for Aristotle rhetoric is a productive art, not to be confused with theoria, the highest form of philosophical knowledge that rules over practical and productive arts.6 In Aristotle's hierarchy of knowledge, rhetoric is subordinated to politike, the “master art” in the sphere of praxis, which comprises ethics and politics (Nicomachean Ethics, 1094b). As complementary parts of politike, ethics and politics investigate the principles that guide the attainment of virtue and practical wisdom and the forms of political organization most congenial to this pursuit.Aristotle would likely be surprised by our inclination to read the Rhetoric as a theory of civic discourse, since he explicitly disapproves of those who, “partly from ignorance, partly from boastfulness, and partly from other human weaknesses,” take the appearance of rhetoric as an “offshoot” of politike to mean that the two are the same art (Aristotle 1991a, 19). He points out that rhetoric, though it “slips under the garb” of politike, is but a dunamis of furnishing arguments (tou porisai logous), not an art of good life and good government (Aristotle 1991a, 19). Here he doesn't seem to be criticizing handbook writers; rather this objection is likely a reference to Isocrates, whose logon paideia was in Aristotle's sights when he lectured on rhetoric at the Academy and Lyceum. Isocrates regards discourse (logos) as an artificer of civic institutions and embraces the performative and politically constitutive character of traditional Greek education (paideia) by making character and political identity dependent on recurrent performance addressed to the polis. Despite his elitism, Isocrates accepts the norms of his rhetorical culture and tries to adapt them to a literary medium. On the contrary, Aristotle aspires to protect the practical rationality and virtue of a properly habituated student from being corrupted by these very cultural norms. It could be argued that Aristotle's effort to split the traditional link between eloquence (eu legein) and virtuous action (eu prattein) by making them subjects of different arts (rhetorike and politike, respectively) is a response to Isocrates' “boastful” incorporation of the two under the name philosophia.7By conceiving of rhetoric as a dunamis, Aristotle distances the art from practical oratory and reduces it to a faculty in the service of substantive intellectual disciplines. Why, then, are we (academic students of rhetoric) so beholden to this treatise? The text's current prestige is hardly the consequence of the way the rhetorical tradition has viewed it. As Carol Poster summarizes the history of its transmission and interpretation: Hellenistic rhetoricians didn't know it; neoplatonic commentators overlooked it; the Byzantines didn't understand it; the early Middle Ages didn't have it; the late middle ages and Renaissance scholars were puzzled by it; and not until the prejudice against Aristotle due to its association with scholasticism died away was the Rhetorica revived alongside Ciceronian rhetoric in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (1998, 332)The rise of the Rhetoric to its position of dominance in the twentieth century has many possible explanations. One of them, undoubtedly, is the name of Aristotle, whose historical authority is recognized across the university and, as such, allows scholars from less prestigious and less well-funded fields (such as rhetoric and composition) to gain at least some measure of respectability by sheer association with the Philosopher.8 Another reason is the ascendance of theory among the humanities and social sciences due to the increasing stress on research over teaching in modern universities. Perhaps because the Rhetoric looks so much more like “theory” than the fragmented record of the sophists and the writings of Isocrates, it has come to be regarded as a high point of rhetoric's evolution as an intellectual discipline in the fourth century BCE and a solid point of departure for contemporary students.9 This teleological view has not gone unchallenged, of course, but the recovery and interpretation of what Aristotle's conceptualization of rhetoric has marginalized or suppressed is an ongoing project.10 I would therefore like to conclude with a plea to young scholars to keep up questioning the beginnings of our discipline, including Aristotle's not-so-innocent definition of rhetoric.

    doi:10.5325/philrhet.46.2.0234
  11. <i>Peri Ti</i>?:
    Abstract

    You, who call yourself a rhetorician, what is your art? With what particular thing is your skill concerned? Weaving is concerned with fabricating fabrics, music with making melodies; rhetorician, with what is your know-how concerned? This is the question that Socrates poses to Gorgias in Plato's notorious refutation of rhetoric: “Peri tēs rhētorikēs, peri ti tōn ontōn estin epistēmē?” (1925, 268). Socrates' question frames rhetoric in the genitive case—which, in this case, specifies the source or origin of one thing from another. To ask of rhetoric “peri ti tōn ontōn?” is to ask from whence rhetoric comes, from where rhetoric originates, from what rhetoric is generated. So Socrates' question—“peri ti tōn ontōn?”—asks about rhetoric's domain.Gorgias—or, to be fair, Plato's ventriloquized version of Gorgias—answers that rhetoric is concerned with speech: “Peri logous” (1925, 268). Gorgias reframes Socrates' genitive question, responding in the accusative case. While the genitive case identifies one thing as generated from another, the accusative case identifies something that is being acted on by another. The genitive case specifies a species of some genus; the accusative case addresses the direct object of some action. So Gorgias explains rhetoric's origin by pointing to its object. Gorgias' answer supplies the source of rhetoric's generation by delineating its object domain: “peri logous.” Rhetoric is about, is composed of, and comes from speech.But, Socrates responds, the same is true of many other technai: medicine, gymnastics, arithmetic, and geometry, for example. These, too, are concerned with speech: speech about bodily condition or speech about numbers. Pressed, Gorgias clarifies that rhetoric is the power to speak and also to persuade: “Legein kai peithein” (Plato 1925, 278). But, Socrates still asks, to speak and to persuade about what? He presses on, parroting, “Peri ti? Peri ti?” (Plato 1925, 272–274). What is rhetoric about? “Peri ti tōn ontōn?” What is rhetoric's ontic domain? To what class of objects does it belong? From what category of existing things does it emerge?While Plato's Gorgias plays along with this ontogenetic question, Aristotle's response to the Gorgias in the opening book of his Rhetoric questions the terms of that question. Plato's repeated question—“Peri ti, peri ti?”—contains a categorical error. Or, to be more precise, Plato's error is categorization itself. Plato's question, Aristotle suggests, mistakenly attempts to contain rhetoric within a particular genus. Instead, Aristotle argues that rhetoric is “ou peri ti genos idion” (1926, 14). It is not concerned with any particular genus; it is not proper to any genus; it has no genus of its own. Aristotle writes that “ouk estin oute henos tinos genous aphōrismenou hē rhētorikē” (1926, 12). Rhetoric does not come from one definite kind of stuff; its horizon is not delimited to a single genus of somethings.This, Aristotle explains, differentiates rhetoric from all those other technai like medicine, geometry, and arithmetic. Each of them are indeed able to persuade about their own particular area of study: “peri to autē hypokeimenon” (Aristotle 1926, 14). These technai are about what they lie underneath: “hypo-,” meaning “below,” and “-keimenon,” meaning “positioned.” They come from and are subordinate to a specific genus, category, or class of things: arithmetic about numbers (peri arithmōn) or medicine about health (peri hugieinōn) (Aristotle 1926, 14). While these other arts are “to hypokeimenon”—set underneath their specific domains, as a species to a genus—rhetoric is instead “tōn prokeimenōn”—set before, set forward, set forth (Aristotle 1926, 14). And rhetoric is set forth in advance—what it is set before is generation or beginning itself.Rather than hypokeimenon, rhetoric is hyparchonta (1926, 12)—not lying underneath some genus but below the archē: underneath a beginning, a prime mover, or a first principle. So ironically, Aristotle's archē-definition of rhetoric undermines rhetoric's archē. Rhetoric's domain is the hyparchonta: beneath the first principle, before the beginning, in advance of the first move. Its genus is not speech and persuasion, legein kai peithein, as Plato has Gorgias say. No, Aristotle writes, the function of rhetoric is not persuasion itself—ou to peisai ergon autēs—but rather to see the hyparchonta pithana—the probabilities, plausibilities, or persuadabilities that exist before the work of persuasion begins (1926, 12). Paradoxically, the hyparchonta pithana have a mode of existence before their existence. The hyparchonta is caught between the already and the not-yet. This paradox is reflected in the two seemingly incompatible definitions of the term “hyparchonta”: “preexisting, taken-for-granted,” on one hand, and “allowable, possible,” on the other. To see the hyparchonta pithana is to see preexisting possibilities.A few lines later, Aristotle restates this definition of rhetoric as the ability to see the hyparchonta pithana but replaces the word “hyparchonta” with the term “endechomenon,” instead calling rhetoric the ability to see the “endechomenon pithanon” (1926, 14). This substitution of “hyparchonta” with “endechomenon” fittingly highlights the parallelism between the terms: like “hyparchonta,” the term “endechomenon” points to possibilities. Rhetoric, Aristotle writes, is “peri tōn phainomenōn endechesthai amphoterōs exein” (1926, 22). That is, rhetoric emerges from phenomena capable of carrying more than one possibility. The phrase “endechomenon pithanon,” most commonly rendered in English as “the available means of persuasion” (Aristotle 1991, 37), thus defines persuasion's availability in a very precise sense: not available in the sense of an extant substantive object that is already there to use but instead as an imminent and immanent possibility of which rhetoric may avail itself. Explaining rhetoric's availability as possibility, Aristotle returns to the genitive case: rhetoric emerges not peri tōn ontōn, as Plato would have it, but “peri tōn endechomenōn” (Aristotle 1926, 24).Aristotle resists the Platonic gambit by refusing to collapse rhetoric's genitive genus with an ontic object. Recognizing that rhetoric is ou peri ti genos idion, without any genus of its own, Aristotle sidesteps Plato's trick question, “Peri ti tōn ontōn?” Aristotle stipulates that rhetoric comes not from some genus of ontically existing things but from the incipiently existing domain of the possible. He thus refuses the ruse of defining rhetoric's becoming through “qualified genesis,” the genesis of one thing out of another (ek tinos kai ti) (1955, 184). Rather than emerging out of some genus of ontically existing objects (ek tinos), rhetoric comes-to-be ek mē ontos, from that which has no ontic status (Aristotle 1955, 184, 198). The mode of becoming that Aristotle describes in the Rhetoric thus corresponds to what he elsewhere calls “genesis haplē,” or “unqualified becoming” (1955, 184).This mode of becoming is unqualified in two senses. First, it is unqualified in the sense that it is without qualification. It is not delimited by or limited to any specific class of objects with any specific characteristics. Unqualified becoming is thus thoroughgoing and absolute, not partial or particular. Rhetoric, as unqualified becoming, does not come to be from something in particular; rather, it comes to be from nothing in particular. Although it is common to read Aristotle's famous definition of rhetoric as a statement of rhetoric's particularity—“an ability in each case [peri hekaston] to see the available means of persuasion” (Aristotle 1991, 37)—“peri hekaston” may instead be read as an assertion of rhetoric's indefinite genitive source. “Peri hekaston” translates not merely as “in each” but moreover as “about each and every.” In this definitive but indefinite definition, rhetoric does not just come out of a given case but can emerge from any given case whatsoever. As John Henry Freese puts it in his translation, the art of rhetoric is “not applied to any particular definite class of things” (Aristotle 1926, 15). Rhetoric, as peri hekaston, is not particular but imparticular.But here appears the second sense in which rhetoric's mode of becoming seems unqualified: arising out of nothing in particular, it may seem to come from nothing at all. This seemingly ex nihilo emergence may appear “unqualified” in the sense that it does not meet some prerequisite qualification or condition. Indeed, Aristotle writes that the unqualified mode of becoming is not just a transformation of one thing into another; it is a transubstantiation from the immaterial to the material. It is more than an alteration of qualities; it is a conversion of substance. This genesis haplē is absolute genesis in the sense that it is not a mere change from something else; it is the radical appearance of something new. This genesis “out of non-existence” (“ek mē ontos”) is a possibility's passage out of the imperceptible or anaesthetic (ek anaisthētou) (Aristotle 1955, 198). More than just seeing what already exists out there, rhetoric envisions possibilities that have not yet materialized. It does not follow from a previous generation; it is generation itself—genesis without an archē in any genus.Yet this unqualified genesis does not simply come out of nowhere. It does not spring from complete nonexistence. Rather, Aristotle explains, it emerges from “dunamei on entelecheiai mē on,” from that which exists potentially (dunamei) but not actually (entelechiai) (1955, 186). Unlike an actuality that simply exists, potentiality (to dunaton) is simultaneously capable of both existing and not existing: “kai einai kai mē einai” (Aristotle 1933, 460). Paradoxically, potentiality is a mode of being that can either be or not be. That is, its existence is possible rather than certain. Aristotle writes: “To ara dunaton einai endechetai” (1933, 460). Here, Aristotle links potentiality and possibility, dunaton and endechomenon, that which can be and that which may be. This is how rhetoric can have a mode of existence before its existence: it already exists as a potentiality but does not yet exist as an actuality. Aristotle emphasizes that rhetoric exists as a potentiality, or dunamis: “Estō dē rhētorikē dunamis peri hekaston” (1926, 14). That is: “Let rhetoric be an ability in each case.” Rhetoric exists (estō) potentially (dunamis)—but not actually—in any given case whatsoever. Rhetoric's being is a potentiality inherent in each and every particularity. Let rhetoric be an imparticular potentiality.But if rhetoric exists as an imparticular potentiality, does that mean that its domain is all-encompassing? If rhetoric's genesis is absolute, does that mean its domain is universal? If rhetoric can come from anywhere and everywhere, does that mean that rhetoric is anything and everything? Not actually—rhetoric's “object” is not actually a thing at all. That is, although rhetoric addresses an accusative object in the grammatical sense—the endechomenon pithanon—that domain of rhetorical possibility is not an ontic object in the material sense. Yet while rhetoric is not limited to any genus of actual things, rhetoric's domain does have a limit. Aristotle writes that the domain of rhetoric is not all-encompassing—“ou peri hapanta”—but only includes that which may possibly come to be or not—“all' hosa endechetai kai genesthai kai mē.” (1926, 38). Rhetoric's domain, that space of possible becoming, is bounded by necessity on one side and impossibility on the other. That which either must or must not be is none of rhetoric's concern. Impossibility and necessity are beyond rhetoric's scope. So what is rhetoric about? It is about generative potentialities.Against Plato's attempt to show that rhetoric lacks a definition because it does not belong to any domain of ontically existing things, Aristotle defines rhetoric's domain as precisely that which has no ontic existence but which nevertheless has the potential to appear. Aristotle thus subverts Plato's question, “Peri ti?,” “What is rhetoric about?” He refuses to objectify rhetoric's domain with that insidious little pronoun “ti.” Rhetoric, he counters, comes not from a “ti,” not a thing or a what, but rather a maybe, an indefinite domain that is less than something yet more than nothing (1933, 430). Instead of being generated from some ontically given genus of objects, rhetoric generates the appearance of actualities out of the underdetermined, not-yet-actualized domain of an immaterial potentiality that can be or not be.

    doi:10.5325/philrhet.46.2.0241
  12. In Memory:
    Abstract

    James Arnt Aune, who served on the editorial board of Philosophy and Rhetoric, died on 8 January 2013. Jim was an accomplished scholar of the first rank, whose articles, books, and papers reflected broad knowledge and deep insight. He left his mark on the journal through frequent and reliably rigorous reviews that were distinctive for their careful attention to arguments and extensive historical and bibliographic references aimed at improving work, even when he had profound intellectual differences with the author. His comments to the editor often included his own concerns that he may have been too harsh or that his criticisms might be defeating to the author. I seldom felt the need to edit them, however, because his exemplary scholarship that made demands on a manuscript was matched by the constructiveness of his marvelous intellectual generosity. For those who knew Jim, his own work expressed erudition and, dare I say, academic bravery of the rarest sort. He gave expression to ideas, figures, and events on a historical arc in a way that enriched their meaning and energized his comments with trenchant force. His passing is a significant loss to the scholarly community and a profound sadness for those who knew him and had grown accustomed to his inimitable voice. —GAH

    doi:10.5325/philrhet.46.2.0131
  13. Contributors
    doi:10.2190/tw.43.2.h
  14. From the Editor's Desk
    doi:10.2190/tw.43.2.a
  15. Moving towards Ethnorelativism: A Framework for Measuring and Meeting Students' Needs in Cross-Cultural Business and Technical Communication
    Abstract

    Scholars in business and technical communication have continuously made efforts to look for effective teaching approaches for cross-cultural business and technical communication; however, little research has been conducted to study the process by which students develop intercultural competence; fewer studies have been conducted to assess learners' needs for gaining intercultural competence in the globalization age. To assess students' level of intercultural competence and understand whether they are likely to change in response to teaching, I first introduce a two-part framework for teaching and learning intercultural business and technical communication: the DMIS model—Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, and the related instrument to assess intercultural sensitivity—the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). Then I report the results of using the framework to assess and develop students' intercultural competence, and conclude the study by emphasizing the significance of the current empirical research and discuss the framework's limitations.

    doi:10.2190/tw.43.2.f

March 2013

  1. Classroom Commentaries: Teaching the Poetria nova across Medieval and Renaissance Europe by Marjorie Curry Woods
    Abstract

    Reviews 223 original ceremony nt Sancta Maria ad Martyres from language that reflects the architecture of the building, the movements of the presiding Pope (Boni­ face IV), the clergy, and the dramatization of God s voice in the words of the chant. Mary Carruthers and the contributors to this volume have produced an extraordinary collection of essays, rich and complex with thematic intercon­ nections and many avenues for further exploration. The overall arrangement illustrates ductus in invention, arrangement, and figurative motifs in the art of rhetoric across disciplinary lines, including composition, oratory, art, archi­ tecture, music, and liturgical performance. Many of the essays also include excellent visual illustrations. The editing is careful, though one system for translations, provided in the text of some essays and in the endnotes of others, would aid consistency. Nevertheless, readers will find Carruthers7 collection a remarkable resource not only for historical and textual studies, but also for insights into medieval culture, worship, and performance through the art of rhetoric. Elza C. Tiner Lynchburg College Marjorie Curry Woods, Classroom Commentaries: Teaching the Poetria nova across Medieval and Renaissance Europe (Text and Context 2), Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2010. xlii + 367 pp. ISBN 9780814211090. Making a well-timed appearance close to the publications of both Copeland and Sluiter's Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric (Oxford University Press, 2010) and Peter Mack's A History of Renaissance Rhetoric (Oxford Uni­ versity Press, 2011), Marjorie Curry Woods' new book helps us to imagine what took place in medieval and renaissance classes on the trivium. As her title suggests, Woods concentrates on commentaries written from the thir­ teenth through the seventeenth centuries on Geoffrey of Vinsauf's Poetria nova, a popular Latin poem extant in over two hundred manuscripts that taught students how to write poetry and prose. By "commentaries," Woods means an assortment of instructive materials from interlinear and marginal manuscript glosses to freestanding explanations, from anonymous interpre­ tations, such as the Early Commentary that Woods previously edited and translated (New York: Garland, 1985), to the works of well-known intellec­ tuals teaching in documentable circumstances. Woods inquires insightfully into what these commentaries meant for teaching grammar and rhetoric in western as well as central Europe, in elementary courses as well as in universities. The scope of this book is therefore daunting, but Woods deftly chooses particular commentaries and teachers that best exemplify the Poetria nova s 224 RHETORICA use. For instance, chapter 3 details Pace of Ferrara's humanist elaboration placing the Poetria nova amidst classical authorities and literatures, while chapter 4 emphasizes Dybinus of Prague's Aristotelian rhetorical interpreta­ tion. As Woods elucidates, such differing constructions show how variously the Poetria nova might function within European curricula: for Pace as an aid to intermediate students in construing literature, for Dybinus as a text for university students analyzing various models of rhetoric, and for others as a guide to dictamen or sermon composition. A reader can learn a substantial amount about intellectual history and educational scenarios from Woods. Such learning is possible because Woods writes in lucid, well-organized prose that appeals to both specialists and those interested more generally in the history of rhetoric and education. For the latter audience, her Preface clearly defines terms such as "accessus" and "lemmata" that will recur in describing the commentaries (xxxviii-xxxix). Further, she opens the book with fifteen plates illustrating the diversity of the commentaries and pro­ viding exempla for later chapters. Nine of these plates include the famous opening phrase of the Poetria nova ("Papa stupor mundi," or in English trans­ lation, "Holy Father, wonder of the world") that becomes the subject of so many speculations about Geoffrey's audience and purpose. Along with the manuscript illustrations, Woods provides copious translations of transcrip­ tions from commentaries. Sometimes the interjection of these visual aids can overwhelm Woods' discussion, for instance in the layout of versions of the Dybinus commentary (190- 208), but Woods' intention is to be generous with manuscript materials over which she has labored long, and indeed many readers would be challenged to assess the divergent points in the commentaries without these explicit side-by-side comparisons. Woods' presentation of manuscript transcriptions also offers doctoral students...

    doi:10.1353/rht.2013.0023
  2. Foreword: Five Ways to Read a Curated Archive of Digital Literacy Narratives by David Bloome