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.

Book Review| March 01 2013 Citizens of the World: Pluralism, Migration, and Practices of Citizenship Citizens of the World: Pluralism, Migration, and Practices of Citizenship. By Robert Danisch. Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 2011; pp. xi + 218. $62.00 paper. Megan Foley Megan Foley Mississippi State University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2013) 16 (1): 206–209. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.16.1.0206 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Megan Foley; Citizens of the World: Pluralism, Migration, and Practices of Citizenship. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2013; 16 (1): 206–209. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.16.1.0206 Download citation file: 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 Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2013 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2013 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Research Article| December 01 2012 Sound Bites: Rethinking the Circulation of Speech from Fragment to Fetish Megan Foley Megan Foley Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2012) 15 (4): 613–622. https://doi.org/10.2307/41940624 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Megan Foley; Sound Bites: Rethinking the Circulation of Speech from Fragment to Fetish. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2012; 15 (4): 613–622. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/41940624 Download citation file: 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 Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2012 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2012 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Forum You do not currently have access to this content.