Central to Aristotle’s Ethics is the virtue of phronēsis, a good condition of the rational part of the soul that determines the means to ends set by the ethical virtues. Central to the Rhetoric is the art of presenting persuasive deliberative arguments about how to secure the ends set by the audience and its constitution. What is the relation between the art and the virtue of deliberation? Rhetorical facility can be a deceptive facsimile of virtuous reasoning, but there (...) can be more fruitful connections as well. In particular, the experience of judging rhetorical arguments can aid in the development of phronēsis through exercising those aspects of phronēsis that are not so intimately tied to the ethical virtues. Judging the advice given by others leads to excellence in reasoning practically for oneself. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine the changes effected by the English political theorist James Harrington (1611-77) in both classical deliberative (political) rhetoric and classical republicanism and the relationship between these changes. I argue here that the author of The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) offers a model of deliberative rhetoric that is distict from the classical model: classical deliberative oratory was popular, but Harrington's vision of deliberative rhetoric was elitist; classical deliberative oratory made (...) use of emotional apppeals, but Harrington's deliberative rhetoric excluded emotional appeals; and classical deliberative oratory was determined by the speaker's rhetorical knowledge and moral character, whereas Harrington's political rhetoric was regulated by a complex set of institutional procedures. (shrink)

Deliberative or discursive models of democracy have recently enjoyed a revival in both political theory and policy practice. Against the picture of democracy as a procedure for aggregating and effectively meeting the given preference of individuals, deliberative theory offers a model of democracy as a forum through which judgements and preferences are formed and altered through reasoned dialogue between free and equal citizens. Much in the recent revival of deliberative democracy, especially that which comes through Habermas and (...) Rawls, has Kantian roots. Deliberative institutions are embodiments of the free public use of reason that Kant takes to define the enlightenment project. Within the Kantian model the public use of reason is incompatible with the use of rhetoric. While this paper rejects strong rhetorical criticisms of deliberative democracy which render all communication strategic, it argues that rhetorical studies of deliberation have highlighted features of deliberation which point to significant weaknesses in Kantian approaches to it. Two features are of particular importance: the role of testimony and judgements of credibility in deliberation; and the role of appeal to emotions in public discourse. Both from the Kantian perspective are potential sources of heteronomy. However, the appeal to testimony and emotion are features of public deliberation that cannot and should not be eliminated. For those committed to the enlightenment values that underlie the deliberative model of democracy the question is whether these rhetorical features of deliberation are incompatible with those values. The paper argues that they are compatible. It does so by defending an Aristotelian account of rhetoric in public deliberation which denies the Platonic contrast between reasoned discourse and rhetoric which the Kantian model inherits. (shrink)

John Dewey’s belief in democratic deliberation rested on a “faith in the capacity of human beings for intelligent judgment and action if proper conditions are furnished”. The stipulation of “proper conditions” is an essential feature, then, of participatory democracy, and Dewey spent considerable time concerned with these conditions, especially in The Public and Its Problems. This essay argues that the structures and ecologies within which we live make certain kinds of argumentation possible or likely, and that when we alter those (...) structures we alter the possibilities for argumentation. Democratic forms of argumentation are made possible by structures that promote collaborative communication practices. This means that practical, public argument is not just a matter of making valid claims, but also a matter of effective contexts that can improve the quality of argumentation. (shrink)

Developments in the democratic theory of representation and deliberation enable renewed consideration of the ancient controversy over the proper place of rhetoric in politics. Rhetoric facilitates the making and hearing of representation claims spanning subjects and audiences divided in their commitments and dispositions. Deliberative democracy requires a deliberative system with multiple components whose linkage often needs rhetoric. Appreciation of these aspects of democracy exposes the limitations of categorical tests for the admissibility of particular sorts of (...) rhetoric. Prioritization of bridging over bonding rhetoric is a step in the right direction, while sometimes producing misleading results. A better systemic test asks whether or not rhetoric promotes an effective deliberative system linking competent and reflective actors. (shrink)

The pathologies of the democratic public sphere, first articulated by Plato in his attack on rhetoric, have pushed much of deliberative theory out of the mass public and into the study and design of small scale deliberative venues. The move away from the mass public can be seen in a growing split in deliberative theory between theories of democratic deliberation (on the ascendancy) which focus on discrete deliberative initiatives within democracies and theories of deliberative (...) democracy (on the decline) that attempt to tackle the large questions of how the public, or civil society in general, relates to the state. Using rhetoric as the lens through which to view mass democracy, this essay argues that the key to understanding the deliberative potential of the mass public is in the distinction between deliberative and plebiscitary rhetoric. (shrink)

The New Rhetoric is founded on the idea that since "argumentation aims at securing the adherence of those to whom it is addressed, it is, in its entirety, relative to the audience to be influenced," says Chaïm Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, and they rely, in particular, for their theory of argumentation on the twin concepts of universal and particular audiences: while every argument is directed to a specific individual or group, the orator decides what information and what approaches will (...) achieve the greatest adherence according to an ideal audience. This ideal, Perelman explains, can be embodied, for example, in God, in all reasonable and competent men, in the man deliberating or in an elite." Like particular audiences, then, the universal audience is never fixed or absolute but depends on the orator, the content and goals of the argument, and the particular audience to whom the argument is addressed. These considerations determine what information constitutes facts and reasonableness and thus help to determine the universal audience that, in turn, shapes the orator's approach. The adherence of an audience is also determined by the orator's use of values, a further key concept of the New Rhetoric. Perelman's treatment of value and his view of epideictic rhetoric sets his approach apart from that of the ancients and of Aristotle in particular. Aristotle's division of rhetoric into three genres-forensic, deliberative, and epideictic-is largely motivated by the judgments required for each: forensic or legal arguments require verdicts on past action, deliberative or political rhetoric seeks judgment on future action, and epideictic or ceremonial rhetoric concerns values associated with praise or blame and seeks no specific decisions. For Aristotle, the epideictic genre was of limited importance in the civic realm since it did not concern facts or policies. Perelman, in contrast, believes not only that epideictic rhetoric warrants more attention, but that the values normally limited to that genre are in fact central to all argumentation. Epideictic oratory, Perelman argues, has significant and important argumentation for strengthening the disposition toward action by increasing adherence to the values it lauds." These values are central to the persuasiveness of arguments in all rhetorical genres since the orator always attempts to establish a sense of communion centered around particular values recognized by the audience.". (shrink)

This review essay discusses six key works on deliberative democracy published 1996-2000. It deals with issues such as constraints on, intrinsic value of, and fora of deliberation, as well as the place of rhetoric in deliberative democracy and the charge of rationalism. The author is critical of "the Rawlsian turn" in theories of deliberation and argues for a more radically democratic version of the ideal.

This essay asks why Aristotle, certainly no friend to unlimited democracy, seems so much more comfortable with unconstrained rhetoric in political deliberation than current defenders of deliberative democracy. It answers this question by reconstructing and defending a distinctly Aristotelian understanding of political deliberation, one that can be pieced together out of a series of separate arguments made in the Rhetoric, the Politics, and the Nicomachean Ethics.

This article examines the critique of deliberative democracy leveled by William Connolly. Drawing on both recent findings in cognitive science as well on Gilles Deleuze's cosmological pluralism, Connolly argues that deliberative democracy, and the contemporary left more generally, is guilty of intellectualism for overlooking the embodied, visceral register of political judgment. Going back to Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, this article reconstructs the working assumptions of Connolly's critique and argues that it unwittingly leads to an indefensible embrace (...) of manipulation. Against his micropolitics of visceral manipulation, I propose an alternative route for realizing Connolly's politics of agonistic negotiation in the form of a critical theory of the public sphere. (shrink)

In the field of philosophy, Plato's view of rhetoric as a potentially treacherous craft has long overshadowed Aristotle's view, which focuses on rhetoric as an independent discipline that relates in complex ways to dialectic and logic and to ethics and moral psychology. This volume, composed of essays by internationally renowned philosophers and classicists, provides the first extensive examination of Aristotle's Rhetoric and its subject matter in many years. One aim is to locate both Aristotle's treatise and its (...) subject within the more general context of his philosophical treatment of other disciplines, including moral and political theory as well as poetics. The contributors also seek to illuminate the structure of Aristotle's own conception of rhetoric as presented in his treatise. The first section of the book, which deals with the arguments of rhetoric, contains essays by M. F. Burnyeat and Jacques Brunschwig. A section treating the status of the art of rhetoric features pieces by Eckart Schütrumpf, Jürgen Sprute, M. M. McCabe, and Glenn W. Most. Essays by John M. Cooper, Stephen Halliwell, and Jean-Louis Labarrière address topics related to rhetoric, ethics, and politics. The final section, on rhetoric and literary art, comprises essays by Alexander Nehamas and André Laks. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

In his account of how each of us deliberates about what to do, Aristotle remarks that we do not always trust ourselves on important matters and so sometimes take counsel from others. Taking counsel from others is, in some ways, merely an expansion of the internal activity of deliberation; the suggestions come from other people rather than from our ownminds, but the judgment about them remains our own. In other ways, however, taking counsel is quite different from deliberating with oneself. (...) These differences are the subject matter of the art of rhetoric, as Aristotle understands it. The paper compares the political relationship at work in deliberative rhetoric with slavery, which collapses the separateness of persons, and with friendship, which preserves it. And suggests that the importance of anger in Aristotle’s treatment of rhetoric can be understood as a reflection on the implications of human separateness. (shrink)

The New Rhetoric is founded on the idea that since “argumentation aims at securing the adherence of those to whom it is addressed, it is, in its entirety, relative to the audience to be influenced,” says Chaïm Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, and they rely, in particular, for their theory of argumentation on the twin concepts of universal and particular audiences: while every argument is directed to a specific individual or group, the orator decides what information and what approaches will (...) achieve the greatest adherence according to an ideal audience. This ideal, Perelman explains, can be embodied, for example, "in God, in all reasonable and competent men, in the man deliberating or in an elite.” Like particular audiences, then, the universal audience is never fixed or absolute but depends on the orator, the content and goals of the argument, and the particular audience to whom the argument is addressed. These considerations determine what information constitutes "facts" and "reasonableness" and thus help to determine the universal audience that, in turn, shapes the orator's approach. /// The adherence of an audience is also determined by the orator's use of values, a further key concept of the New Rhetoric. Perelman's treatment of value and his view of epideictic rhetoric sets his approach apart from that of the ancients and of Aristotle in particular. Aristotle's division of rhetoric into three genres–forensic, deliberative, and epideictic–is largely motivated by the judgments required for each: forensic or legal arguments require verdicts on past action, deliberative or political rhetoric seeks judgment on future action, and epideictic or ceremonial rhetoric concerns values associated with praise or blame and seeks no specific decisions. For Aristotle, the epideictic genre was of limited importance in the civic realm since it did not concern facts or policies. Perelman, in contrast, believes not only that epideictic rhetoric warrants more attention, but that the values normally limited to that genre are in fact central to all argumentation. "Epideictic oratory," Perelman argues, "has significant and important argumentation for strengthening the disposition toward action by increasing adherence to the values it lauds.” These values are central to the persuasiveness of arguments in all rhetorical genres since the orator always attempts to "establish a sense of communion centered around particular values recognized by the audience.”. (shrink)

Constitutional reform has been an important means to push populist authoritarian agendas in Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Venezuela. The embrace of constitutional means and rhetoric in pursuit of these agendas has led to the growing recognition of ‘populist constitutionalism’ as a contemporary political phenomenon. In all four examples mentioned above, democracy, popular sovereignty and direct plebiscitary appeal to the people is the rhetorical and justificatory framework for constitutional reform. This, I worry, gives democracy a bad name and reinforces the (...) widespread suspicion that citizens should not be directly involved in constitutional reform as popular participation can lead to dangerous majoritarianism and is easily manipulated by elite actors seeking to weaken constitutional checks and balances. But the problem, I argue, is not inherent in citizen’s participation in constitutional reform. In contrast to populist constitutionalism, I develop an idea of deliberative constitutionalism in which citizens can participate in constitution-making and reform without hijacking constitutionalism for majoritarian, nationalist or anti-pluralist ends. Deliberative constitutionalism as I understand it has four features: a Habermasian co-originality thesis that articulates the interdependence of democracy and liberalism mediated by a conception of discourse; a proceduralized idea of popular sovereignty that reduces the tension between appeal to the people and respect for pluralism; the centrality of the public sphere over the voting booth as the cradle of democracy; institutional innovations intended to include citizens in constitutional reform but avoid majoritarian and populist pathologies. (shrink)

The five articles composing the thematic dossier Rhetorics of Justice in Emerging Democracies represent the initial results of the joint Romanian and South African research project – Rhetoric of Justice and Deliberative Perceptions of the Rule of Law in Post-Communist Romania and Post-Apartheid South Africa.

At least since the time of Plato’s writings, epideictic rhetoric has been criticized as deceptive, as epistemologically bankrupt, and as politically irrelevant. Aristotle himself emphasizes that the key ‘topic’of epideictic is amplification and stresses that the epideictic orator chiefly adds ‘size’ and ‘beauty’ to widely shared memories. This paper reinterprets Aristotle’s statements and argues that Aristotle’s account brings to light significant civic resources embodied in epideictic. A genuine statesman uses ceremonial speech to articulate and explain a regime’s underlying ethos (...) and purposes; thus he defines the regime’s telos and orients the citizenry toward it. In that way, it is argued, epideictic oratory is not the trivial cousin of deliberative and judicial rhetoric, but rather the rhetorical genre whose essential function is to explain and defend the fundamental building blocks of the regime. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric and Capitalism:Rhetorical Agency as Communicative LaborRonald Walter GreeneIt is a commonplace to describe rhetorical agency as political action. From such a starting point, rhetorical agency describes a communicative process of inquiry and advocacy on issues of public importance. As political action, rhetorical agency often takes on the characteristics of a normative theory of citizenship; a good citizen persuades and is persuaded by the gentle force of the (...) better argument. More radical visions of argument might include strikes, sit-ins, and boycotts in the rhetorical arsenal of good citizenship, and some might even flirt with violence as rhetorical action. This model of rhetorical agency requires a translation of the conceptual apparatus of rhetoric and its alignment with the problematics of democratic theory and actually existing democratic regimes. Classical models that hoped to harness rhetorical agency to the making of the "orator-statesman" (sic) must reimagine political participation in terms of publics and counterpublics, social movements, electoral campaigns, communication media and technologies, as well as supra- and sub-national institutional settings. As the classical norms of citizenship rub against (post) modern realities, a permanent anxiety over the meaning and potential of rhetorical agency seems destined to be lodged in the critical imagination of rhetorical studies. If politics today is, in Jodi Dean's words, "a domain of financially mediated and professionalized practices centered on advertising, public relations, and the means of mass communication," then actually existing rhetorical agency manifests itself in efforts to "raise the money, buy the television time, register the domain names, build the website, and craft the accessible, user-friendly, spectacular message" (2003, 96).If we recognize Dean's description of the political as an accurate description of the rhetorical situation today, rhetorical studies is left with three strategies: It can refashion a deliberative vision of rhetorical agency into a normative ideal for critiquing the structural conditions (capital, media [End Page 188] concentration) of political participation. Second, it can enlarge the field of normatively acceptable ways and means of political participation, for example, by embracing the more spectacular politics associated with visual and body rhetorics. Finally, rhetorical studies can work on the "demand" side and design new strategies and tactics for activating the rhetorical participation of citizens, for example, by encouraging the creation of communicative norms necessary for reinvigorating voluntary and civic organizations. However, while each of these approaches provides a research agenda, none of them gets at the root cause of the anxiety over agency: the attachment of rhetorical agency to a vision of political change. The anxiety over agency pushes rhetorical critics and theorists into becoming moral entrepreneurs scolding, correcting, and encouraging the body politic to improve the quality and quantity of political participation.The purpose of this paper is to offer an escape route from theorizing rhetorical agency as a model of political communication.1 In opposition to a political-communicative vision of rhetorical agency, this paper suggests a different materialist ontology, one that imagines rhetorical agency as a form of living labor. I will argue that rhetorical agency belongs to the domain of communicative labor, a form of labor increasingly necessary to the workings of contemporary capitalist production. In other words, I want to replace a political-communicative model of rhetorical agency with a materialist-communicative model. To highlight the similarities and differences between the two models, I will focus on how the interface between politics, communication, and economics plays out in the Marxist tradition of rhetorical studies. I will organize this tradition into two sections: the first, represented by James Aune, advocates a hermeneutic approach to rhetorical agency, and the second, represented by Dana Cloud, argues for imagining rhetorical agency as a class-based social movement. By focusing on the work of my comrades, the paper risks being received as a "left sectarian" polemic.2 As I will demonstrate in each section, the problem with these two approaches has less to do with Marxism and more to do with how they turn to hermeneutics and social movements to imagine rhetorical agency in the idiom of communication theory. In the third section of the paper I will resituate rhetorical agency into a materialist ontology of labor and capitalist production. In so... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric as a Balancing of Ends:Cicero and MachiavelliGary RemerIn his youthful work on rhetoric, De inventione (published about 86 B.C.E.), Cicero lists the ends for deliberative (political) oratory as honestas and utilitas (the good or honorable and the useful or expedient). In more mature writings, like De oratore (55 B.C.E.) and De officiis (44 B.C.E.), Cicero maintains a similar position: that the morally good and the (...) beneficial are reconcilable. For example, Cicero assumes in De officiis the identity of the honestum and the utile. He states there that "there is one rule for all cases;... either the thing that seems beneficial must not be dishonorable, or if it is dishonorable, it must not seem beneficial" (On Duties 3.81).1 In recent years, Victoria Kahn (1994) and J. Jackson Barlow (1999) have offered Machiavelli's "rhetorical politics"—a politics "attuned to the rhetorical concerns of effective political action" (Kahn 1994, 24)—as a more coherent and intellectually honest alternative to Cicero's attempt to reconcile irreconcilables.2 They contend that, unlike Cicero, Machiavelli accepts the impossibility of simultaneously upholding the morally good and the useful. For Machiavelli, the successful political actor must choose the utile over the honestum.Cicero, however, is not alone in his inconsistency. As Kahn demonstrates, Machiavelli's account of virtù is itself inconsistent. For example, he sometimes includes morality as an element of excellence (virtù) and at other times does not. I contend in this article, however, that Kahn's interpretation [End Page 1] of Machiavelli's contradictoriness as only "apparent," a variability, she argues, that is rhetorically inspired rather than logically deficient, applies not only to Machiavelli, as Kahn would have it, but also to Cicero. I argue that both Machiavelli and Cicero eschew "clear-cut or permanent distinctions" within virtù and between the honestum and the utile, respectively, because they wish to signal the political actor's need for flexibility (Kahn 1994, 30). Insofar as Cicero's internal contradictions, like Machiavelli's, are apparent but not real, I hold that Machiavelli does not offer a political approach that is superior to Cicero's, at least not in the sense of greater intellectual coherence.Despite their similarities, however, Cicero and Machiavelli differ from each other in that Cicero, in contrast to Machiavelli, openly affirms that politics is incomplete without a dual commitment to the good and the beneficial. I examine Machiavelli's focus on the useful and public as opposed to Cicero's additional commitment to the honorable and to the private. I analyze, in particular, the pursuit of glory in Machiavelli as it derives from early classical culture, which was preoccupied with appearances and the search for immortality. I argue that Cicero, while not abandoning the quest for glory, also vests this concept (under Stoic influence) with a private, moral character. In doing so, Cicero adheres to the rhetorical principle of decorum, which obliges orators to adapt themselves to context. This principle, I maintain, is not only a matter of expediency for Cicero but also a moral duty. While Cicero accommodates himself to a Roman world in which private morality was already an important part of one's life, Machiavelli violates decorum, attempting to resurrect a heroic ideal that disappeared long ago.Although most recent work on the revival of rhetorical ethics focuses on Aristotle (see Allen 2004, 140–59; Furley and Nehamas 1994; Garver 1994; Rorty 1996), I discuss Cicero in this essay. Not only has Cicero been the dominant influence on the Western tradition of rhetoric, but he also (unlike Aristotle) includes the honorable as one of the ends of deliberative oratory. Thus Cicero states in De inventione that while "Aristotle accepts advantage as the end [of deliberative oratory],... I prefer both honor and advantage" (2.52.156). And while Aristotle's position on deliberative oratory's ends does not mean that he ignores moral considerations, Cicero's decision to promote the good as an explicit rhetorical end forces his readers (and Machiavelli) to confront the relationship between virtue and expediency in a way that Aristotle's readers do not (Cox 1997, 1113). I concentrate, in particular, on Cicero's De officiis because... (shrink)

The "Notes of Dr. Smith's Rhetorick Lectures," discovered in 1958 by a University of Aberdeen professor, consists of lecture notes taken by two of Smith's students at the University of Glasgow in 1762-1763. There are thirty lectures in the collection, all on rhetoric and the different kinds or characteristics of style. The book is divided into "an examination of the several ways of communicating our thoughts by speech" and "an attention to the principles of those literary compositions which contribute (...) to persuasion or entertainment." The species of communication discussed include descriptive and narrative (or historical) composition, poetry, demonstrative oratory, panegyric, didactic or scientific language, deliberative oratory, and judicial or forensic oratory. The subjects addressed in his teachings include the style and genius of some of the best of the ancient writers and poets, especially the historians and the English classics. (shrink)

The first part of this paper contends that argumentation is central and essential to Aristotle's Rhetoric, and recounts a number of arguments in support of that view, particularly the recognition that deliberative rhetoric or the rhetoric of counsel is the primary concern of Aristotle's work. The second part of the paper reviews the work that follows in this present volume to show that the other writers' views fit in perfectly with this thesis.

Classical rhetorical theory distinguished three kinds of genera of oratory - the judicial, the deliberative, and the demonstrative- and there are features of each in Francis Bacon's History of the Reign of King Henry VII. The demonstrative genus provided the basic shape of classical and humanist rhetorical history, while the deliberative and judicial methods also contributed significantly. The judicial method in particular may be very important for modern standards of history-writing. The fact that Bacon employed rhetorical strategies to (...) shape his history suggests that the development of historiography is not as free from "literary" techniques as many historians might like to believe. The inadequacies, by modern standards, of Bacon's classicized historiographical methods and understanding do not condemn the art of rhetoric itself. Small shifts in rhetorical technique or emphasis could reflect significant changes of literary perception and philosophical approach, and different historical periods encourage the use of new and different rhetorical topoi. (shrink)

Foundational theories of the public sphere prioritize civic speech while distrusting forms of visuality. As a corrective to this model of the public sphere, rhetorical theorists have recently emphasized visuality as a constitutive mode of contemporary public culture, but they nevertheless tend to prioritize the civic actor over the civic spectator. A productive alternative would begin to distinguish an emerging shift from “deliberative publicity” to “photographic publicity.” The bourgeois public sphere innovated verbal communicative practices that produced a specifically (...) class='Hi'>deliberative publicity, enabling one resolution to the core political problems of an earlier era. Likewise, contemporary publics utilize emerging digital technologies to produce a specifically photographic publicity, allowing them to address fundamental limitations of the bourgeois public sphere. Photographic publicity helps us rethink the problem of the public sphere in terms of theatricality and civic spectatorship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric and AngerKenneth S. Zagacki and Patrick A. Boleyn-FitzgeraldSince most believe anger can be either good or bad, rhetors face a moral problem of determining when anger is appropriate and when it is not. They face a corresponding rhetorical problem in deciding when and how to express anger and determining the role that it might play in public discourse, with specific audiences and in particular rhetorical situations. Rhetorical (...) scholars have catalogued whole genres of angry rhetoric—apocalyptic genres, jeremiads, the demonizing rhetoric of religious and political leaders—wherein the rhetorical display of anger is explained in terms of situational conventions and cultural norms.1 Yet these scholars have not easily resolved the moral problems associated with angry rhetoric. Aristotle suggested the earliest and most obvious solutions to these problems. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he outlines a typology for discerning the moral limits of anger and, by implication, angry rhetoric. And in Book II of the Rhetoric he asserts that the orator needs to know the structure of emotions like anger and how to intensify and dissipate them. Or, in other words, the orator must know how to make it reasonable to be angry. Some contemporary philosophers have gone further, suggesting that a failure to feel and express anger in public betrays an insufficient concern for justice and self respect.In this essay, we follow Aristotle in arguing that anger is sometimes the emotion we expect people to feel or the rhetorical response we expect them to display and evoke in others. But we also challenge part of Aristotle's argument by asking: "Even when angry rhetoric would appear to be a reasonable, morally appropriate response, is there a way in which rhetors might manage anger in their public discourse in order to achieve ends which are both morally and pragmatically productive?" The answer, we propose, lies in what we call "non-angry" rhetoric, which involves transforming and reflecting upon anger in public discourse. Because such rhetoric often promotes noble ends such as reconciliation and forgiveness, it is at least morally permissible and more likely morally virtuous.2 In order to establish these claims, our analysis focuses on the case of Nelson Mandela and his "Address to the Interfaith Commissioning Service for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission."3 In this speech, Mandela, as our [End Page 290] analysis demonstrates, managed anger and turned it into an object of reflection, thereby illustrating what opportunities for reconciliation and democratic deliberation would look like during the difficult period attending the political transition in South Africa in general and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings in particular. His "Address" exemplified a unique moment when the rhetoric and the ethics of anger came together in a public performance. While acknowledging the understandable anger of blacks, Mandela (who may in fact have harbored considerable anger himself) simultaneously suggested that by engendering a less hostile social-political context, in which participants maintained their self-respect without necessarily sacrificing justice, a new democratic community could emerge. This would be a community where, as he described it, individuals began to reconcile with and no longer persecute one another. As Aristotle might explain, the purpose of Mandela's speech was to manage the anger of blacks, so that they would then be able to deliberate properly about the issues before the TRC and about the larger democratic transition. As the philosopher Eugene Garver says, the particular passions Aristotle chooses to explore in the Rhetoric serve a role necessary for the kind of public, political decision making he assigns to rhetoric. These emotions serve to integrate—or segregate, as the case may be—"distinct individuals into a deliberative or judging body, or demos" (1994, 131).What we are recommending, then, is that rhetoric encompasses both considerations of moral desert as well as broader moral concerns. While there are times when individuals seem to deserve our angry rhetoric, it may not be justified from a broader moral perspective, especially when the goal is the good of the state or the community—viz., if angry rhetoric leads to the violent dissolution of democratic community. Ultimately, we argue that the moral constitution of political, deliberative communities must be viewed in terms... (shrink)

This paper examines the idea that straight talk can actually pose certain dangers for democracy by asking two interrelated questions. First, does our belief in the importance of sincerity necessarily improve political deliberation? Second, does our belief cause us to under-appreciate other important communicative resources? We will see that much hinges on our answers to these questions because they deal directly with whose voices are to be considered legitimate and authoritative in our public sphere. This paper begins from a (...) class='Hi'>deliberative democratic standpoint: democracy is a logocentric enterprise—that is, language is at the center of democratic political projects. So it is critical that we pay attention to how we evaluate political words. Otherwise, not only can we not really understand what is going on in the public sphere, but we are also more likely to make poor judgments about what sort of speech and speakers make our democracy more robust. -/- To explore these questions, this paper examines the discourse ethics that underwrite much of deliberative democratic theory (section I). It then goes on to discuss some of the dangers that the particular ethic of sincerity poses for democratic communication. The paper argues that the emphasis on sincerity: -/- 1) too easily collapses the relation between claims to truthfulness and truth claims and contributes to an undemocratic epistemology; 2) oversimplifies human psychology, ignoring the possibility of multiple and complexly related intentions; 3) denigrates “rhetorical” forms of speech; and 4) privileges a seemingly non-rhetorical mode of communication: hyper-sincerity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric, Reflection, and Emancipation: Farrell and Habermas on the Critical Studies of CommunicationG. Thomas GoodnightThere are moments in history that appear to be alive with emancipatory possibilities. Such were the years moving toward the end of the long twentieth century. In spring 1989, students protested the communist regime in China; the Tiananmen Square massacre initiated an episode of opposition and commenced China’s modern journey toward global reengagement. Revolutions (...) in Europe that autumn were more peaceful. On August 23 two million Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian citizens held hands and announced the Baltic Way as a departure from Soviet rule. Transitions rapidly followed in Hungary, Bulgaria, and East Germany, culminating in the Velvet Revolution where on November 17 student protests were beaten back by police in Prague only to be followed three days later by an assembly of 200,000 demanding the transfer of power from the Communist Party. On December 3, George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev jointly announced an imminent end to the fifty-year-old Cold War. During this time of hopeful transition, two scholars were at work refiguring the philosophical mission of the Frankfurt school, transforming critique from its early totalizing posture into the critical study of communication.Thomas B. Farrell and Jürgen Habermas were trained in different traditions but adjacent disciplines, communication and sociology. Their works [End Page 421] share a commitment to philosophical inquiry directed toward critique and understanding the cultural, social, and linguistic constitution of communication. As a rhetorician and as a philosopher, these scholars share an evident passion for scholarly argument and for engagement with the controversies of public culture. In different ways, both were at work during the portentous years of transition from the Cold War to new democracies and incipient globalization. Each constructed a guarded program of hope in the possibilities of communicative reflection and reasoning. In the post-World War II era, such a broad, positive vision took long to develop. After the brutal realities of the Holocaust became publicly known in the late 1940s, “the generous faith in rationality and the possibilities of human progress which underlay much of earlier historical thought seems discredited today” (Katznelson 2003, 2). The Enlightenment possibilities for reason had been invested in the technical efficiency of modern institutions that produced the capacity to kill systematically without constraints. Ira Katznelson points to a generation of scholars—including individuals at Chicago, Columbia, the New School, and others—who began in the 1950s to engage in a project that would “shade the Enlightenment’s philosophical anthropology, thicken its defenses against evil, deepen its capacity to reason, and restore” an Enlightenment more critical and less susceptible to co-optation by the excesses of nationalism, ideology, and evil (2003, 2). The work of Farrell and Habermas belongs to the extended post-Holocaust moment, where the possibilities of reflective reason in ethical and moral deliberations were set carefully on a road to personal and collective emancipation.Max Horkheimer saw in the modern, postwar welfare state little reason for optimism. Writing in 1946 at the beginning of the Cold War, he concluded: “Language has been reduced to just another tool in the gigantic apparatus of production in modern society” (1974, 22). “Salestalk” by “the surrogates of culture” creates an “illusory triumph of democratic progress that consumes the intellectual substance on which democracy has lived” (Horkheimer 1974, 31). Scientifically engineered propaganda renders public opinion as “a substitute for reason.” With such tools, the forces of barbarism are always waiting in the wings to seize power. Early on, Habermas shared these views. His thesis, in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1989a), tracks the opening possibilities of communicative reasoning in the liminal spaces of eighteenth-century coffeehouses where frank talk replaced hierarchically driven politeness, the development of these talks into the practices of deliberative democracy, and the decline of deliberative democracy with the union of the state and mass media in producing spectacles in [End Page 422] support of rituals of legitimation. Habermas broke with Horkheimer over the dissertation, however. A thesis of decline, by itself, leaves open only the route of totalizing critique. While never far from critique of institutional practices, Habermas spent his career in opening a positive... (shrink)

How might discourse generate political change? So far, democratic theorists have focused largely on how deliberative exchanges might shift political opinion. Responding to empirical research that casts doubt on the generalizability of deliberative mechanisms outside of carefully designed forums, this essay seeks to broaden the scope of discourse theory by considering speech that addresses participants’ identities instead. More specifically, we ask what may be learned about identity-oriented discourse by examining the practice of religious preaching. As we demonstrate, scholars (...) of homiletics—the study of preaching—have identified three core features that support its focus on identity: its unconditionality, its appeal to authoritative texts and traditions, and its diffuse instrumentality. We then ask what each of these features might look like in more straightforwardly political contexts. Finally, we address several normative questions raised by this practice, as a way of exploring the promises and dangers accompanying identity-oriented discourse more generally. (shrink)

The rise of a partisan Congress can aggravate some of the pathologies of the rhetorical presidency identified by Jeffrey Tulis: reckless policy production, and the resulting public disillusionment with an overpromising government. In some cases, such as the debate over the invasion of Iraq, the unified ranks of the president’s party amplify the president’s simplistic rhetoric, reducing policy deliberation and aggravating public disappointment when reality turns out to be more complex. When combined with divided government, however, partisanship can work (...) to produce deliberative compromises that mitigate these pathologies, as exemplified by the welfare‐reform legislation enacted by a Republican Congress under a Democratic president in 1996. (shrink)

An inquiry into the rhetorical aspects of history may seem paradoxical, given that historical discourse is not typically included among those types which, since Aristotle, have been understood to be governed by rhetoric; these types being the deliberative council, the tribunal and the commemorative assembly. It was to these specific audiences that the three kinds of discourse—the deliberative, judiciary, and panegyric—were addressed. However, are the boundaries of the historian's audience sufficiently delineated in order to allow us to (...) identify it as a specific addressee? This first objection, which regards the very legitimacy of the subject of these remarks, can be met by noting a common trait that links history to the above-mentioned three types of discourse; that is, competition between opposed discourses requiring a choice. In each case the aim is to structure a debate that calls for a clear-cut decision. Yet a major problem of the discipline of history is that it allows both for widely varying descriptions of the same series of events, and sanctions the use of a variety of equally acceptable rules or preferences for interpreting a given slice of the past. (shrink)

This paper has three dimensions, historical, theoretical and social. The historical dimension is to show how the Ciceronian system of dialectical argumentation served as a precursor to computational models of argumentation schemes such as Araucaria and Carneades. The theoretical dimension is to show concretely how these argumentation schemes reveal the interdependency of rhetoric and logic, and so the interdependency of the normative with the empirical. It does this by identifying points of disagreement in a dialectical format through using argumentation (...) schemes and critical questions. The social dimension is to show how the Ciceronian dialectical viewpoint integrates with the use of computational tools that can be used to support the principle of reason-based deliberation and facilitate deliberative democracy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Modernity as a Rhetorical Problem: Phronēsis, Forms, and Forums in Norms of Rhetorical CultureJames Arnt AuneThe true paradises are the paradises that we’ve lost.—Marcel Proust, The Past RegainedThomas B. Farrell’s Norms of Rhetorical Culture (1993, 6) remains both a masterly synthesis of previous constructive work in rhetorical theory and the essential starting point for anyone committed to reconciling the practical impulses of Aristotelian rhetoric, ethics, and politics with (...) the critical imperatives of modernity. In what follows, I try to make a very simple point about Farrell’s recuperation of Aristotelianism: he neglects matters of social causation and institutional design that were essential to Aristotle’s understanding of rhetoric. In turn, by displacing the social in favor of the cultural—a displacement characteristic of much recent work in the human sciences (Schudson 1997)—Farrell lacks a coherent account of the gap between the normative aspirations of classical rhetoric and the empirical characteristics of public life in modern liberal democracies.The problem appears most clearly in chapter 7 of Norms : “Criticism, Disturbance, and Rhetorical Community.” Farrell defines culture as “the common definition of places for the invention and perpetuation of meaning. A culture offers to those who live in it symbols and families of practices that [End Page 402] permit ongoing performances of meaning and value” (1993, 277). Summarizing his previous arguments, Farrell contends that Aristotle’s Rhetoric informs modern “cultural occasions” in three ways: “the impetus for rhetorical meaning, which we find in Aristotle’s seminal understanding of phronēsis, typified by deliberative prudence; a concept of rhetorical form, which we have found in the prototype for public inference and judgment—the enthymeme; and a modern rhetorical forum, a space of engagement wherein the modern constraints of rhetorical culture might assert themselves” (1993, 277). Although these three concepts are inherently useful, both for analyzing past rhetorical episodes and for projecting emancipatory rhetorical possibilities in the present, they are insufficiently grounded in a historical account of the differences between ancient and modern prudential deliberation, rhetorical forms, and rhetorical forums. An adequate history of these differences would require attention to modern social systems as a whole, which include the economy, the polity, and social institutions such as the family, schools, religious and ethnic organizations, and, most crucially for contemporary social systems, the entire apparatus of the culture industry, including the news and entertainment “media.”The cultural aspect of the modern social system, loosely following Talcott Parsons (1951), includes norms, which make for communal solidarity, and values, which undergird the whole system. Although a thoroughgoing account of the place of rhetoric in the entire contemporary social system of a modern liberal democracy such as the United States or Canada would have required a book three times as long as Norms, there are three ways in which modernity complicates the appropriation of Aristotle’s concepts. First, rhetorical meaning is very different in a social system in which individual autonomy takes precedence over communal solidarity as a fundamental value (Pippin 1999). Second, rhetorical forms function differently in a social system in which those forms can be commodified (Aune 1994, 2001). Third, rhetorical forums are also far more complex, especially in an extended republic like Canada or the United States, requiring greater attention to the way in which constitutions literally create persons who speak (such as the president or prime minister) and spaces for speaking (Congress, the state or provincial houses [White 1984]). The need to raise massive sums of money to obtain media access for common rhetorical deliberation, as is especially the case in the United States, complicates the notion of a rhetorical forum immensely. Even without adopting a broadly Marxian framework, it is clear that the rise and development of capitalism have permanently altered rhetorical deliberation and its forms and forums. [End Page 403] In what follows, I expand on these three criticisms first, by developing a historical account of the social changes that necessitate a rethinking of classical rhetorical theory; second, by comparing and contrasting Farrell’s work with two other contemporary Aristotelianisms, one antimodernist and the other solidly modernist; and third, by developing a framework for normative and empirical investigation of rhetoric that is, I hope... (shrink)

The idea of inclusive collective decision-making is important in establishing democratic legitimacy, but it fails when citizens are excluded. Stated-preference methods of valuation, which are commonly used in economics, have been criticised because the principle of willingness to pay may exclude low-income earners who do not have the capacity to pay. Deliberative valuation has been advocated as a way to overcome this problem, but deliberation may also be exclusive. In this review, two deliberative valuation frameworks are compared. The (...) first is grounded on the idea of rational discourse that emphasises argument at the expense of other communicative strategies. It seeks to secure inclusion through procedural rules and prerequisites, but fails to address the underlying democratic limitation of argumentation. The second does not rely on the distinction between rational and rhetorical speech, and therefore admits alternative forms of communication. This approach recognises differences in the communicative capacities and practices of those who take part in deliberation, and so is better equipped to improve, though not to guarantee, inclusion. (shrink)

Despite the amount of public investment in nanotechnology ventures in the developed world, research shows that there is little public awareness about nanotechnology, and public knowledge is very limited. This is concerning given that nanotechnology has been heralded as ‘revolutionising’ the way we live. In this paper, we articulate why public engagement in debates about nanotechnology is important, drawing on literature on public engagement and science policy debate and deliberation about public policy development. We also explore the significance of timing (...) in engaging the public, and we make some suggestions concerning how to effectively engage publics. Our conclusions indicate the significance of scientific researchers, policy makers and representative consumer groupings in public reasoning towards a better public policy framework for debate about technological development. (shrink)

The discussion of "eudaimonia" in the "rhetoric" has a central place in Aristotle's exposition of the material for speeches deliberative, epideictic and forensic varieties of rhetoric. Due to the telos- relatedness of the material for each variety of rhetoric, the treatise on "eudaimonia" (Rhet A5) provides coherence between the varieties by displaying standards in terms of which particular cases at hand are ultimately assessed as good, useful, noble, just or their opposites. A focal and normative meaning (...) of eudaimonia can be identified in A5 which Aristotle expects a prudent orator to maintain even when he is faced with perverted audiences. (shrink)

Leiter (2016) charges public philosophy with being “neoliberal”. To understand that charge better, I define, in §1, three versions of public philosophy which might be concerned and two pictures of its practice targeted by Leiter. I also compare two deliberative sites wherein those pictures may play out. In §2, I sketch how Leiter’s two paradoxes for “neoliberal” public philosophy lead to a revised public philosophy. §3 questions the paradoxes’ empirical grounding and scope. Lastly, in §4, I assume Leiter’s picture (...) and illustrate how philosophical dialogue, through appeal to personal self-image and “moral perceptions”, may still influence public discourse. I conclude that Leiter both over- and understates his case and that his conclusions require greater scrutiny. (shrink)

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s anti-war speech, “Beyond Vietnam,” is a noteworthy example of deliberation by dissent from the margins. Attention is given to the formation of his moral argument from similitude, its foundation in metaphor and archetypal imagery, and how it shifted perspective to enable the introduction of alternative lines of argument. King’s argumentation, as it worked rhetorically toward making the war debatable, exhibited key features of deliberative dissent, including catachresis, contingency, perspective, and incommensurability.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Caught Between History and ImaginationVico's Ingenium for a Rhetorical Renovation of CitizenshipAlessandra Beasley Von BurgCitizenship is usually thought of as synonymous with nationality and the rights and duties associated with the people who live, work, and participate politically, socially, and economically within the borders of their nation-state. In this conception, the main criterion used to decide who is and who is not a citizen is nationality. As the nature (...) of nation-state governance evolves and the acceleration of citizen mobility hastens interdependence, pressures for new definitions and paradigms of citizenship build. As Joseph Weiler argues, this pressure produces cognitive dissonance because "the traditional, classical vocabulary of citizenship is the vocabulary of the State, the Nation and Peoplehood" (qtd. in La Torre 1998, 1).1 The classical association of citizenship with nationality blocks our ability to grasp new, nonstatist conceptions of citizenship, even as postnational political visions take shape in institutions like the European Union (EU).2 In 1992, EU citizenship was established in the Treaty of Maastricht, which granted some additional rights to citizens of the member states in the same way that single nation-states grant their inhabitants special status as nationals, rights that are not nullified when citizens leave their home country to live and work in other member states.3 [End Page 26]The relationship between nationality and citizenship in the EU context is complicated by the fact that although Maastricht guidelines set postnational membership criteria for EU citizens, they also limit the scope of EU citizenship. In trying to reach beyond the nation while anchoring its very essence to the nation, EU citizenship remains limited as it relies on the traditional language of national membership to found its postnational concept of equality and inclusion for noncitizens. The contradictory elements of EU citizenship are exemplified in its current definition, which includes all member states' citizens and excludes millions who are living in Europe as third-country nationals (TCNs), defined as "any person who is not a citizen of one of the member states" of the EU but permanently and legally resides in one.4 The current debate over the status of legal, long-term TCNs challenges the relationship between citizenship and nationality, as advocates from EU institutions, national governments, nongovernmental organizations and academia argue that TCNs should be granted EU citizenship rather than be naturalized in the member states and push for a new, postnational mode of citizenship based on residency. Advocates for the inclusion of TCNs as EU citizens have to work with the limited vocabulary of national citizenship yet articulate a case for a new kind of citizenship divorced from nationality. They suggest that the EU should be viewed as a deliberative community, in which all long-term residents like TCNs are given an equal opportunity to practice citizenship. The deliberative community rationale is based on an idea of citizenship as performance with residents enacting citizenship by living together and deliberating with each other about common interests and concerns.5This reordering of the concept of community arising out of political practice calls for a full philosophical and rhetorical reimagining of the meaning of citizenship. The act of reimagining citizenship creates a new practice of citizenship and grounds citizenship in a philosophical context as well as a practical one. There is no better philosophical and rhetorical tradition to turn to for this purpose than that of Giambattista Vico. Vico, and to a larger extent the entire tradition of Italian humanism, has been overlooked in modern Western philosophy. Yet Vico embodies a seamless marriage of philosophy and rhetoric. Vico's philosophically grounded rhetoric provides the means in an investigation of EU citizenship as an innovative rhetorical practice beyond nationality, for understanding how new practices become persuasive through imaginative language, until citizens separate citizenship from nationality and accept residence and deliberative practices as legitimate criteria for citizenship. Vico argues that "every study method [End Page 27] may be said to be made up of three things: instruments, complementary aids, and aim envisaged" and notes that "the instruments presuppose and include a systematic, orderly manner of proceeding" (1990, 6). This essay proceeds in this fashion to reveal how a new vocabulary of citizenship... (shrink)

The core function of argumentation in a democratic setting must be to constitute a modality for citizens to engage differences of opinion constructively – for the present but also in future exchanges. To enable this function requires acceptance of the basic conditions of public debate: that consensus is often an illusory goal which should be replaced by better mastery of living with dissent and compromise. Furthermore, it calls for an understanding of the complexity of real-life public debate which is an (...) intermixture of claims of fact, definition, value, and policy, each of which calls for an awareness of the greater ‘debate environment’ of which particular deliberative exchanges are part. We introduce a rhetorical meta-norm as an evaluation criterion for public debate. In continuation of previous scholarship concerned with how to create room for differences of opinion and how to foster a sustainable debate culture, we work from a civically oriented conception of rhetoric. This conception is less instrumental and more concerned with the role of communication in public life and the maintenance of the democratic state. A rhetorical meta-norm of public argumentation is useful when evaluating public argumentation – not as the only norm, but integrated with specific norms from rhetoric, pragma-dialectics, and formal logic. We contextualise our claims through an example of authentic contemporary public argumentation: a debate over a biogas generator in rural Denmark. (shrink)

This paper explores a possible connection between Aristotle’s defence of rhetoric as an art and his claim that its three kinds, deliberative, forensic and epideictic, necessarily take place in sites where citizens appear to one another as citizens. The argument is that only in such sites, and hence only in poleis, can speakers and audiences distinguish the internal norms of this, and indeed any other, art from external effects that, although they may be called rhetorical, are not artful (...) or technikos on Aristotle’s definition. That in making this argument Plato serves as Aristotle’s foil is suggested by allusions in the Rhetoric and other Aristotelian treatises to specific passages in Phaedrus and Statesman. The paper concludes by claiming that conditions for practising the art of rhetoric in the strict sense are as civic now as they were in classical antiquity. The media in which the art is practised may have multiplied, but when its civic nature is grasped the kinds into which Aristotle divides it appear not to have changed as much as might be thought. (shrink)

Through the example of a paradigmatic deliberative speech from classical oratory, the paper addresses two fundamental questions of teaching rhetorical reasoning. First, the paper shows that a speech from ancient Greek and Roman political or judicial oratory could provide effective means to teach a variety of argumentation skills, the recognition of fallacies and an awareness of biases in the target audience. Second, the paper uses the speech to consider an elusive problem of rhetorical or critical reasoning instruction, namely how (...) students may use historical models to adapt their knowledge of a case to real-life situations, where a large number of uncertain variables demands a constant awareness of the conditions affecting the audience`s decision and may require a swift change in the argumentative strategy. The paper will argue that the application of a new model of strategic reasoning called heuristic rhetoric to Cicero`s speech could illustrate a workable solution to both problems. (shrink)

Leading contemporary argumentation theories such as those of Ralph Johnson, van Eemeren and Houtlosser, and Tindale, in their attempt to address rhetoric, tend to define rhetorical argumentation with reference to (a) the rhetorical arguer’s goal (to persuade effectively), and (b) the means he employs to do so. However, a central strand in the rhetorical tradition itself, led by Aristotle, and arguably the dominant view, sees rhetorical argumentation as defined with reference to the domain of issues discussed. On that view, (...) the domain of rhetorical argumentation is centered on choice of action in the civic sphere, and the distinctive nature of issues in this domain is considered crucial. Hence, argumentation theories such as those discussed, insofar as they do not see rhetoric as defined by its distinctive domain, apply an understanding of rhetoric that is historically inadequate. It is further suggested that theories adopting this understanding of rhetoric risk ignoring important distinctive features of argumentation about action. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.3 (2001) 260-274 [Access article in PDF] Second Thoughts on the Critiques of Big Rhetoric Edward Schiappa This note is divided into three parts. First, I explore some answers to the question "How did Rhetoric get so Big?" Second, I review some of the more important criticisms of a "globalized" or "universalized" view of rhetorical studies. Finally, I contend that the critiques of (...) Big Rhetoric do not withstand scrutiny and ought to be dismissed for insufficient evidence. While there certainly are important issues for scholars of rhetorical studies to consider about how to enhance the quality and importance of our work, such issues should not include the concern that rhetoric has grown too "big."By "Big Rhetoric" I refer only to the theoretical position that everything, or virtually everything, can be described as "rhetorical." I refer to the growth of rhetorical scholarship in communication studies and other disciplines as the "popularization" of rhetorical studies. 1 Theories associated with Big Rhetoric are credited with popularizing or at least rationalizing what Herbert W. Simons (1990) calls the "rhetorical turn" in a variety of disciplines. Within the journals and conventions of members of the National Communication Association (NCA), popularization is often characterized by studies of the form "the rhetoric of X," where X could literally be anything. Outside of the NCA-defined parameters of communication studies, popularization is evidenced by the apparently ever-increasing ranks of scholars who use "rhetoric" as a relevant and important term of art within their scholarship. By either measure, it can be argued fairly convincingly that "rhetoric" has become a widely used construct in scholarship. What I wish to engage is the disputed desirability of broad definitions and the related popularization of rhetoric. [End Page 260] 1. Whence big rhetoric? There are a number of narratives on the rise of Big Rhetoric already in print in communication studies (Simons 1990; Gaonkar 1990), rhetoric and composition (Berlin 1987; Young and Goggin 1993), and interdisciplinary publications (Roberts and Good 1993; Mailloux 2000; Nelson, Megill, and McCloskey 1987). Many accounts identify the 1960s as a turning point. For better or for worse, there was a confluence of changing rhetorical practices, expanding rhetorical theories, and opportunities for rhetorical criticism. The cultural clashes of the 1960s were felt perhaps most acutely on college campuses. The sufficiency of deliberative argument and public address can be said to have been called into question, whether one was an antiwar activist who hated LBJ's war in Vietnam or a pro-establishment stalwart trying to make sense of the rhetoric of protest and demonstration. Years later, scholars would characterize war itself as rhetorical. What counted as rhetorical practice was up for grabs.At about the same time, our understanding of rhetorical theory was being expanded. Here we can identify two main strands of thought. For ease of reference I will call one the symbolic interactionist rationale and the other the epistemological rationale. The symbolic interactionist rationale can be boiled down to a syllogism: All persuasive actions are rhetorical. All symbol/language-use is persuasive. Therefore: All symbol/language-use is rhetorical. Perhaps the two most significant pronouncements of this approach--for my generation of rhetoric scholars, at any rate--are by Richard Weaver and Kenneth Burke. Weaver claims that "language is sermonic" in the sense that whenever we offer a description or label a phenomenon, we are "preaching" a particular way of making sense of it (1970, 201-25). Burke, of course, has two famous (or infamous) statements in Rhetoric of Motives: first, that rhetoric is "the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols" (1950, 43); and second, that "something of the rhetorical motive comes to lurk in every 'meaning,' however purely 'scientific' its pretensions. Wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric. And wherever there is 'meaning,' there is 'persuasion'" (1950, 172). Obviously, such pronouncements serve as encouragement to [End Page 261] those who would define rhetoric broadly, and arguably fueled the popularization of rhetorical studies within the ranks of NCA.The epistemological rationale is fueled... (shrink)

Theories of deliberative democracy have faced the charge of leading to the unjust exclusion of voices from public deliberation. The recent rhetorical turn in deliberative theory aims to respond to this charge. I distinguish between two variants of this response: the supplementing approach and the systemic approach. On the supplementing approach, rhetorical modes of political speech may legitimately supplement the deliberative process, for the sake of those excluded from the latter. On the systemic approach, rhetorical modes of (...) political speech are legitimate within public deliberation, just so long as they result in net benefits to the deliberative system. I argue that neither of these two approaches adequately meets the unjust exclusion charge. Whereas the supplementing approach does not go far enough to incorporate rhetorical speech into public deliberation, the systemic approach goes too far by legitimizing forms of rhetoric that risk only exacerbating the problem of unjust exclusion. More constructively, I draw on Aristotle’s conception of rhetoric, as an art that is a counterpart to dialectic, to argue for a constitutive approach to rhetoric. I show how this approach provides a more expansive notion of deliberation that remains normatively orientated. (shrink)

ArgumentDr. James Hansen's 1988 testimony before the U.S. Senate was an important turning point in the history of global climate change. However, no studies have explained why Hansen's scientific communication in this deliberative setting was more successful than his testimonies of 1986 and 1987. This article turns to Hansen as an important case study in the rhetoric of accommodated science, illustrating how Hansen successfully accommodated his rhetoric to his non-scientist audience given his historical conditions and rhetorical constraints. (...) This article provides a richer explanation for the rhetorical/political emergence of global warming as an important public policy issue in the United States during the late 1980s and contributes to scholarly understanding of the rhetoric of accommodated science in deliberative settings, an often overlooked area of science communication research. (shrink)

In deliberative argument, in political discourse, in teaching, and in casual conversation, as rhetors we often hope that our attempts at interaction will have some effect on the participants in these discursive environments. The phenomena of stubbornness, however, would seem to suggest that, despite our efforts, there are times when rhetoric just doesn't work. This dissertation complicates this premise, and in so doing complicates common understandings of both stubbornness and rhetorical effect. As I argue, rhetorical effects exist within (...) a complex rhetoric system, within which they circulate and are interconnected with a diversity of other rhetorical and non-rhetorical elements. Using N. Katherine Hayles's concept of "making the cut," I argue that within such complex systems, stability and change are tangled up in an interdependent relationship; in short, in order for complexity to exist it must be constrained by contingent stabilities. These necessary stabilities mask the way that systems are always moving, and so we often do not see changes in the rhetoric systems we inhabit. In this sense, these changes are compensatory, and they work to maintain a stability that can manifest precisely as stubbornness. In delineating what I call a "rhetoric-systems" approach, this dissertation maps the stabilities and movements of several different rhetoric systems, and provides new insight into the complex and relational movement of rhetorical effect. Our use of this approach asks us to recognize the existence and value of certainty and stability, and then to pull back and recognize the existence of complexity and change. The approach integrates insights from systems theory into existing rhetorical theory, and in so doing models an interdisciplinary approach to public rhetorics and writing studies that is firmly grounded in rhetorical theory. (shrink)

Theories of deliberative democracy have faced the charge of leading to the unjust exclusion of voices from public deliberation. The recent rhetorical turn in deliberative theory aims to respond to this charge. I distinguish between two variants of this response: the supplementing approach and the systemic approach. On the supplementing approach, rhetorical modes of political speech may legitimately supplement the deliberative process, for the sake of those excluded from the latter. On the systemic approach, rhetorical modes of (...) political speech are legitimate within public deliberation, just so long as they result in net benefits to the deliberative system. I argue that neither of these two approaches adequately meets the unjust exclusion charge. Whereas the supplementing approach does not go far enough to incorporate rhetorical speech into public deliberation, the systemic approach goes too far by legitimising forms of rhetoric that risk only exacerbating the problem of unjust exclusion. More constructively, I draw on Aristotle’s conception of rhetoric, as an art that is a counterpart to dialectic, to argue for a constitutive approach to rhetoric. I show how this approach provides a more expansive notion of deliberation that remains normatively orientated. (shrink)

The Morality of Spin explores the ethics of political rhetoric crafted to persuade and possibly manipulate potential voters. Based on extensive insider interviews with leaders of Focus on the Family, one of the most powerful Christian right organizations in America, Nathaniel Klemp asks whether the tactic of tailoring a message to a particular audience is politically legitimate or amounts to democratic malpractice. Klemp’s nuanced assessment, highlighting both democratic vices and virtues of the political rhetoric, provides a welcome contribution (...) to recent scholarship on deliberative democracy, rhetoric, and the growing empirical literature on the American Christian right. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Caught Between History and ImaginationVico's Ingenium for a Rhetorical Renovation of CitizenshipAlessandra Beasley Von BurgCitizenship is usually thought of as synonymous with nationality and the rights and duties associated with the people who live, work, and participate politically, socially, and economically within the borders of their nation-state. In this conception, the main criterion used to decide who is and who is not a citizen is nationality. As the nature (...) of nation-state governance evolves and the acceleration of citizen mobility hastens interdependence, pressures for new definitions and paradigms of citizenship build. As Joseph Weiler argues, this pressure produces cognitive dissonance because "the traditional, classical vocabulary of citizenship is the vocabulary of the State, the Nation and Peoplehood" (qtd. in La Torre 1998, 1).1 The classical association of citizenship with nationality blocks our ability to grasp new, nonstatist conceptions of citizenship, even as postnational political visions take shape in institutions like the European Union (EU).2 In 1992, EU citizenship was established in the Treaty of Maastricht, which granted some additional rights to citizens of the member states in the same way that single nation-states grant their inhabitants special status as nationals, rights that are not nullified when citizens leave their home country to live and work in other member states.3 [End Page 26]The relationship between nationality and citizenship in the EU context is complicated by the fact that although Maastricht guidelines set postnational membership criteria for EU citizens, they also limit the scope of EU citizenship. In trying to reach beyond the nation while anchoring its very essence to the nation, EU citizenship remains limited as it relies on the traditional language of national membership to found its postnational concept of equality and inclusion for noncitizens. The contradictory elements of EU citizenship are exemplified in its current definition, which includes all member states' citizens and excludes millions who are living in Europe as third-country nationals (TCNs), defined as "any person who is not a citizen of one of the member states" of the EU but permanently and legally resides in one.4 The current debate over the status of legal, long-term TCNs challenges the relationship between citizenship and nationality, as advocates from EU institutions, national governments, nongovernmental organizations and academia argue that TCNs should be granted EU citizenship rather than be naturalized in the member states and push for a new, postnational mode of citizenship based on residency. Advocates for the inclusion of TCNs as EU citizens have to work with the limited vocabulary of national citizenship yet articulate a case for a new kind of citizenship divorced from nationality. They suggest that the EU should be viewed as a deliberative community, in which all long-term residents like TCNs are given an equal opportunity to practice citizenship. The deliberative community rationale is based on an idea of citizenship as performance with residents enacting citizenship by living together and deliberating with each other about common interests and concerns.5This reordering of the concept of community arising out of political practice calls for a full philosophical and rhetorical reimagining of the meaning of citizenship. The act of reimagining citizenship creates a new practice of citizenship and grounds citizenship in a philosophical context as well as a practical one. There is no better philosophical and rhetorical tradition to turn to for this purpose than that of Giambattista Vico. Vico, and to a larger extent the entire tradition of Italian humanism, has been overlooked in modern Western philosophy. Yet Vico embodies a seamless marriage of philosophy and rhetoric. Vico's philosophically grounded rhetoric provides the means in an investigation of EU citizenship as an innovative rhetorical practice beyond nationality, for understanding how new practices become persuasive through imaginative language, until citizens separate citizenship from nationality and accept residence and deliberative practices as legitimate criteria for citizenship. Vico argues that "every study method [End Page 27] may be said to be made up of three things: instruments, complementary aids, and aim envisaged" and notes that "the instruments presuppose and include a systematic, orderly manner of proceeding" (1990, 6). This essay proceeds in this fashion to reveal how a new vocabulary of citizenship... (shrink)

This article focuses on Homers idea of reflexive rhetoric. The majority of Homeric deliberation scenes contain no deliberative calculi. One approach to this problem would be to generalize from the scenes where Odysseus uses deliberative calculi to those where he does not. One might argue, though, that data have to be transmitted to and outputted from a computer via interfaces, one where data are transformed into electrical impulses, and one where the output is printed as information. The (...) deliberative calculus cannot be the essential link between deliberation and persuasion, though it undoubtedly figures into the process of self-persuasion to the extent that it either explicitly or implicitly brings about a particular decision. In this perspective, the fact that Homer is frequently silent about deliberative calculi is irrelevant to the question of whether Odysseus persuades himself. The idea of Homeric rhetoric is alleged to pose the problem of anachronism. Moving toward an account of reflexive rhetoric allows to see in even greater detail the centrality of rhetoric to human condition. Accession Number: 18705553; Mifsud, Mari Lee 1; Affiliations: 1: Department of Rhetoric and Public Address, Whitman College.; Issue Info: 1998, Vol. 31 Issue 1, p41; Thesaurus Term: RHETORIC; Thesaurus Term: AUTHORSHIP; Thesaurus Term: LITERATURE; Subject Term: HOMER; Subject Term: ODYSSEUS (Greek mythology); Subject Term: ERRORS & blunders, Literary; Subject Term: PHILOSOPHY; Number of Pages: 14p; Document Type: Article. (shrink)

Although some scholars have argued that Aristotle makes deliberation seem independent of virtue, I argue that deliberation, properly understood, is ethical in the Rhetoric and the Nicomachean Ethics. Unlike modern scholars who separate the useful from the good and the prudent from the moral, Aristotle argues that speakers’ deliberative arguments seek what is good and beneficial, much as noble persons in the Ethics pursue the good and the beneficial in their actions. So regarded, the beneficial is not the (...) enemy of the excellent but its partner. I show that rhetorical argument is a flexible resource serving the different ends of deliberative, forensic and epideictic arguments. This article assesses the inventiveness, cogency and ethical implications of various rhetorical arguments, including argument from example and enthymeme. (shrink)