Mid-Term Response

Mike Calou

Mid-term Question

Set A:

The relationship between the study of rhetoric and the development of virtue or an ethical sense has been debated since classical times.

Discuss how views of this relationship have changed over time, or compare the issue across the Greek/Roman, Indian, and Chinese traditions we’ve discussed.

Response: Virtue and rhetoric have been linked since records have been kept of human communication. I think there are two distinct aspects of virtue in relation to the study of rhetoric: the moral character of the rhetor and the ethics of the message he is conveying. The ancient philosophers believed that rhetoric should be practiced by moral, ethical, virtuous individuals. Isocrates makes a point that orators must be of good moral “character”:

Furthermore, mark you, the man who wishes to persuade people will not be negligent as to the matter of character; no, on the contrary, he will apply himself above all to establish a most honorable name among his fellow-citizens

Thus, the orator establishes credibility for himself as apart of society and as a speaker. In other words, the study of rhetoric, according to Isocrates, should include a study in moral character development because the speaker should establish “a most honorable name among his fellow citizens.”

But even the ancient philosophers did not agree on the necessity of the speaker to possess good moral character. In Plato’s Phaedrus, Phaedrus speaks to this point to Socrates:

And yet, Socrates, I have heard that he who would be an orator has nothing to do with true justice, but only with that which is likely to be approved by the many who sit in judgment; nor with the truly good or honourable, but only with opinion about them, and that from opinion comes persuasion, and not from the truth.

This implies two distinct points: the first point that an orator does not necessarily have to be ‘just” or moral and the second point that what the orator says does not have to be true because the objective is persuasion. I think, in regards to the second point, that Plato is talking about the audience and that the true meaning of oratory is persuasion of the audience. During the time of Plato oratory was an important means of persuading groups of people to support a leader. There was no mass media similar to television, the Internet, newspaper, or radio today. The orator was the media.

During the classical period, or Enlightenment, the new scientific discoveries caused a shift in thinking. Observable phenomenon could be explained scientifically:

The Enlightenment was the product of a vast set of cultural and intellectual changes in Europe during the 1500s and 1600s—changes that in turn produced the social values that permitted the Enlightenment to sweep through Europe in the late 1600s and 1700s. One of the most important of these changes was the Scientific Revolution of the 1500s. (Note 1)

For example: Francis Bacon, an English scholar, developed the inductive method of reasoning; Johannes Kepler, a German astronomer, discovered laws of planetary motion; Isaac Newton, an English mathematician and physicist, formulated the fundamental laws of gravity and motion. These changes in scientific thought also encouraged new philosophical thought. Giambattista Vito, an Italian rhetorician, claimed that a comparison of ancient and enlightenment teaching methods would yield a balance. But, he argued that “the greatest drawback of our educational methods is that we pay an excessive amount of attention to the natural sciences and not enough to ethics.”

According to Peter Ramus, a sixteenth century French educational reformer, the Roman rhetorician Quintilian was wrong to say that rhetoric was virtuous. Ramus argues:

“An evil mind cannot have leisure to devote to rhetoric,” Quintilian says. Or again, “The greatest part of rhetoric concerns goodness and justice,” and “Virtue’s authority prevails in persuasion.” Of these the first two are absolutely ridiculous and absurd, while the third is like his statement that a timid orator will not plead well. However, let us pass these things by. Meanwhile let us maintain that moral philosophy is not a part of rhetoric, nor is rhetoric itself a moral virtue at all, as Quintilian thought….

The disagreement here lays in the fact that Ramus does not believe that virtue is necessary for an individual to be a rhetorician. He seems to think that even without virtue a rhetorician can practice his “art.” I think the new wave of thought during the Enlightenment, described above, influenced Ramus and his disconnect between virtue and rhetoric.

Vico and Ramus, both enlightenment thinkers, had opposing views on the issue of virtue and the study of rhetoric. The Ancients Isocrates and Plato also disagreed on the virtuosity of the rhetorician.

In the twentieth century there is still no consensus on the nature of the connection between virtue and rhetoric. Kenneth Burke provides three solid concepts about the nature of rhetoric: persuasion, identification, and terministic screens. The concept of identification, or consubstantiality, is the process of creating agreement based on meaning; a mutual understanding of life and experiences that exists between communicators. Burke is talking about the straightforward aspect of communication without an implication of virtuousness; unless he implies it elsewhere. The concept of persuasion is the use of “stylistic identifications for the purpose of persuading the audience to identify with the speaker.” The focus is on the audience and their understanding of the speaker (writer?). The concept of the terministic screen explains that people both receive and send information (communicate) through a lens that is shaped by our experiences. This screen “directs the attention” of our observations. My understanding of what Burke is saying is that rhetoric is an almost “mechanical” device. All human communication involves the three concepts outlined by Burke: all humans, virtuous or not, engage in rhetoric.

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, two twentieth century philosophers, explain that argumentation should convey values that are relevant to the audience. The focus of Perelman’s and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s work was, “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.” My interpretation of their work is that values reside in the audience. In order to persuade an audience the orator (writer?) needs to make a connection to the “values” of the audience. Implied in my presumption is that values and virtues are correlated. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca contend that the epideictic style of oratory is an argument of values: between the orator and the audience.

In the current era the notions of virtue and rhetoric are still being argued and compared. Burke explains that virtuous or not humans will engage in rhetoric. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca explained that values are important to the extent that the orator can connect with the values of his audience.

In conclusion, there is sufficient evidence to say that there is a vacillation on the subject of virtue and rhetoric. Depending on the argument and the academic arguing it seems to me that virtue is important or not important. This point leads me to think that virtue, like many other aspects of life, is a concept that is not agreed upon in relation to rhetoric. We study history to gain insight into what has been already theorized. Today the need to study the past is just as important as it ever was. The new media I mentioned earlier is similar to the media of the past, yet it is different. Our ability to communicate via the current modes of media require an understanding of rhetorical style and part of the rhetorical style includes values: values of the speaker (writer) and values of the audience.

(Note 1) http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/enlightenment/terms.html

Mid-term Question

Set B:

Looking at Western, Indian and Chinese classical rhetorics, we can see both similarities and differences.

  1. Is it possible to really understand the rhetorical tradition of another culture?  Explain why or why not, based on the arguments of Ezzaher Yameng Liu, Lu Xing and using examples from these texts and the Wenxin Diaolong, Nyaya Sutra’s and Incoherence of the Incoherence as needed.

Response: I don’t believe that it is possible to “really” understand the rhetorical tradition of another culture. I base this statement on the analogy that it is not possible to “really” understand the language tradition of another country. This will provide a starting point to prove the former statement. As we discussed in class; we can’t examine Chinese rhetoric through a Western lens. According to Robert Scott:

Any definition of rhetoric that is taken as once-and-for-all is apt to be gravely misleading. People generally have a sense of rhetoric. This sense or feeling, which precedes any definition of rhetoric, is immediately rooted in experience.

I want to begin my response with a historical perspective comparing Chinese and Western rhetoric.

The experiences of Eastern culture are different than the experiences of Western culture. According to Xing Lu, “No system of rhetoric is born or develops in a vacuum. The meaning and interpretation of a people’s rhetoric are always derived from and influenced by its social, political, and philosophical contexts” (5). The Chinese rhetorical evolution compares to that of Western rhetoric. Lu explains that the Chinese had “rhetorical experiences ranging from mythology to rationality, from orality to literacy.” Chinese literacy developed in the same way Western literacy did: social and cultural demands perpetuated increased literacy and the production of written texts (5). But, the similarities stop with the previous generalization. The cultural experiences in China and the East shaped the expression of rhetoric in those cultures just as the social and political experiences in Western societies shaped rhetoric in the west. It is the concept of expression of rhetorical style where the true differences lay between Eastern and Western rhetoric.

Translation is the method used to understand the rhetorical aspects of another culture. Translation, according to Lu means, “The reproduction of the original meaning of a text by a translator who has competence in two languages” (10). The problem with translation is that the translation reveals the translator’s own “perspective, intention, and skill in bridging two world views through his conscious choice of words” (10-11). Lu makes a striking comment that deserves mentioning. Lu likens translation to

”a convergence of two worlds” (11). I don’t believe that it is possible for two worlds to converge. Think of Earth and Mars converging. Two radically different planets with many similarities: physical properties that include material make up. But, there are also non-convergable aspects as well: climate, distance from the sun, inhabitability. I think the best we can do when considering the rhetorical traditions of another culture is to approximate our understanding in order to gain insight and knowledge, rather than a comparison based on an assumption that one rhetoric, or culture, is better than the other. When I was reading Lu and Xie this is what I considered their message to be: Western thinkers are attempting a one-up-man-ship of Western culture as superior to Eastern culture. One of the reasons I am returning to college is to understand not only second language acquisition, but the nature of language itself as a communication tool. I am frustrated by academics who think a comparison of rhetoric implies a relation of one rhetoric being superior to another. However, Lu does allude to cross-cultural awareness as a prerequisite to scholarly rhetorical study (11).

The writing of Liu Xie (Liu Hsieh?) presents a good example that it is difficult at best to really understand the rhetorical tradition of another culture. According to Florian Coulmas, the explanations of rhetoric espoused by Liu Hsieh “bears resemblance to Aristotle’s, but upon closer inspection also differs in important respects.” Consider the following concept of language by Aristotle:

things –> soul –> spoken word –> written word.

“Words spoken are symbols of affections or impressions of the soul; written words are symbols of words spoken. And just as letters are not the same for all men, sounds are not the same either, although the affections directly expressed by these indications are the same for everyone, as are the things of which these impressions are images.”

Aristotle’s reasoning is linear. I’ll try to paraphrase what Aristotle is implying: perception leads to thoughts that are expressed verbally and symbolically. Contrast this to the description by Hsieh:

1. Dynamism: things in the world are changing (circular, chiastic, co-creative)
2. Grid and networking: things are complex and interrelated (parallelism, concurrency).
3. Holism: situational, all parts have to be considered which are constituting a pattern.
4. Interactional/reflectional: the text involves a reader who is addressed in a persuasive, evocative mode. But it is also self-referential: “what we are doing?” The circularity is chiastic, not simply repetitive.

(Note 1)

There is a circularity to Chinese thought that becomes part of the language. This is why I would argue that it is not possible to really understand the rhetorical tradition of another culture. Our ways of thinking; Western linear, Eastern circular make true understanding not possible.

There continue to be deficiencies of interpretation. Yameng Liu points out that one of the problems with Western interpretation of Chinese texts is the “preoccupation with getting at what is ‘quintessentially’ Chinese and a lack of interest in local knowledge or less than orderly ethnographical accounts” (322). In the west we are more concerned with stereotyping Chinese rhetoric that really understanding it. According to Xing Lu, up until the nineteenth century “Western intellectuals had generally regarded China as a refined and enlightened civilization: in fact, the Western Enlightenment in Europe was informed in part by Chinese thought” (15). This image of cultural equality dissolved in the nineteenth century as Westerners came to regard China as a weak, backward, and filthy country. In part due to British control issues (Opium War on China 1840-1842) and rising racism in Europe (15). This is what I would call a form of social elitism and I think that it still persists today.

Pre-conceived ideas about other cultures also characterize the Western perspective about Indian rhetoric. Keith Lloyd writes of “a misperception that the East is more mystical less interested in systematic thinking” (366). Another misrepresentation is that Eastern thought can be traced to religious texts (367). During the nineteenth century Western philosophers wrote about the Indian Nyaya Sutra (373):

In its exposition the Nyaya is tedious, loose and unmethodological. Indeed the whole form of this philosophy is a proof of the incapacity of its expositors to enter into the intrinsic development of ideas, whatever knowledge they may have possessed of the external laws of composition.

The ultimate goal of Nyaya is consensus and not necessarily victory. This comparison alone makes a huge statement in support of the complexities of understanding the rhetoric of another culture.

In conclusion, I believe that it is not possible to really understand the rhetorical tradition of another culture. I would compare really understanding another culture’s rhetoric to acquiring another culture’s language. For a year and a half I have been trying to learn Spanish. I have bought books and audio CD’s: I have read and listened to both. In addition, I have traveled to Mexico and while there continued to try and learn Spanish. Despite my earnest attempts I have failed to truly acquire the Spanish language. It would take my total immersion into a Spanish speaking culture to really understand the language tradition of the Spanish language. I would suggest that really understanding the rhetorical traditions of another culture would require the same effort.

(Note 1) http://www.thinkartlab.com/CCR/2006/10/liu-hsiehs-grammatology.html

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