Link to Rhetoric?

"On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog" is the most reproduced New Yorker cartoon. How can we tie this to rhetoric?? :)

The rhetoric of dogs? A way of rhetoricizing the Internet?

Do New Populations Matter for Rhetoric?

How/Is rhetoric changed—or is it?—as a consequence of including a new population?

Claiming Scapegoat Status

So the pope is stepping down, and the cardinals are gathering to name a new leader. One of them is LA's Cardinal Mahoney, who is accused of harboring child-abusing priests and moving them elsewhere (like sending one to Mexico) during the 1980s. Mahoney's being sued now by a 35-year-old man for what he endured. In his blog--yes, the elderly cardinal blogs! (or has staffers who do so under his name)--he claims to be a victim of scapegoating, as he here explains:

One very insightful and powerful Address has sustained me over these past difficult years as all of us in the Church had to face the fact that Catholic clergy sexually abused children and young people.Entitled On Carrying A Scandal Biblically it was first delivered in late 2002 by Father Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I., in Canada. The Address was edited into an article, and is readily available on his website. (1)

There is nothing else in print which has so captivated my heart and soul, and served as the basis for countless meditations and reflections. I recommend it to anyone who is searching for a truly counter-cultural approach at dealing with this terrible sinfulness which has overwhelmed all of us in the Church.You will never find the Rolheiser approach even mentioned in any news media, since it is not about condemning others, but about how disciples of Jesus are called to carry and live out a terrible scandal day by day.

He calls our suffering what it really is: painful and public humiliation, which is spiritually a grace-opportunity. I have tried to live out--poorly and inadequately far too often--his two implications of humiliation:

1. the acceptance of being scapegoated, pointing out the necessary connection between humiliation and redemption;

2. this scandal is putting us, the clergy and the church, where we belong--with the excluded ones; Jesus was painted with the same brush as the two thieves crucified with him.

I'd love to follow this out, asking for example (1) how Burke defines scapegoating; (2) when the term was first used (try the OED); (3) using this as a context for interpreting what Mahoney means and how this is/is not congruent with Burke's concept; (4) seeing if others have done likewise. I guess my instinct is that Burke's usage defines a group of people who were targeted for nefarious reasons through nothing they had done other than been born, and that Mahoney's usage, given his own account of his "mistakes" during the time in question, intends to put himself in the same category through Burkean identification--an intention and rhetorical move I find unethical.

(And here is another example I just stumbled on: "For others, arguments about cinematic truth have become political arguments carried out by other means. “Zero Dark Thirty,” for instance, has become the target, perhaps the scapegoat, in an important debate about the morality of American antiterrorism policies, including “enhanced interrogation” during the Bush administration and targeted killings and drone strikes under President Obama."

The Delivery of the State of the Union

Interesting article this morning about the State of the Union and about how its delivery has changed, from one where the President talks to the two chambers to one where guests are also part of the delivery, and of course, what's unstated, is the role that media play in this delivery. It's called "State of the symbolism: Speech guests help put human faces on rhetoric," and it draws attention to how these faces--in last night's case, many faces touched by gun violence--constitute part of the rhetoric. That's not the way the article puts it, but the question, for me: is this a new form of delivery bringing together the embodied with the electronic, or does this mechanism in fact constitute part of the rhetoric by means of establishing a collective ethos?

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/state-of-the-symbolism-speech-guests-help-put-human-faces-on-rhetoric/2013/02/12/af9c9390-7531-11e2-8f84-3e4b513b1a13_story.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

Richards and Weaver: The Ambiguously Concrete Duo

-->

By Aimee, Bruce, Janelle, and Jeff

Richards and Weaver both focus on textual deconstruction as a way of determining meaning and understanding the function of a text. However, they differ in the ways in which they approach this deconstruction. Weaver is like Richards in the sense that both believe language is not neutral. Weaver finds it impossible to believe that language is neutral and explains, “Language is a system of imputation, by which values and precepts are first framed in the mind and are then imputed on things” (1359). This resonates with Richards’s symbol/referent triangle, which makes the claim that symbol and referent are not directly connected. Words mean nothing by themselves, according to Richards, and "it is only when a thinker makes use of them that they stand for anything, or, in one sense, have 'meaning'" (1274). Richards seems more interested in meaning on a micro-level, focusing on words in the context of writing, poetry mainly. He wants to know how meaning is determined by a reader and how words signify. Whereas Weaver seems to be interested in looking at language on a macro scale; he is concerned less with what words mean and more concerned with what texts do. As Richards focuses heavily on the audience’s means of interpretation, Weaver keeps agency in the speaker’s realm. Weaver says that rhetoric is “the persuading of human beings to adopt the right attitudes and act in response to them” (1351). The rhetorician must be aware of the needs of his audience and craft his rhetoric in the best way to lead the audience towards an understanding of what is ethical.

Additionally, Weaver is concerned with attempts that have been made to purify language (give it a standard of objectivity) and equate language with science. Weaver explains how “It came to be believed increasingly that to think validly was to think scientifically, and that subject matters made no difference” (1352). Since scientific investigation is a method of logic, relating language to science situates man as a “logic machine” and “austerely unemotional thinker” (1352). Instead, Weaver says that man cannot be abstracted from his time or place, and these contexts greatly affect a man’s language. Weaver finds it impossible to believe that language is neutral and explains, “Language is a system of imputation, by which values and precepts are first framed in the mind and are then imputed on things” (1359). Weaver seems to be judgmental of Richards’ approach. He considers the study of literature “pedestrian”, dislikes the scientific turn in English studies, and argues for a recuperation of rhetoric as a focus on college campuses.

In spite of his desire to undue the scientific turn, Weaver believes that “there are degrees of objectivity” but that even that which appears purely objective “can be seen as enclosed in a rhetorical intention” (1359).  This can, in our estimation, be seen as deconstructing his own argument.  While we all agree with his claim of “degrees of objectivity,” we feel that he makes claims to an objective Truth yet attempts to hide this “rhetorical intention” in the guise of the realm of “’intellectual love of the Good’” (1371).  A vocal member of the Southern Agrarians, his values reflect a distaste for industrialization and demonstrate a desire to return to Pre-Civil War South with no regard to the material realities of slavery or the injustice (our own subjective observation) of that time. 

Richards appears to be more tethered to the ambiguity of language—his rhetoric is less imbued with notions of morality or an “ideal good.”  We are more prone to agree with Richards in this regard; however, Richards appears to believe that context is relatively stable in the form of written text whereas Weaver views all uses of language—spoken and written—as being rhetorical.  This belief in the context of written work being more stable appears to contradict Richards’ notion of the ambiguity of language. These authors’ differing views on the inherent ambiguity of language can be observed in their differing opinions on the essence of definitions. Weaver says that argument from definition is the most ethical form because it reflects a belief in the existence of the ideal order of beings. However, Richards says making meaning from definition presents an “opportunity for a grand misunderstanding” and calls the “comparison between the meanings of words” a problem (1286).  Weaver seems to attack this dilemma by introducing three levels of knowledge—awareness of brute facts, generalizations and theories (under which Richards’ close readings might fall), and Universals and first principles, which move toward a more transcendent knowledge. Richards would probably disagree with Weaver’s alignment with Platonic idealism, rejecting the notion of an abstract perfect essence.

A discussion based on lenses: Katie, Logan, Amy, Jie, & Josh

Katie (argument): Comparing Richards and Weaver has been an enormous task as the two conflict on certain ideas that are subsets of greater overall ideas on which they do agree. Quotes out of both help make this comparison and contrast more clean. Both I believe conceptualize language in the same way, in an overarching system that then governs rhetoric, which would be a subset under language. Richards believes that “Approach to meaning, far more than the approach to such problems as those of physics, requires a thorough investigation of language,” (pg. 1276), which implies that he believes that language, unlike science, is dynamic and more fluid, and thus meaning, and in turn persuasion and rhetoric, would necessitate study in language to be successful. “Language, if used, must be a ready instrument,” also attests (pg. 1275) to this idea that language is not definable; this idea then shows how rhetoric can be used by a speaker in both beneficial and harmful ways, since the interpretation of that rhetoric, thus language used by the speaker, can be interpreted in several ways, depending on the definitions that the audience allows for the language used, and what emotional response those words provoke for each member of the audience. Thus, Richards mentions, “Words are imperfect means of communication.”

Weaver agrees with Richards, stating that “Language, a system of imputation, by which values and precepts are first framed in the mind and are then imputed on things,” (pg. 1359), suggests in a different way that language and word use in the rhetorical sense is imperfect as the imputation may not carry over to the audience. In essence both Weaver and Richards consider the power of rhetoric, Richards in the sense that it can be used for either harm or good, while Weaver considers the lost art of rhetoric as it once was. Weaver does differ from Richards in this aspect; Weaver speaks to the idea of the “attacked” rhetoric, as in rhetoric is attacked from “Distorted image that makes man a merely rationalistic being,” (pg. 1358) while Richards speaks to the power of rhetoric but through the lens of morality.       

Amy (public speech): I agree that both Weaver and Richards acknowledge the power of rhetoric, and both acknowledge that language can be used to mislead and deceive.  I think they disagree on ideas about language.  Richards argues that ambiguity is unavoidable because language has to be interpreted by a listener who lives in a specific context.  He says that “no word can be judged as to whether it is good or bad, correct or incorrect, beautiful or ugly, or anything else that matters to a writer, in isolation” (1289).  Context matters - both the words themselves (think using context clues to figure out what a word means) and the context of the listener’s life.  Weaver agrees that a rhetor must know his audience’s lived context, but the rhetor must use that knowledge to lead the audience towards the good.  He says that the “honest rhetoricians therefore has two things in mind: a vision of how matters should go ideally and ethically and a consideration of the special circumstances of his auditors” (1355).  He believes there is a transcendent ideal, similar to Plato’s vision of the transcendent.

It seems to me that Weaver is trying to join two ideas.  He believes in the transcendent and the good, that some things are better than others.  In this sense, his ideas are very much in line with Plato.  But Weaver also believes in “the reality of man’s composite being,” explaining that people are both rational and emotional, and that context matters (1357).  It seems that he differentiates between the transcendent and what is in what we’ve called in class the realm of the probable.  Where Weaver differs with Richards is the nature of language.  Richards believes that language by it’s very nature is slippery, with meaning hard to pin down.  Weaver thinks that language isn’t problematic, but that base rhetors are a problem.  Base rhetors mislead the people, while the good rhetor leads people to the good.


Logan (heuristic): ·    
    Weaver asserts “rhetoric is cognate with language.” This, I think, is the greatest similarity between him and Richards. Richards offers us that rhetoric should be the study of misunderstandings that result from the inherent ambiguities of language. While Weaver places more of an emphasis on the classical conceptualization of the inextricability of rhetoric and persuasion, both deal with the ways in which language informs human interactions; Weaver even states explicitly “the most obvious truth about rhetoric is that its object is the whole man” (1352), and “rhetoric should be considered the most humanistic of the humanities” (1353, emphasis added). Collectively, their understanding conceives of rhetoric as a heuristic, which is a notably less prescriptive approach than those who come before them in the rhetorical tradition. For Richards, an awareness of context is absolutely necessary in understanding rhetorical situations and specific utterances; similarly, Weaver and his “value-laden” perception of language invites students of rhetoric to pay attention to the worldviews of both speakers and audiences.

    The major difference between Weaver and Richards is that Weaver deals with the purpose of rhetoric while Richards deals more with the nature or function. This might sound simplistic, but I think the difference is crucial theoretically. Weaver returns to Plato and The Phaedrus to emphasize the position of truth within the discipline of rhetoric. For him, “rhetoric inevitably impinges upon morality and politics” and “we have to think of its methods and sources in relation to a scheme of values” (1355). Specifically, he invokes the dialectic exercise of the lover vs. the nonlover debate to argue that the “true” purpose of rhetoric is to move the will of the audience to the ultimate good. Richards, on the other hand, concerns himself more with the ways in which words are informed by layers of context. He is less concerned with purpose than he is with developing a theoretical framework that will allow us to understand the ways in which those contexts inhibit or invite understanding.


Josh (emotions): When we consider the different roles that Richards and Weaver assign to human emotions in rhetoric, we get a sense of their theoretical points of convergence and divergence. Although they treat of different aspects of language and meaning, they begin from similar positions, namely, the point at which formal logic ceases to provide a means for understanding the way language contributes to the construction of meaning. Richards begins by noting the arbitrary nature of the definitions assigned to terms and the subjective nature of concepts such as cause and effect. Weaver begins with a revolt against the scientistic doctrines that would reduce humankind to “a logic machine” (1352). In short, they both recognize that subjectivity contributes immensely to acts of audience and rhetor.

These positions allow great room for individual subjectivity to enter into a theory of discourse. Richards places great emphasis on the role of the difference meanings individuals assign to specific terms and the ambiguity that arises from a lack of shared meaning.This speaks to a gap which, for Weaver, can be crossed through vivid language which appeals to the emotions of listeners (1358). Such language provides a concrete experience of what was hitherto only an abstraction, and helps to create identification between the rhetor and the audience by giving them an experiential point from which to refer to more abstract ideas which are more commonly treated of in terms of logic.



Jie Liu (Human Beings):
In my view, the major difference between Weaver and Richards lies in their different understandings of rhetoric and language. Richards tends to examine rhetoric as a means – in particular he analyzes language and meaning, paying close attention to signs and contexts. The focus of his study is communication. According to his The Philosophy of Rhetoric, rhetoric is the “study of verbal understanding and misunderstanding” (1281) and his purpose is to achieve better understanding. Richards seldom talks about the nature of human beings, the object of Rhetoric.

On the other hand, the foundation of Weaver’s research on rhetoric and language is his understanding of human beings. In “Language is Sermonic,” he claims that rhetoric’s “object is the whole man” (1352), which means a rhetorician should consider not only logical argument, but also “other parts of man’s constitution, especially to his nature as a pathetic being” (1352). A whole man is also a historical man; a rhetorician needs to address an audience in its particular situation (1352-3). This is also reflected in Weaver’s definition of humanity, which includes “emotionality,” “capacity for aesthetic satisfaction,” and “religious passion,” apart from rationality (1352). Because feeling is an important part of soul, in “The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric” Weaver views his “complete man” as “the ‘lover’ added to the scientist” (1369).

Focusing on human beings, Weaver’s rhetoric aims to “perfect men by showing them better versions of themselves” (1371). Influenced by Platonic idealism, he believes in absolute truth and “ultimate good” (1368). Thus, there is an order of values and “a hierarchy leading up to the ultimate good” (1370). In order to move the soul towards the ultimate good, a real rhetorician should use analogy like Socrates instead of logic with an assumed authority – “He should be in a position to know somewhat better than I do” (1358). Weaver actually agrees with “Quintilian that the true orator is the good man” (1360). It is also reasonable for a rhetorician to talk about “real potentiality or possible actuality” (1368) as long as he attempts to push the audience toward the Good. In this sense, rhetoric “consists of truth plus its artful presentation” (1366). Because Weaver’s rhetoric centers on perfecting human beings, it includes dialectics bearing “theoretical truth” but also “a desire to bring truth into a kind of existence” (1371). Hence, Weaver’s rhetoric is realistic and represents “intellectual love of the Good” (1371) at the same time.

Weaver’s theory of language seems also based on his view of human beings. “The soul is impulse, not simply cognition.” (1370) Therefore language inevitably indicates people’s attitude and tendency. He admits that there are “degrees of objectivity” (1359) but the seemingly objective “expression can be seen as enclosed in a rhetorical intention” (1359). “Every use of speech, oral and written, exhibits an attitude, and an attitude implies an act.” (1359) Thus, “men are born rhetoricians” (1359) while language is “sermonic,” “subjectively born, intimate, and value-laden vehicle” (1359). In short, rhetoric is “cognate with language” (1359).  

In certain aspects, Richards’s view of language is very different from Weaver’s. While Weaver does not believe that language can be neutral, Richards states that persuasion is “only one among the aims of discourse” and pays more attention to exposition, which he thinks merely “states a view” (1281), even though he also realizes that in reality pure exposition is hard to find (1287). Actually Richards’s understanding of truth is related to this pure exposition, in other words, being objective and scientific. He seems not interested in an ideal, absolute truth. Accordingly, when talking about language, he sticks to “the strict scientific or ‘rigid’ end of this scale of dependent variabilities” (1289). In addition, Richards emphasizes the role of contexts and the interinanimation of words: the meaning of a particular word depends on special situations and other words. He is aware of ambiguity and “multiplicity of meaning” (1286). Hence, “no word can be judged as to whether it is good or bad… in isolation” (1289). On the contrary, Weaver believes in ultimate good and prefers a hierarchy of words. “All of the terms in a rhetorical vocabulary are like links in a chain stretching up to some master link which transmits its influence down through the linkages.” (1370) Some words are better than other words. Weaver also feels that the commonness of Basic English Richards created “constitutes the negative virtue ascribed to the nonlover” (1363).

Finally, there are a few similarities between Richards and Weaver. Though Richards does not believe in absolute truth and ultimate good, it seems that he also attempts to pursue something general, something behind particulars when claiming that meanings “have a primordial generality and abstractness” (1283). In addition, he is aware of the role of feeling when mentioning emotive meaning (1287) and other functions of language (1289). He also knows “the function of language as an instrument for the promotion of purposes” (persuasion) as well as “a means of symbolizing references” (1277). On the other hand, Weaver views language as “a system of imputation, by which values and precepts are first framed in the mind and are then imputed to things” (1359). To a certain extent, this echoes Richards’s triangle about symbol, reference, and referent: thoughts (including values and precepts) goes before things.

Language at work

Brittney, David, Joe, and Nora

To begin, Richards and Weaver acknowledge that rhetoric had become a “discredited subject” (a casualty of the debate between science and humanities).  To this end, they attempt to re-establish rhetoric as a valued subject of inquiry by discussing the departmentalization of Rhetoric, but in their own respective ways.

They first take different approaches to the treatment of Rhetoric. Richards approaches rhetoric like a cognitive psychologist: he views behaviorism (observing patterns of external behavior) as obsolete because of the movement’s reluctance to theorize about the mental activity of people--behaviorists aren’t studying mental representation which Richards raves about. He then calls for a new type of behaviorism that observes behaviors to make assumptions about the mental activity: “We should develop our theory of signs from observations of other people”--in other words, observing physical behavior to understand mental activity.  Richards finds Rhetoric’s place closely attached to social sciences.

Weaver, on the other hand, is critical of this scientific approach: according to Weaver, the essence of humanity is to be emotional.  He first discusses the values of thinking in terms of science as attempting to make humanity into “logic machines,” but he claims that this is impossible. “[H]umanity includes emotionality, or the capacity to feel and suffer, to know pleasure, and it includes the capacity for aesthetic satisfaction, and, what can be only suggested, a yearning to be in relation with something infinite,” (1352). Weaver is advocating for a shift in values in rhetoric (and the humanities): we should be focusing on how emotionality is an important part about being human--put specifically, Weaver mentions how emotions guide how we make meaning (1358). He’s asking us to reconsider how emotions and science interact with each other.

While they disagree on the treatment of Rhetoric in terms of science, they both discuss language’s special link to Rhetoric--again, in different ways.  Weaver seems more concerned with placing rhetoric on a large canvas of expressing and advocating for values while Richards’ idea of rhetoric has more to do with analysis of how language functions within a discourse.  In other words, Richards wants to talk about nuts and bolts of language and meaning--Weaver focuses on how language is motivated.  Weaver says, “Men are such that they are born into history, with an endowment of passion and a sense of the ought. … his life is therefore characterized by movement towards goals.”  Rhetoric, then, is how we reach those goals through language: that “rhetoric is cognate with language” (1359).  He argues, invoking Burke, that all rhetoric is motivated.   Language and values are interwoven: “Language is a system of imputation, by which values and precepts are first framed in the mind and are imputed onto things” (1359). This leads into the argument that all language is sermonic: people use language to advocate for others to view the world “in our way” (1360)--how we construct the world in our minds.  Richards, meanwhile, wants to revive rhetoric as “a study of verbal understanding and misunderstanding” (1280) and in order to do that, he wants to examine how one makes meaning (nuts and bolts). Language, then, has a function and power in context. For Weaver, the context has more to do with decisions for making appeals, or making rhetoric.  Richards is more focused on interpretation.

In terms of language’s link to values, what is most obvious in terms of influence is Weaver’s unabashedly Platonic ideals. Richards, however, is not obviously so: He claims that hermeneutics is always educated guesswork (“Inference and guesswork! What else is interpretation?”), which hints at the idea that we are not striking at a concrete, external reality that is potentially cogent to everyone (1290). And to be fair, perhaps Weaver would not go this far either. However, Weaver repeatedly refers to realities that transcend contexts. Due to Plato’s influence on Weaver, it comes to no surprise that Weaver argues that ethics and the human qualities of man make for a complete rhetoric. Similar  to Plato, Weaver values the virtuous man. Richards, on the other hand, challenges what such virtue has to do with usage. He claims that “right” or “good” use is a result of the successful means of using language. Weaver would say good use has a chief concern with one’s ethics.

In addition, they both reference Basic English. Richards creates a condensed version of the English language (850 words) as a solution for ESL students; Weaver criticizes the idea, likening it to the “nonlover” in Plato’s Phaedrus: “semantically purified speech” (1363). For Weaver, while the words are “highly available,” they also impoverish language, robbing it of its potential range and impact.

Further in discussing language, both discuss language as systems of signs, symbols, and metaphors.  For Weaver, everything is metaphorical, because everything stands for some deeper reality. In “Language is Sermonic,” he writes “I have a consistent impression that the broad resource of analogy, metaphor, and figuration is favored by those of a poetic and imaginative cast of mind. We make use of analogy or comparison when the available knowledge of the subject permits only probable proof” (1355). But a paragraph later, he almost apologetically suggests that “the cosmos is one vast system of analogy” (emphasis his)--we compare the ineffable to the commonplace by default (1356). Although Richards does not mention the term “metaphor” directly in either of the texts we read for class, he does discuss how a word’s meaning constitutes for “the missing parts of its contexts” and functions as “a substitution for them” (1287).  In this way, Richards implies that all language is, more or less, metaphorical by means of interpretation.

As a framework, they also both look to definitions. While Richards requests a “Theory of Definition” which would help to control meaning of symbols (1278),  Weaver says that definitions deal with “fundamental and unchanging properties” (1354).  For Weaver, definitions are one of his methods of interpreting a subject (1354).  We use them to capture essence.  Richards doesn’t really speak in terms of essences--he seems to view symbols as more complex than that.  Even further, while Richards does not believe that there is any natural relationship between symbols and their referents, Weaver disagrees (this is more evident in To Write the Truth).

Heather, Jacob, Travis, and Andrew: A Round Table Disucssion

We spent 45 minutes discussing these texts and found quotes and paraphrases based on a variety of topics. We came together to create this table. We attempted to establish a metavocubulary and a list of key points to better discuss these theorists in depth. This table represents some of the conversation we had. We felt a table format best presented the four of our voices as we attempted to put the texts in conversation. In retrospect, we wished we’d made an audio recording of our session and used that to represent us instead. 

Differences
Topic	Weaver	Richards	Overlap
Rhetoric	Incites, causes, leads to action, is where literature and politics intersect (1360), is advisory (1355), pushes toward good, perhaps changes soul/person/humanity, focuses on the “particular and concrete” (1353). All utterances are attempts at “affecting one another for good or ill” (1360).	Discourse is multifaceted: “persuasion is only one among the aims of discourse” (1281); Rhetoric serves  to make meaning, does not always include action, rhetoric is a small part of discourse, and invites scientific inquiry into how words work (1281).	Both theorize that a rhetor asks an audience to agree with or accept the reality being presented in a rhetorical act.
Science	Challenges scientistic and scientific explanation for the nature of man indicating that emotions are outside the scope of logical inquiry and are an essential part of the human experience (1352-1353).	Scientific language is concrete and outside the scope of rhetorical practice (1277).
Metaphysics	Rhetoric creates a chain of being with a “master link” (1370).	--
Meaning, Semiotics & Thingness	Ontological emphasis implies that there is a strong correlation between an object and the idea of an object; there is a nature of a thing that can be captures or defined (1354). Words and objects are objectively correlated. Symbolism is transcendent. Interpretation relies on previous experiences but is also guided by good, ideal truth, nature, and the metaphysical (1360).	The referent and the word are separated, reliant on audience experiences for interpretation (1275). There is no objective correlation. The relationship between a word and a thing is symbiotic – both can change and are reliant on one another (1275).
Similarities
Contested Neutrality of Language	Impossible that words, language, and utterances could be considered neutral; speech implies and attitude, attitude implies an act, response to a purpose creates tendency (1359). Language is “subjectively born, intimate, and value-laden” (1359) Language is closely related to rhetors’ purposes and goals. Weaver allows that definitions may be less value laden and may be more concrete than other forms of argumentation. Language is inherently sermonic (1360).	Language is an “instrument for the promotion of purposes” (1277). Words are instruments (1274). Occasion and context shape language but are more closely related to text than social factors. Richards allows that exposition may be less value laden than other forms of argumentation
Analogy	Analogy is a comparison of things wherein everything is similar to everything else, used to “[hint] at an essence which at this moment cannot be produced” (1356).	Word serves as an analogy to an object. Referent and word are indirectly linked through the rhetor’s meaning making and the audience’s meaning making. Words stand in for the things, but are not representative of things (1284). Words can have multiple simultaneous meanings (1286).
Cause and Effect	Cause and effect is devoid of reference and lends itself to senstation, rather than rational, statements. It is merely a perceived relationship between two objects (1356).	Cause and effect are often mislabeled or lead to nonsequiturs.

Richards and Weaver: Alike, Different, Both?

How are Weaver and Richards alike and different?

Using the Old with the New

Of all the terms offered by Richards (realizing he is not the only one to mention this)  as I consider the previous readings of the last few weeks, ambiguity seems to open the door to new meaning in terms of Rhetoric.

I realized last week that I am more aligned to the Platonic classroom. After this discussion, I was both enlightened and embarrassed by this realization. I, perhaps, find ease with the wise giving me knowledge. This obtainment of knowledge, of course requires little effort on my part, and though naïve, I feel in powered by such teachings, even if deceived. I, of course, don’t feel the same in my own teaching method, but I have been conditioned by this structure in my personal teachings of Christianity. In this sense, there is one Truth, which the soul expires for. There was little interpretation, little questioning, and in turn gained favor. Richards, in contrast, holds that meaning is not conditioned by one Truth, but ambiguous. Admittedly, he is not speaking in the context of my Christian upbringing, but I was able to make a parallel to this.  In this sense, I gather that what I learned through the teachings of Christ is a result of one’s interpretation. What my pastor in essence does is use the signs (words, images, etc.) provided in the bible, considering the context of time in which it was written to first offer a history, and then positions these signs in a modern context of today to deliver meaning to his members. I wonder what Richards would then say to this when an individual interprets (using the diagram offered in the text) for a whole body or congregation? Does this take Richard’s idea of rhetoric and reposition it in a Platonic nature?

Other matters

Old rhetoric is more combative in nature and aimed to correct faults, while new rhetoric intends to speak on the power of language.

Plato: He speaks about transcendent truth, what is innate; Richards claims that meaning does not reside in the word itself. Plato is Persuasion-to- knowledge, while Richards is interpretation-in-context.

Aristotle: Both he and Richards use diagrams. One of Aristotle’s includes the speaker, subject and audience, while Richard’s, symbol, referent, and reference. Both break down situations into entities in order to define its meaning in accordance to the whole. While Aristotle focuses more on the public sphere of speech situations, Richards attends to the rudimentary level (though complex in nature)of signs in any discourse situation. In addition, they both discuss the differences of literary and poetic discourse.

Richards’s New Rhetoric

     Influenced by Peirce and Saussure, I. A. Richards pays close attention to language and signs. His theory centers on meaning: how meaning is generated; how to avoid misunderstanding. Specifically speaking, according to the excerpts we read, Richards is concerned with the way words work, the role words play in communication (especially interpretation). Considering words in discourses and contexts, he defines and develops rhetoric in a new way.

     In Richards’s view, rhetoric is the “study of verbal understanding and misunderstanding” (1281), which indicates an emphasis on language and communication. Though he admits the merit of the old Rhetoric (a tradition related to persuasion), he also believes that “what it has most to teach us is the narrowing and blinding influence of that preoccupation, that debaters’ interest” (1281). Persuasion is only one aim of discourse while Richards attempts to discover some general rules through analyzing signs and words. This is what makes Richards radically different from the ancients. Though seeing persuasion’s role differently, both Plato and Aristotle connect rhetoric with persuasion. Emphasizing absolute, transcendent knowledge, Plato’s ideal of rhetoric is to “produce conviction in the soul” (163). Aristotle regards rhetoric as “the modes of persuasion” (179) and examines various ways of persuasion systematically, valuing logic and enthymemes. On the other hand, Richards is also different from Ramus and Astell in that Ramus reduces rhetoric to style and delivery and Astell does something similar (she pays more attention to style) though her rhetoric is for women, influenced by Christianity, while Richards’s rhetoric concentrates on meaning and language. Interested in the problem of knowing, he creates a triangle of symbol, thought (reference), and thing (referent). The imputed relation between symbol and referent reveals words as a limited means of communication (or a way of misdirection). Connecting sign-situations with all perception, Richards’s theory of signs offers a new method of studying the process of interpretation and how knowledge and meaning are generated. Furthermore, Richards believes that meanings “have a primordial generality and abstractness” (1283) and work as “delegated efficacy” (1284), “the missing parts of the context” (1285). Meaning comes from “the interinanimation between words” (1290) and their contexts —
he also redefines contexts, which include not only traditional ones but also “a recurrent group of events” (1288). Here lies in the third difference between Richard’s rhetoric and the Old Rhetoric. Recognizing different types of context (the literary context and “the technical sense of context”), Richards opposes “the One and Only One True Meaning Superstition” (1286) and supports “multiplicity of meaning” (1286), which makes him view ambiguity differently: “where the old Rhetoric treated ambiguity as a fault in language…the new Rhetoric sees it as an inevitable consequence of the powers of language and as the indispensable means of most of our most important utterances” (1287). While Aristotle mentions clearness (“Words of ambiguous meaning are chiefly useful to enable the sophist to mislead his hearers” (238)) and Astell stresses clarity (846), Richards discovers the value of ambiguity.

     In certain aspects, Richards is similar to his predecessors. Like Ramus, who believes that his general theory including ten topics can cover everything (690), Richards is looking for general rules about language and meaning. For example, when talking about the word as the missing part of its contexts, he feels that “The same general theorem covers all the modes of meaning” (1287). Moreover, against Quintilian’s statement that “the orator cannot be perfect unless he is a good man” (683), Ramus asserts that rhetoric has nothing to do with virtues (684), different from Plato who distinguishes the theory of good speaking and writing from the theory of bad speaking and writing (156) as well as Astell who emphasizes “the way to be good Orators is to be good Christians” (855). In this sense, Richards is like Ramus. His theory of signs and meaning is a new technique, not related to morals. Also, when Richards talks about emotive meaning (for example, when insulting or flattering) (1287) and other functions of language including feeling, the relation towards an audience, and a speaker/writer’s confidence (1289), it is not hard to see the possible connection between these concepts and Aristotle’s pathos and ethos. Actually Richards mentions Aristotle several times when analyzing language in his texts. For instance, he agrees with Aristotle that there is “no natural connection between the sound of any language and the things signified” (1293).

Richards: Reframing Rhetoric

Although Richards and the ancients have many differing opinions, they do certainly have one thing in common. I believe that Richards, Plato, and Aristotle could all come to the agreement that words are “instruments” (1274). Although they would be able to make that concession, I think that they would quickly start to debate about what words are instruments for. Plato would argue that they’re instruments for finding capital-T “Truth”; Aristotle would argue they’re instruments for persuasion, and for finding probable “truth”; and Richards would argue that they’re instruments for conveying meaning. 

This commonality brings us to one of the major differences that I see between Richards and Plato. In Richards essays, I don’t see any room for the “Truth” that Plato thinks rhetoric should be used to discover. It seems to me that with Plato’s idea of “Truth” there would have to be a direct connection between the symbol and the referent, because that symbol is based off some type of divine, transcendent truth. “If such relations could be admitted” Richards says, “then there would of course be no problem as to the nature of Meaning” (1275). But as Richards tells us, (outside of onomatopoeias and words describing gestures) there is no connection between the symbols we use and their referents. Additionally, our interpretation of those symbols are contingent on the context they’re used and interpreted in. For Plato’s “Truth” to be accurate, then there shouldn’t be any room for our past experiences to shape the message of a rhetor; instead, the audience’s interpretation should be static. As Richards points out in his two essays, interpretation is far from static.

This moves us to another one of Richards departures from the ancients. It seems to me that Richards is refocusing the conversation of our field from the rhetor to to the audience. The ancients seemed to be more concerned with persuasion, the job of the rhetor, while Richards is much more concerned with interpretation, the job of the audience. The ancients were certainly concerned with the audience, but from the perspective of the rhetor. Conversely, Richards is certainly concerned with the rhetor, but seemingly from the perspective of the audience. Aristotle, for example, was attempting to develop what Richards would call a "theory of the battle of words” (1281). The tools that Aristotle lays out in Rhetoric help the rhetor take what s/he knows about his/her situation and his/her audience, and helps him/her utilize “the available means of persuasion” and develop a speech that will be most effective in that situation. Richards on the other hands seems to be giving the audience a system they can use to figure out how the rhetor is using words to persuade them, deceive them, and/or misdirect them. 

As many posters have already pointed out, I think Richards’ biggest difference from the ancients is that he broadened the scope of rhetoric. The ancients were said that province finding “Truth,” or persuading; the Renaissance rhetors said that it was dressing up your speech; but Richards says that it’s about finding out how we make meaning, which helps us figure out how we make (what we consider to be) the truth, or why we find some language to be more pleasing than others. 

New Rhetoric and I A Richards

 

 By raising the problem of trying to define meaning and the process by which we make meaning during communication, Richards introduces a “new Rhetoric” that he distinguishes from “old Rhetoric.”  On page 1280, Richard outlines both. For him, old Rhetoric sticks to “general themes,” and is in this way “macroscopic”; he calls it as a discussion of “the effects of different disposals of large parts of discourse.”  He also calls Rhetoric  “an offspring of dispute [that] developed as the rationale of pleadings and persuadings; it was the theory of the battle of words … dominated by a combative impulse.” This is what distinguishes rhetoric from exposition—persuasion rather than relaying a “state of view.” 

New Rhetoric, on the other hand, looks at communication on the “microscopic scale by using theorems about the structure of fundamental conjectural units of meaning and the conditions through which they and their interconnections arise.”    The very idea that language could be broken down into “fundamental conjectural units” resonates with Aristotle; we might view Richards as breaking down further what Aristotle broke down.  Even so, the notion of meaning born out of interconnection shifts focus to the reception of rhetoric instead of the persuasive act; or we might say, from the rhetor to the audience.

This is probably too long of a leap, but I wondered if the idea of rhetoric as “rationale” resonated with Plato on an extremely basic level.  Though Plato had that soul-thing going on, his understanding of how to reach the soul required rationality (as opposed to impulse and feeling).  Like I said, basic.  So, before we toss Plato out with all other thought we academics deem as essentialist, maybe we could at (the very) least acknowledge him as setting the rational stage for Aristotle to tap out his dance number.  That said, and like just about everyone else has said so far, Richards takes a giant leap from Plato in every other respect.  We will find no souls in Richards’s analogies and very little in the way of truth and virtue.

 Richards also diverts a bit from Aristotle, who, though he emphasizes knowledge, still clings to the idea of certain ideas being universal (granted, Aristotle’s universe was relatively smaller than Richards without all those New Worlds to contend with?).  In Rhetoric, Aristotle defines a Sign as "a complete proof" and "that which bears to the proposition it supports the relation of the particular to the universal" (184).  Richards, especially later in his career when he starts his translation work, moves away from the possibility of universal meaning. We get a hint of this on page 1293, when he describes how, in a foreign language, “proper expressiveness of the appreciation of a word … will be no matter of merely knowing its meaning and merely relishing its sound.”  Because meaning relies so much on interconnection of contexts, Richards suggests that we can’t fully know another person's intention because of variation in experience unless the exchanges occurs within a specific, mathematical mode of communication, such as music. (I think that music, too, has its cultural constraints--scales that vary from place to place-- but I guess I don’t really know that much about it.)

 I’ll chime in with the postmodern discussion—Richards’s lectures seemed to jive all right with the post-structuralists (post-modernists).  He writes:

“We shall find, preeminently in the subject of rhetoric, that interpretations and opinions about interpretations that are not primary steps of partisan policy are excessively hard to arrive at. And thereby we rediscover that the world—so far from being a solid matter of fact—is rather a fabric of conventions, which for obscure reasons it has suited us in the past to manufacture and support.” (1287)

The fact that he calls the support of conventions a thing of the past hints that Richards knew he was shaking things up with that statement and that a new line of reasoning was soon to follow.  Even so, he seems to set literary speech apart when he goes on about poetry and prose (1288-89).  He seems, from that short section, to believe that poetics can achieve more rigid and direct meaning than other kinds of communication, while its only a matter of time before Derrida will suggest that all meaning in language, poetic or not, is unstable.

I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means: Richards and the New Rhetoric

I.A. Richards defines rhetoric as "the study of misunderstanding and its remedies" (1270), and describes it as a "discredited subject" (1281). His definition of rhetoric, which focuses on individual words in context and the slippery nature of language and meaning, is a far cry from that of the ancients. This is emphasized in his discussion of people's tendency to assume "that the speaker is referring to what we should be referring to were we speaking the words ourselves" (1276). In adjusting his unit of study down to the level of individual words, Richards gets at something very different than Aristotle's enthymemes and examples. 

Plato, for instance, focuses on absolute truth and the orator's ability to lead the audience through language to some transcendent truth. For Richards, however, there exists a wide and complicated path from reference (thought) to referent (thing), and for each hearer or reader, the context for individual words within a sentence, and sentences within texts is completely different and based on a series winding and forking previous experiences. Richards writes that "Language if it is to be used must be a ready instrument" (1275), and goes on to discuss the misleading nature of shorthand terms like "meaning" to demonstrate that even those relations that seem simple are really quite complex and varied by individual. He even goes so far as to say that our tendency to assume "that the speaker is referring to what we should be referring to were we speaking the words ourselves" (1276). This is a tricky concept for me (and one I totally agree with), and it certainly is not as reassuring as Plato's idea of the rhetor handing down eternal wisdom. 

Richards also jabs at the Greeks, who he says, "were in many ways not far from the attitude of primitive man towards words" (1278). In contrast to Plato's discussion of oral language being superior to the written word, Richards writes that "The written form gives words far more independence than they possess as units of sound in speech" (1289). His discussion of signs and symbols and their discovery in "that special and deceptive case" (1279) of our own introspection seems related in some way to Plato's Delphic quest to understand his true nature, and when Richards points out that "we are generally better judges of what other people are doing than of what we are doing ourselves" (1279), he seems to be getting at the same fundamental questions of existence as Plato. The difference is that Richards doesn't seem to believe that the answers are out there; instead perception and context are key. 

Richards describes the old Rhetoric as an "offspring of dispute" which was the "theory of the battle of words and has always been itself dominated by the combative impulse" (1281). But, he diverges from the ancients (and, I think, specifically Aristotle) in that he points out that persuasion is "only one among the aims of discourse" (1281). So, while both Plato and Aristotle focused on persuasion, Richards expands his definition to include other purposes like understanding and exposition. And I tend to think that Aristotle's process of examining various types of people (old and young men, for instance) wouldn't hold up well against Richards's assertion that each individual brings a specific and endlessly complicated perception to each context. "It is important," he writes, "... to realize how far back into the past all our meanings go, how they grow out of one another much as an organism grows, and how inseparable they are from one another" (1283). 

The Meaning of Meaning

    Like Bruce, I definitely see Richards as bridging the gap between the Ancients and more contemporary rhetoricians, particularly Burke and Foucault. Richards places meaning as a part of both communication and language, on the academic agenda. However, like others have noted, his emphasis is not on grammar or correct usage, but rather a contextual theory of meaning and language, and rhetoric as the study of misunderstandings (as a result of the ambiguities of language) and how those of us who “do” language might be able to remedy them.

     There are two salient points in Richards that I’d like to address and work through here. The first is that he draws on cognitive psychological theories to help illuminate the ways in which the meaning of words, sentences, and even morphemes are colored by our previous experiences. He asks, “do we ever respond to a stimulus in a way which is not influenced by the other things that happened to us when more or less similar stimuli struck us in the past?” For example, if one is bitten by a dog in their childhood, the word dog, in addition to conjuring up visions of a four-legged, furry creature, will also connote emotions of fear and uncertainty. For rhetoric, I think this is why Richards pushes for an epistemology that is rooted in both symbols and definitions. This is wildly different from Aristotle’s heuristic/prescriptive (shout out to Josh for this observation) approach to rhetorical-situations-as-opportunities-for-persuasion. The next logical step in this understanding of rhetoric is to look at the roles language plays in the construction of knowledge and truth, which is exactly what Burke and Foucault will seek to accomplish in the coming weeks.

     Secondly, Joe notes that the major difference between Richards and his predecessors is an attention to overall processes of meaning-making instead of an attention to the persuasion of certain kinds of audiences in certain situations. I think the major point of departure between Richards and the Ancients (or maybe it’s a theoretical line of flight?) concerns the nature of truth/Truth. Though I wouldn’t go so far as to put words in Richards’ mouth and suggest that he doesn’t believe in the concept of an Absolute Truth, I will return to the bridge metaphor that Bruce invoked in his post. For Richards’ theory of rhetoric, even if there is capital-T truth, one could not be brought to it through language, as in Plato’s framework, because of the ambiguity of language and the contextual nature of meaning. That is the exigence of this work: to develop a theory of language and of rhetoric that will help overcome the trickiness of symbols (and that we define symbols with other symbols). On the bridge between the Ancients and the postmodernists, this is one step away from the conclusion the more contemporary rhetoricians draw: the only Truth is that language plays a role in how we conceive of Truth; everything else is socially situated, historically contextual, and agreed upon in certain communities, which in turn, strengthens the boundaries of those communities.