Early 20th Century Intellectual Remixing

The differences between Richards and the ancients--specifically, Aristotle--can be traced (in my opinion) to the departmentalization and specialization of disciplines at the university around when Richards started theorizing about rhetoric.  Rhetoric--as we say all the time--is multidisciplinary or even an indiscipline; every discipline uses it, and theory can be drawn from many. In the case of Richards, the excerpt from The Meaning of Meaning (1923) adapts theories from (but not limited to) linguistics and psychology.  His discussion of his Theory of Signs and Theory of Definition seems to draw from Pierce and De Saussure from linguistics; Richards is (remixing) adapting their theories of word, meaning, and mental representation to discuss how meaning is made, transformed, evolved, interpreted, and used.  In terms of psychology, Richards seems to be anticipating the field of psychology's shift away from Behaviorism toward Cognitivism:

"An improved Behaviorism will have much to say concerning the chaotic attempts at symbolic interpretation and construction by which Psychoanalysts discredit their valuable labours" 

Cognitive psych grew influence in the field mainly because of the lack of attention given to mental functions and processes by the Behaviorists--the original abandonment of mental functions was actually a response to psychoanalysis' inadequate methods in predicting behavior.  Richards recognizes that a holistic theory of meaning and though cannot ignore mental representation. 

Where Aristotle is concerned more with the rhetor's influence on audience, Richards seems to concern his theory with the interpreter's (interpreter=audience?) reception of texts through a frame of context.  Richards is expanding the boundaries of rhetoric to not only include the means of persuasion (as Aristotle defines it), but to Richards, rhetoric seems to encompass theories of language and meaning more generally.  Aristotle is often considered--as I've said before--the first cognitive psychologist because of his belief in the systematic observation of an audience to understand their decisions, but he is framing his observations in persuasion; Richards is concerning himself with the mundane, ordinary reception of texts and how those texts are framed through experience, ideology, and so on.