Audience in Rhetorical Theory

Audience in Rhetorical Theory

Burke, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Booth

Plato

In the Phaedrus, Plato articulates that good rhetoric is the art of influencing the soul (for the better, toward truth) through words. Thus, he also outlines how the good rhetor must catalog the various kinds of human soul so that s/he can adapt the discourse to an audience. Some people may be persuaded in one manner, but others would be persuaded in a different way, so the rhetorician must be able to perceive and adapt to each kind of person in order to help lead them to truth.

Aristotle

In his Rhetoric, Aristotle defines rhetoric as the study of “all of the available means of persuasion.” But he also clarifies that, even if the orator has mastered every available mean of persuasion, said orator must also be able to appeal to his/her audience. In all three kinds of oratory (forensic, deliberative, epideictic), the audience is addressed and must be persuaded. Persuasion is only successful, Aristotle contends, when the audience believes that the speaker has goodwill toward them, when they believe that the orator has their best interests in mind. Thus, the orator must establish this goodwill with his/her audience, preferably early in the speech. Aristotle explains that one way to establish a rapport with and audience is to argue from common values, from notions possessed by everyone. Aristotle also methodically defines and explores each significant emotion in order to instruct future orators how best to appeal to them.

Augustine

Augustine argues that the only rhetoric that matters is that used by a preacher to preach to his congregation, so the only audience with which he is concerned are the members of a church. He has distinguished three offices of rhetoric (adapted from Cicero)—to please, to instruct, to move to action—that correspond to the three style—plain, middle, and grand, respectively. He emphasizes that teaching through the plain style is the most important, since the preacher must convey the Scripture so that his congregation will understand right from and how to correct wrongs. Thus, preachers must also be very clear in their speaking; eloquence is not nearly as important as clarity since it is imperative that the congregation understand their teachings. Augustine finishes by explaining that the preacher must be genuinely virtuous in order to serve as an example to his congregation.

Burke

Kenneth Burke outlines his theory of identification in The Rhetoric of Motives. Identification occurs when a speaker appeals to his/her audience through the invocation of a commonality; the audience, believing themselves to consubstantial at the intersection of the invoked identities, identifies with the speaker and is thus more likely to be persuaded by the argument presented. For example, if a politician speaking before a farming community declares that he grew up on a farm, that farming community will perceive a similarity and identify themselves as just like the politician. However, Burke points out that identification does not need to be sincere (though, of course, it may) in order to enact persuasion. In other words, Burke is not concerned with conveying truth to his audience; he is instead concerned with the possibility of persuasion through identification. Thus, a speaker may outright lie to his/her audience, as long as s/he successfully persuades them.

This is in stark contrast to Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine, all three of whom are concerned with conveying truth to an audience while also taking their best interests into account.

Booth

In Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent, Booth takes a completely different approach to audience than Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Burke. He argues that rhetoric is tainted by its concern for audience; it can never be pure because it alters itself according to audiences; opinions. Booth redefines “good” rhetoric as that which moves its audience with good reasons, not audience-based persuasion. We have been taught that “being reasonable” means remaining neutral until solid proof is given. But Booth thinks we have been taught wrong. Remaining neutral is the same thing as doubting, so he argues that we tend to approach new arguments always already suspicious of them. He outlines motivism as an explanation for why this happens: motivism is the belief that we are constantly influenced by our values and present motives or desires. Therefore, we only need to look for a rhetorician’s secret motive (influenced by their own selfish values and motives; based in Burke’s pentad) in order to discover the real reason they are making an argument. Once you find that reason, you have explained away the surface reasons for accepting it. The problem with motivism is that it is self-affirming: any attempt to refute it can by dismissed by its hypothesis.

Booth’s response to this motivism is that we need to look for a philosophy of “good reasons.” We need a way of discovering how motives becomes reasons and how they sometimes can and should influence our choices. Thus, Booth argues that we should approach arguments with assent rather than doubt; that way, we discover new beliefs that fit our structure of perception rather than reject them outright. This new approach of assent would also allow us to think of ourselves a community of persons who have more in common than we previously thought, and language becomes the medium in which selves grow.

How I would answer a question on this theme

[This could also be an answer to an Aristotle’s Time Machine question]

I would point out that Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine all follow similar notions of how to appeal to and convey truth to an audience in a persuasive manner. Burke differs from the three because he is not concerned with truth. Booth differs from all four because his rhetoric of assent is not only a call for rhetoricians to change how they address audiences; it is also, and uniquely, a call for audiences to change how they respond to discourse and rhetoric. Whereas Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Burke provided methods for rhetoricians to appeal to and persuade audiences, Booth puts some of the impetus on the audience themselves by asking them to change how they approach a rhetorical situation.

Purposes/Conceptions of Rhetoric

Purposes/Conceptions of Rhetoric

Plato: Rhetoric is “the art of winning the soul by discourse.” Although technically, Plato is referring to dialectic (the Socratic dialogue), not rhetoric. In fact, Plato distrusts rhetoric because he thinks it misleads the soul. Instead, two people should engage in a dialogue and work together to correct error and discover truth.

Aristotle: Rhetoric is “the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion.” As such, his Rhetoric outlines many of those “available means” in order to help the orator train.

Quintilian: “Oratory is the art of speaking well.” It’s also being a good person (“good man speaking well”). He also believes that rhetoric and grammar should be united because they complement each other. The good orator invents on the spot, but has many examples and precedents memorized for instant recall.

Cicero: Rhetoric is “speech designed to persuade.” He also talks about legal oratory leads to advancement in Rome. Cicero also unites the study of rhetoric and philosophy; both need each other in order to be useful and effective. True skill in oratory comes from the combination of natural talent and learned skill. Eloquence is the most important aspect of oratory? There are three purposes of rhetoric: pleasing, teaching, moving to action. Three levels of style: plain, middle, grand.

Augustine: Rhetoric is preaching God’s word to a congregation. Clearness is more important than eloquence. There are three purposes (taken from Cicero) and three levels of style (inspired by Cicero): subdued, temperate, and grand. Also, there are only three subjects of oratory: justice, holiness, and a good life. Like Cicero and Quintilian, Augustine also believes that the orator must be virtuous.

George Campbell: Rhetoric is “that art or talent by which discourse is adapted to its end. The four ends of discourse are to enlighten the understanding, please the imagination, move the passion, and influence the will.

I.A. Richards: Rhetoric is the study of misunderstanding and its remedies; the goal of rhetoric is to learn so much about words that they will tell us how our minds work. He calls for us to renounce the view that words are only their meaning and that discourse is only the composition of those meanings. Most words change meanings in different contexts; thus, no word can be judged good/bad or correct/incorrect in isolation (interinanimation of words).

Kenneth Burke: “Wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric, and wherever there is rhetoric, there is meaning.” Rhetoric is winning an argument at (nearly) all costs. Anything written for a purpose with an audience in mind. Identification is a way of enacting persuasion, not just gaining audience assent.

Wayne Booth: Rhetoric “includes all forms of communication short of physical violence, even such gestures as raising an eyebrow or giving the finger.” He specifically discusses the rhetoric of assent, which he defines as coming into an argument prepared to accept any good reasons, rather than coming in with a neutral or antagonistic attitude.

James Crosswhite: A rhetoric of reason has the task of explaining how reasoning can have effect/force, while forgoing violence and furthering respect.

George Kennedy: Rhetoric is the art of effective expression: it is mental and emotional energy. To Kennedy, rhetoric is almost equivalent to communication; all communication is rhetorical. Even animals can engage in rhetoric.

Ethics in Rhetoric

Ethics in Rhetoric

Weaver, Burke, Plato, Cicero, Quintilian Booth

Before one can discuss the ethics of rhetoric, one must first define what “ethical” and “unethical” rhetoric is. Ethical rhetoric refers to rhetoric that searches for or reveals the truth; it is not deceptive and works toward the greater good of the people. On the other hand, unethical rhetoric denies the existence of a truth; it is concerned with persuasion for selfish ends or for the sake of persuasion itself.

 

Plato

Though Plato believed that there is no such thing as a good rhetorician, he explains his ideal orator as one who will help those around him reach truth; he will not use rhetoric to persuade to belief or to distract from truth, but will use it as a tool to find or reveal knowledge through Socratic dialogue. In the Gorgias, Plato’s Socrates states that there is both a false and a true knowledge, but the greatest evil is false opinion. Thus, he implies that any rhetoric that propagates this false opinion is unethical because it keeps the listener from truth. In fact, the best rhetoric will be used only to engender justice and remove injustice, breed temperance and cut off licentiousness, and produce virtue and expel vice; the best orators change citizens from worse to better. Any other rhetoric or rhetorician does a disservice to the people. Plato distrusts rhetoric, but his commitment to finding truth aligns him with a universal ethic, not really an ethics of rhetoric. However, his notions pave the way for future ethical rhetoricians.

 

Quintilian/ Cicero

Quintilian believes that rhetoric is virtuous because a good orator must be a virtuous person (“good man speaking well”); an immoral person could never be a rhetorician because they are deficient in wisdom, distracted with cares and remorse, and don’t have authority on virtue/morality. Quintilian appears ot be arguing for an ethical rhetoric. Whenever possible, the orator should argue the truth; however, when such is not possible, s/he may argue what is like truth, or the closest thing to it. Later, he states that while an orator should not lead an audience away from truth, sometimes the orator may be justified in misleading the audience when it is in their best interests. Here, Quintilian strays from the purely ethical rhetoric he originally propagates because he allows for opportunities for the orator to lead the audience astray; however, he maintains an ethical stance because he specifies that this can only happen when it will be to the benefit of the audience, and not to the orator.

Cicero follows from Quintilian’s notion of a virtuous orator: the “complete orator” not only upholds his own dignity by remaining honorable, but he also works toward the safety and security of his own country. Cicero also devised the term “doctus orator” for the learned orator who knows everything—the good, true, and beautiful—and works to show them to his audience in order to evoke conviction. An orator cannot be misleading, but Cicero also acknowledges that orators deal with the uncertain and therefore may have no grasp of their subject; thus, they may be unintentionally misleading. Cicero also acknowledges the importance of audience in oratory: the orator must adapt their speaking to the crowd, but they should remain genuine and not put on an act.

Both Quintilian and Cicero support an ethical rhetorician, but acknowledge that rhetoric itself can go awry in practice. The rhetorician should not intentionally mislead, both argue, but sometimes s/he may need to do so in order to protect the people of the city. Likewise, the orator must adapt to the crowd’s subjectivity, so the orator may not be able to directly address truth but would need to instead speak something as like to truth as possible, again for their best interests. As such, neither Quintilian nor Cicero promote a fully ethical rhetoric that always supports the truth, but it seems like they are realistic in acknowledging that sometimes the best way to promote the truth is to promote something like it for the good of the audience.

 

Burke

In A Rhetoric of Motives, Burke coined the term “identification” to refer to any instance in which a speaker aligns his or her values with the audience’s in order to maximize persuasion, whether sincerely or not. Such identification causes the audience to respond emotionally to the speaker; the rapport the speaker creates with the listeners causes them to trust and believe him or her more readily because, when a speaker identifies him or herself with another, they are “substantially one” with each other. In other words, when A identifies with B, to use Burke’s example, A and B are substantially the same at the intersection of that identification but each “remains unique, an individual locus of motives.” When a rhetorician can achieve this level of simultaneous substantiation and consubstantiation through identification, Burke argues that he or she is at his or her most persuasive: “a speaker persuades an audience by the use of stylistic identifications… to establish a rapport” (1340). However, Burke acknowledges that this moment of identification could be completely fabricated. The speaker could tell the audience what they want to hear just so he or she can evoke that emotional response and win them over, which leads to a distortion of any possible truth. Burke does not caution against this deception; he is more concerned with the possibility the moment of identification can create.

While discussing identification and persuasion, Burke is more concerned with the possibilities of persuasion and how one can use identification to achieve it successfully. Though he points out that the purpose of identification is to cause “the audience to identify itself with the speaker’s interests” (1340), and that this identification can sometimes be misleading or untruthful, he does not caution against using identification as a means to persuasion. As such, Burke is not concerned with ethics or truth; he instead supports the use of rhetoric in order to win an argument or successfully persuade an audience with little regard for truth.

 

Weaver

Weaver does not refer directly to “identification” in the Burkean sense, but he comes close to it. He explains that, since it goes beyond logic and appeals to a person’s emotions, rhetoric must take into account the audience and how they react subjectively to their hopes and fears. Thus, Weaver echoes Aristotle when he states that before a speaker can decide with which aspect of his/her audience to identify, s/he must first take stock of the audience and decide how best to appeal to them. It seems at first that Weaver is supporting the same potentially unethical rhetoric as Burke, but his later arguments clarify that he is very concerned with an ethics of rhetoric.

Weaver is concerned with the ethical responsibilities of rhetoric. He explains that the moment we speak, we have given incentive to other people for them to look at the world in the same way that we do. He acknowledges that this incentive can be the source of a lot of power to affect people both for good and for ill. Weaver aligns himself with Quintilian’s notion that the true orator is a good man speaking well. Weaver follows in Plato’s footsteps in that he also believes rhetoric can be a way to find truth. He also states in “The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric” that rhetoric at its truest seeks to show people better versions of themselves in order to perfect humanity, thus highlighting his belief that rhetoric carries with it an ethical responsibility. Weaver is against using rhetoric for deception, but believes rhetoric has the power to change the world for the better. He appears to most accurately align himself with a purely ethical rhetoric.

 

Booth

Booth indirectly references Plato’s Socratic dialogue when he laments that rhetoricians do not engage in dialectic in order to find a common ground; he places a high value on two people discoursing together in a way that allows them to concede to good reasons. In this way, he supports engaging in the ideal Socratic dialogue, allowing each side an equal opportunity to express its point and deliberate on the opposition’s in order to arrive at some form of ultimate truth. Similarly, Booth calls for these dialogues to work as tools that will allow the discoursers “to rely on our common sense” in order to “trust whatever standards of validation our reasonings together lead us to” (1499). In other words, Booth is proposing a rhetoric of assent wherein we must grant credence to what people agree on unless you have strong reason not to; indeed, one should approach a rhetorical moment with assent instead of doubt, thus allowing themselves to be persuaded by good reasons. Like Weaver, Booth acknowledges that when we speak we influence the world. He argues that because we make each other through language, we should do it well by not only allowing our minds to change for each other’s good reasons but also by not misleading each other.

To this end, Booth proposes that rhetoricians converse until they can establish a common ground upon which they might be able to unify the field of rhetoric while also eliminating unethical rhetoric. He concludes by expressing his pessimism that this “revitalized rhetoric” will ever happen (let alone that it will ever successfully eradicate deceit and disagreement), but he argues that we must at least try to find commonality in order to unify the field. Booth proposes an ethical rhetoric similar to Plato’s whereby people engage in dialogue in order to arrive at the truth together. However, Booth is less concerned with finding truth, and more concerned with the process of inquiry as constructing each other’s subjectivities.

 

If I had to answer a question on this theme

I would start by clarifying how I define ethical/unethical rhetoric, then explain how the various theorists address the issue. One key thing to bring up is that each theorist acknowledges ethics as a gray area. Cicero and Qunitilian admit that there are moments when rhetoric may need to skew the truth (but only when it’s for the audience’s best interests); Burke sees the end goal of rhetoric to be winning an argument and identification as a way of doing so, whether sincerely or not; Weaver most explicitly calls for an ethical, responsible rhetoric, but even he acknowledges that the rhetorician may need to adapt him/herself to the audience; and Booth outlines a plan for a unified, ethical rhetoric, but expresses pessimism that it will ever actually happen.