Damián Baca

Thinking About Damian Baca's Essay "Rethinking Composition, Five Hundred Years Later"

Damián Baca (PhD, Syracuse University) is author of Mestiz@ Scripts, Digital Migrations, and the Territories of Writing (Palgrave Macmillan), lead editor of Rhetorics of the Americas: 3114BCE to 2012CE (Palgrave Macmillan), and has published in JAC: An Interdisciplinary Journal in Rhetoric, Culture, & Politics, College English, and Dialogue. He works at the intersection of rhetoric, comparative technologies of writing in Mesoamerica/later America, and globalization. Generally, he looks to cultures across Latin America, the Caribbean, and U.S. Latinidad as a lens through which to complicate and inform two correlative domains of inquiry:

The disciplinary formation of the study of alphabetic writing as it emerges during a crucial period of Western territorial annexation, and
The imperial complicity between "racialized" subjectivities and economy, from the development of the transatlantic commercial circuit in the sixteenth century to the present stages of late global capitalism.

I enjoyed reading this essay because it brought to mind some questions that I had about whether or not it is possible to think in pictographs versus using an inner monolog comprised of words. My belief is that a person has the capacity to learn how to think in images rather than words because dreaming suggests that that kind of brain function already exists. I can easily imagine image sequences without using words, and technology allows for some direct although basic communication between humans and between humans and machines (see: "Tech That Can Hack Your Brain"). Technological development brings up another question about how much meaning is in the words that people use during the thought process of a so-called inner monolog. When the level of potentiality reaches a particular state, is the idea of a word even necessary to claim that people think in words? Since much of the thought process occurs subliminally, in a quasi-consciousness state, where competing potentialities of meaning behind each word-sign generates pathways to word formation, the claim to word choice is made quasi-consciously--without words. Is this not what the function of thinking is rather than an inner monolog? And, when in communication with others, the claim on diction is bound by external regulation. Thus words allow for the navigation or narrative of thought processes but thinking provides the means to alter the course of narration by better word choice or by chosing a completely different narration. Although words are the signs of language, and words direct the thinking process, we do not think in words. I realize my claim's counter-argument, but I'm differentiating between the thinking process and others' claim that we think in words, for the purpose of this post. 

The Dresden Codex, first redrawing by Humboldt in 1810. Image Source Wikipedia

Baca's essay argues for the inclusion of historical pictographic languages into Rhetoric and Composition because of "moral and political responsibilities," but I thought of his paper concerning my search for what consciousness and meaning are. Although languages that enable communications constrain us, the thought processes of thinking are universal. Baca's essay states that "cultures across the Americas and the Caribbean maintained their own local, complex, and equally suitable tools of literacy [during the Pre-Columbian era]" (230). The image above written between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries depicts a way that the potentialities of thinking culminate in pictographs rather than in words. The question of whether or not words are necessary to claim that people think in words becomes, is it not possible to have the potentialities of the thinking process constellate into/onto pictographs, and what does this mean? The author refutes our present day Euro-centric rhetoric and suggests that digital, global communications through the internet allow for "adjustment to different media," and that "the multimodal, multilingual nature of Internet communications requires the introduction of 'new' mechanisms of handling information in different graphic forms and languages . . . --ideograms, logograms, iconography, pictograms, and competing alphabets" (234). The author also suggests that pictography is as "complex and equally suitable communicative form of inscription" as is the Roman alphabet. In light of Baca's claim, the image above made me think of how written languages might co-exist with pictographic systems and helped me think about my idea of thinking in images. Visual thinking is likely closer to the misty nature of quasi-consciousness, and therefore closer to the space where thinking rapidly converges into words. And, visual thinking potentially contains a sense of reality, and meaning equal to that of being a subject within a dream.

Taking this idea a step further into the realm of virtual reality and extrapolating it into a back and forth communication between two individuals that use storylines to get their message across, we can imagine what this might mean. A person in Syria walks into an underground storehouse containing poison gas: stashed for use by Al-Queda. Since he records his five senses real-time into a virtual reality accumulator that in turn authenticates his DNA certificate and transfers his experiences into an unhackable blockchain database, his storyline--the future use of the word narrative--is irrefutable. He sends this message to his associate in America who then experiences, without a doubt, the facts, as the Russians claimed, that the Syrian air force accidentally bombed a secret Al-Queda weapons depot. Would WWIII start in such a scenario? Fantasy aside, what are the benefits of using pictographs rather than language as a form of communication? The question may be answered by the Digital Humanities.

So, I thought about how digital humanities deformance criticism might be used to analyze pictographs of various cultures. Currently, I'm using deformance criticism to study medieval texts. We first take digitized texts written in Old and Middle English and strip them of all punctuation and then convert the words into tokens. The tokens are analyzed quantitatively to reveal things such as whether or not the Pearl Poet authored both Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Does quantitative data support the humanities claim that the Pearl Poet authored both books? If quantitative analysis of pictographic systems reveals meanings outside the realm of the humanities then might it give us an answer to how pictography might be a better communications system than language for the transmission of some meanings? Can we quantitatively reveal the thinking processes behind different pictographic systems of different cultures? What affinities exist between thinking processes, pictography and culture?

Jacques Derrida

The next time a person asks me about what an English major studies I'll begin with a quote from Derrida: "Well, a text is not simply an alphabetic note or a book."

"Jacques Derrida (/ʒɑːk ˈdɛrᵻdə/; French: [ʒak dɛʁida]; born Jackie Élie Derrida; postmodern philosophy. (July 15, 1930 – October 9, 2004) was a French philosopher, born in Algeria. Derrida is best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction, which he discussed in numerous texts, and developed in the context of phenomenology. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and post-modern philosophy.

During his career, Derrida published more than 40 books, together with hundreds of essays and public presentations. He had a significant influence upon the humanities and social sciences, including—in addition to philosophy and literature—law, anthropology, historiography, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychoanalysis, political theory, religious studies, feminism, and gay and lesbian studies. His work still has a major influence in the academe of Continental Europe, South America and all other countries where continental philosophy is predominant, particularly in debates around ontology, epistemology (especially concerning social sciences), ethics, aesthetics, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of language. He also influenced architecture (in the form of deconstructivism), music, art, and art criticism." --Wikipedia 2017 April 2

This week we had two articles to read on Derrida. I chose to write about the interview:  "Jacques Derrida on Rhetoric and Composition: A Conversation" by Gary A. Olsen (1990). I refreshed my memory about deconstruction by re-reading "Post-structuralism and deconstruction" in Peter Barry's book Beginning Theory. I wanted a general understanding before proceeding.

I found the interview much to my liking and of particular interest was the way in which Derrida responded to questions in general. For each of Olsen's questions, Derrida began his reply by first explicating them in terms appropriate to make an answer to. I got the impression very quickly that questionable issues do not lend themselves to specificity and that a question attempts to frame a response that may be met with a concise answer but not so in the case of Derrida. Often his replies opened up the question to a broad range of considerations which he then responded precisely where suitable. His answers became an enlightening journey through his thought process and his knowledge. Derrida's frequent use of the word "simply" or should I say the phrase "not simply" emphasizes the complex lens through which he understands language. Conclusively, I claim that the value of Derrida's philosophy as associated with deconstruction is demonstrated clearly during his interview by Olsen.

Although Olsen's intent attempted to get Derrida to voice his opinion on how composition might best be taught in universities, Derrida responded in a very Derridean way: "'I would not rely on a model in which composition instructors are confined simply within one discipline; nor would I rely on a model in which they are simply dispersed, scattered among a variety of disciplines'" (2). I thought to myself how perfect an answer since any model or discipline is a structure within which composition (a structuring process) takes place. Structures imply a center that deconstruction has shown not to exist. So, the answer necessarily includes the lack of a center in which composition should take place. Subject to the complexities of Derridean thought, the author states "Derrida fully endorses . . . a" "writing-across-the-disciplines model" (2). So, we do get an answer albeit taken as a compromise or as an enrichment, to our preconceived notions.

Derrida touched on something of interest to me when questioned by Olsen: "if all of our knowledge and facts and reality are created by social groups, by discourse communities, then rhetoric is the key to it all . . . What are your thoughts about social constructionism?" (14). In my preface to my post on Locke, I asked the following: "What truth has the power to stand unchanged against reality? At least with well-founded rhetoric, one may find themselves as a great crusader who sheds light into the darkness of reality. What then when technology provides alternatives to unassailable reality? Shall rhetoric be the way, the truth, and the light?" And although I presumed that due to technological advancements artificial realities would soon be equivalent to what we now consider reality when I asked the questions, and despite the fact that I assumed my questions novel, I found that 'social constructionism' had already considered similar questions.

The guest's answer took place over some pages and boils down to reality not being equal to rhetoric. Derrida first responded, "that philosophy or thinking is [not] simply a cause of shared values" (15). His statement implies that things outside of the human sphere of control, such as biological ontogeny, broadly speaking, nature, and first-hand experience, impact philosophical consideration. To include what Olsen suggests by social constructionism Derrida divides the question into two. He says: "about rhetoric becoming the central paradigmatic, epistemic activity," "as . . . a formal superstructure or technique exterior to the essential activity, [that r]hetoric is something decisive in society" (15). He then states that he would be suspicious of what [he] calls "'rhetoricism'"--a way of giving rhetoric all the power, thinking that everything depends on rhetoric as simply a technique of speech" (15). This reply made me think of Burke and how most of what we know is a symbolic system and how rhetoricism is a technique used to manipulate that system without reguiring a differentiation between what is real and what is not. Undoubtedly, rhetoric has limited influence over the senses and first-hand observable experience. Derrida further distances rhetoric from reality by justifiably aligning it with speech acts by stating "speech acts, or performative speech acts, depends on conditions and conventions which are not simply verbal. What [he] calls writing or text is not simply verbal" (15). By breaking down Olsen's question into a question about Rhetoricism and about rhetoric Derrida successfully navigates the interviewer's assumptions and helped me to understand my concerns in the process.

Kenneth Burke

Three writings from Kenneth Burke due on March 27, 2017

"Introduction" to A Grammar of Motives (1945)
"Introduction" to A Rhetoric of Motives (1950)
“Terministic Screens” from Language as Symbolic Action (1966)

According to Wikipedia "As a literary theorist, Burke was best known for his analyses based on the nature of knowledge. Furthermore, he was on of the first individuals to stray away from more traditional rhetoric and view literature as 'symbolic action.' Burke was unorthodox, concerning himself not only with literary texts but with the elements of the text that interacted with the audience: social, historical, political background, author biography, etc. For his career, Burke has been praised by The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism as 'one of the most unorthodox and challenging, and theoretically sophisticated American-born literary critics of the twentieth century.'"

After reading the three articles above, I decided to make a slideshow for my class presentation on Burke. The author challenged my ability to understand. Most of those difficulties were due to the language used by Burke to describe his concepts. Knowing the key terms of each section before reading the articles became a necessity for continuing. So, I highlighted the key terms and researched essays available on JSTOR to arrive at a general understanding before completely reading all three papers.

A larger copy of my presentation is available here.

A Critique of Hugh Blair

Hugh Blair (1718-1800)

The fuzzy nature at the edge of beauty reflects the subjective as objective and evades capture by Blair.  The author's clarification amplifies elusiveness into ever greater references to that which cannot be named in terms other than itself. After reading his lecture I came away with the sense that the author knew nothing about what he called Taste. Taste to him is something common to all people. And, he knew that the ancient geniuses possessed good taste because their works are still appreciated. Despite the author's scant knowledge of his subject, he proved beyond any doubt and throughout his lecture that Taste equals Taste.

Hugh Blair's lecture on rhetoric and belle-lettres, well let me interject here, to set the tone of my analysis, with a quote from the renowned author of eloquence: "Asiatics at no time relished any thing but what was full of ornament, and splendid in a degree that we would denominate gawdy" (32). The author thus proclaims and condemns himself as being (to express such a human state as inoffensively as possible) full of crap; he so offends the sensibilities by his elitist opinions that one cannot consider his arguments valid. But let me not dissuade the reader from continuing and rather elucidate Blair's lecture on Taste by comparing it with a modern point of view.

Written during the Enlightenment, the author's essay relies on the biases of his audience and the acceptance of his style as a means to persuade. For the basis of his conclusion about the subject of Taste Blair calls on an analogy to the standards held by the Court: those of the "standard of good breeding; and the scripture, of theological truth" (36). Standards during the Enlightenment were a topic of discussion and a way of establishing oneself within the eyes of peers.  Of good breeding, Henry Fielding says "In short, by good-breeding ... I mean the art of pleasing, or contributing as much as possible to the ease and happiness of those with whom you converse" (Essay On Conversation). The tone of Blair's lecture is very much within the context of the Enlightenment, a time when "[u]pwardly mobile middle-class bourgeoisie increasingly tried to identify themselves with the elite through their adopted artistic preferences and their standards of behavior" (Wikipedia). His prose achieves the status of behavior expected during the Enlightenment. His words, despite the quantity of them, are pleasingly innocent of holding a unique opinion; he leaves little chance of ever being accused of saying anything of substance. His portrait bears the image of a man content to have simultaneously said everything and nothing. Blair fails to determine standards beyond the examples of "the Illiad of Homer, and the Aeneid of Virgil (43). More generally, he states that one with good Taste has the ability to discern beauties that have "the power to command lasting and general admiration" (43). The author claims that Taste is improved by science and philosophy but only addresses Taste through conjecture. He knows of Plato's Ideal Forms and yet fails to utilize the concept in a meaningful way. To me, the author's lecture shows how much he lacks the faculty of aesthetic perception.

The following quote from Blair, when compared to what is noted as meaning by Samuels and McGann in their essay "Deformance and  Information" helps to demonstrate one of the many false conclusions/assumptions made by Blair.

Taste [--aesthetic appreciation--] therefore admits of latitude and diversity of objects, in sufficient consistency with goodness or justness of Taste . . . I must observe farther, that this admissible diversity of Tastes can only have place where the objects of Taste are different. Where it is with respect to the same object that men disagree, when one condemns that as ugly, which another admires as highly beautiful; then it is no longer diversity, but direct opposition of Taste that takes place; and therefore one must be right, and another wrong, unless that absurd paradox were allowed to hold, that all Tastes are equally good and true. (35)

To clarify my criticism of Blair, I'll attempt to address the issue of the paradox where men disagree about whether or not the same object is beautiful or ugly. The author states that "one must be right and the other wrong" (35). According to the authors, Samuels and McGann "meaning is more a dynamic exchange than a discoverable content, and that exchange is best revealed as a play of differences" (4). Could it not be that one person's Taste prefers to focus on discoverable content, and the other person's Taste prefers to focus on the play of differences within that same object; and yet another person's Taste claim that a beautiful aesthetic perception exists in the interplay between discoverable content and the play of differences?

As an example of critics, persons with an acclaimed sensitivity to the nuances of aesthetic appreciation, and how their opinions of a single work may differ, I offer the fact that the movie Blade Runner discontinued playing at theaters after only one week but is now continuously playing in a theater somewhere over thirty years later. At the time of its release according to Rutger Hauer half of the critics loved it and the other half hated it, and no critics were between those opinions. Another example of divided opinions held by critics is in reference to the Rondanini Pietà sculpture by Michaelangelo which is a block of granite that the artist practiced on until his death. Some critics believe it is a masterpiece and other critics believe it to be a block of practice granite that is comprised of multiple unfinished attempts. More typically than not, it is a sure sign that a work of art is a masterpiece when critics are polarized in their criticisms. This shows that not only are Blair's assumptions wrong but he holds the opinion that Tastes of aesthetic value have something to do with the words "good and true." The author's rhetoric aims at eloquence but misses the mark due the superficiality of Hugh Blair's Taste.

Locke, Vico and Hume in Rhetoric and Composition.

March 3, 2017. This weeks reading's most important revelation comes from the concept of the sign and the signifier. Had I only depended upon my beginning critical theory class or Google I would have not known that the idea of a sign/signifier pair does not come from Ferdinand de Saussure. According to Wikipedia, the "concept of signs has been around for a long time, having been studied by many philosophers who include Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and others from the medieval period such as William of Ockham." John Locke and later, David Hume use the idea of the sign/signifier pair in the assigned readings without giving credit to the ancients. I've noticed such unacknowledged credit to original authors among most of the great thinkers, from Matthew Arnold to Carl Jung. It is the great deception of those whose work provides a basis for the clearing in the forest of social stability that we are taught what the laws of ethos are and only later learn how those laws are used in the court of life. The right to claim the great ideas of the past seems to be perfectly acceptable as long as that claim is sublimated into a greater contemporary awareness. What truth has the power to stand unchanged against reality? At least with well-founded rhetoric, one may find themselves as a great crusader who sheds light into the darkness of reality. What then when technology provides alternatives to unassailable reality? Shall rhetoric be the way, the truth, and the light?

John Locke (1632-1704)

I'll begin this week's posting by looking at John Locke's "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding." Locke describes words and their scope of usage in a logical and easy to follow manner until Chapter 5, and he even asks his readers to participate in thought experiments. One point of interest to me about Locke's style of writing is his use of lists. I would like to know what the term is for the ordered listing of things such as reasons listed as first, secondly and so on. Locke's parents were Puritans, and I encountered many lists during my undergraduate readings in Early American Literature class. The listing style makes things very clear, and I seldom encounter it in contemporary literature.

Locke applies a pragmatic instructional approach to explaining how words enable communication as well as how they aid in the mind's process of understanding. The essay makes clear to the reader that the thing (the signifier) and the concept (the sign) are not the same. Locke builds on this fact to explain the ideas of mixed modes, substances, relations, and abstract and concrete terms. He is an empiricist and believes the human mind to be without pre-existing ideas at birth. Similarly, the essay assumes a reader may have no knowledge of his essay's subject. His style progressively sequences conclusions which become premises for further conclusions as a means to build ever increasing insight into the subject of how human understanding results in knowledge.

Since sections are left out of the essay that I am reading, I did not know if it was Locke or the omissions by the editor that caused me to have a muddled impression of what mixed modes are. I ran a search for "the mixed modes of Locke" on Google and read through Sparknotes's summary and the analysis of Locke's ideas. Afterward, I easily read through the rest of the essay. Sparknotes on Locke

I looked at some entries in Google Books, and the authors seemed unsure about what exactly Locke meant by the more nuanced meanings of his terms. Different authors understood the "idea of substance" somewhat differently, and so I let the less academic Sparknotes suffice for my reading.

Admittedly, I could have spent weeks examining the details of the essay and still would have felt I missed a few things. But, that is what makes the essay so interesting. It brings to mind many concepts such that the reader gets a sense of dimensionality as if there were a three-dimensional or perhaps fractal hierarchy of signs in the space of contemplation. I wondered at one point if I could take the idea of the sign and make a circular argument that led entirely through his species and generas back to the original idea of the sign to show that the function of the sign performed identically at all levels; to come back to the reason that Baudrillard stated that the simulacrum is true in his book Simulacra and Simulation.

Giambattista Vico (1668-1774)

From On the Study and Methods of Our Time

Vico during his argument attempts to show that "rhetoric provides a superior philosophy of knowledge" (862). I chose to look for the components of the Aristotlean canon of invention in Vico's essay and their subcomponents as well as make reference to Cicero's rhetorical method. My reason for making such a layman's analysis is to provide me with knowledge that I can use later in a rhetorical multimedia presentation. To recap the five cannons of rhetoric are invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. According to Professor Andrew R. Cline Ph.D. invention is "[t]o discover the available means of persuasion.

To begin with we might ask, what is the exigency of the essay? So, what has happened or failed to happen to prompt Vico to write the essay? The editor in the introduction to Vico's article states that "he was regarded as a reactionary because of his opposition to Descartes" and that "Vico was [the] appointed professor of rhetoric at the University of Naples in 1699 and served until 1741 . . . [he] hoped--though in vain--to be appointed to the much more prestigious chair of civil law" (862). From these statements then it is easy to conclude that Vico had a vested interest in rebuffing the status quo by way of using rhetoric to make a "[m]odern philosophical critique . . . [:] the common instrument of all our sciences and arts" (866). On the other hand, his insight as a rhetorician may qualify him more than others to genuinely propose "a curriculum that concludes with the study of eloquence, a study which he sees as interdisciplinary and (in modern terms) meta-theatrical, a way to link the other disciplines and bring them to bear on public issues" (863). His essay argues for a more balanced educational system. If academia "accepts Cartesianism, it will [according to the editor] unduly privilege natural science and mathematics while devaluing other kinds of knowledge, and it will do so to the detriment of society, which will eventually lack leaders educated in public affairs" (863).

Whatever Vico's motive for writing the essay, whether personal or altruistic or both, it refutes the pressures on academic curriculum presented by Francis Bacon in his treatise "Of the Dignity and Advancement of Learning" (865). Vico disclaims Bacon because of his failure to resolve cultural gaps within "Dignity and Advancement" (865). And, he aligns Bacon with "the potentates of mighty empires"--elitists (865). Although such anti-Bacon sentiment may appear offensive to some, it provides Vico with the ability to set the stage in a short proomium which he concludes in the following paragraphic axiom: "No doubt all that man is given to know is, like man himself, limited and imperfect. Therefore, if we compare our times with those of the Ancients--if we weigh, on both sides, that advantages and deficiencies of learning--our achievements and those of Antiquity would, by and large, balance" (865). After explicating a few of the differences of Modern and Ancient cultures he states that "[t]he foregoing provides the theme of the present discourse: Which method is finer and better, ours or the Ancients?

Thus, the theme of Vico's invention stage is to find a better solution than Bacon's through the analysis of the pros and cons of modern and ancient learning systems. This is what is called stasis theory within Aristotle's invention canon, and it is attributed to Cicero's work in his book Di oratore in which "inventio is dialogic and must be pursued pro and con" (Thomas O. Sloane, "Reinventing Inventio" 461). The comparison and contrast of the Modern methods with the Ancient's methods are what Vico uses to create "true or seemingly true arguments for the sake of making [his] case appear probable" (Slone 462).

David Hume (1711-1776)

On the Four Essays by David Hume, "A Standard of Taste"
"A thousand men may have a thousand different opinions about some one thing; but just exactly one of the opinions is true, and the only difficulty is to find out which one that is. As against that, a thousand different sentiments aroused by some object are all right, because no sentiment represents what is really in the object, and so no sentiment runs any risk of being false. A sentiment does mark a certain conformity or relation between the object and the organs or facilities of the mind; but there is no chance of error there, because if that conformity didn't exist the sentiment wouldn't exist either." -- David Hume. To which Baudrillard might add, "the simulacrum is true."

Hume distinguishes between sentiment and philosophy and argues that aesthetic appreciation may be cultivated through practice. He claims his essay is a "means to mingle some light of the understanding [of the sentiment of beauty] with the feelings of sentiment" (11). Hume, unlike Vico, begins his essay's invention stage by pointing out that all people have prejudices of taste. He uses stasis theory to discover what the basis for disagreement is. The author presents his rhetoric through comparisons of opposites: applaud/blame; virtues/vices. He conjectures that the "unanimity [the consensus of what is virtuous versus what is vice] is usually credited to the influence of plain reason, which in all these cases maintains similar sentiments in all men, and prevents the controversies to which the abstract sciences are so much exposed" (7-8). He goes on to say that "the harmony of morals can be explained as arising from the very nature of language" (8). The general precepts of virtue versus particular pictures of how people behave allow the author to refute the reasonable position that since individuals have different tastes, philosophically, it is impossible for there ever to be a standard of taste" (8).

Hume's argument depends on his awareness of what the linguist Saussure describes as a sign/signifier pair where the sign is the perception of the object, the concept, and the signifier is the real object. Since all people across all history recognize that something, in general, is beautiful, Hume argues that this fact means for all practical purposes that beauty exists objectively. And further, that the art critic may tune their subjective tastes, their sensibilities, through practice and experience such that the objective signified elements within the details of a work of art might be classified as having a particular aesthetic value.

What Are The Philosophical Principals Required by Cicero?

According to Moses Hadas, the editor, and author of the “Introduction” to “The Basic Works of Cicero,” Cicero’s argument attempts to give oratory the same educational basis as science by way of “universal education for the the orator” (171). He makes his case by telling a story of two brothers: Crassus, who wants to raise oratory to the status of science, and “Antonius who denies it” (171). The editor states that the persuasive eloquence of Cicero “lulls the reader into obliviousness of [the] essential weakness in the argument:” the argument doesn’t “set up a philosophical principle” required to connect oratory with science (172). On the Orator from which this excerpt is taken is a book addressed to Cicero's brother Quintus and has the form of an epistolary.

I wanted to see if Cicero considered both science and oratory as being arts. If so then at least in name some philosophical principle connected the two disciplines. Cicero states his argument about his brother believing that oratory should "be kept quite distinct from the higher learning, and made to rest on a certain combination of natural gifts and training" whereas he believes "that eloquence is inseparable from all the accomplishments of the profoundest erudition" (174). We can see from his use of the word “higher” that oratory is subordinate to science and that utilitarianism must have been the driving force behind education. He goes on to question "why it is that other men have won distinction in all the other arts than in oratory." So, Cicero conflates science with "arts" and not the other way around and further states that "you [Quintus] will find that in any given branch of art." For me, the question becomes one of translation since I doubt Cicero could be so blatant as to conflate science with art and expect his audience not to perceive it as a trick. Such an action would seem to invalidate to some extent the editor's opinion that the author's eloquence "lulls the reader into obliviousness." And, especially so because the conflation takes place immediately after Cicero's claim.

If utilitarianism is the driving force behind education then how does Cicero’s argument fail to “set up a philosophical principle” between science and oration? The basis for the equal education of both orator and engineer to me seems to be that societies as systems would have to depend on both the skills of the orator as much as or more than that of the engineer, the military leader or those in the sciences. Does Cicero argue that point? Cicero begins persuasion by noting the rarity of excellent orators and idealizes their qualities when he questions “[w]hat again, is so royal an exercise of liberality and munificence as to bring help to the distressed, to raise the afflicted, to protect the rights of our fellow-citizens, to free them from danger, and save them from exile?” (182). He goes on to imply that orators give the citizens “a weapon with which [they] can secure [their] attack enemies of the state” and avenge themselves when provoked. To me then he builds the connection between the sciences and oratory by setting up the two as being equally indispensable for a society to function. Whether or not this may be considered a philosophical principle required, according to the editor, to connect oratory to science, I do not know and do not have the philosophical credibility to make such a claim.

I liked Cicero’s statement that oratory is “the profession of eloquence.” And, I kind of get the idea that Cicero did not have as much regard for the utilization of the skills of the orator by society as much as he appreciated the beauty that he perceived during oration. So, I guess you could say Cicero in a way subordinated the sciences to the importance of the liberal arts. In this way, which I cannot easily describe other than from the sense that I got while reading, Cicero failed to "set up [the] philosophical principle” required to connect oratory with science.

Thoughts On Socrates' Condemnation of Rhetoric In "What Socrates Said" by Jacobs

Appendix I. B. “Socrates’ Critique of Sophistic Rhetoric, ” denotes the dialogue between Gorgias and Socrates up to the point when Polus stands in and asks Socrates whether or not Socrates considers rhetoric an art. Kennedy introduces section I. B. suggesting that Socrates is in search of understanding and conviction. And, he states that “[t]he question of the subject of rhetoric and the morality of the orator are important issues for Aristotle as well [as for Socrates]” (256). In the text of I. B. Socrates agrees with Gorgias as to the nature of rhetoric and the premise that if a person (a rhetor) “knows what is good he will do it.” As a reader, I expected that Socrates would respond to Polus’ question stating that rhetoric is an art and then give the reasons for it being so.

I was surprised at Socrates’ response in “What Socrates said: And Why Gorgias and Polus Did Not Respond: A Reading of Socrates’ in which Bernard E. Jacob presents an argument about Socrates’ statement “that rhetoric . . . is a defective art and no more than base sucking up or flattery” (77). Jacob claims that it is possible to read Socrates’ statement with less absolute condemnation if it is read within the “dramatic context in which it appears”. Apparently, Socrates has the motive to win “new students” from his audience, and the affect of Socrates about rhetoric plays into achieving that goal. Political positioning by Socrates begins in Jacobs’ essay when Polus stands in for Gorgias.  It became easy to make a connection between wrestling, boxing, and rhetoric and get a sense of the dynamic of Greek dialogue. But, Socrates’ statement refutes Gorgias’ claim that rhetoric is an art. What I found hard to reconcile is that if Socrates believed that “if a person knows what is good he will do it,” then how can he say as a moral orator “rhetoric . . . is a defective art and no more than base sucking up or flattery.” His statement is an insult to Gorgias and Polus and seems to contradict his dialogue with Gorgias in which he agreed that "the rhetorician is incapable of using rhetoric immorally and of wanting to do wrong.

Socrates' claim that Rhetoric is not an art indirectly categorizes Gorgias and Polus as not being artists and that in turn implies that Polus lacks experience. So, how can Socrates as a rhetor be moral when he is insulting the persons he is in dialogue with by using a “shock” effect to gain students for his school? The movement of Socrates’ words seems to condemn not only rhetoric but everything around him including himself. According to Jacob, Socrates explains that rhetoric does not have the quality of a self-conscious art because “it cannot assign causes” (80). Jacob then implies that the relevance of the meaning within Socrates’ condemnation of rhetoric is constrained by temporality and suggests that if some “theoretical part . . . would explicate the nature of its [rhetoric’s] routines” then the “art of rhetoric” will emerge (80). Aristotle provides the missing elements of that which are “plausible in a particular case” such that rhetoric may be classified as an art rather than an “undefined ‘device for persuasion’” as Socrates claimed. So, the temporal constraint of meaning at the time of Socrates’ condemnation is lifted by Aristotle. The “theoretical parts” to which Jacob refers to are defined in On Rhetoric.

These have been some thoughts and a summation of what I read by Jacob. I find the history of rhetoric through Socratic dialogue and the work of Aristotle to enhance my understanding of rhetoric. It shows the pre-existing needs of rhetoric during the time of Socrates that were later fulfilled by Aristotle. As Jacob writes, "If one is to preserve one's own identity in using persuasive speech, one needs some further aid than can be given by a rhetoric that is not anchored in a larger understanding of politics and language" (93). After reading Jacob's essay, I appreciated that Socrates condemned only a type of rhetoric. I had some problem trying to think about what Jacob meant by politics and if I thought of politics as political positioning it seemed to help.