But that which remains the poets have founded.In contemporary rhetorical theory, the relationship between rhetoric and art tends to be articulated in terms of aesthetics. This increasingly popular discourse on “aesthetic rhetoric,” however, is characterized by a remarkable diversity. The rhetoric of fiction, poetry, and other literary genres, for example, has been explored in these terms (e.g., Booth 1983), as has the rhetoric of film (Haskins 2003), photography (Hariman and Lucaites 2007), and even natural landscapes (Clark 2004). From a different (...) perspective, aesthetics has been distilled to a range of “features” or “elements” that a given text is said to possess. Nathan Crick and Jeremy Engels, for example .. (shrink)

. Although the pages of Journal of Business Ethics have hosted an ongoing dialogue on the ethics of rhetoric and persuasion, the debates have been unable to account for the underlying morality of the human propensity to engage in rhetorical discourse as a part of living in society. In this paper, I offer natural-law ethical theory as a moral paradigm in which to examine rhetoric. In this context, I assert that rhetoric services reason, which in turn services our dispositions or (...) inclinations that are one ideological foundation of natural-law theory. As rhetoric affects the apprehension of these dispositions it subsumes a related morality in which rhetorical endeavors can be seen as “natural”. So endowed, I believe that this conception of rhetoric offers a number of philosophical and practical implications, one of which is a new way to assess the morality of commercial manifestations of rhetoric such as spin and the use of puffery in advertising. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Analyzing How Rhetoric is Epistemic”:A Reply to Steve FullerWilliam D. HarpineMy point in "What Do You Mean, Rhetoric Is Epistemic" (Harpine 2004) is that unclear and inconsistent use of terms has hindered previous research on the idea that rhetoric is epistemic. I propose to clarify definitions to alleviate this problem and encourage further research into how rhetoric might be epistemic. Professor Fuller's viewpoint is that definitions are inherently problematic, (...) and that my call for rhetoric-is-epistemic theorists to formulate their definitions more carefully would hold rhetorical theory to "illusory" standards (Fuller 2005, 72). However, I feel that his criticism of definitions overstates what his arguments demonstrate. Fuller (2005) also expresses doubts about the concept of certainty, doubts which echo points in my essay. Along the way, he offers an interesting line of reasoning that might advance the dialogue in the way that I had hoped. To an extent, Fuller seems to reach similar conclusions about the relationship between rhetoric and knowledge, albeit by a different route.CertaintyMy essay argues that certain claims of rhetoric-is-epistemic theorists trade on an equivocation about the meaning of "certainty." The word "certain" can carry an objective meaning: "It is certain that I will have to pay taxes," or it can be subjective: "I feel certain that I will have to pay taxes." An ordinary person can easily see that the two claims mean something different. Although Wittgenstein explains this distinction most clearly, in a statement that Fuller (2005) himself quotes, the distinction routinely arises in everyday discourse. An argument that works surreptitiously by sliding from one of these meanings to the other commits the fallacy of equivocation. The rhetoric-is-epistemic literature does exactly that all too often. [End Page 82]On this matter, expressing doubts about objective certainty, Fuller comments that the role of certainty in philosophy is inconclusive (2005, 78). I fully agree with this point. My argument is to show how rhetoric-is-epistemic theorists fallaciously rely on an ambiguity in meaning, not to claim that some things really are objectively certain. It is not the purpose of rhetoric-is-epistemic theorists to argue that nothing is certain—there are much more straightforward ways to do that—but to show that rhetoric has an epistemic role. To accomplish this, they need an argument that does not short-circuit by equivocating in the use of key terms. In any case, my essay notes that "the current philosophical literature has not taken a strong stance in favor of requiring knowledge to be either objectively or subjectively certain," which resembles Fuller's own conclusion, and also that rhetoric-is-epistemic theorists "should dispense with the issue of certainty" (Harpine 2004, 346), which, if Fuller agrees (as I suspect he does), renders further details moot.KnowledgeMost rhetoric-is-epistemic theorists work either explicitly or implicitly with the traditional definition that knowledge is justified true belief. They point out that rhetoric offers justification. Gettier's argument shows that the traditional definition fails to capture the meaning of "knowledge." Thus, the rhetoric-is-epistemic theorists have a problem tying their theory to their conception of knowledge. The point is not that different rhetoric-is-epistemic theorists have used different definitions of knowledge, but rather that they work with an inadequate definition. Fuller agrees with Gettier's point, gives additional arguments on its behalf, and offers an interesting discussion of the rhetorical implications of Gettier's argument. Since Gettier's argument may lead one to question whether justification is a defining quality of knowledge, rhetoric-is-epistemic theorists might look for other kinds of linkages between rhetoric and knowledge. The concluding portions of my essay suggest several such possible linkages.1Does my argument resemble the Babel thesis? Elsewhere, Fuller (2002, 104) explains the Babel thesis as the claim that disagreements are due to different meanings, not to different beliefs. One must agree with Fuller that the Babel thesis overstates the importance of meaning. However, a similar insight arises in more modest guise as Davidson's principle [End Page 83] of charity. Studying intercultural relationships, Davidson (1984, 136) suggests that when we encounter people whose beliefs differ from ours, we... (shrink)

“Morality is relative to culture” is a descriptive claim; many people in many different cultures have different moral beliefs. When one adopts moral relativism, however, the claim accrues a normative dimension, in that what follows from relativity is the flattening out of rightness, of one moral belief being better than another regardless of culture. But in practice, humans rarely, if ever, actually behave as if certain things or beliefs are not better than others, as evidenced in everything from foreign policy (...) to religion to consumption choices. This leads to a problem of consistency: either the relativist does not act in accordance with her beliefs or her beliefs are different from what she espouses. Or so a.. (shrink)