First published in 1962, contains the William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. It sets out Austin's conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts for at least the last ten years of his life. Starting from an exhaustive examination of his already well- known distinction of performative utterances from statements, Austin here finally abandons that distinction, replacing it by a more general theory of 'illocutionary forces' of utterances which has important bearings on a wide (...) variety of philosophical problems. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Political Identity of the Philosopher:Resistance, Relative Power, and the Endurance of PotentialSamuel McCormickThe troublemaker is precisely the one who tries to force sovereign power to translate itself into actuality.—Giorgio AgambenBeyond the Straussian Practice of "Philosophic Politics"In the second half of the 1920s, Bertolt Brecht began a series of short stories about a "thinking man" named Mr. Keuner. Among the first stories he published was "Measures Against Power" ("Maßnahmen (...) gegen die Gewalt"), the opening passage of which provides the subject of this essay:As Mr. Keuner, the thinking man [Denkende], was speaking out against power in front of a large audience in a hall, he noticed the people in front of him shrinking back and leaving. He looked around and saw standing behind him—Power [Gewalt]."What were you saying," Power asked him."I was speaking out in favor of Power," replied Mr. Keuner. [End Page 72]After Mr. Keuner had left the hall, his students inquired about his backbone [Rückgrat]. Mr. Keuner replied: "I don't have a backbone to be broken. I'm the one who has to live longer than Power [Gerade ich muß länger leben als die Gewalt]."(2001, 3)How are we to understand the political activity of this "thinking man"? Clearly, Mr. Keuner is no Cynic. Unlike Diogenes, who famously ordered Alexander the Great to step out of the way and then openly rebuked his authority as king, Mr. Keuner refuses to play the part of the parrhesiastes.1 His political activity more closely resembles that of a Stoic philosopher. Consider, for instance, the way his reply to Power echoes that of Seneca the Younger: "It seems to me erroneous to believe that those who have loyally dedicated themselves to philosophy are stubborn and rebellious, scorners of magistrates or kings or of those who control the administration of public affairs. For, on the contrary, no class of man is so popular with the philosopher as the ruler is" (Ep. 73.1–2 [1920, 105]).Given this attitude toward the powers that be, we might also figure Mr. Keuner's conduct in terms of the Straussian practice of "philosophic politics." For Leo Strauss, one of the most striking, and sometimes strident, twentieth-century scholars to consider the political identity of the philosopher, philosophic politics consists in "satisfying the city that the philosophers are not atheists, that they do not desecrate everything sacred to the city, that they reverence what the city reverences, that they are not subversives, in short, that they are not irresponsible adventurers but good citizens and even the best of citizens." This is the defense of philosophy that is required "always and everywhere," Strauss concludes, regardless of what the dominant political order might be (1991, 205–6).Although he is certainly willing to appease Power, Mr. Keuner differs from Strauss's philosophic politician in three fundamental ways, each of which suggests that a closer examination of his speech and action is in order. First, the Straussian practice of philosophic politics does not consist in advocating for political or social change but in defending the discipline of philosophy. For Strauss, "there is no necessary connection between the philosopher's indispensible philosophic politics and the efforts which he might or might not make to contribute toward the establishment of the best regime" (1991, 205). For Mr. Keuner, however, the discipline of philosophy—and with it his identity as a "thinking man"—is neither in need of defense nor distinct from his political activity but, instead, available for use as a persuasive resource in his interaction with Power. How he [End Page 73] avails himself of the tropes and topoi of philosophical inquiry can only be determined by examining his conduct closely.Second, the proper site of philosophic politics is not the political activity of "thinking" men and women but their philosophical tracts and treatises. Thus, in searching for the "philosophic politics" of Mr. Keuner, Strauss would have us focus not on his interaction with Power but on the writings for which he has come to be known as a "thinking man." As I argue in a recent edition of this journal (2005, 302–3), this... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 39.1 (2006) 72-84 [Access article in PDF] "The Limbo of Ethical Simulacra": A Reply to Ron Greene Dana L. Cloud Department of Communication Studies University of Texas, Austin Steve Macek Department of Speech Communication North Central College James Arnt Aune Department of Communication Texas A&M University In two recent articles, "Another Materialist Rhetoric," and "Rhetoric and Capitalism" (1998, 2004), Ronald Walter Greene pays considerable attention to (...) Marxist rhetorical theory, especially the work of Dana L. Cloud (1994, 2001a, 2001b, 2002) and James Arnt Aune (1994, 2001). These essays usefully point up what is at stake in the debate between poststructuralist theory and Marxism: whether an instrumental, class-based, socialist critical and political project is still feasible and necessary in today's world. Rejecting both Aune's Marxist-humanist approach and Cloud's more economic vision of agency, Greene claims that the changing character of global capitalism and recognition of the "constitutive power" of discourse render rhetorical criticism and practical politics on a Marxist basis untenable. Although we appreciate Greene's engagement with Marxism, we contend that the arguments sketched out in his essays are theoretically and politically flawed.First, Greene's criticisms are directed against a crude caricature of Marxist epistemology that obscures the complexity of theories of representation and ideology in the historical materialist tradition. Second, underwriting Greene's entire project are confused, and in some cases demonstrably false, assessments of the nature and historical trajectory of world capitalism and of the current prospects for class-based social movements. Finally, Greene endorses something like a democratic project but offers no normative criteria for such a project beyond the immanence of always-already present communicative agency and the excesses of joy afforded (to some) by the capitalist system. We will examine each of these shortcomings in turn. [End Page 72] Real Lies: The Complexity of Marxist Epistemology Greene and other poststructuralists charge Marxist theorists in the field of rhetorical studies with holding a dubious representational theory of truth.1 In contrast, Greene embraces a critical approach that examines "how rhetorical practices create the conditions of possibility for a governing apparatus to judge and program reality" and that views "what is in the true" as rhetorically produced (1998, 22). At odds with Greene's approach, Marxists claim that, in a range of ways, ideological discourses reflect, distort, and/or negotiate with the objective social realities, interests, and lived experiences of contending classes in capitalist society. Moreover, we believe that—by means of interpretive, historical, and empirical research—Marxist scholars and activists may develop fuller and more accurate theoretical "representations" of such realities and interests and of the various ways they shape our lives and our political struggles.2This is not to say, however, that the process is simple or mechanistic. Marxist critical practice retains the evaluative power of realism without laying claim to absolute or unmediated empirical knowledge; moreover, we do not believe that ideas are mechanistically generated epiphenomena of economic motive. Discourses, as any communication scholar would agree and as Greene points out, do have effects or "effectivities." Yet anyone interested in a normative political project (which Greene wishes to escape, a point to which we shall return) must recognize the possibility of falsehood. However, as Raymond Geuss (1981) argues, falsehood is not only a matter of empirical misrepresentation. In addition to epistemic falsehood, ideological discourses may exhibit both functional falsehood (referring to how even plausible ideas can bolster oppressive power) and genetic falsehood (ideas promulgated by those with ulterior motives, or intentional mystification).Similarly, analytic Marxist Jon Elster (1985) offers a view of ideology that regards discourses as more than simple epiphenomena of economic situations and struggles.3 Elster describes three overlapping forms of ideological production: the interest-based dissemination of distorted ideas, the failure of social imagination associated with widespread support for the capitalist system and U.S. imperialism, and the psychological comfort of palliative discourses such as religion and patriotism.4 Understanding how widespread adherence to common-sense ideas is accomplished is a project central to... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric and Capitalism:Rhetorical Agency as Communicative LaborRonald Walter GreeneIt is a commonplace to describe rhetorical agency as political action. From such a starting point, rhetorical agency describes a communicative process of inquiry and advocacy on issues of public importance. As political action, rhetorical agency often takes on the characteristics of a normative theory of citizenship; a good citizen persuades and is persuaded by the gentle force of the better (...) argument. More radical visions of argument might include strikes, sit-ins, and boycotts in the rhetorical arsenal of good citizenship, and some might even flirt with violence as rhetorical action. This model of rhetorical agency requires a translation of the conceptual apparatus of rhetoric and its alignment with the problematics of democratic theory and actually existing democratic regimes. Classical models that hoped to harness rhetorical agency to the making of the "orator-statesman" (sic) must reimagine political participation in terms of publics and counterpublics, social movements, electoral campaigns, communication media and technologies, as well as supra- and sub-national institutional settings. As the classical norms of citizenship rub against (post) modern realities, a permanent anxiety over the meaning and potential of rhetorical agency seems destined to be lodged in the critical imagination of rhetorical studies. If politics today is, in Jodi Dean's words, "a domain of financially mediated and professionalized practices centered on advertising, public relations, and the means of mass communication," then actually existing rhetorical agency manifests itself in efforts to "raise the money, buy the television time, register the domain names, build the website, and craft the accessible, user-friendly, spectacular message" (2003, 96).If we recognize Dean's description of the political as an accurate description of the rhetorical situation today, rhetorical studies is left with three strategies: It can refashion a deliberative vision of rhetorical agency into a normative ideal for critiquing the structural conditions (capital, media [End Page 188] concentration) of political participation. Second, it can enlarge the field of normatively acceptable ways and means of political participation, for example, by embracing the more spectacular politics associated with visual and body rhetorics. Finally, rhetorical studies can work on the "demand" side and design new strategies and tactics for activating the rhetorical participation of citizens, for example, by encouraging the creation of communicative norms necessary for reinvigorating voluntary and civic organizations. However, while each of these approaches provides a research agenda, none of them gets at the root cause of the anxiety over agency: the attachment of rhetorical agency to a vision of political change. The anxiety over agency pushes rhetorical critics and theorists into becoming moral entrepreneurs scolding, correcting, and encouraging the body politic to improve the quality and quantity of political participation.The purpose of this paper is to offer an escape route from theorizing rhetorical agency as a model of political communication.1 In opposition to a political-communicative vision of rhetorical agency, this paper suggests a different materialist ontology, one that imagines rhetorical agency as a form of living labor. I will argue that rhetorical agency belongs to the domain of communicative labor, a form of labor increasingly necessary to the workings of contemporary capitalist production. In other words, I want to replace a political-communicative model of rhetorical agency with a materialist-communicative model. To highlight the similarities and differences between the two models, I will focus on how the interface between politics, communication, and economics plays out in the Marxist tradition of rhetorical studies. I will organize this tradition into two sections: the first, represented by James Aune, advocates a hermeneutic approach to rhetorical agency, and the second, represented by Dana Cloud, argues for imagining rhetorical agency as a class-based social movement. By focusing on the work of my comrades, the paper risks being received as a "left sectarian" polemic.2 As I will demonstrate in each section, the problem with these two approaches has less to do with Marxism and more to do with how they turn to hermeneutics and social movements to imagine rhetorical agency in the idiom of communication theory. In the third section of the paper I will resituate rhetorical agency into a materialist ontology of labor and capitalist production. In so... (shrink)