burke aristotle rhetoric

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Kenneth Burke, Aristotle, and the Future of RhetoricAuthor(s): Joseph SchwartzSource: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 17, No. 5 (Dec., 1966), pp. 210-216Published by: National Council of Teachers of EnglishStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/354068 .

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?(ennethurke,Aristotle,ndthe ?Futuref.Rhetoric

JOSEPH SCHWARTZTHERE HAS BEEN MUCH TALK of late ofa new rhetoric or, even more sobering,of new rhetorics. "I think," RobertGorrell has written, "that there arelegitimate reasons for considering thenew rhetoric as more valid than analogyand more substantial than myth."' At thevery least, as Richard Ohmann hasobserved, "if the new rhetoric has yetto appear, there is no shortage of newideas about rhetoric."2 If such a thingexists or is in the process of beingborn-a "new" rhetoric, that is, notsimply a rhetoric by a new man asQuintilian's rhetoric was "new" in com-parison with Aristotle's-then one shouldbe able to discover something of itscharacter by a close study of the oneman whose name is regularly andconsistently mentioned by those whodiscuss new rhetorics-Kenneth Burke.Since most rhetorical treatises fromAristotle's time through the nineteenthcentury were somewhat like Aristotle'sin their approach (or the authorsthought they were being like Aristotle),it will be more than convenient to look

at Burke and Aristotle together. Aristotlewill provide a frame of reference withinwhich we can better comprehendBurke's views. To paraphrase T. S. Eliot:no rhetorician has his complete meaningalone. "His significance, his appreciation,is the appreciation of his relation to1'Very Like a Whale-A Report on Rhetoric,"College Composition and Communication, XVI(October, 1965), 139.2"In Lieu of a New Rhetoric,"College En-glish, XXVI (October, 1964), 17.

what has gone before. You cannot valuehim alone; you must set him up, forcontrast and comparison, among thedead."3 This is a principle of historicalcriticism to which I shall return again.I will not be concerned with studyingthe influence of Aristotle on Burke,although that influence is obvious;rather, I will be concerned with thecomprehensible associations which canbe determined by comparison and con-trast. My approach is phenomenological,not causal.A second reason for looking carefullyat the work of Kenneth Burke whenconsidering the future of rhetoric is that

he is truly concerned with somethingthat can still be called rhetoric withinthe historical meaning of that term. Heis, for example, much different fromI. A. Richards or Alfred Korzybski andthe semanticists. Richards is basicallyconcerned with the meaning of words,a small though fundamental aspect ofthe rhetorical problem. Korzybski, too,is concerned with meaning-the meaningof meaning, and thus with one aspectof rhetoric. Since, however, his majoreffort is to destroy the concept ofrhetoric itself by amputating from lan-guage its rhetorical dimension-the pow-er of the word in its tendentious matrix-he is ultimately concerned with thebuilding of an anti-rhetoric. Burke, onthe other hand, is large in scope, broadfor a subject characterized historically byits broadness. He is so much the rhet-3"Tradition and the Individual Talent,"Selected Essays (New York,1932), p. 4.

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KENNETH BURKEorician that his literary criticism, exceptfor some brilliant personal insights, is oflittle value,4 since the aesthetic dimen-sion of literature is almost totally ob-scured for Burke by its rhetoricaldimension. And since Aristotle, buildingupon the example of Isocrates and ahint from Plato in the Phaedrus, gaveto rhetoric its historically characteristicscope, he will serve as both father anda representative of the tradition fromwhich Burke grows.Burke accepts both traditionally broaddefinitions of rhetoric as the art ofpersuasion, on the one hand, and thestudy of the means of persuasion avail-able for any given situation, on theother.5 The sociological view of things,endemic to Burke's thinking, is reflectedin his specific statements. Rhetoric is"the use of language as a symbolicmeans of inducing cooperation in beingsthat by nature respond to symbols."6Many years ago, C. S. Baldwin madethe point that two conceptions of rhet-oric, not mutually exclusive, have com-peted throughout the ages. First wasAristotle's concept of rhetoric as the artof giving effectiveness to the truth.Second was the notion of rhetoric as theart of giving effectiveness to the speaker.A crucial matter of emphasis, rather thangeneric causes, makes for a significantdifference. Burke's inclination is towardgiving effectiveness to the speaker, eventhough it cannot be said finally that hehas no concern for giving effectivenessto the truth. Although his epistemologi-cal position differs significantly fromthat of Aristotle's, he does give heed tothe concept of energizing the truth ashe understands it. In Counter-Statement,however, he seems to define rhetoricas "the use of language in such a wayas to produce a desired impression upon4MariusBewley,"Kenneth urkeas LiteraryCritic,"The ComplexFate (London, 1952), pp.211-243.5A Rhetoric of Motives (New York, 1950),p. 46.6Ibid., p. 43.

the hearer or reader."7 And since Burkeis convinced that the condition ofestrangement is natural to society as weknow it,8 the position of the persuaderbecomes vitally important. He is the onewho must achieve some kind of socialcohesion. He does this through themethod of identification. He must beable to identify with the needs, values,and desires of others in order to under-stand, and hence, persuade them. Fur-ther, with this knowledge he must beable to make others identify with hisprogram of action. In Burke's termi-nology, identification takes place in theprocess of consubstantiality. Burke rec-ognizes the sameness of human material,the eternal likenesses of the humancondition, and asserts that the patternsof experience for all men are muchalike.9 The persuader selects from thecluster of attitudes which surround asubject/object those that will evoke thepattern of experience suasive to one'scause. If our patterns are substantiallythe same, as Burke believes, identifica-tion is nothing more than "a name forthe function of sociality."10 Burke'smethod and description will seem lesscomplex and language-burdened if wecall to mind, as an analogy only, T. S.Eliot's definition of the objective correla-tive.

The natural desire to be cooperative(because of Burke's views of languageand of man as a symbol-using animal)and the natural desire to be competitive(because of Burke's view of the condi-tion of society) are balanced in hisdefinition of rhetoric, yet once again,as "a study of the competitive use ofthe cooperative.""Despite Burke's "well oiled and metal-

7 (Los Altos, California, 1953), p. 210.8A Rhetoricof Motives,p. 211.9Counter-Statement, pp. 176-178, and AGrammarof Motives (New York, 1945), pp.55-58.l0Attitudes Toward History (New York,1937) II, 144.11A Rhetoric of Motives, p. 442.

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COLLEGE COMPOSITIONAND COMMUNICATIONlie" vocabulary, there is little that isradicallynew in his definitions of rhet-oric. He is very Aristotelian in hispracticalawarenessof the fallibility ofthe human being. Much of Aristotle'sRhetorichas a handbookcharacterbe-cause of his recognitionof the need togive effectiveness to the speaker. Ulti-mately, however, it must be said thatBurke differs from Aristotlein a matterof emphasis again. Aristotle'sdefinitionof rhetoric seems more concernedwithgiving effectiveness to the truth. "Wesee that its function is not to persuade,but to discover the available means ofpersuasion n a given case."In a givencase, speaking broadly, the persuaderhimself is only one of the means;thereremains the truth of the propositionitself, insofaras probablescan be calledtrue, and the characterof the audience.I do not mean to suggest by this thatBurke is a sophist;his neo-liberalprag-matism means a great deal to him asthe propositionhe advances for accep-tance.12He feels as stronglyas Aristotledoes that rhetoric is a counterpartofdialectic and is related especially toethics and politics. Burke makes muchof dialectic,the namingprocess, nsistingthat it is a veritable part of rhetoricalinquiryitself. For Burke dialectic is thecounterpartof rhetoric in the same waythat for Aristotlerhetoric is a counter-part of dialectic. Aristotle's openingdiscussion in the Rhetoric provides uswith a division between rhetoric anddialectic that warns us, as MauriceNatansonnotes, "againstconfusingtruthwith its artful presentationand at thesame time shows that they are separatefacets of a single universeof discourse:the intelligible world."'3 I am quitesure that Burke is deeply cognizant ofthe idea of a singleuniverseof discourse;

12Nevertheless,ragmatism y its very na-ture lendsitself to meansrather hanends.13"TheLimitsof Rhetoric,"n TheProvinceof Rhetoric, edited by Joseph Schwartz andJohn Rycenga (New York,1965), p. 58.

I am not nearly so confident that heescapes the confusion between the truthand its artful presentation. In any event,his emphasis seems to be on its presenta-tion in his various definitions of rhetoric.This will become clearer if we turn tohis analysis of the function of rhetoric.The function of rhetoric for Burkeflows with expected directions fromhis definitions. (One should keep inmind, as well, his assumptions aboutthe nature of society.) The end of rhet-oric is "to form attitudes or to induceactions."'4 More specifically, its purposeis "the manipulation of men's beliefsfor political ends."15 When it comes todiscussing end as purpose, Burke, aspragmatist, stresses forcibly the conceptof the world as a place of strife.Rhetoric is

. . . par excellence the region of theScramble,of insult and injury,bickering,squabbling, malice and the lie, cloakedmalice and the subsidized ie.16His celebrated image of the universeof discourse is that of "the HumanBarnyard with its addiction to theScramble."'7 Even language containsthe element of threat. Consequently,then, the function of rhetoric is to pro-mote social cooperation in the humanjungle. In order to do this rhetoric shouldbe used to impose an ultimate hierarchyupon social forms:

.. a sound system of communication,such as lies at the roots of civilization,cannot be built upon a structureof eco-nomic warfare. The discordant"subper-sonalities"of the world'sconflictingcul-tures and heterogeneous kinds of effortcan only be reintegrated by means ofa unifying "master-purpose,"with thelogic of classificationthat would followfromit. The segregational,or dissociative14ARhetoricof Motives, p. 41.1I5bid.l6Permanence and Change (Los Altos, Cali-fornia, 1954), p. 163.17A Rhetoricof Motives,p. 442.

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KENNETHBURKEstatecannot ndure-andmustmakewayfor an associative,or congregationalstate.18

While Aristotle accepts as obvious theprescriptivefunction of rhetoric,Burkegoes far beyond anythingsuggested byAristotle. As a matter of fact, it seemsto me that Aristotle warns againstprecisely the kind of thing Burke does."Andhence it is that Rhetoric,and thosewho profess it, slip into the guise ofpolitics,whetherfrom defects of educa-tion, or through quackery,or fromotherhumanfailings."For Aristotle,the func-tion of rhetoric (like the function ofdialectic) can be apprehendedin thatit is the facultyfor providingarguments;it is not the science of politics. SinceAristotlerecognizes,however, that pop-ular audiences cannot follow scientificdemonstrations,he acknowledges theneed in the political order for the useof rhetoric.And he does assert that self-defense is one of the functions of rhet-oric. But it finds its end in judgment,not in a hierarchyof socialforms,which,for Aristotle,would have been a given.Because of his belief in the perfectibilityof man, he has more faith in scientificdemonstrationand does not emphasizethe "HumanBarnyardwith its addictionto Scramble."Truth is, for him, a largerterm than rhetoric (or dialectic). Iwonder if the same can be said forBurke? Although Aristotle deals atlength with the emotions, so cruciallyimportantfor those who think of theuniverseof discourse as a Barnyard,heis specificallycritical of the "technical"writersof his day who dealt solely withthisaspectof the art.For Burke, the persuader,operatingdialectically, finds the proper "name"and tries rhetorically o persuadeothersthat this is the proper "name." Thisprocedure of naming and advocatingseems to go on and on until through

the inter-relatedrhetoricaland dialecti-cal processeswe reach an ultimateclas-sifying principle which becomes aguiding unitary principle. For Burke,this principle seems to be the Marxianview of reality. The diffuse world ofprobables becomes finally an absolute.There is nothing so ambitiousin Aris-totle. For him, rhetoricoperatesonly inthe world of probables,not in the worldof scientificdemonstration.We deliber-ate, he tells us, only about such thingsas admit of possibilities; on matterswhich admit of no alternative,,no onedeliberates.It follows logically that for Burke thescope of rhetoric is immense, almostunlimited.Whereverthere is "meaning,"there is persuasion.l9The dimensionsof the linguisticlocality in the universeof discourseare fourfold and all containrhetoric.The first dimensionof languageis the logical one or, as Burke calls it,the naming process. This correspondsroughly to Aristotle'suse of the termreason in the Rhetoric. Next is therhetorical dimension-how one uses the"name."This seems somewhatlike Aris-totle's concept of pathos. The ethicaldimensionof language,that is, the studyof terms that express value judgmentsas these reveal the person,is similartoAristotle'sdiscussion of ethos in relationto the character of the speaker. Thefinal dimension of language, poetical-the use of symbols, has yet to be dis-cussed at length by Burke. One canpredict, however, that this will be hisequivalent for Aristotle's Poetics in itsconception of subject. The scope ofrhetoric s in the firstplace, then,verbal.Burke has a puissant sense of thepotency and efficacyof the word, sincehe feels that man revealshis symbolizingcapacity through language. The per-suader must, it follows, be an adequateanalyst of language. Rhetoric is con-cealed in every meaningno matterhow

l9Ibid., p. 172.

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COLLEGE COMPOSITIONAND COMMUNICATIONscientific the pretensions of the namermight be. All linguistic structures mustbe seen within their meta-linguisticdimensions.

Because of Burke's view of the scopeof rhetoric, he stresses the nonverbal(in Aristotle's terms, "non-artistic")modes of persuasion. Aristotle deals withthese non-artistic proofs, but definesthem so that they seem clearly apartfrom the ordinary dimensions of therhetorical situation. Since they are notsupplied by the speaker/writer's effort,existing beforehand as a given, they arenot contained within the aspect of the"discovery" of the available means ofpersuasion. But since they can be em-ployed, especially in forensic speaking,they are available to the rhetorician,now understood as the practitioner ofthe art. Aristotle devotes about twentyparagraphs to the non-artistic means,discussing those at hand in his day.Thus, for Aristotle, the evidence ofwitnesses is an external proof, thougha legitimate means to be drawn uponif it suits the case in question. For Burkeany non-verbal object/symbol becomesa rhetorical tool because it has rhetoricin it. He draws liberally from ethics,psychology, anthropology, psychologyand psychoanalysis for samples of suchobject/symbols. It can be said withoutquestion that for Burke everything hasrhetoric in it. Some of his commentatorshave made the point, however, thatBurke is aware of the fact that noteverything is rhetoric. I wonder. A closelook at his literary criticism persuadesme that for him even the art object,which should have its own aestheticjustification for being, is a rhetoricalobject first and foremost, not merelysomething that has rhetoric in it.20 Itmay be that Burke is correct in minimiz-

20Cf. Bewley. And consider the implicationsof this sentence from Counter-Statement,p.210: "Inaccordancewith the definition we havecited, effective literaturecould be nothing elsebut rhetoric. . ."

ing the distinctions that exist betweenscience and rhetoric, on the one hand,and art and rhetoric, on the other. Butit is clear that in this way he differsfrom Aristotle, again by way of empha-sis. Aristotle's definition of the scope ofrhetoric is broad in its view that thosethings belong to rhetoric (things thatcome within the general ken of men)which belong to no definite science.Burke's notion of scope is broader. Thedifference may be explained by the yearsbetween the two men. The experienceof centuries, the advances in technology,and the growth of knowledge aboutpsychology are all factors which couldpossibly convince one that every scienceand art is both itself and rhetoric.

Aristotle's view of the nature, function,and scope of rhetoric has its origin in hisepistemological position. I have alreadyalluded to his idea that truth exists, thatman can acquire it, and that acquiringit will lead to a fuller and better life.Man is in a state of becoming, of actual-izing his potential, working toward hisultimate perfectibility. He is distin-guished from the rest of creation in hisactivity by a rational principle. The morehe heeds the directives of reason, themore he will realize the potential of hissoul. He is by nature a rational and politi-cal animal whose identifying characteris-tic is to be in society. Aristotle's en-lightened paganism was so cogentlyexpressed and carefully constructed thatmany of his commentators are convincedthat his limitations are historical ratherthan philosophical.Burke's view of the nature, function,and scope of rhetoric also has its originin certain epistemological positions. Heinsists that man is free to make choices,that language is sermonic-and hencepersuasion is possible. Not only ispersuasion possible, but ever-increasingcertitude is likely because of the rela-tionship between dialectic and rhetoric.Through an awareness of the interplayof these two, man can discover that a

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KENNETH BURKEhierarchy of social goals does exist, ahierarchy with an ultimate unitary termat the top. But since life is a warfare,it will have to compete with otherproposed unitary terms. The Marxianversion of the Hegelian dialectic isapplied to the masses of men in theclass war and the "magic" of languageemerges. It is ultimately a materialisticview of reality with man, as symbol-using animal, at its center-the centerof a socio-political framework. At thebase of this view of the world of intel-ligible discourse is an ethical system. Itis, however, an ethical system so vaguethat it is difficult to define. Action isgood; inaction is bad. Participation isgood; non-participation is bad. Coopera-tion and communication are preferredto non-cooperation and non-communica-tion. Means seem to be confused withends.While I have noted many of the differ-ences between Burke and Aristotle, whatimpresses me most, finally, is theirlikenesses. And what I am led to con-clude is that there must be a traditionof rhetoric which is still intact, a durabletradition with something indestructibleabout it. It should be possible, then, topredict that this tradition will be promi-nent in whatever future rhetoric mayhave. The tendency for scholars tocommend those aspects of a rhetorician'stheory in which he is most unlike othersis a natural one; yet it should not obscurethe value of those things in which hemay be most like his predecessors. Itappears to me that the I-Message-Thoutriangle is the permanent center of therhetorical macrocosm. The componentsof this triangle are indigenous to thenature of discourse. A knowledge of thecentral tradition of rhetoric enlightensthe scholar as to the enduring qualityof something central to the fact of thisdiscipline. Our attitudes toward eachelement of the triangle may, indeed,change as circumstances alter. Ourunderstanding of each component may

be modified as a result of experienceand new knowledge. But somethingpermanent is being altered, being modi-fied. The durable elements of thistriangle would seem to be the natureof man as persuader and persuadable,the character of discourse as sermonic,and right action as guided by the truthas end. I do not mean to imply thatBurke can be judged as valuable onlyby assessing him in the light of Aristo-telian principles, although some kind ofjudgment in that order is inevitable. Imean instead that Burke is necessarilyBurke as Burke because Aristotle hasbeen.I look forward to new theories ofrhetoric and to the practice of newrhetoricians (as artists), but I do notforesee the development of somethingso new that it cannot be regarded aspart of the tradition of rhetoric. Toparaphrase T. S. Eliot again: rhetoricnever improves, but the material ofrhetoric is never quite the same.21Burke, for instance, as a representativesample of the new, must be in the wayof looking something like Aristotle (andhe is), while at the same time he mustbe somewhat different as a result of hisawareness of the past and the present.The tradition of rhetoric finally seemsto me to be something like the following:that body of principles which inevitablyflows from the I-Message-Thou relation-ship with its perception of the pastnessof the past and of the presence of thepast as it creates a simultaneous co-herent order that thrusts through theawareness of the presentness of thepresent into the future.Let me be specific with but oneillustration of a contemporary movementthat has received more attention fromrhetoricians than it deserves. ReadingBurke as he is an extension and con-tributor to the mainstream of the rhetori-cal tradition is convincing evidence that

21T. S. Eliot, p. 6.

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COLLEGE COMPOSITIONAND COMMUNICATIONthe hope for a rhetoric of non-commit-ment much sought after in certainquarters in our century is an impossi-bility. To purify the language of thetribe by amputating the tendentiousaspect of language is not only impossiblebut absurd. To discriminate amongvalues through the use of language isthe only direction that rhetoric can take.To avoid the manifold problems raisedby that stance is to avoid the world ofintelligible discourse itself. The newnessof any "new" rhetoric will have validityonly if that rhetoric is an integral partof the vital and lively tradition of "old"rhetoric.22 So, it seems to me, there islittle gained but novelty in identifyingour contemporary attempts at communi-cation as a "new" rhetoric, except asthe term "new" is analogous. The presentrevival of interest in classical rhetoricis a good thing because it will force us

22This is, I think,how we have used the term"new" when applied to poetry. Poetry as Eliotnotes in the citation above is never new inthe sense that it is an improvement over pastpoetry.

to become acquainted once more withthe roots of the tradition of which weare but the latest extension in time. Wewill discern perhaps that the history ofrhetoric must be perceived as the studyof the concept of effective expressionas the terms of that definition areunderstood within the epistemological,metaphysical, and ethical framework ofany given moment in history.23 We willlearn, as well, that the concept ofexpression itself has durable propertiescapable of modification only becausethere is something durable there to beginwith. Knowing these things will not leadevery man to choose a substantive rhet-oric over a pragmatic rhetoric or anintoxicant rhetoric, but it will make thereasons for any given choice clear.24Marquette UniversityMilwaukee, Wisconsin23 p. AlbertDuhamel, "The Function of Rhet-oric as Effective Expression," The Province ofRhetoric, pp. 36-37.24Eric Voegelin, "NecessaryMoral Bases for

Communication n a Democracy,"Problems ofCommunication in a Pluralistic Society, editedby Reynolds C. Seitz (Milwaukee, Wisconsin,1956), pp. 53-68.

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