On Viewing Rhetoric As Epistemic: Ten Years Later.

RHETORIC AS EPISTE}IIC
ogi€s in claiming an episternic role for
rbetoric is to poteotidity, the ctaim of knov'
ing rhetoricaity it th"t of creatiog actuality'
Seeing in a situation possibilities that are
possibilities for us and deciding to act uPon
iome of these possibilities but not others
must be an irnportant constituent of what
\\'e rlean by human knowledge. The plural
pronoun in the foregoing sentence-is-vital.
As social beings, our possibilities and choices
must often, perhaps almost always, be joint'
Tn'o qualifcations are irnportant to tfe
claim made for rbetorig and both should be
apparent from what I've argued already, but
perhaps need to be made explicit: ceating
situations as decisive and deciding arlong
alternatites are not tbe concern of rhetoric
exclusitely; seeing possibilities and maling
decisions are not seguential steps in the sense
of Srst all of the one and then all of the
other but rather repeated phases that may be
constaatly enriched in rhetorical interchange'
It is precisely in understanding how human
action is decisit'e that rhetoric makes its con'
tribution to knowing.
The position talien here, obviously, is one
thet is Lecoming increasingly comnron: real'
ity is socially constructed-ls But if one takes
that position certain concomitants must be
faced. Our freedom to decide questions, and
indeed, rvhat we take to be problems Plesent'
ing guestions to us for decision, are to sorne
degree 6xed by historical forces that predate
any of the lives of tbe actual persons that
rnay be involved at decisive moments. The
fact of having a culture with its traditibns
does not seem problematic at all; what may
be problematic is the very notion of freedom
to Jecide guestions. Yet we notice that traditions
do not simply exist, they are liled. A
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culture may precede and persist after any
finite number of persons living in that culture
at a particular time, but that culture
must be lived to be a culture.
In short, q€ can corne to grips with our
tradition; it is from one aogle simply $ere'
transparent because it is pen'asive. But the
living of cultural demands makes them
opaque to some degree so that they reflect, so
to speak, what they are and what we are'
Wtiat ;s rellected v'ill inevitably contain disparate
features, and those features are what
iu" .^tt treat as problen:s-to-be-soh'ed and
take ourselves as decisive. Therein lies our
freedonr, which, altlrough scarcely absolute,
is nonetheless experienced and attested to in
social drange.
The opacity of living is n'hat bids fo*h
rhetoric. A remark in passing by Hans'Georg
Gadan'rer seens to n:e to be an in:portant
insight: the "concePt of clarity beloirgs to
the tradition of rhetoric." 1a But few terms
are mole relative than that one nor call forth
nrore strongly a human element. Nothing is
clear in and of itself but in some context for
some Persons.
Rhetoric may be darifying in these senses:
understanding that one's traditions are one's
os,n, that is, are co'substantial rvith one's
oq'n being and that these traditions are
forrnatite in cne's otl'n liviog; understanding
that these traditions are malleable and
that one s'ith one's fellows rnay act decisively
in s'ays that continue, extend, or truncate
the values inherent in one's culture; and
understanding that in acting decisively that
one pariicipates in 6xing forces that will
continue after the PurPoses for which they
have been immediately instrurnental and
nill, to some extent, bind others who will
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inherit the n:odi6ed traditions. Such under'
Perbaps the best knos'n book that derelops
the idea in detail is Peter L. Berger and Thomas standing is genuinely knowing and is knor*'
Luclimann. The Social Conttruction ol Reality ing that becomes 6lled out in some particu'
(Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co''
iq6e). See aiso Ernest G. Bormann, "Fantasy and tars by participating rhetorically.
Rbet6rical Vision: Tbe Rhetorical Giticism of If one sees rhetoric as a way of embracing
-social Reatity," Qtarterly !orrnal.of S4lec!, J8
(Dec.7972). 196'407. Jo! onc rhetortcrans de'
.rielopment o? a schemi rhat is postulated directly taTrutb and Alethod, 2nd Ed., 1961, e-d.
on o'hrt is becoming more and more strongly a Garrett Barden and John Cumming (New York:
corlrerstone of contemporary thought.
The Seabury Press, 1975).
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