References
- Baird , A. Craig . 1962 . “Speech and the ‘New’ Philosophies” . Central States Speech Journal , XIII Autumn : 241 – 246 . Of course there will be disagreements over the details of the “Magna Charta of Communications” which our seventeen founders gave us, but in my opinion Baird speaks in a voice that typifies what we in speech departments are indeed. We may well tend to maintain the persuasion‐conviction duality, as indeed Baird does in his essay, although the central work of one of our “founders” was to destroy it, We shall probably approve Baird's giving logic the “paramount place” because this makes it easier to maintain our “balance” when we borrow, as Baird notes we do, from the techniques of Madison Avenue and the social psychologists (or, perhaps, borrow from the psychologists for the benefit of Madison Avenue). We shall do this all in the name of what we call tough minded pragmatism, noting that man is not only a rational animal but a contrary one. After all, in his contrary ways he shall disagree and, in being rational about his disagreements, shall in his social settings face value judgments. This brings us face to face with ethics, and noting that we are face to face with ethics, we are somehow happy, and go little further.
- Christopherson , Myrvin F. 1963 . “Speech and the ‘New’ Philosophies Revisited” . Central States Speech Journal , XIV February : 5 – 11 .
- Baird, p. 241.
- Barrett . 1962 . Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy 19 New York William Barrett, e.g., makes a good case for calling William James, “something of a black sheep even among pragmatists” an existentialist. Barrett writes, “And it is not merely a matter of tone, but of principle, that places James among the Existentialists: he plumped for a world which contained contingency, discontinuity, and in which the centers of experience were irreducibly plural and personal, as against a ‘block’ universe that could be enclosed in a single rational system” See
- Upon reading a manuscript by Sartre, Heidegger is supposed to have shaken his head and said, “That's not what I meant”
- 1952 . Critical Thinking 4 – 5 . New York
- That is, we apply this test when we are not busy saying that “good speaking” is “what really works”
- 1955 . “Limits of Rhetoric” . Quarterly Journal of Speech , XLI April : 133 – 139 . One rather well accepted position is that philosophy is the study of presuppositions. From this view, Maurice Natanson's point that, since we have failed to delve systematically into the presuppositions of rhetoric, we have failed to erect, a “philosophy” of rhetoric, must be well taken. See his
- One cannot help but be embarrassed to make such sweeping assertions concerning centuries of man's thought. Such matters are never as simple as they are pictured, even in long treatises. Readers of Carl L. Becker's The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers may note some similarity between his picture and this crude sketch.
- This is the first sentence of the first chapter of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1789.
- Anyone who wishes may interpret a decision to resist as in some way perversely serving the pleasure principle.
- Perhaps there is no danger in the reader's taking these sentences as anything other than what they are: one writer's attempt to grapple with some difficult terms. If they seem immediately clear and sensible or devoid of sense, then the writer has failed, although more radically in the former than the latter case. Many important questions remain untouched, e.g., Are Existence and Being synonymous terms? Is Heidegger's distinction between beings and Being a sound one? (Which may be putting the first question in another form.)
- The terms “subject” and “object” take on great significance in most existentialist writing. Man is aware of a world filled with things (objects or “beings"), but he does not experience himself as a thing. For himself, he is a subject. No one can experience him as he experiences himself. At the same time, he realizes that other human beings, whom he experiences as objects, are for themselves subjects, subjects who experience him as an object. Sartre makes much of the importance of that moment of recognition that one is an object for others—the observer observes himself observed. It is not the cognitive grasp of these as concepts but the immediacy of the concrete knowledge that there exists another private world which in its being demolishes my private world (I am only a thing in it) which is important. Whether the subject‐object relation can ever be transcended, and, if so, in what ways, are questions of the utmost importance. Answers to these questions must have key implications for the practice of rhetoric.
- As the Devil exclaims in the Don Juan in Hell scene of Shaw's Man and Superman, "At the bottom the universe is a constitutional one; and with such a majority as mine I cannot be kept permanently out of office”
- Frankl , Viktor . 1963 . Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy 104 – 105 . New York Frankl's entire theory of therapy is based on the assumption of man's freedom: ‘'There is nothing conceivable that would so condition a man as to leave him without the slightest freedom. Therefore, a residue of freedom, however limited it may be, is left to man in neurotic and even psychotic cases” (p. 211)
- Ibid., pp. 171‐172. Much that the existentialist writers say will sound familiar to almost anyone in the tradition of Western thinking. We should expect men whose history is our history to be entangled in our world. Frankl writes, for example, “One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it” (p. 172). One hesitates to cite such a passage in fear that the reader will respond, “Oh, yes. I know that” Of course every quotation is a quotation out of context, but in citing the existentialists one feels more than the usual uneasiness.
- See Barrett, p. 72 and pp. 76‐77.
- Randall . 1960 . Aristotle 30 – 31 . New York John Herman Randall, Jr., writes, “Even logic, ‘Analytics,’ is for Aristotle not a science but a dynamis, a ‘power'; a techne, an ‘art'; organon, a ‘tool.’ Aristotle's analysis is never an end in itself, but is always for the sake of ‘knowing,’ of science. It may be suspected that Aristotle would have had little sympathy with modern mathematical logic, which aims at beauty rather than use, and takes the view of the Platonic tradition, that logic is a ‘science,’ the science of order” See
- Brembeck , Winston L. and Howell , William S. 1952 . Persuasion 126 New York
- Lowrie , Walter , ed. 1954 . Fear and Trembling in Fear and Trembling and, The Sickness Unto Death 41 128 – 129 . Garden City, New York
- Fogarty , Daniel . 1959 . Roots for a New Rhetoric New York I do not mean to disparage Fogarty's work nor that of the men with whom he deals, I. A. Richards, Kenneth Burke, and several General Semanticists. But I do not feel that we shall find roots for a new rhetoric in an attempt to make a whole of concepts drawn from several sources for the instruction of a freshman class. (See, esp., Chapter Five.) We may be able to integrate insights gathered from many sources, but the ground for that integration needs a great deal more preparation
- “Positivist man is a curious creature who dwells in the tiny island of light composed of what he finds scientifically ‘meaningful,’ while the whole surrounding area in which ordinary men live from day to day and have their dwellings with other men is consigned to the outer darkness of ‘meaningless.’ “ Barrett, p. 21.
- Anderson , Raymond . 1963 . “Kierkegaard's Theory of Communication” . Speech Monographs , XXX March : 13 – 14 .
- May , Rollo . 1958 . “Contributions of Existential Psychotherapy” . In Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology Edited by: May , Rollo , Angel , Ernest and Ellenberger , Henri F. 61 New York
- Maslow , Abraham H. 1962 . Toward a Psychology of Being 36 – 38 . Princeton, New Jersey
- Maslow . 1954 . Motivation and Personality New York In an earlier book, Maslow pictures man's needs as being on a hierarchy of prepotency, that is, some needs must be fulfilled before others can come into focus, e.g., unless a man's safety needs are relatively well fulfilled, he cannot be involved in satisfying esteem needs. Maslow sees the progressively “higher” assent on the ladder of needs to be, per se, good (mental health, indeed, might be defined as fulfillment of man's higher needs making possible the seeking of “self‐actualization"). Threatening or fixing at a lower level is potentially disabling as such. See
- Wieman , Henry . 1961 . “Speech in the Existential Situation” . Quarterly Journal of Speech , XLII April : 150 – 157 . (Wieman, a professional philosopher, is one of the few who draws consciously from existential thought.)
- Wieman and Walter , Otis M. 1957 . “Toward an Analysis of Ethics for Rhetoric” . Quarterly Journal of Speech , XLIII October : 266 – 270 .
- Smith , Donald K. 1962 . “Teaching Speech to Facilitate Under standing” . Speech Teacher , XI March : 91 – 100 .
- Walter and Scott . 1962 . Thinking and Speaking 177 – 182 . New York chap. 12, esp.
- See note 23 above.
- Paradoxically, because that which is impossible is unethical. Any paradox, however, is removed by the thought that, as Kierkegaard sees it, a persuasive attempt in ethico‐religious matters may engender an easy, intellectual agreement thus holding the listener apart from facing existentially the inner conviction necessary for the engendering of “truth”
- Maslow, p. v.
- Cf. Anderson, “A direct form of discourse is useful, according to Kierkegaard, if one is communicating objective content or if the listener already has a serious interest in the ethical or religious quality of his life” (p. 5). Of course, here “direct” is not simply synonymous with “expository”
- Weaver , Richard . 1963 . “Language Is Sermonic” . In Dimensions of Rhetorical Scholarship, Edited by: Nebergall , Roger . 49 – 64 . 54 Norman, Oklahoma
- Bryant . 1953 . “Rhetoric: Its Functions and Its Scope” . Quarterly Journal of Speech , XXXIX December : 401 – 424 . From this point of view Donald C. Bryant's re‐definition of rhetoric as “the art of informative and suasory discourse” is not only unnecessary but deceptive. See
- 1959 . Quarterly Journal of Speech , XL October : 282 – 287 .
- Ehninger and Brockriede , Wayne E. 1963 . Decision by Debate New York Chapter 2
- Black , Edwin . 1958 . “Plato's View of Rhetoric” . Quarterly Journal of Speech , XLIV December : 364
- 1962 . The Ethics of Ambiguity 33 – 34 . New York De Beauvoir's comparing existentialism to religion may cause the reader to wonder about my typification of Christianity above. But the predominant Western religion has always had to struggle to bring together the non‐Platonic origins with the Platonic Idealism which permeated it early in its history. See e.g., Barrett, Chapter 4, “Hebraism and Hellenism”
- Cf. Anderson on Kierkegaard's idea of belief, p. 4.