A RHETORIC

OTHER BOOKS BY

KENNETH BURKE
OF MOTIVES
Counter-Statement
Revised Edition
Revised Paperback Edition
Towards a Better Life, A Series of Epistles, or Declamations
Revised Edition
Permanence and Change, An Anatomy o£ Purpose
Revised Edition
Paperback Edition
Attitudes Toward History
Revised Edition
Paperback Edition
Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action
KENNETH BURKE
Paperback Edition (Abridged)
Revised Edition
A Grammar of Motives
Paperback Edition
A Rhetoric of Motives
Paperback Edition
Book o£ Moments, Poems 1915-1954
The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology
Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life,
Literature, and Method
Collected Poems, 1915-1967
The Complete White Oxen: Collected Short Fiction
First Version
Augmented Version
Perspectives by Incongruity,
Edited by S. E. Hyman and B. Karmiller
Terms fw Order,
Edited by S. E. Hyman and B. Karmiller

UNIVERSITY O F CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley and Los Angeles 1969
 54 TRADITIONAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC TRADITIONAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC 55
The point is worth remembering because the verbal "counterpart" of of truth). The rhetorician, as such, need operate only on this principie.
\ dialectic, rhetoric, was likewise said to deal with "opinion," though If, in the opinion of a given audience, a certain kind of conduct is ad-
without the systematic attempt to transcend this level. mirable, then a speaker might persuade the audience by using ideas
The competitive and public ingredient in persuasion makes it par- and images that identify his cause with that kind of conduct.
ticularly urgent that the rhetoric work at the leve1 of opinion. Thus,
in a situation where an appeal to prejudice might be more effective
than an appeal to reason, the rhetorician who would have his cause
l It is not hard," says Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, quoting Socrates, "to
prevail may need to use such means, regardless of his preferences. 1 U

Cicero says that one should answer argument with argument and emo- praise Athenians among Athenians." He has been cataloguing those
tional appeal by a stirring o£ the opposite emotions (goading to hate traits which an audience generally considers the components o£ virtue.
where the opponent had established good will, and countering com- They are justice, courage, self-control, poise or presence (magnificence,
passion by incitement to envy). And Aristotle refers with approval to megaloprepeia), broad-mindedness, liberality, gentleness, prudence and
Gorgias' notion that one should counter an opponent's jest with earnest wisdom. And he has been saying: For purposes o£ praise or blame,
and his earnest with jest. T o persuade under such conditions, truth is the rhetorician will asume that qualities closely resembling any o£
at best a secondary device. Hence, rhetoric is properly said to be )
J these qualities are identical with them. For instance, to arouse dislike
grounded in opinion. But we think that the relation between "truth" for a cautious man, one should present him as cold and designing. Or
and the kind of opinion with which rhetoric operates is often misun- to make a simpleton lovable, play up his good nature. Or speak of
derstood. And the classical texts do not seem to bring out the point quarrelsomeness as frankness, or of arrogance as poise and dignity, or
we have in mind, namel y : o£ foolhardiness as courage, and of squandering as generosity. Also,
The kind o£ opinion with which rhetoric deals, in its role of induce- he says, we should consider the audience before whom we are thus
ment to action, is not opinion as contrasted tvith truth. There is the l passing judgment: for it's hard to praise Athenians when you are talk-
invitation to look at the matter thus antithetically, once we have put ing to Lacedaemonians.
the two terms (opinion and truth) together as a dialectical pair. But Part of the quotation appears in Book 1. It is quoted again, entire,
actually, many o£ the "opinions" upon which persuasion relies fa11 out- 1 in Book 111, where he has been discussing the speaker's appeal to
side the test of truth in the strictly scientific, T-F, yes-or-no sense. I
friendship or compassion. And he continues: When winding up a
Thus, if a given audience has a strong opinion that a certain kind of speech in praise of someone, we "must make the hearer believe that he
conduct is admirable, the orator can commend a person by using signs shares in the praise, either personally, or through his family or pro-
that identify him with such conduct. "Opinion" in this ethical sense fession, or somehow." When you are with Athenians, it's easy to praise
clearly falls on the bias across the matter of "truth" in the strictly scien- Athenians, but not when you are with Lacedaemonians.
- Here is perhaps the simplest case of persuasion. You persuade a man '
\

tific sense. O£ course, a speaker may be true or false in identifying a

person by some particular sign of virtuous conduct. You may say that only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality,
a person so acted when the person did not so act-and if you succeed 1
order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his.f ~ e r s u i
in making your audience believe you, you could be said to be trafficking ,sion by flattery is but a special case of persuasion in general. But flat-
in sheer opinion as contrasted with the truth. But we are here con- !tery can safely serve as our paradigm i£ we systematically widen its
cerned with motives a step farther back than such mere deception. We , meaning, to see behind it the conditions of identification or consub
are discussing the underlying ethical assumptions on which the entire 1 stantiality in general. And you give the "signs" of such consubstan-
itactics of persuasion are based. Here the important factor is opinion piality by deference to an audience's "opinions." For the orator, follow-
(opinion in the moral order of action, rather than in the "scenic" order ing Aristotle and Cicero, will seek to display the appropriate "signs"
 TRADITIONAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC 57

1
of character needed to earn the audience's good will. True, the rhet- Aristotle also considers another kind of "topic," got by the manipula-
orician may have to change an audience's opinion in one respect; but tion of tactical procedures, by following certain rules o£ thumb for
he can succeed only insofar as he yields to that audience's opinions in inventing, developing, or transforming an expression, by pun-logic,
(_ other respects. Some of their opinions are needed to support the ful- even by specious and sophistical arguments. The materials of opinion
crum by which he would move other opinions. (Preferably he shares will be embodied in such devices, but their characterization as "topics"
the fixed opinions himself since, "al1 other things being equal," the is got by abstracting some formal or procedural element as their dis-
d
identifying of himself with his audience will be more effective if it is tinguishing mark. Aristotle here includes such "places" as: ways o£
/

genuine.) turning an adversary's words against himself, and of transforming an

The so-called "commonplaces" or "topics" in Aristotle's Art of Rket- argument by opposites ("if war did it, repair it by peace"). Some other
oric (and the corresponding loci commzsnes in Latin manuals) are a terms of this sort are: recalling what an adversary advocated in one
l q u i c k survey of "opinion" in this sense. Aristotle reviews the purposes, situation when recommending a policy for a new situation ("you
acts, things, conditions, states of mind, personal characteristics, and the wanted it then, you should want it now"); using definitions to ad-
like, which people consider promising or formidable, good or evil, vantage (Socrates using his previous mention of his dairnonion as evi-
useful or dangerous, admirable or loathsome, and so on. Al1 these dence that he was not an atheist); dividing up an assertion ("there
opinions or assumptions (perhaps today they would be treated under were three motives for the offense; two were impossible, not even the
'-the head of "attitudes" or "values") are catalogued as available means accusers have asserted the third"); tendentious selection of results
of persuasion. But the important thing, for our purposes, is to note (since a cause may have both good and bad effects, one can play up
that such types are derived from the principle of persuasion, in that they whichever set favors his position); exaggeration (the accused can
are but a survey of the things that people generally consider persuasive, weaken the strength o£ the accusation against him by himself over-
and of methods that have persuasive effects. stating it) ;the use o£ signs (arguing that the man is a thief because he
Thus, Aristotle lists the kind of opinions you should draw upon i£ is disreputable); and so on. Among these tactics, he calls particular
you wanted to recommend a policy or to turn people against it; the attention to the use of a shift between public and private orders of moti-
kind of motives which in people's opinion lead to just or unjust ac- vation. In public, one praises the just and the beautiful; but in private
tions; what personal traits people admire or dislike (opinions the one prefers the test of expediency; hence the orator can use which-
speaker should exploit to present himself favorably and his adversary ever o£ these orders better suits his purposes. Here is the paradigm
unfavorably); and what opinions can be used as means for stirring for the modern rhetorician's shuttling between "idealistic" and "mate-
men to rage, friendliness, fear, compassion, shame, indignation, envy, rialistic" motives, as when one imputes "idealistic" motives to one's own
rivalry, charity, and so on. Reasoning based on opinion he calls "en-! ,/ faction and "materialistic" motives to the adversary; or the adversary
thymemes," which are the rhetorical equivalent of the syllogism.; ' can be accused of "idealistic" motives when they imply ineffectiveness
And arguments from example (which is the rhetorical equivalent for and impracticability.
induction) are likewise to be framed in accordance with his various Though the translation of one's wishes into terms of an audience's
lists of opinions. (Incidentally, those who talk of "ethical relativity" opinions would clearly be an instance of identification, this last list of
must be impressed by the "permanence" of such "places" or topics, purely formal devices for rhetorical invention takes us farther afield.
when stated at Aristotle's leve1 of generalization. As ideas, they al1 However, it seems to be a fact that, the more urgent the oratory, the
seem no less compelling now than they ever were, though in our so- greater the profusion and vitality of the formal devices. So they must
ciety a speaker might often have to individuate them in a different be functiond, and not mere "embellishments." And processes of "iden-
l'mage than the Greeks would have chosen, if he would convey a max- tification" would seem to figure here, as follows:
imum sense of actuality.) Longinus refers to that kind o£ elation wherein the audience feels as
 59
i TRADITIONAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC

though it were not merely receiving, but were itself creatively partici- the world. But regardless of these doubts about it as a proposition, by
pating in the poet's or speaker's assertion. Could we not say that, in the time you arrive at the second of its three stages, you feel how it is
such cases, the audience is exalted by the assertion because it has the destined to develop-and on the level of purely formal assent you
feel of collaborating in the assertion? would collaborate to round out its symmetry by spontaneously willing
At least, we know that many purely formal patterns can readily
awaken an attitude of collaborative expectancy in us. For instance
imagine a passage built about a set of oppositions ("we do this, but
.i its completion and perfection as an utterance. Add, now, the psychosis
o£ nationalism, and assent on the formal level invites assent to the
proposition as doctrine.
they on the other hand do that; we stay hwe, but they go there; we Demetrius also cites an example from Aeschines: "Against yourself
look up, but they look down," etc.). Once you grasp the trend of the you call; against the laws you call; against the entire democracy you
form, it invites participation regardless o£ the subject matter. For- call." (We have tinkered with the translation somewhat, to bring out
mally, you will find yourself swinging along with the succession o£ the purely linguistic structure as greatly as possible, including an ele-
antitheses, even though you may not agree with the proposition that is ment that Demetrius does not discuss, the swelling effect at the third
being presented in this form. Or it may even be an opponent's propo- stage. In the original the three stages comprise six, seven, and ten syl-
sition which you resent-yet for the duration of the statement itself you Iables respectively.) To illustrate the effect, Demetrius gives the same
might "help him out" to the extent of yielding to the formal develop- idea without the cumulative form, thus: "Against yourself and the laws
ment, surrendering to its symmetry as such. Of course, the more vio- and the democracy you call." In this version it lacks the three formal
lent your original resistance to the proposition, the weaker will be your elements he is discussing: repetition of the same word at the beginning
degree of "surrender" by "collaborating" with the form. But in cases of each clause (epanaphora), sameness of sound at the close of each
where a decision is still to be reached, a ~ieldingto the form prepares clause (homoeoteleuton), and absence o£ conjunctions (asyndeton).
for assent to the matter identified with it. Thus, you are drawn to the Hence there is no pronouncedly formal feature to which one might
form, not in your capacity as a partisan, but because of some "universal" give assent. (As a noncontroversial instance of cumulative form we
appeal in it. And this attitude of assent may then be transferred to recall a sentence cited approvingly in one of Flaubert's letters: "They
the matter which happens to be associated with the form. proceded some on foot, some on horse, some on the backs of ele-!
Or think thus of another strongly formal device like climax (gra- phants." Here the gradation of the visual imagery reinforces the effectl
datio). The editor of Demetrius' On Style, in the Loeb edition, cites o£ the syllabic elongation.)
this example from As You Like It, where even the name o£ the figure Of the many "tropes" and "figures" discussed in the eighth and ninth
appears in the figure: books of Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, the invitation to purely for-
mal assent (regardless of content) is much greater in some cases than
Your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked, no
sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no others. It is not our purpose here to analyze the lot in detail.
sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason, no sooner need but say enough to establish the principle, and to indicate why we\
thel
knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees expressing of a proposition in one or another o£ these rhetorical forms 1
they have made a pair of stairs to marriage.
Here the form requires no assent to a moot issue. But recall a gradatio
of political import, much in the news during the "Berlin crisis" o£
1948: "Who controls Berlin, controls Germany; who controls Ger-
many controls Europe; who controls Europe controls the world." As
to include a partisan statement within this same pale o£ assent.

Other Variants of the Rhetorical Motive

1
would involve "identification," first by inducing the auditor to partici- Y',.,
pate in the form, as a "universal" locus of appeal, and next by trying
\!'a

a proposition, it may or may not be true. And even if it is true, un- When making his claims for the universality of rhetoric (in the first
less people are thoroughly imperialistic, they may not want to control book of the De Oratore) Cicero begins at a somewhat mythic stage