raspuns la analiza r.j.reynolds

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Comments on Rhetorical Analysis Within aPragma-Dialectical FrameworkThe Case of R. J. Reynolds

EUGENE GARVER

Regents Professor of Philosophy

Saint Johns University

Collegeville MN 56321

U.S.A.

RHETORIC, DIALECTIC, AND DEMOCRACY

Rhetorical Analysis Within a Pragma-Dialectical Framework raises three

questions. First, what is the relation between the methods of winning a

dispute and the methods of securing agreement studied in pragma-dialec-

tics? What is the relation between rhetoric and dialectic? This is a question

to which van Eemeren and Houtlosser offer a clear answer, but I will invite

them to reconsider in light of my other two questions. Second, how do the

methods of verbal manipulation in general, whether competitive or coop-

erative, relate to the methods used to arrive at something greater than agree-

ment, such as truth or the accurate representation of nature? This second

question could be posed as the relation between dialectic and rhetoric and

the methods of science. Third, discourse often has purposes that havenothing to do with resolving disputes, and which therefore do not reach

the threshold at which dialectic, for van Eemeren and Houtlosser, begins.

Often people speak merely to be heard, to express themselves and create

their identities within a community. Just as I wonder about the relation

between both rhetoric and dialectic and science, I wonder about their

relation to purely expressive discourse, a connection perhaps hinted at

in Aristotles discussion of epideictic rhetoric, but surely needing more

analysis.

With a little massaging, the question of the relation of dialectic to

rhetoric can be seen as identical to that posed by MacIntyre about prac-

tical reason in general: Both kinds of achievement, that of excellence and

that of victory, will require effective practical reasoning; and it will beimportant to learn whether and, if so, how the kind of practical reasoning

necessary for the achievement of excellence differs from that necessary

for the achievement of victory.1 What is the relation between living up to

the dialectical norms of reasonableness and communication and aiming at

victory for oneself, ones clients, ones favored party or policy?

The question of the relation between excellence and victory is especially

urgent, I think, in considering van Eemeren and Houtlossers empirical

Argumentation 14: 307314, 2000.

2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.


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example. There are implicit judgments concerning the audience, the effecton the audience, whether the appeal is successful and whether it should be

successful. In a way it seems to me that van Eemeren and Houtlosser take

for granted a rhetorical story that is itself divorced from dialectical con-

siderations. They seem to think that rhetorical intentions and effects are

fairly transparent, and need only be subject to dialectical judgment. I doubt

that audiences are as deceived and manipulated as they make out although

how either of us would prove such a thing is another question and wonder

how the rhetoric of these advertisements would look under the more dialec-

tical assumptions that audiences are perfectly aware of what is going on.

The relation between reasonableness and victory might force us to redefine

both those terms.

And thus my third issue. I dont think that Reynolds is trying to foolanybody. (This doesnt mean that I have a higher opinion of their motives

or purposes than van Eemeren and Houtlosser do.) I offer the competing

hypothesis that Reynolds is aiming at the creation and presentation of a

corporate identity, that of the upright, thoughtful corporation, albeit one

engaged in selling a product of questionable value. Theyve given up on

trying to show that cigarettes are not dangerous, and instead are trying to

position themselves as corporate good citizens. Like van Eemeren and

Houtlosser, I base my hypothesis on the assumption that the advertorials

purpose must be connected to something it is doing reasonably well: Since

it belonged to Reynolds dialectical commitments to make a real effort at

convincing young people that they should not smoke, whereas Reynolds

being a tobacco company cannot be expected to abandon altogether its

rhetorical aim of persuading people to smoke, it may be assumed that some

rhetorical maneuvering is going on. I disagree with the antecedent and

the assumption of that implication, but agree that we can only infer purposes

from how the appeal works. On my hypothesis, there is a sort of persua-

sion going on, but no aim at resolving differences of opinion. Of course

one can always reduce epideictic rhetoric to forensic, in this case by

claiming that Reynolds is trying to establish one corporate identity and

rebut another: Were good guys, not bad guys. But that does seem to be

letting the theory lead the data.

In the rest of these comments, I will try to understand the relation

between rhetoric and dialectic, both understood as being bounded by both

the more scientific or truth-oriented and more poetic or expression-oriented

uses of language. A further feature of van Eemeren and Houtlossers pre-sentation is of interest. They make the dialectical task of resolving differ-

ences of opinion equivalent to establishing methodically whether or not a

standpoint is defensible against doubt or criticism. A couple of things are

worth noting about this language. First, differences of opinion arrive fairly

late in the process of inquiry, resolving doubts and solving problems. Giving

an initial definition to the problem, gathering evidence, sorting through and

judging beliefs, all these things are likely to occur before we have articu-

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lated ideas explicitly enough to have a pair of opinions that we know aredifferent from one another. In fact, I wonder whether starting at differences

of opinion does not arise from neglecting my second issue, the relation

between methods of rhetoric and dialectic and scientific methods.

Consider these two possible relations between dialectic and rhetoric.

First, one could survey rhetoric and communication in general, and make

dialectic a subset of rhetoric. One might decide, for example, that among

the ways we influence audiences, rational discourse was particularly

useful in coming to agreements, while emotional discourse was especially

disruptive or agonistic. Dialectic would then be about rational communi-

cation. Similarly, we might single out unconstrained or undistorted com-

munication. I can read both the Platonic and the Aristotelian program this

way, to find within the given practices of persuasion and teaching thoseadapted to get at agreement, progress, and truth.

As I understand them, van Eemeren and Houtlosser take the opposite

tack. Dialectic establishes norms instrumental in achieving this purpose

[resolving differences of opinion] maintaining certain standards of rea-

sonableness and expecting others to comply with the same critical stan-

dards. Those norms by themselves never determine what anyone will say.

They allow a certain freedom, and within that freedom lies the rhetorical

opportunity to resolve the difference in their own favour. Rhetorical aims

can, in principle, be realised within a dialectical framework.

There is something else worth noting about this formulation of the

dialectical project. Establishing methodically whether or not a standpoint

is defensible against doubt or criticism presupposes a judicial or forensic

model for rationality. We have a right to opinions only if we can justify

them. The burden of proof is on the holder of the opinion. It is popular

these days to blame everything on Descartes. His method of doubt was

the tree of knowledge that introduced the sin of skepticism into the world,

and so it has become natural for us to think that any opinion that is not

justified is unjustified, that all opinions stand accused of being prejudices

unless we can overcome that suspicion by showing that we are justified in

holding the belief. Poppers theory of falsification fit in this mode of

thought.

For better or worse, I believe that Descartes as Satan wildly overesti-

mates the power of philosophy in our lives. I agree that skepticism and

the need to justify our opinions plays a major role in configuring our intel-

lectual lives. I propose as a hypothesis that this presumption that all ourbeliefs need justification is a function of the democratic nature of our con-

temporary conceptions of rationality. Since everyone has a voice, there

would be anarchy and cacophony unless there were a means of silencing

opinions that are not worth hearing. The method of justification and the

method of doubt is precisely such a necessary means of silencing opinions

that are not worth listening to. Starting with the equality of democratic

voices, the problem becomes one of instituting a hierarchy of which voices

COMMENTS ON RHETORICAL ANALYSIS 309


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are worth listening to and which not. The judicial model of reasoning is aresponse to that problem. Naturally, the problem with basing dialectic and

rhetoric on the judicial model will be to make sense of the traditional delib-

erative and epideictic functions.

My correlation between justification as the primary function of rea-

soning, both theoretical and practical reason, can best be seen by noting

how absent justificatory reasoning is from ancient models of rationality.

Moderns criticize ancient pictures of practical reason, of rhetoric and

dialectic, for being aristocratic.2 There only gentlemen were allowed to

speak. The aristocratic presumption is that speakers are worth listening to,

both because they were probably intelligent and because they were almost

certainly like us. The burden of proof, correspondingly, is on a challenger

to show why a given speaker or opinion is wrong. If we restrict the fran-chise and have high costs of entry into a conversation, then justification

becomes less crucial, and a less natural feature of conversation. If we open

discourse to all, then each must pay a price by justifying whatever he or

she has to say.

I think that this difference between ancient and modern presuppositions

about practical reason accounts for some interesting differences between

van Eemeren and Houtlossers presentation of dialectic and rhetoric and

Aristotles. One of the striking things about the Topics and theRhetoric is

that the Topics is the much more confrontational and agonistic work, with

a stress on strategies for winning, while the Rhetoric presupposes a much

more cooperative relation between speakers and their audience. In dialectic,

as in pragma-dialectics, there is no audience, only a pair of interlocutors.

In rhetoric, there are no interlocutors, only a speaker and an audience.3 The

tasks of both rhetoric and dialectic are different from their contemporary

appearance because of the ancient aristocratic presumption. In theRhetoric,

the aristocratic assumption is that speaker and hearer are engaged in a

common enterprise of trying to find the best policy. Deliberative rhetoric,

not judicial or forensic rhetoric, is the paradigm for practical reasoning.

Persuading and giving good advice are linked together (I.8.1365b22). On

any important decision we deliberate together because we do not trust our-

selves (Ethics III.3.1112b1011). Make deliberation and not justification

the model for practical reasoning, and rhetoric is no longer the manipula-

tive one of the dialectic/rhetoric pair. Rhetoric is reasoning by a speaker

directed at an audience, while dialectic concerns reasoning directed at

an opponent. If I assert a given proposition, I am committed, in dialectic,to all its logical consequences. The Topics shows how to exploit this com-

mitment by enabling dialectical arguers to trip up their opponents, by

showing undesirable implications of their propositions, or to avoid being

trapped. The Rhetoric sees the rhetorical situation not as a confrontation

between opponents, as the Topics does, but as the construction of a rela-

tionship between speaker and hearers. The aristocracy of the Topics comes

in its source of opinions in those which commend themselves to all or to

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the majority or to the wise that is to all of the wise or to the majority orto the most famous and distinguished of them (Topics I.1.100b2223).

Dialectic can include conflict in ways that rhetoric cannot because

dialectic is not practical. For Aristotle all practical conflict is stasis, a

negative term. There is nothing of what Kenneth Burke called the delights

of faction. Cicero aligned rhetorical and dialectical methods of arguing both

sides of a question with the skeptical program from philosophical enlight-

enment. Machiavelli read Livy as showing that factions led to stability

and progress, and that insight into the value of faction led to later

ideas that even truth could emerge from conflict, and eventually from the

marketplace of ideas.4 But all that is much later than Aristotle. There are

refutative topoi, but persuasion itself is not an agonistic activity, and

dialectic not a practical one. This suggests that rhetoric and dialectic arerelated in more ways than van Eemeren and Houtlossers configuration that

dialectic sets the norms within which rhetoric is free to operate. Pragma-

dialectics may well be more suited to a democracy than were Aristotles

methods. I am not upholding the existence of an Aristotelian alternative

as a reason to suspect van Eemeren and Houtlosser so much as to put their

project in context.

Aristotle contrasts dialectic and rhetoric in another way. They are both

universal faculties without the restricted subject-matter that a science

has. But rhetoric is restricted to the subjects of deliberation, judicial

disputes and epideictic situations. Dialectic has no such circumstantial

limitation. I wonder, though, about the dialectic of van Eemeren and

Houtlosser. And thus my second question at the beginning, about the

relation between dialectic and scientific method. Is there is a method for,

as they say, resolving differences of opinion? Is it the same method

which allows us to resolve our differences over whether scientific biology

and/or creationism should be taught in public schools, disputes about

gradualism vs. punctuated equilibrium, whether individual organisms or

genes are the unit of selection and evolution, and over whether modern

evolutionary theory is compatible with divine revelation? Or is dialectic

restricted to the subjects on which democratic disagreement is allowed?

The pseudo-AugustinesRhetoric says that rhetoric is about subjects about

which we should be ashamed not to have an opinion. (See Gorgias 452de,

Protagoras 318e319a.) Does dialectic have a subject-matter delimited in

this way, even if not delimited by the principles that make a domain into

a science? Or is dialectic about settling all sorts of differences of opinion?Is there a difference between negotiation and inquiry? Is there a differ-

ence between aiming at agreement and aiming at truth?5

To begin with, I suggest that the story that van Eemeren and Houtlosser

draw from Toulmin, that the triumph of scientific method drew rhetoric

and dialectic apart, is too simple. As they note, as dialectic disappears from

the intellectual scene, logic and rationality itself become identified with

scientific method and the development of method itself is another part



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of that story that needs to be told and so rhetoric becomes style andarrangement, and deception. Missing from that story is the fact that when

dialectic is about methods of securing agreement and resolving disputes,

the relation between whatever agreement we come up with and truth seems

to become secondary. If dialectic as a means for resolving differences of

opinion has nothing to do with truth, then its function is more limited than

van Eemeren and Houtlosser suggest.

I am not suggesting that we should go back to Aristotle. I do not think

we ever have that kind of freedom to choose philosophical models of ratio-

nality. I think that van Eemeren and Houtlosser are right to make practical

reason basically a matter of justification. Democracy itself requires a

hermeneutics of suspicion and a method of doubt. Deliberation becomes

colored by this democratic requirement and its judicial model. Instead ofa problem-solving activity, deliberation becomes ideologized into another

forum of resolving differences of opinion. Thus, in the Prometheus myth

in Platos Protagoras, everyone gets to speak in political deliberation

because the assumption is that everyone has something worth saying. In

contemporary democratic deliberation, everyone gets to speak because

everyone has a right to speak. Aristotles famous argument in favor of

democratic deliberation in Politics III says nothing about rights and nothing

about resolving differences of opinion:

It is possible that the many, though not individually good men, yet when they come

together may be better, not individually, but collectively, than those who are so, just as

public dinners to which many contribute are better than those supplied at one mans

cost; for where there are many, each individual, it may be argued, has some portion of

virtue and wisdom, and when they have come together, just as the multitude becomes a

single man with many feet and many hands and many senses, so also it becomes one

personality as regards the moral and intellectual faculties (III.11.1281b110; cf.

13.1283b2734).6

Moreover, it makes sense for democratic methods for practical reason to

search for rules for resolving disputes, instead of means and resources, such

as the virtues, more suited to aristocratic conceptions of practical reason.

Thus dialectic is favored over rhetoric. Rules make morality more demo-

cratic. When the moral virtues are political virtues they depend on a polit-

ical community of friendship and homonoia, irreducible to law while the

democratic morality of rights and rules is codifiable. The companion charge

to Aristotles ethics being aristocratic is that modern morality is legalistic.

Open communities and their corresponding moralities must be legalistic.Only closed communities with tacit knowledge virtue is acting as the

phronimos would act can be communities of virtue.

The relations between democracy and scientific method are manifold,

but I wonder if consideration of van Eemeren and Houtlossers paper hasnt

led to an unexplored relation between them. I agree that something like van

Eemeren and Houtlossers sense of dialectic is necessary for democracies

to function. But for dialectic to do its work, it cannot be a universal method,

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and in particular can function only against a background of a distinctscientific method. The growth and success of science makes democracy

possible in the following way.7 Democracy, as a method of deliberation

that centers on van Eemeren and Houtlossers sense of dialectic and

rhetoric, is possible only if methods of resolving differences are segregated

from methods of discovering and establishing truth. Of course, even in

ancient Greece, as the Prometheus myth itself illustrates, not all questions

were open for democratic deliberation. Architects and generals made

professional decisions that were not subject to majority vote. But when

everyone has a right to speak, and when everyone is expanded through the

succession of extensions of the franchise, the decisions available for demo-

cratic deliberation are restricted to those where we value, or can afford,

agreement rather than truth. Democracy and democratic deliberation arepossible only when science is secure and successful enough that its work

is left untouched by deliberation, dialectic and rhetoric. For just one

example, when Rawls talks about reflective equilibrium, a general method

for resolving political differences, all ones opinions are available for com-

promise and negotiation. But that set of opinions does not include the truths

of neoclassical economics. Rawls holds them as fixed and not subject to

debate. I do not offer that example in criticism of Rawls, but rather as a

symptom of the connection between science and democracy. It is no

accident that van Eemeren and Houtlosser rehabilitate dialectic by limiting

it to agreement rather than truth. But such an art of dialectic can function

only against a background of settled science and scientific method. Science

makes the world safe for democracy.

NOTES

1 Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, University of Notre Dame Press,

1988, p. 28. For one example, see H. Jefferson Powell, The Moral Tradition of American

Constitutionalism, A Theological Interpretation, Durham and London: Duke University Press,

1993, p. 119. Largely because of the slavery issue, individual legal arguments and judicial

decisions in the antebellum period are often marked by conflict between the pursuit of the

internal goods of the tradition (logical argument, textual fidelity, and so on) and the external

goods of maintaining the Union and the institutional power and prestige of the courts.2 Nothing in this contrast of ancient and modern denies the democratic origins of ancient

rhetoric, for which see, e.g., Josiah Ober, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual

Critics of Popular Rule, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998 and Harvey Yunis,

Taming Democracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical Athens, Ithaca and London:

Cornell University Press, 1996.3 Plato shows how to complicate these contrasts. In the Protagoras, after the Simonides

interlude, the audience becomes an interlocutor as one of the speakers in an imaginary

dialogue with Socrates and Protagoras together as the other party. For Plato, dialectic must

neglect the audience because only between speakers can there be the friendship necessary

for the discovery of truth. Modern science discovers how one can have truth without friend-

ship, a very democratic procedure.4 Nor did the sophists advance the idea that truth emerges from the conflict of opinions,



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and so that factions were good things. They simply thought that competition was a given,and they were going to help their clients get the best out of it.5 One can resist the reduction of inquiry to negotiation and rationality to civility either by

distinguishing science from both rhetoric and dialectic, or by showing how scientific ratio-

nality infects rhetoric and dialectic too, so that they are not only about agreement and decision

but agreement and decision oriented to truth. Rather than inquiry being a form of negotia-

tion, Aristotle ultimately sees negotiation as a form of inquiry.6 For similar claims, see Politics III.3.11.1282a14, a3441, III.13.1287b2328, IV.4.

1292a1014. See alsoMetaphysics II.993b16: No one is able to attain the truth adequately,

while, on the other hand, we do not collectively fail, but every one says something true about

the nature of things, and while individual we contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the

union of all a considerable amount is amassed. Therefore, since the truth seems to be like

the proverbial door, which no one can fail to hit, in this respect it must be easy, but the fact

that we can have a whole truth and not a particular part we aim at shows the difficulty of

it. III.15.1286a2731: When the law cannot determine a point at all, or not well, should

the one best man or should all decide? According to our present practice assemblies meet,sit in judgment, deliberate, and their judgments all relate to individual cases. Now any

member of the assembly, taken separately, is certainly inferior to the wise man. But the same

is made up of many individuals. And as a feast to which all the guests contribute is better

than a banquet furnished by a single man, so a multitude is a better judge of many things

than any individual.

Yack, 1993, p. 167. Although Aristotle does claim genuine knowledge of the human

good and does construct a utopian regime in which the human good is best realized, he

never suggests that we should measure the justice of laws and public acts by asking how

close they come to realizing the states of affairs found in the best regime.7 Historically, there are two principal preconditions for democracy. I focus here on the rise

of science. But equally the retreat of religion is a necessary condition for democracy. This

can be seen in Spinozas Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and the Political Treatise, and in

Humes essay on Parties in General. For the latter, see my Why Pluralism Now? Monist

73 (1990): 388410.

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raspuns la analiza r.j.reynolds

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