“rhetoric” (for Burke) includes virtually any use of symbols to affect people

1. Kenneth Burke (1895 – 1993): influential literary critic of the 1920’s and 30’s, philosopher of language, no formal education, lived on a farm entire life, extremely prolific, outsider but significant for his dramatistic view of language

2. For Burke, rhetoric is “the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or induce action in other human agents” “rhetoric” (for Burke) includes virtually any use of symbols to affect people since symbols always “affect people” in some way or another, Burke’ idea of rhetoric is far more than a way to form arguments, it is a tool for analyzing the world. for Burke, since “symbol use which affects people” describes all forms of human interaction, then all forms of human interaction can be called “rhetorical”

3. For Burke, language is a kind of action, which he calls “dramatic action” because the way we use language and the way we label things acts out our feelings, perceptions, and motives much like actors on a stage. For Burke, the claim that it is possible to speak/write without drawing on individual feelings, perceptions, and prejudices is absurd but not without its attractions…

4. Burke’s Definition of Human (1966) “Being bodies that learn languagethereby becoming wordlingshumans arethe symbol-making, symbol-using, symbol-misusing animalinventor of the negativeseparated from our natural conditionby instruments of our own makinggoaded by the spirit of hierarchyacquiring foreknowledge of deathand rotten with perfection .” no “nots” in nature driven to categorize, define, order The mere desire to name something by its 'proper' name, or to speak a language in its distinctive ways is intrinsically 'perfectionist.'

5. “Terministic Screens” (1966) 1. two approaches to the nature of language: dramatistic scientistic - concerned with questions of naming and definition - essential function is attitudinal or horatory - language as definition (although definition itself is a symbolic act) - language as act(ion) - primary stress on propositions “thou shall” or “thou shalt not” - primary stress on propositions “it is” or “it is not”

6. “The dramatistic view of language, in terms of symbolic action, is exercised about the necessarily suasive nature of even the most unemotional of scientific nomenclatures” (top of p. 45) i.e. even the most apparently “obvious” or “objective” term/name is persuasive in nature WHY? “Even if any given terminology is a reflection of reality, by its very nature as a terminology it must be a selection of reality; and to this extent it must also function as a deflection of reality” (p. 45).

7. ex. what is this? couldn’t it also be: shelter, fuel, a diety, a resource, a nuisance, shade, or a picture? the object COULD be several things but naming requires us to make a selection; our selection is also a deflection of the other terms that could be used to name the object.

8. when someone describes something, the words they use to describe it form a window or screen through which they view the thing/event/process/etc. Burke calls this collection of words a terministic screen (a screen made up of terms). The terms that I use will affect the quality of my observation or description. terms direct the attention towards a particular aspect of reality but to do so requires directing the attention AWAY from other aspects of reality = shelter, fuel, food, image, shade, etc. etc. = IF “tree” then

9. “When I speak of terministic screens, I have particularly in mind some photographs I once saw. They were different photographs of the same objects, the difference being that they were made with different color filters. Here something so “factual” as a photograph revealed notable distinctions in texture, and even in form, depending on which color filter was used for the documentary description of the event being recorded” (bottom p. 45)

10. II. Observations Implicit in Terms (two points) 1. Who or what is doing the observing? “Not only does the nature of our terms affect the nature of our observation, in the sense that the terms direct the attention to one field rather than another. Also, many of the ‘observations’ are but implications of the particular terminology in terms of which the observations are made. In brief, much that we take about observations about ‘reality’ may be but the spinning out of possibilities implicit in our particular choice of terms” (top p. 46) priviledges those actions and attitudes that fit with what we think “a tree” is (or should be) calling it a deity privileges those actions and attitudes that fit with what we think a deity is (or should be) but ex. calling “a tree”

11. good examples of this in readings for Thursday (metaphor) 2. Is “immediate experience” or contact with the “objective world” possible? “Our presence in a room is immediate, but the room’s relation to our country as a nation, and beyond that to international relations and cosmic relations dissolves into a web of ideas and images that reach through our senses only insofar as the symbol systems that report on them are heard or seen. To mistake this vast tangle of ideas for immediate experience is much more fallacious than to accept a dream as an immediate experience.” (middle p. 48). Q: how might Wudka respond?

12. where are we, then? are terministic screens all we have? can we ever get beyond words to “the thing itself”? We must use terministic screens, since we can’t say anything without the use of terms, they necessarily constitute a kind of screen; and any such screen directs the attention from one field to another. Within that field there can be different screens, each with its ways of directing the attention and shaping the range of observations implicit in the given terminology” (bottom p. 50).

13. for Aristotle/Plato/Bacon/Spratt/Boyle/Wudka observation terms nature fact mind forBurke mind observation terms nature fact i.e. terms i.e. terms i.e. terms i.e. terms

14. Burke: there is (and could never be) a truly “plain style” words are “plain” “clear” neutral” or “correct” becauseWE THINK they are, not because they ARE. words/terms use us more than we use them

15. for Thursday: What is DNA? a Rosetta Stone? the Book of Man? the Book of Life? the Code of Codes? a Blueprint? a Recipe? a Roadmap? an Archive? the Grail? the “Language in which God created Man”? an Instruction Manual? As Burke might ask: what are some implications that are implicit in the use of these terms? to what do they direct the attention? read Condit and Nelkin to learn more…