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Rhetoric, Language, and Critique

26/01/2011 By Kelly Cooper

“Hermeneutics refers to an ‘ability’ we acquire to the extent to which we learn to ‘master’ a natural language: the art of understanding linguistically communicable meaning and to render it comprehensible in cases of distorted communication. The understanding of meaning is directed at the semantic content of speech as well as the meaning-content of written forms or even non-linguistic symbolic systems, in so far as their meaning-content can, in principle, be expressed in words. It is no accident that we speak of the art of understanding and of making-oneself-understood, since the ability to interpret meaning, which every language-user possesses, can be stylized and developed into an artistic skill. This art is symmetric with the art of convincing and persuading in situations where decisions have to be reached on practical questions. Rhetoric, too, is based on an ability which is part of the communicative competence of every language user and which can be stylized into a special skill. Rhetoric and hermeneutics have both emerged as teachable arts which methodically discipline and cultivate a natural ability.

That is not so in the case of a philosophical hermeneutic: it is not a practical skill guided by rules but a critique, for its reflexive engagement brings to consciousness experiences of our language which we gain in the course of exercising our communicative competence, that is, by moving within language. It is because rhetoric and hermeneutics serve the instruction and disciplined development of communicative competence that hermeneutic reflection can draw on this sphere of experience. But the reflection upon skilled understanding and making-oneself-understood on the one hand (1), and upon convincing and persuading on the other (2), does not serve the establishing of a teachable art, but the philosophical consideration of the structures of everyday communication” (Ormiston and Schrift 1990:245).

Ormiston, Gayle L. and Alan D. Schrift
1990 The Hermeneutic Tradition: From Ast to Ricoeur. New York: State University of New York Press.

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Rhetorical Metaphor and Aristotle

23/01/2011 By Kelly Cooper

“But the most interesting remarks on the rhetorical use of metaphor are occasioned by reflections on the elegance and liveliness of expression (literally: urban style, asteion, as opposed to popular or vulgar speech) (Rhetoric 3:10). And it is in this context that Aristotle first speaks of the instructive value of metaphor. This quality really concerns the pleasure of understanding that follows surprise. For this is the function of metaphor, to instruct by suddenly combining elements that have not been put together before: We all naturally find it agreeable to get hold of new ideas easily: words express ideas, and therefore those words are the most agreeable that enable us to get hold of new ideas. Now strange words simply puzzle us; ordinary words convey only what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best get hold of something fresh. When the poet calls old age ‘a withered stalk,’ he conveys a new idea, a new face, to us by means of the general notion (genous) of ‘lost bloom’…’ (1410 b 10-15). Furthermore, Aristotle attributes the superiority of metaphor over simile to this same virtue of elegance. Furthermore, Aristotle attributes the superiority of metaphor over simile to this same virtue of elegance. More concentrated and shorter than simile, metaphor astonishes and instructs rapidly. Here surprise, in conjunction with hiddenness, plays the decisive role.

To this same characteristic Aristotle attributes another feature of metaphor that has not appeared before, and that seems somewhat disconcerting at first glance. Metaphor, he says, ‘sets the scene before our eyes’ (1410 b 33). In other words, it gives that concrete colouration-imagistic style, figurative style it is called now-to our grasp of genus, of underlying similarity. It is rue that Aristotle does not use the word eikôn at all in the sense in which, since Charles Sanders Peirce, we speak of the iconic aspect of metaphor. But the idea that metaphor depicts the abstract in concrete terms is already present. How does Aristotle connect this power of ‘placing things before our eyes’ to the future of spiritedness, elegance, urbanity? By appealing to the characteristic of all metaphor, which is to point out or show, to ‘make visible.’ And this feature brings us to the heart of the problem of lexis, whose function, we said, is to ‘make discourse appear to the senses.’ ‘To place things before the eyes,’ then, is not an accessory function of metaphor, but the proper function of the figure of speech. Thus, the same metaphor can carry both the logical moment of proportionality and the sensible movement of figurativity” (Ricoeur 2004:37-38).

Ricoeur, Paul
2004[1975] The Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language. Robert Czerny, trans. Toronto: Taylor & Francis Group.

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