Internal Rhetorics: Toward a History and Theory of Self-Persuasion PDF
Preview Internal Rhetorics: Toward a History and Theory of Self-Persuasion
internal Rhetorics This page intentionally left blank Internal Rhetorics Toward a History and Theory of Self-Persuasion Jean Nienkamp Southern Illinois University Press Corbonate and Edwardsville Copyright © 2001 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 04 03 02 01 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nienkamp, Jean. Internal rhetorics : toward a history and theory of self- persuasion /Jean Nienkamp. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Ethics. 2. Rhetoric—Philosophy. 3. Persuasion (Rheto- ric) 4. Self-talk. I. Title. BJ42 .N54 2001 128'.4-dc21 2001018401 ISBN 0-8093-2406-7 (alk. paper) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. (S3) Dedicated to the memory ofWilma Robb Ebbitt (1918-2000), whose trenchant thinking and writing, warm mentorship, and fierce advocacy for the importance of teaching in the academy have inspired her Penn State progeny. This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface Introduction Part One. Internal Rhetoric in History: Perspectives on Moral Reasoning 1, Classical Variations on Internal Rhetoric 2, Moral Philosophy and Internal Rhetoric from Bacon to Whately 41 Part Two. Primary Internal Rhetoric: Constituting Rhetorical Selves 79 3. The Twentieth Century: Internal Rhetoric after Freud 81 4. The Construction of Selves by Internal Rhetoric 108 Conclusion: The Rhetorical Self and Moral Agency Notes 139 Works Cited 159 Index 167 This page intentionally left blank Preface The Obvious The biggest leap I take in this book is the title, Internal Rhetorics, by which I initiate a study of the persuasive techniques we use on our- selves. The term is intended to be obvious and paradoxical—and, by the end of the book, complex. Obvious, in that it relates to com- mon locutions: I'm trying to talk myself into . . . I've been arguing with myself all day . . . I just had to give myself a good talking-to ... It's only crazy to talk to yourself if you answer back. Most people talk to themselves.1 The quotations that preface each chapter illustrate the long-standing prevalence of this idea that people persuade themselves into moods or actions.2 What we tend to take for granted in common parlance has not made its way into rhetorical theory in a systematic way, however. All the writers I discuss in this book are canonical in one sense or another, and most imply, mention, or discuss the use of persuasion on oneself—but no one so far has connected the dots. The current rhetorical community has hardly addressed self-persuasion, even though talking to oneself is at least as ubiquitous and consequential as the various social language practices analyzed from a rhetorical perspective. So, how do I get from the observation that most of us talk to our- selves to the concept of "internal rhetoric"? I coin the term precisely to act as what Kenneth Burke calls a "terministic screen," to call at- tention to the persuasive or hortatory or sermonic—let's face it, the rhetorical—nature of much thought. "Internal rhetoric" is thus a lens through which to study mental activity rather than a reference to a particular kind of mental activity. By pointing out the rhetorical func- tion of thought rather than positing a separate genre of thought, I
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