Paul Ricouer posted:
Rhetoric is without doubt as old as philosophy; it is said that Empe- docles ‘invented’ it. Thus, rhetoric is philosophy’s oldest enemy and its oldest ally. ‘Its oldest enemy’ because it is always possible for the art of ‘saying it well’ to lay aside all concern for ‘speaking the truth.’ The technique founded on knowledge of the factors that help to effect persuasion puts formidable power in the hands of anyone who masters it perfectly – the power to manipulate words apart from things, and to manipulate men by manipulating words. Perhaps we must recognize that the possibility of this split parallels the entire history of human discourse. Before becoming futile, rhetoric was dangerous. This is why Plato condemned it. For him, rhetoric is to justice, the political virtue par excellence, what sophistry is to legislation; and these are, for the soul, what cooking in relation to medicine and cosmetics in relation to gymnastics are for the body – that is, arts of illusion and deception. We must not lose sight of this condemnation of rhetoric, which sees it as belonging to the world of the lie, of the ‘pseudo.’ Metaphor will also have its enemies, who, giving it what one might call a ‘cosmetic’ as well as a ‘culinary’ interpretation, will look upon metaphor merely as simple decoration and as pure delectation. Every condemnation of metaphor as sophism shares in the condemnation of sophistry itself.

But philosophy was never in a position either to destroy rhetoric or to absorb it. Philosophy did not create the arenas – tribunal, political assembly, public contest – in which oratory holds sway, nor can philosophy undertake to suppress them. Philosophical discourse is itself just one discourse among others, and its claim to truth excludes it from the sphere of power. Thus, if it uses just the means that are properly its own, philosophy cannot break the ties between discourse and power.

One possibility remained open: to delimit the legitimate uses of forceful speech, to draw the line between use and abuse, and to establish philosophically the connections between the sphere of validity of rhetoric and that of philosophy. Aristotle’s rhetoric constitutes the most brilliant of these attempts to institutionalize rhetoric from the point of view of philosophy.

The question that sets this project in motion is the following: what does it mean to persuade? What distinguishes persuasion from flattery, from seduction, from threat – that is to say, from the subtlest forms of violence? What does it mean, ‘to influence through discourse’? To pose these questions is to decide that one cannot transform the arts of dis- course into techniques without submitting them to a radical philosophical reflection outlining the concept of ‘that which is persuasive’ (to pithanon).

A helpful solution was offered at this point by logic, one which, moreover, took up one of rhetoric’s oldest intuitions. Since its begin- nings, rhetoric had recognized in the term to eikos (‘the probable’) a title to which the public use of speech could lay claim. The kind of proof appropriate to oratory is not the necessary but the probable, because the human affairs over which tribunals and assemblies deliberate and decide are not subject to the sort of necessity, of intellectual constraint, that geometry and first philosophy demand. So, rather than denounce doxa (‘opinion’) as inferior to épistêmê (‘science’), philosophy can consider elaborating a theory of the probable, which would arm rhetoric against its characteristic abuses while separating it from sophistry and eristics. The great merit of Aristotle was in developing this link between the rhetorical concept of persuasion and the logical concept of the probable, and in constructing the whole edifice of a philosophy of rhetoric on this relationship.

Thus, what we now read under the title of Rhetoric is the treatise containing the equilibrium between two opposed movements, one that inclines rhetoric to break away from philosophy, if not to replace it, and one that disposes philosophy to reinvent rhetoric as a system of second-order proofs. It is at this point, where the dangerous power of eloquence and the logic of probability meet, that we find a rhetoric that stands under the watchful eye of philosophy. It is this deep-seated conflict between reason and violence that the history of rhetoric has plunged into oblivion; emptied of its dynamism and drama, rhetoric is given over to playing with distinctions and classifications. The genius for taxonomy occupies the space deserted by the philosophy of rhetoric.

Hence, Greek rhetoric had not only a much broader programme, but also a problematic decidedly more dramatic than the modern theory of figures of speech. It did not, however, cover all the usages of speech. The technique of ‘saying it well’ remained a partial discipline, bounded not only from above by philosophy, but laterally by other domains of discourse. One of the fields that remained outside rhetoric is poetics. This split between rhetoric and poetics is of particular interest to us, since for Aristotle metaphor belongs to both domains.

The duality of rhetoric and poetics reflects a duality in the use of speech as well as in the situations of speaking. We said that rhetoric originally was oratorical technique; its aim and that of oratory are identical, to know how to persuade. Now this function, however farreaching, does not cover all the uses of speech. Poetics – the art of composing poems, principally tragic poems – as far as its function and its situation of speaking are concerned, does not depend on rhetoric, the art of defence, of deliberation, of blame, and of praise. Poetry is not oratory. Persuasion is not its aim; rather, it purges the feelings of pity and fear. Thus, poetry and oratory mark out two distinct universes of discourse. Metaphor, however, has a foot in each domain. With respect to structure, it can really consist in just one unique operation, the transfer of the meanings of words; but with respect to function, it follows the divergent destinies of oratory and tragedy. Metaphor will therefore have a unique structure but two functions: a rhetorical function and a poetic function.

This duality of function, which expresses the difference between the political world of eloquence and the poetic world of tragedy, represents a still more fundamental difference at the level of intention. This opposition has been concealed to a great extent for us, because rhetoric as we know it from the last modern treatises is amputated from its major part, the treatise on argumentation. Aristotle defines it as the art of inventing or finding proofs. Now poetry does not seek to prove anything at all: its project is mimetic; its aim (as will be elaborated later) is to compose an essential representation of human actions; its appropriate method is to speak the truth by means of fiction, fable, and tragic muthos. The triad of poiêsis-mimêsis-catharsis, which cannot possibly be confused with the triad rhetoric-proof-persuasion, characterizes the world of poetry in an exclusive manner.

Another good (and much shorter and simpler) intro book besides Moran's is Sokolowski's Introduction to Phenomenology.

Sokolowski posted:
Besides drawing our attention to the intentionality of conscious- ness, phenomenology also discovers and describes many different structures in intentionality. When the mind is taken in the Cartesian or Lockean way, as an enclosed sphere with its circle of ideas, the term "consciousness" is usually considered to be simply univocal. There are no structural differences within consciousness; there is just awareness, pure and simple. We notice whatever impressions arise in us, and we then arrange them into judgments or proposi- tions that take a stab at declaring what is "out there." But for phenomenology, intentionality is highly differentiated. ,There are different kinds of intending, correlated with different kinds of objects. For example, we carry out perceptual intentions when we see an ordinary material object, but we must intend pictorially when we see a photograph or a painting. We must change our intentionality; taking something as a picture is different from taking something as a simple object. Pictures are correlated with pictorial intending, perceptual objects are correlated with perceptual intending. Still another kind of intending is at work when we take something to be a word, another when we remember something, and others again when we make judgments or collect things into groups. These and many other kinds of intending need to be described and differentiated one from the other. Furthermore, the forms of intending can be interwoven: to see something as a picture involves, as a foundation, that we also have it as a perceived thing. The pictorial consciousness is layered upon the perceptual, just as the picture we see is layered on a fabric or a piece of paper that could also be looked at simply as a colored thing.

That piece of paper reference has to do with Husserl and Heidegger:

Moran posted:
Heidegger, in common with many of Husserl's students, including Roman Ingarden, rejected Husserl's Cartesianism and transcendental idealism. In his own application of phenomenology, Heidegger profoundly altered Husserl's. He took his orientation from Husserl's Logical Investigations, even after the publication of Ideas I in 1913, though it is clear that he had access to the manuscript of Ideas II, and that many conceptions in his own work originate from that unpublished work of Husserl, especially the concepts of 'world' and 'environment' (Umwelt). Heidegger was especially interested in the Fifth and Sixth Logical Investigation, linking Husserl's enquiries in categorical intuition and his discussion of the recognition of truth with the problem of Being as explored by Brentano and Aristotle. Husserl's notion of categorial intuition was, for Heidegger, an attempt to think through Brentano's notion of the manifold meaning of Being. In fact, Heidegger frequently pressed Husserl to republish the Sixth Investigation, which he eventually did in 1922. In the Sixth Investigation Husserl had discussed categorial intuition, whereby we intuit directly the being or existence of a thing, though in a non-sensory manner. To use Husserl's example, when I see that "this paper is white" I have a sensuous intuition of the whiteness of the paper but I also grasp immediately in a non-sensuous intuition that the paper is white. This is, for Heidegger, the grasp of Being (Sein) which is given only because there are beings (Seienden). Nevertheless, grasping the elusive nature of Being is the primary task of philosophy.

Sokolowski posted:
Suppose we are perceiving an object; suppose we are looking at a car:

(1) At first, we just look at it in a rather passive way. Our gaze moves from one part to another, we go through the manifolds of sides, aspects, and profiles, we go through the color, the smoothness, the shine of the surface, its feel of hardness or softness. All this is a continuous perception, all carried out on one level. No particular thinking is engaged as we continue to perceive. Furthermore, as we go through the various manifolds of presentation, one and the same car is continuously given to us as the identity in the manifold.

(2) Now, suppose that some abrasions on the surface of the car catch our attention. We zero in on them. We highlight this part of the car; not just this spatial part, but this feature, this abrasiveness, in the spatial part. This focus is not just more of the dawdling perception that preceded; this highlighting is qualitatively different from what had been going on continuously before. However, it is not yet the establishment of a categorial object. So far, we are at an in-between point: we continue to experience the appearances of the car, and we continue to recognize one and the same car in all the appearances, but we have now spotlighted one of the appearances and brought it to center stage; it stands out from all the rest. A part comes into the foreground against the general background of the whole.

(3) One more step is needed to establish a categorial object. We interrupt the continuous flow of perception; we go back to the whole (the car), and we now take it precisely as being the whole, and simultaneously we take the part we had highlighted (the abrasion) as being a part in that whole. We now register the whole as containing the part. A relation between whole and part is articulated and registered. At this point we can declare, "This car is damaged." This achievement is a categorial intuition, because the categorial object, the thing in its articulation, is made actually present to us. We do not just have the car present to us; rather, the car's being damaged is made present.

....

Through our categorial intentions, we establish categorial objects. We constitute states of affairs, such as the fact that the car is damaged. These categorial objects truly are objects; they are not just arrangements of concepts or ideas. They are not "intramental" objects; they are intellected crystallizations that take place in the things we encounter. In categorial activity we articulate the way things are presented to us; we bring to light relationships that exist in things in the world. We have this world-directed focus, moreover, whether we intend things that are present to us or things that are absent. We must emphasize the fact that categorial objects are ways in which things appear; they are not subjective, psychological "things in the mind." To bring out the objectivity of categorial objects, let us examine a few other examples. We have already talked about the state of affairs expressed by the statement, "This car is damaged." As another example, suppose I am engaged in a discussion with two other people. The discussion progresses, but then something fishy begins to surface; something smells strange in what they are saying and the way they are saying it. This intermediate stage is like the stage, in our previous example, when the abrasions on the car begin to attract our attention. Then, suddenly, I register the situation: "They are trying to put something over on me!" The state of affairs clicks into place, a categorial intuition is achieved, the wholes and parts are articulated, syntax is installed into what I experience.

Again, suppose I am walking along a trail, looking at the rocks along the side. Suddenly I realize that the thing over there is not a rock but a fossil. The rather passive level of perception, the continuous identification of one and the same object through many profiles, gives way to a registration of the state of affairs, "That is not just a rock; it's a fossil in the ground!"

The examples we have examined - the damaged car, the deceptive behavior, the fossil and not the rock - are articulations of things that are before us. They are not mental entities, they are not just meanings in the mind; they are modifications in the way things are being presented to us. These modifications, these changes in the mode of presentation, are "in the world," but obviously they are not in the world in the manner in which a tree or a table is in the world. Rather, they are higher-level objects. They are "out there" as more complex modes of presentation, more intricate ways of being manifested. The states of affairs expressed by the words that we use ("The car is damaged," "They are deceiving me") are truly parts of the world. They are how certain segments of the world - this car, this behavior - can be articulated.

The states of affairs in these examples are there directly before us. We intuit them. Most of the time that we speak, however, the states of affairs that we express are absent from us. We talk about what is not present: yesterday's football game, how our congressman is voting, what happened at the Battle of Sharpsburg. The human possession of language gives us enormous reach; we can talk about things long ago and very far away, even about galaxies that are incredibly distant from us and periods of time billions of years ago. Most of our talk does not reach quite that far; most of it is much more local ("What did she do after you slammed the door?" "Was the dentist careful?"), but it still reaches largely into what is absent.

An extremely important point is the fact that when we speak about the absent, we still are articulating a part of the world. We are not turning to our ideas or concepts as substitute presences for the things that are absent. We are so constituted that we can intend things in their absence as well as in their presence. The intentionality of consciousness is such that it reaches outward all the time, even when it targets things that are not before it. If I give a speech about the Battle of Antietam, I and my audience intend that battle even though it happened over one hundred thirty years ago; if you and I, here in Washington, DC, talk about the Empire State Building, it is the building we are talking about, not some meanings or images that might come to mind during our conversation.

He uses a colorful phrase for this insight:

Sokolowski posted:
One of the most impressive manifolds through which the self is established is found in the phenomenon of quotation, when the ego uses its own voice to express the mind of someone else, to constitute categorial objects not as its own but as belonging to another: I here and now, with the world appearing to me as it does, can manifest through my own words a part of the world as it has appeared to someone else. A kind of duplication of the mind occurs, and along with it a duplication of the one who says "I." The self that comes to light in all these differences and activities is not a punctual thing, not an always completed identity, but one that is there only within a rich manifold of appearances and conduct. There is an identity of the self, but it is achieved precisely through decentering.

Still, the self does get punctuated at certain moments: if I am among a group of people who hold positions strongly different from mine, I stand out as "the one" who insists that this or that is indeed the case. I need ego strength to hold fast. If a serious situation builds up around me and it becomes evident that no one will act if I do not, then I am punctuated by the practical demand. All the lines converge on me, on me and on none other. I am highlighted in this way precisely because I am the prominent agent of the categorial activity, the agent of evidence and the owner of a claim of truth, whether in the theoretic or the practical order. I am such an agent not because I am a physical or psychological entity, but because I am someone who can say "I." Even these strong identifications of the self, however, are not absolute: even while my self is in the spotlight, I am still the same one who can remember and anticipate other situations, the one who holds sway within the body that is for the moment at the center of things, the one whose emotions may well up and overcome the decision I am trying to make.

The manifolds that are proper to the self are not realized in rocks, trees, or nonhuman animals. They are specific to the dative of manifestation, whose self is both flexible and yet continuously the same throughout its conscious lifetime. Phenomenology acknowledges the complexity and the mystery of the agent whose voice not only speaks about the way things are, but registers itself, when it says "I," precisely as speaking about them.

...when we talk about lying, and especially about lying among acting men, let us remember that the lie did not creep into politics by some accident of human sinfulness. Moral outrage, for this reason alone, is not likely to make it disappear. The deliberate falsehood deals with contingent facts; that is, with matters that carry no inherent truth within themselves, no necessity to be as they are. Factual truths are never compellingly true. The historian knows how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life; it is always in danger of being perforated by single lies or torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes, or denied and distorted, often carefully covered up by reams of falsehoods or simply allowed to fall into oblivion. Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witnesses to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs. From this, it follows that no factual statement can ever be beyond doubt—as secure and shielded against attack as, for instance, the statement that two and two make four.

It is this fragility that makes deception so very easy up to a point, and so tempting. It never comes into a conflict with reason, because things could indeed have been as the liar maintains they were. Lies are often much more plausible, more appealing to reason, than reality, since the liar has the great advantage of knowing beforehand what the audience wishes or expects to hear. He has prepared his story for public consumption with a careful eye to making it credible, whereas reality has the disconcerting habit of confronting us with the unexpected, for which we were not prepared.