Internal Rhetorics: Toward a History and Theory of Self-Persuasion (review)

Nienkamp's work is one of the most important contributions to rhetorical theory of the last several years. The history of self-persuasion that Nienkamp expertly and persuasively draws builds toward her theoretical construct, the "rhetorical self," which "is made up of a colloquy of internalized social languages" (127), "voices" (128), or "cultural imperatives" (135). The rhetorical self practices internal rhetoric to "maintain a fragile equilibrium of personal identity and to resolve ambiguous or conflicting imperatives for attitude, decision, and action" (128).

In defining the rhetorical self, Nienkamp deftly negotiates the tension between the naïve modern position (presuming the simple integrity of the self) and the naïve postmodern position (emphasizing the fragmentation of the self). We experience our 'selves' as both whole and fragmented, as both unified and divided. It is the process of internal rhetoric that enables us to be a self both unified and multiple at the same time. The dynamic of internal rhetoric enables us to resist the unhealthy extremes of the unified self (obsession, monologism) and of the fragmented self (schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder).

Following Isocrates, Nienkamp's concept of the rhetorical self is a moral agent because the rhetorical self is capable of debating conflicting paradigms and multiple perspectives. It is this internal rhetorical conflict that "differentiates kairotic decision making from pure opportunism"—differentiates short-term decision making in one's own best interest, from kairotic decision making in terms of larger significance (134). Internal rhetoric, then, is essential to the definition of the self and to the process of ethical decision making. In this yoking move, Nienkamp's construct (the rhetorical self) does disciplinary as well as theoretical work, as it reunites the otherwise distinct fields of rhetoric and ethics.

Nienkamp's rhetorical self is a dynamic rethinking of the problem of the subject that faces rhetorical studies in this post-post-modern period. What distinguishes it from similar projects (the attempts to rethink subjectivity, for example, as part of the critical rhetoric project) is Nienkamp's discovery that the history and theory of rhetoric contained within itself the seeds of this problem's resolution. The book addresses this history in two halves: the first consults texts in the Classical and Enlightenment periods; the second addresses Modern rhetorics (Burke and Perelman/Olbrechts-Tyteca) and Modern psychologies (Mead and Vygotsky). The historical division is justified by the position of Freud between these two sections: Freudian "depth psychology" had an impact on conceptions of mind that clearly divide internal rhetoric derived from Enlightenment faculty psychology (before Freud) from Burkean approaches (after Freud).

Beginning with the Iliad, which discusses dialogue between mind and spirit, Nienkamp finds evidence of rhetorical action internal to the mind of the individual at key points of the canonical rhetorical tradition. In the Classical period, she points to Isocrates (from whom Nienkamp draws her ethics), and to Plato and Aristotle (from whom she derives a hierarchical and antagonistic paradigm for internal rhetorical action, in which one aspect of mind, the reason, is to dominate others).

In the Enlightenment period, Nienkamp finds elaboration of the importance of internal rhetoric for ethical decision making, first in an unrefined form in Bacon's faculty psychology and his belief that rhetoric enables "negotiation within ourselves" toward the guidance of reason. In Shaftesbury, Plato's antagonistic model of internal rhetorical action is revisited, as Shaftesbury advocates an internal rhetoric designed to allow "reason to gain control over the psyche" (54). She finds the same tendency in Mary Astell (61-63). In Whately, the thread of internal rhetoric continues, but unlike Isocrates and Bacon (or even Plato and Shaftesbury), Whately conceives of internal rhetoric as "separable from virtue" and "conducive to the undermining of virtue" (74).

In Perelman/Olbrechts Tyteca, Nienkamp traces a tension between the poles of positivism and depth psychology—neither of which, in their perspective, is...