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Chapter 10: Presence as Synergy
- Southern Illinois University Press
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CHAPTER 10 Presence as Synergy W e end this book with a chapter on presence, a fitting conclusion, we think, since presence in its most interesting form is not the isolated effect of the elements of arrangement, style, and invention , but the cumulative effect of interactions among these. This form of presence has as its object not the alteration or reinforcement of isolated attitudes or beliefs, but of fundamental principles: the real in the social and material universe and the significant in the realm of values. Presence of this sort is a superordinate concept, a second-order effect that relies on a synergy of first-order effects—those achieved, one by one, at the level of invention, arrangement , and style. In this chapter, we will define superordinate presence; then, to illustrate its scope, we will show it at work in three forms of discourse : public address, philosophy, and science. We will then address a problem that has troubled one of the most astute of Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca ’s commentators; namely, that presence seems inconsistent with the Belgians’ philosophy of argumentation, a philosophy with reason at its center . Finally, we will offer a critique of their view that rhetorical presence is a technical concept only, without any existential implications. Defining Presence Presence is a consequence of the need of rhetoricians to select from a mass of material and a variety of rhetorical means what they will actually present to an audience. When they make this selection with an eye to persuading particular audiences, they are using presence methodologically: they are taking advantage of the fact that “the thing on which the eye dwells, that which is 136 chaim perelman best or most often seen is, by that very circumstance, overestimated” (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 116–117). The effect of presence is initially psychological : “to [fill] the whole field of consciousness” (118). But such is the nature of communication that what is “at first a psychological phenomenon, becomes an essential element in argumentation” (117). In this section we define presence and illustrate its use as an element in argumentation. Presence has its antecedents. In the third book of his Rhetoric, Aristotle distinguishes between metaphors with and metaphors without energeia. If you call a good man “four-square,” you are using the latter sort of metaphor; if you say that an arrow is “eager to fly,” you are using the former sort (3.11.1). For Aristotle, metaphor with energeia brings an inanimate object to life; in Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s terminology, the impending flight of the arrow has a presence that the man has not, a presence that is the consequence of a rhetorical technique, a deliberate choice of one form of expression over another. Initially, the effect is psychological; the personification of the arrow draws the listener’s attention to its flight. But, the Belgians also say, these techniques of presence can have a persuasive role; that is, they can play a part in increasing or decreasing adherence to beliefs. For example, when Lincoln compares the number of hanged men with the abundance of Spanish moss hanging from the trees, as in the last chapter, he is increasing their presence in the interest of condemning mob violence. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca freely acknowledge that this view has been anticipated by the 18th-century rhetorical theorist, George Campbell (118). Campbell calls his anticipations of presence “circumstances in the object presented by the speaker which serve to awaken and inflame the passions of the hearers” (90), for him an essential ingredient in persuasion. Campbell inventories these circumstances: the plausibility of the event, its importance to the auditors, its closeness in space and time, the closeness of the relation between the auditors and the persons involved, and the degree of auditor interest in the event’s consequences. These circumstances operate in concert, as his example from Cicero shows (90–93). In his attack on Verres, who as a provincial administrator has crucified a Roman citizen, Messana, Cicero says: How must we be affected now, when we hear of the anguish of our own kinsman ? I say our kinsman, for we must recognize blood-kinship between all Roman citizens; truth, not less than concern for the general safety, bids us do so. And now in this place all the citizens of Rome, all those who are here and all who are elsewhere, are looking to you to do strict justice, appealing to your honour, imploring your help. They believe that their every right and...