A Rhetoric of Motives [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

"A Rhetoric of Motives" was published in 1950, five years after "A Grammar of Motives," the first volume of a planned trilogy "On Human Relations" that was never officially completed. Having established the critical vocabulary of the dramatistic pentad in the first volume, this second work explores how all forms of human activities, whether linguistic or not, are modes of symbolizing. Specifically, Burke focuses on the relationship between persuasion and identification (hence, the focus on rhetoric rather than grammar). This is where his definition of man as the symbol-using/misusing animal comes into play. Within this context, the goal of the critic is to interpret human symbolizing in whatever arena it can be found (which necessarily means all human interactions) in order to explain human motivations.

Part I "The Range of Rhetoric" sets up the key Burkeian concepts of Identification and Consubstantiality. Part II "Traditional Principles of Rhetoric" reworks those concepts into Burke's framework, using diverse texts from Dante and Machiavelli to Carlyle and Rochefoucauld to support the analysis. Part III on "Order" develops positive, dialectical and ultimate terms to establish the idea of forms that are paradigmatic of the rhetorical process as well as those that are better termed caricatures. Students of rhetoric and social theory should certainly read "A Grammar of Motives" before making their way through this volume, although a thorough appreciation of Burke would require starting with his pre-war "trilogy" of "Counter-Statement," "Permanence and Change," and "Attitudes Towards History." That middle volume is especially important in light of Burke's argument in "A Rhetoric of Motives."

Burke never wrote "A Symbolic of Motives," which was to complete the trilogy. Both "Language As Symbolic Action" and "A Rhetoric of Religion" are sometimes represented as the third volume in some embryonic form, which is about as valid as such considerations can go. My argument would be that Burke's earlier works are much better sources of enlightenment and inspiration than either of those particular volumes.

First things first: I've been reading Burke as an undergrad, and make no claim to understand the whole of his thought. I won't go into any long-winded, ego-massaging philosophical critique: I'll save that for a term paper. But I do have some ideas about reading him that might help dispel other reviewers' claims that Burke is either obscure or unimportant. Anyone interested in rhetoric should find Burke at least interesting, and, if you plan to study rhetoric, there's no getting around him. This is mainly for other undergrads like myself (or anyone) coming to Burke for the first time.

-Read his Grammar of Motives first or alongside the Rhetoric. This lays out the "dramtistic pentad"(the combinations of act, scene, agent, agency, purpose), which is basically Burke's shorthand for any one combination of social relations with others or environment. For example, if one acts under certain conditions, such an act would be considered under the "act-scene ratio." These formulations of the combination (hence "Grammar") of relationships are largely implicit in the Rhetoric, but once you have the pentad down you won't have too many problems recognizing the structure of a given argument in the Rhetoric. (If helps, you might consider the fact that Burke wanted to create a modern "trivium"-- grammar, rhetoric, logic-- updated for the linguistic turn, thus substituting the symbolic for logic (we encounter the world through symbols, not strict reasoned arguments... but back to more important matters:)
-His idea of "identification" is key: Burke defines rhetoric by this term, not by persuasion (although persuasion is implied in identification... read about it for yourself), and most of his most abstract stuff stems the consideration of an agent identifying with someone/something else. As said before, the pentad lays the groundwork for identification, so keep this in mind.
-The roots of his epistemological critique originate from his critique of substance, the essential make-up of an agent, argument, etc. If you've missed the section "Paradox of Substance" in the Grammar, then you'll be lost.
-His argumentative style is anecdotal: he'll take a given topic (Hitler, for instance) and analyze it accordingly. This can make the reading seem disjointed, but it should cohere if you see that Burke is just applying his basic argument to a wide array of topics. I can see where this could get annoying if you already know what he's talking about (he does love to elaborate on one general theme with multiple examples for pages at a time), but for me it often clarified what I didn't understand before in the more abstract parts. He never assumes you'll come up with examples on your own, which for a student is a good thing, I think.
-This is the groundwork, like the Grammar was for the Rhetoric, for the Symbolic, which was never written. So if he seems terse on the "symbol-using animal" thing, that's why.

In other words, Burke wasn't a one-book kind of guy. His thought is scattered across multiple books, but this does not mean it's scattered thought.

So, those are just some helpful tips that have helped at least one undergrad. I hope Burke comes across as less an obstacle than someone the works of whom are both rewarding and enjoyable to read (unlike so much of modern theory).

Just one note: it was mentioned in one the arguments below that Burke was some sort of postmodern irrationalist. His epigraph to the Grammar is "ad bellum purificandum"-- "towards the purification of war." Meaning, of course, getting rid of it, because for Burke there is no such thing as a pure substance (again, read about that...). He seems to want to take the messy world of symbols that we use and make them more readily understandable in their functions, and thus more controllable.

Seems rational to me.

No matter how much and how well you understand the project - to determine the rhetoric that correspond to a motive according to the nature of this motive, you find the approach artificial because it only uses linguistic means to define this rhetoric of the said motive or motives. No body language, no facial language, no language beyond language. At times it becomes purely absurd. How can we follow a « discourse » and its rhetoric if we do not consider what happens when it is « uttered » to a crowd and « enacted » physically. The case, when it is so obvious that we feel floating in thin air, is when he pretends symbols are anterior to all human inventions. This is philogenetically absurd. Man when he emerged out of animality invented the symbols, the first words let's say, in and out of his daily survival practice, hence his daily economic practice and then these symbols amplified the practice by making its transmission and improvement easier. We cannot accept this assertion : « The laws of symbols are prior to economic laws. » At this moment we feel that Burke, in spite of his great insistance on the central dimension in human thinking of dialectical processes, loses his dialectic. Symbols and socioeconomic practices are absolutely linked together genetically as well as structurally in the most dialectical way imaginable. The key to that loss of his dialectic comes later, I think, when he pretends that the oxymoron, the basic dialectical figure of speech that significantly associates two antagonistic elements (and oxymorons must not be reduced to words as Burke does it), when he pretends that this oxymoron is a realization of mysticism. Absurd. Mysticism states an absolute unity of a one and only being that dominates you because it is your creator. And this creator is not oxymoronic, even if you may thing this concept of a creator is a moronic idea. In this book Kenneth Burke traps himself by limiting his rhetoric to language. There is no rhetoric that is not also material, corporeal, emotional, and even repressive, military, agressive, using all kinds of bodies and corps to impose one's point of view, even if officially the orator only uses words. Others, behind him, use other means, but far more effective means. If you want to keep a historical site clean, you have to use written and oral rhetoric to incite the public to keep it tidy, but you also use special visual signs, specially devised trashcans that attract the attention and reinforce all the other signals, but also some wardens who enforce the rules by asking politely at first and then more forcefully if necessary the trespasser to please comply with the rule. That is the full rhetoric of cleanliness on an historical site, and it can go as far as showing the unreformable, un redeemable trespasser the way out. It also includes some cleaning people that are here to remind you of the dirt visitors create, and thus make you feel guilty and comply with the inciting rhetoric of cleanliness.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Université Paris Dauphine, Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne