The Rebirth of Dialogue

James P. Zappen

Description

Dialogue has suffered a long eclipse in the history of philosophy and the history of rhetoric but has enjoyed a rebirth in the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Martin Buber, and Mikhail Bakhtin. Among twentieth-century figures, Bakhtin took a special interest in the history of the dialogue form. This book explores Bakhtin's understanding of Socratic dialogue and the notion that dialogue is not simply a way of persuading others to accept our ideas, but a way of holding ourselves, and others, accountable for all of our thoughts, words, and actions. In supporting this premise, Bakhtin challenges the traditions of argument and persuasion handed down from Plato and Aristotle, and he offers, as an alternative, a dialogical rhetoric that restructures the traditional relationship between speakers and listeners, writers and readers, as a mutual testing, contesting, and creating of ideas. The author suggests that Bakhtin's dialogical rhetoric is not restricted to oral discourse, but is possible in any medium, including written, graphic, and digital.

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

Rethinking the Socratic Dialogue
Bakhtin, Dialogue, and the Rhetorical Tradition
Dialogical Rhetoric as Testing, Contesting, and Creating Ideas

2. The Traditional Socrates: Dialogue, Rhetoric, Dialectic

Socrates' Life and Work
The Philosophical/Rhetorical Tradition: From Dialogue to Dialectic and Rhetoric
The British Empirical Tradition: Logic and Socratic Negative Dialectic
The Dialogical Tradition: Testing, Contesting, and Creating Ideas

3. Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Dialogical Rhetoric, and the Socratic Dialogue

Bakhtin's Life and Works
Dialogical Rhetoric as an Exchange of Utterances
Bakhtin and the Socratic Dialogue
The Socratic Dialogue as Novelistic
Reading Texts Contextually and Extratextually

4. Cultural Conflict and the Testing of Persons and Ideas in the Laches

Cultural Conflict from Homer to Socrates
Cultural Conflict in the Homeric Epics
Anacrisis and Syncrisis: Testing Persons and Ideas

5. Truth as Dialogic: Creating a Cultural Hybrid in the Protagoras

Protagoras versus Socrates?
Cooperative Discussion: Creating a Cultural Hybrid
Cooperation or Contestation?

6. Dialogue as Carnival: Contesting Cultural and Rhetorical Practices in the Gorgias

Gorgias versus Socrates?
Carnivalistic Debate: Contesting Cultural and Rhetorical Practices
Dialogue on the Threshold: The Contest of the Just Life

Epilogue: Dialogical Rhetoric in Print and Digital Media

Cultural Conflict and Old/New Media
Testing Cultural Differences in Printed Texts
Contesting Cultural Authority in Digital Discussion Groups
Creating a Digital Community across a Cultural Divide

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Sujets

• Discourse analysis
• Communication studies
• Stylistics
• Semantics

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791484906
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE REBIRTH of DIALOGUE

Bakhtin, Socrates, and the Rhetorical Tradition

JAMES P. ZAPPEN

The Rebirth of Dialogue

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The Rebirth of Dialogue

Bakhtin, Socrates, and the Rhetorical Tradition

James P. Zappen

State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2004 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Zappen, James Philip. The rebirth of dialogue : Bakhtin, Socrates, and the rhetorical tradition / James P. Zappen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-6129-7 (alk. paper) 1. Plato. Dialogues. 2. Socrates. 3. Bakhtin, M. M. (Mikhail Mikhaæilovich), 1895– 1975. 4. Dialogue analysis. 5. Rhetoric. I. Title. B395.Z37 2004 183'.2—dc22 2004008698

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Acknowledgments

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Contents

Introduction Rethinking the Socratic Dialogue Bakhtin, Dialogue, and the Rhetorical Tradition Dialogical Rhetoric as Testing, Contesting, and Creating Ideas

The Traditional Socrates: Dialogue, Rhetoric, and Dialectic Socrates’ Life and Work The Philosophical/Rhetorical Tradition: From Dialogue to Dialectic and Rhetoric The British Empirical Tradition: Logic and Socratic Negative Dialectic The Dialogical Tradition: Testing, Contesting, and Creating Ideas

Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Dialogical Rhetoric, and the Socratic Dialogue Bakhtin’s Life and Works Dialogical Rhetoric as an Exchange of Utterances Bakhtin and the Socratic Dialogue The Socratic Dialogue asNovelistic Reading Texts Contextually and Extratextually

Cultural Conflict and the Testing of Persons and Ideas in theLaches Cultural Conflict from Homer to Socrates Cultural Conflict in the Homeric Epics Anacrisis and Syncrisis: Testing Persons and Ideas

Truth as Dialogic: Creating a Cultural Hybrid in theProtagoras Protagoras versus Socrates? Cooperative Discussion: Creating a Cultural Hybrid Cooperation or Contestation?

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Contents

Dialogue as Carnival: Contesting Cultural and Rhetorical Practices in theGorgias Gorgias versus Socrates? Carnivalistic Debate: Contesting Cultural and Rhetorical Practices Dialogue on the Threshold: The Contest of the Just Life

Epilogue Dialogical Rhetoric in Print and Digital Media Cultural Conflict and Old/New Media Testing Cultural Differences in Printed Texts Contesting Cultural Authority in Digital Discussion Groups Creating a Digital Community across a Cultural Divide

Notes

Works Cited

Index

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Acknowledgments

My greatest indebtedness—as a reader who knows no Russian and only a lit- tle Greek—is to scholars who have labored to translate and to interpret the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin for an English-speaking audience and to scholars in rhetoric, philosophy, and the classics who have endeavored to reconstruct the Socrates of the early Platonic dialogues. I hope that I have used their work wisely in my effort to intermingleslovoandlogos—Russian and Greek and, of necessity, also English words. Many others have generously provided advice, support, and assistance. Priscilla C. Ross, Director of the State University of New York Press, has thoughtfully and patiently guided me through the editorial process, and the anonymous State University of New York Press reviewers have generously offered helpful and constructive suggestions for revision, for which they deserve more thanks than I can give them here. Frank Farmer, Kay Halasek, Deborah Mutnick, and Filipp Sapienza have shared with me their thoughts and writings on Bakhtin, rhetoric, and composition studies, and Caryl Emer- son and R. Bracht Branham have kindly directed me to recent scholarship on Bakhtin and the classics. Richard Leo Enos and Andreas Karatsolis have checked my bibliography and have helped me to document my occasional use of Greek terms. Laura J. Gurak, Stephen Doheny-Farina, Teresa M. Harrison, and Sibel Adali have shared with me the challenges and the rewards of collaborative research and writing. Current and former graduate students Elizabeth C. Britt, Jennifer Estava Davis, Kevin Hunt, and Terese Monberg have broad- ened my thinking about Bakhtin, rhetoric, and culture, and research assis- tants Jennifer Bullard, Mousumi Chatterjee, Carolyn M. Clegg, Sandrine Dincki, Victoria Moore, Huatong Sun, and Ashley Williams have been the cornerstones of the Connected Kids project described in my epilogue. Rens- selaer Polytechnic Institute colleagues Cheryl Geisler, S. Michael Halloran, and Merrill D. Whitburn have provided the advice and encouragement and the time and equipment support that was necessary to complete this project. Former colleagues and mentors Winifred Bryan Horner and Richard E.

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Young long ago introduced me to the challenges and opportunities in rhetoric and composition studies. Susan H. Zappen and the library staffs of Rensselaer and Skidmore Col- lege have provided bibliographic assistance, Matthew J. Zappen has been my constant editorial consultant, and Gregory J. Zappen has been my expert and always patient technical consultant and graphic designer. Some of the ideas and several pages of text have appeared in previous publications. I am grateful to the publishers for their permission to use this material, as follows:

James P. Zappen. “Bakhtin’s Socrates.”Rhetoric Review15:1 (1996): 66–83. Copy- right by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Used with permission of the publisher. James P. Zappen. “The Logic and Rhetoric of John Stuart Mill.”Philosophy and Rhetoric26:3 (1993): 191–200. Copyright 1993 by the Pennsylvania State Uni- versity Press. Portions revised and reproduced by permission of the publisher. James P. Zappen. “Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975).” InTwentiethCentury Rhetorics and Rhetoricians: Critical Studies and Sources,ed. Michael G. Moran and Michelle Ballif, 7–22. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000. Used with permission of the publisher. James P. Zappen, Laura J. Gurak, and Stephen Doheny-Farina. “Rhetoric, Community, and Cyberspace.”Rhetoric Review15:2 (1997): 400–419. Copyright by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Used with permission of the publisher.

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Introduction

Dialogue has suffered a long eclipse in the history of rhetoric and in the his- tory of philosophy. Socrates, its most important early practitioner, left no writ- ings of his own, and his voice has become inextricably merged with the writ- ings of Plato. As a consequence, Socratic dialogue has become little more than a precursor to the dialectic and rhetoric of Plato and Aristotle, and Socratic questioning has come to be seen as a search for answers—a quest for univer- 1 sal definitions that set philosophy and science on a fruitless search for truth. In traditional readings of the early history of rhetoric, the Socrates of early Platonic dialogues such as theProtagorasand theGorgiasis a practitioner of a dialectical/dialogical method that becomes transformed into the dialectical 2 rhetoric of thePhaedrusand the philosophical rhetoric of Aristotle. In tradi- tional readings of the early history of philosophy, he is also a practitioner of a rudimentary form of inductive method in search of universal definitions that becomes refined as a method of argument and persuasion in Aristotle’s dialec- 3 tic and his rhetoric. Thus dialogue has merged almost imperceptibly into dialectic and has become the cornerstone of a dialectical or philosophical rhetoric. Dialogue has reemerged, however, in the twentieth century, in the work of theorists from a range of disciplinary orientations—Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Martin Buber, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Carl R. Rogers, for exam- ple—some of whom have taken an interest in the early Platonic dialogues and 4 their relationship to the rhetorical tradition. Recent scholarship on the early dialogues, moreover, has envisioned a Socrates distinct from the Socrates of the later dialogues, a Socrates more concerned with how we live than with what or how we know, a Socrates who practices dialogue as the only true art of politics and who rejects rhetoric as the dangerous tool of an imperialistic 5 empire. This renewed interest in dialogue offers an opportunity to rethink the

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