Rhetoric and Human Consciousness - Essay Example

Rhetoric and Human Consciousness by Rhetoric is one of the oldest disciplines that appeared in antiquity and managed to survive through centuries and even evolve significantly in our time. The reason of its popularity and necessity can be explained by its broad applicability in the life of each and every human starting from a politician and ending with a shop assistant. As soon as ancient people understood the value of rhetoric it was included into education program of schools and universities as one of the arts of discourse. It is not a surprise that rhetoric was created in ancient Greece as this was the first state that emerged from mythic perception of the world but got rid of it in the process of intellectual evolution. Greek society was the one that bred the concept of democracy as it is Greeks who realized the importance of society for human evolution. It is probably was best formulated by the Aristotle`s definition of a human as a “political animal”: so unless a person adapts to society he remains an animal only. So Greeks were the first who concluded that a human being can exist only in social environment that is why communication among people plays a primary role for the level of development. In other words, Greeks were the first who understood the enormous power of the mind that could alter reality with the help of words and images (Backman, 1991, 66). That is how rhetoric appeared- it was a tool that could verbally modulate the world itself, and influence it on social level. In the times when civilization was only arising it was crucial to choose the right path to follow for the whole nation (it is not less important in our time). Rhetoric started to be regarded as the art that is capable to make impact, persuade, and motivate the audience of listeners and readers. Since then rhetoric plays a crucial role in the development of human consciousness as it first of all serves as the basis for self-consciousness of each human being and only from awareness about personal thoughts, ideas, and feelings a person learns to create the world around him. While Erich Heller warns people to be careful about the interpreting of the world, because it appears to be exactly as it is, rhetoric that helps to deliver the variant of interpretation of one human being to another most accurately (Heller, 1975, 77). Rhetoric serves as the link between human consciousness that is totally isolated from the outer world and other people. And to the degree to which rhetoric skills are developed are proportional to the degree to which the person`s ideas are understood and grasped. To achieve the best results it is necessary to influence all components of consciousness: analytical part, memory, imagination as well as intuition. First of all, in order to see the exact link between rhetoric ad consciousness it is urgent to define these concepts as modern science sees them. Aristotle was one of the first theorists who dedicated the whole book which was called “Rhetoric” to describing the principles of the discipline. According to Greek philosopher and scientist, rhetoric as well as dialectic is not connected to some specific field of knowledge: it embraces all spheres of human life simultaneously (Aristotle, 6). Thus, rhetoric is used on a daily basis in mundane life of common people and in state affairs and politics. Interpreting rhetoric in such a sense Aristotle defines it as the ability to find right methods of persuasion in each concrete situation (Aristotle). So it is not a surprise that rhetoric is crucial for the life of each person who strives to find the best ways of influencing the world around. In this paper the particular attention is paid to the connection of rhetoric to psychology, and to its impact and interconnection with human consciousness in particular (Corbett, 1991, 35). But before discussing this question it is necessary to define the basic terms. Though it is quite clear what rhetoric is because it is a discipline, a science, it is much more difficult to give concrete and logical definition of consciousness. Many philosophers and psychologists argue about exact interpretation of this concept and giving the definition of one of them would be narrowing. Current psychology regards the very concept of consciousness on two levels: the lower level and the higher level. Consciousness is first of all a social product that is why we can talk only about human consciousness while animals do not have consciousness in direct sense. The lowest level of psyche is created with the help of subconscious which represents such state of mind which a human being is hardly capable to be aware of. It is connected to the loss of sense of time and spaces and manifests itself mostly with the help of images. There are different views on the nature of subconscious, some psychologists regard it as repressed desires and instincts other see it as a the creation of common human archetypes (Wilber, 1993, 56). Anyway subconscious represents only a part of consciousness which is larger and all-embracing. The higher level of consciousness connected to the brain work is the activity which consists of perceiving the reality, reflecting over it and constructing personal behavior according to the information achieved. It is attributed to people only, and that is important thing to note (Schneider & Wellmans, 2008, 99). The question of how exactly the information is processed in human consciousness to achieve awareness is one of many issues philosophers, scientists, and psychologists aim to solve in these days. In any case consciousness is truly unimaginable without its main components: memory, imagination and cognition. The first allows recalling the experience of the past, the second completes insufficient information with desirable images, and cognition helps to combine the previous functions and analyze the achieved information in order to adapt to the reality in the best and the most appropriate way. Some scholars distinguish intuition as an important aspect of consciousness but it is most often attributed to subconscious level of psyche (Wilber, 1993, 112). It is psychology mostly that deals and works closely with these concepts, however, neuroscience is gradually assimilating its knowledge into other disciplines. So analyzing the relationship between human consciousness and rhetoric it is necessary to investigate the issues of memory, cognition, and imagination as well as intuition in particular. One of the most influential theorists who incorporated psychological knowledge into rhetoric was George Campbell. His profession of a pastor required from him deep understanding of both disciplines as he had to influence minds of people with the help of God`s word. He relied on the value of the concept of intuition as the basic “moral evidence” that could be also regarded as God`s revelation and was aimed to help the person to define right from wrong first of all. Campbell elaborated his own theory of argument which consisted of three basic elements on the basis of which a speaker built his persuasion. The first was the data of experience which was created with sensations which are brought to people`s minds with the help of sensory systems. According to Campbell, the data of analogy formed with the help of comparison of fresh material with already existing in memory. The next component was the data of authority which was created after the examination of the information from the authoritative perspective which has more expertise. Addressing to such a source is necessary when the information a person has in insufficient to make conclusions. The last component is the data of probability or the calculation of facts which is directed to determining the rightfulness or wrongfulness of assumptions (Craig, 2013, 224). Though consciousness was regarded by Campbell as the combination of the will, the understanding, the affections, the memory, and the imagination he placed a special accent on the last two notions and their connection to rhetoric. Campbell also underlined the importance of memory and imagination for the rhetoric because memory he viewed as the ability of a person to recall “intuitively true past” which he connected to the right instincts. This vision of memory was similar to Locke`s vision who regarded memory as a collection of associations and images induced by sensations. Imagination in its turn helps the memory to pick up necessary association and place them according to the current situation. Rhetoric on Campbell`s view is not responsible only for passing ideas but emotions as well. Campbell used the experience of Protestant preachers who created the “morphology of speech” and used it to affect the listeners in some particular way in order to evoke their emotions (Craig, 2013, 225). However, Campbell also regarded the rhetoric (the rhetoric of preaching in particular) from a new perspective that is why he created a completely new sequence of the components of consciousness involved: “from memory to understanding, from understanding to imagination, from imagination to affections, and from affections to will”. The purpose of the rhetoric in this case was to awaken the memory (the intuitive knowledge of God`s wisdom), to stimulate understanding, to make impact on imagination, to awake passions and emotions and therefore provoke will to action. Campbell demonstrated new possibilities of rhetoric and its new tasks among which was enlightment of the listeners. The language that was supposed to be used for rhetoric had to make impact on imagination on the one hand was metaphoric but on the other hand was directed on understanding of the speech primarily remaining lucid. Argumentation according to Campbell had to be underpinned by examples in different genre forms: narrations, parables, fables, and allegories. So appealing to imagination by evoking images that provoke feelings such as sympathy, love, anxiety, grief, pity is one of the most necessary functions of rhetoric, and church rhetoric in particular. In this case the persuasion is achieved with the help of vivacity, brightness of images (Suderman, 2001, 112). Moreover, Campbell emphasized the four conditions should be put into effect to make the biggest impact on human consciousness: The speaker should refer to the examples close in space for audience to associate with the information better; The speaker should also refer to the examples close in time for the same purpose; The speaker should also refer to similarity of the personal experience with more general experience; The main purpose of rhetoric is to achieve perspicuity on the level of imagination as well as on the level of understanding (Campbell, 1992, 134). If keeping in mind all these propositions of Campbell which in many cases coincide with Aristotle`s concepts of ethos, pathos, ad logos, it is possible to reach the consciousness of the audience and make the required effect: evoke emotions ad stimulate analysis and actions and later inspire a person to do actions. So it is possible to say that rhetoric affects consciousness of the speaker as well as the consciousness of the listeners. The speaker uses the possibility of his own memory, understanding, and imagination to recall necessary information or apply it to certain experience, structure them in a logical order and then to create appropriate images in his own mind and transmit it to the audience. With the help of rhetoric it is possible to touch all layers of consciousness, even the one which is considered to be subconscious-intuition. Hugh Blair shared Campbell`s opinion regarding the connection of rhetoric and human consciousness. Moreover, he believed that the choice of style of rhetoric, the choice of ethos expresses person`s character and what is more important person`s taste to beauty. If rhetoric is tasteful it appeals to the universal laws. It is taste that helps a person to create things in “orderly, proportional, harmonious, grand, new, sprightly” manner. So basically the choice of ethos is directly related to the emotional response of readers which Blair considered central. Blair teaches his audience some taste in order to make impact on aesthetic perception and imagination. So in Blair`s vision rhetoric is inseparable from imagination first of all and the more vividly ad tastefully the speaker represents the information the more response he will get from the audience (Craig, 2013, 225). So the connection of rhetoric and human consciousness were notice long ago in the motherland of the art of discourse-Greece. Aristotle distinguished ethos, pathos, and logos in human speech and described the value of each first. At that time the understanding of consciousness of a human being was limited. But with the establishment of psychology as a science its connection to rhetoric became truly visible. A lot of theorists were interested in the interconnection of psychology and rhetoric, and Campbell was one of the first who described the impact of a craftily chosen word on a human consciousness. He believed the God`s wisdom is stored in human memory and that rhetoric of a preacher can pull it from memory to understanding, from understanding to imagination, from imagination to affections, and from affections to will. Campbell considered that moving a person to action and motivating him/her to changes is the principal role of a preacher. Another theorist, Blair, considered that speech should be created with the help of universal laws and first of all be tasteful which means harmonious, balanced, and beautiful. The theorist appealed to human imagination first of all with the help of vivid word and touched some inner intuition of beauty. Though theorists had different opinion regarding the components of consciousness they all agreed on the necessity of the analysis of them. So all in all, the theorists considered that when directing attention to all components of human consciousness: memory, understanding, imagination, intuition, it will certainly result in psychological impact, persuasion, ad motivation of a person to change his life for better. References Aristotle. Rhetoric. (trans. W. Rhys Roberts). Backman, M. (1991). Rhetoric and the Rise of Self-Consciousness. Woodbridge: Ox Bow Press. Retrieved from: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=TUtMTqwmsOQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Rhetoric+and+the+Rise+of+Self-Consciousness&hl=ru&sa=X&ei=aqFLVZ2bI4PYU877gIAK&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Rhetoric%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20Self-Consciousness&f=false Campbell, G. (1992). The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Scholars Facsimiles & Reprints Craig, R. (2013). Rhetoric and Human Consciousness. California: Waveland Press Incorporated. Chisholm, H. (1911). Blair, Hugh. Encyclopedia Britannica, Cambridge University Press. Corbett, E. (1990). Classical rhetoric for the modern student. New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=U-2_9vD_A1wC&dq=classical+rhetoric+for+the+modern+student&hl=ru&sa=X&ei=EqFLVeirKYPZU8S-gJAL&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAA Heller, E. (1975). Disinherited Mind: Essays in Modern German Literature and Thought. New York: Mariner Books. Schneider, S. & Velmans, M. (2008) Introduction, The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Wiley. Retrieved from: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=B1lRZmOzuJ0C&pg=PA1&dq=Introduction,+The+Blackwell+Companion+to+Consciousness&hl=ru&sa=X&ei=JaRLVcrMHYn8UrKwgNAP&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Introduction%2C%20The%20Blackwell%20Companion%20to%20Consciousness&f=false Suderman, J. (2001). Orthodoxy and Enlightenment: George Campbell in the Eighteenth Century. McGill-Queens University Press. Retrieved from: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=FH4CQ6cxFKwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Orthodoxy+and+Enlightenment:+George+Campbell+in+the+Eighteenth+Century&hl=ru&sa=X&ei=U6RLVbXODMj9UtzhgbgK&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Orthodoxy%20and%20Enlightenment%3A%20George%20Campbell%20in%20the%20Eighteenth%20Century&f=false Wilber, K. (1993). The Spectrum of Consciousness, Chicago: Theosophical Publishing House. Retrieved from: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=ZE9bBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA4&dq=The+Spectrum+of+Consciousness&hl=ru&sa=X&ei=qKRLVaCtI4P-UMSjgZgF&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Spectrum%20of%20Consciousness&f=false Read More