Where There are No Rules or Systems to Guide Us

## Citation

Arthos, John. "Where There are No Rules or Systems to Guide Us." *Quarterly Journal of Speech*, vol. 89, no. 4, 2003, pp. 320-344.

## Abstract

"Many rhetoricians treat argument from example as a kind of induction, an illustration of a general principle. Although this is one function of example, consistent with Aristotle's statements about the *paradeigma* and *The New Rhetoric*'s 'argumentation by example,' it camouflages the practice of exemplary proof that has contributed to our richest sense of rhetorical understanding. Inductive example allies itself with the principles of theoretical science and contradicts Aristotle's insight that rhetoric functions where rules or systems are wanting. A properly rhetorical understanding of the *exemplum* does not work through a universal, implicit or otherwise, but follows a sideways movement from particular to particular. This essay traces the alliance of the *paradeigma* with inductive science to an unstable fault-line in our Aristotelian heritage, then retraces the path of the prudential tradition by following the long and distinguished careers of the rhetorical example in the West in order to reclaim this heritage and to challenge the pre-eminence of inductive subsumption."

## Summary

Is communication studies more like social science or the humanities? How does it know or decide the truth of a matter? Arthos proposes an analysis of critical reasoning in the tradition of argumentation, which straddles disciplinary method - able to draw on many resources, but full of rich problems also. For example, argument's use of example - argument is typically taught as a form of inductive reasoning, which Arthos finds rhetorically insufficient as a way of thinking.

"The fault line opened with the Greeks. Plato and Aristotle encouraged the instability by distinguishing *phronesis* and *episteme*. In contrast to Socrates, who precluded human understanding from knowing the good, first philosophy requires knowledge of the good and, thus, establishes the metaphysical pretensions of an absolute foundation." Arthos is influenced here by Gadamer, "on the ancient problem of the many and the one and his placement of the rhetorical example within this problematic. As Gadamer willingly acknowledged, philosophical hermeneutics is grounded in rhetorical principles." (321)

### The Status Quo

"Example in argument can and should be used variously as a species of generalization, as an illustration for clarity and forcefulness, as the source of models or standards from which particular cases may be judged, or as a means to argue analogously." (321) Argument is used as a way of moving laterally from particular to particular, but is commonly classed as a species of generalization, going as far back as Aristotle. Though Aristotle understood rhetoric as serving a deliberative purpose in circumstances "'where there are no systems or rules to guide us,' the *exemplum* is regarded as a species of inductive proof that stands in the service of a rule which, although not absolute, shadows the principles of formal logic." (321-322)

The problem here is that treating example as a form of generalization, which is used to prove or establish a rule, ignores its rhetorical origins - again, working as a way of deliberating when there are no rules or systems. Individual cases don't just serve to confirm a law, but rather can be used to understand a unique historical phenomenon in itself. "The alternative to conceiving argument from example as a species of induction is to say that when we argue from particular to particular we are not always working implicitly through a rule, but remain in the sideways movement from one example to the next." Examples are used when the path back to the generalization is blocked, as a way of moving sideways and around. **"We abandon the universal out of necessity, seeking wisdom 'on the ground' among the forest of contingencies."** (322) So the question is now: "If 'the case which functions as an example is in fact something different from just a case of the rule,' what exactly is it?" (322)

### Which Aristotle?

In *Rhetoric*, Aristotle establishes example as a form of generalization, moving from a less familiar particular to a more familiar particular, in order to better understand the less familiar particular and place it within a general category of understanding - inductive reasoning. Induction is a lesser canon of style than the enthymeme, Aristotle's preferred method of rhetorical reasoning.

Arthos traces the appearance of induction and example across Aristotle's works, to show the contradictions in how they are spoken of; example does not simply work by subsuming the particular to the general, but instead relies on attention to the particular in order to understand its complexity.

*Phronesis*, practical wisdom, as a pragmatic alternative to human science.

Plato fails to make clear the relation between the particular and the general, so a classic reading of Aristotle is to establish this relationship through induction and deduction. And whichever gets used as a starting point or method in different disciplines is based on general agreement among practitioners. "Hannah Arendt wondered what it would be like 'if there had been a Socratic tradition in Western thought,' and I want to suggest that we can imagine this tradition in rhetoric." (329)

### Socrates's Path

"If *phronesis* is a disposition to choose wisely under contingent circumstances, rhetorical discourse is th deliberative practice that actuates that disposition." (329) The dual tendency of Aristotle's program is "a realistic regard for what is pragmatically possible that nevertheless stands under the aegis of science. The privileging of the enthymeme over the example and the inductive basis for exemplary argument give witness to this bias." (329)

Gadamer resists the traditional reading of Plato that proposes the "two worlds" view - world of forms, sensible world - and instead reads Plato "in the light of Socratic ignorance." (329) Thus, we can ask "Which Plato" to reconfigure Plato's relationship to Socrates in several ways.

By taking seriously the ceaseless questioning and failure to arrive at the truth, Arthos's reading sees the dialogues as a demonstration of the "proper location of the weakness of human understanding," in which both the path up to first principles or down towards singulars is blocked or obscured, leaving the only way is forward with "humility and wariness." Very similar to how Aristotle describes *phronesis*!

For Aristotle, "The reason it is possible to make judgments on a shifting ground is because of the extraordinary capacity of the human being, an animal equipped with the ability to speculate, to move back and forth between past, present, and future. Not everyone has this capacity in equal measure. We are by no means certain to find it, for instance, in those who are experts in abstract and universal principles. The skill is likely to be found in people who deal on a day-to-day basis with the particular choices of practical life." (330) Yes! Compare with Burke, on man as the symbol-using, symbol-making, symbol-misusing animal and substitute "theory" for "symbolic action" to arrive at both an Aristotelian and Burkean definition of the human.

Practical wisdom, for Aristotle, is opposite scientific knowledge, which cannot apprehend what common sense see. This is wisdom, because it is not calculative reasoning, and is best-suited for people of action.

### Roman Rhetoric and the Example

For Roman rhetoric, example is among "the probable proofs that live comfortably within the indeterminate realm of praxis." (331) Examples are given the weight of prudential reason. Cicero treated induction as a form of Socratic argument, a way of getting the opponent to assent to that which is undisputed, and thus lead to an indisputable conclusion.

### Casuistry

In the Middle Ages and Renaissance period, casuistry was a deliberative practice developed "to adjudicate practical matters of ethics and conduct," literally meaning a science "of or based upon actual cases," and was able to flourish "where systems of absolute moral rules become impractical owing to inflexibility." (332) For example, a taxonomy for judgment in confession and the administration of penance. Casuists recognized that context matters, thus allowing judgment to remain at the level of the particular rather than resort to a generalized axiom. The concern of the casuists was whether it was universally true that one should confess wrongdoing, if it is known that doing so may cause someone else harm or lead them to sin.

Two results of casuistry:

1. A case can be so different from precedent that it establishes its own category, changing the law.
2. Shifts the emphasis of confession from a dogmatic to a pastoral purpose; confession as an instrument of education and reclamation, emphasizing the future and conduct to be expected, rather than the past deeds. "Justice, in this understanding, leads towards the construction of a community of love." (334)

### The Socratic Tradition Renewed

In the "radical contingency of the postmodern world," attention to rhetorical example can give us a model for judgment that acts without necessary appeal to principles of universal validity. Since there is no easy line between general rule and particular situation, guidance has to come from somewhere else; "we do not and could not arrive at practical decisions for the most part deductively or often even in the strict sense inductively, because often our best or most necessary decisions are departures from precedent." (336)

### Can Example Avoid Induction?

On the one hand, example is often offered as a way of showing how things were done in the past or in a similar situation - clearly with the intention of drawing out a general principle to follow. But on the other hand, "because prudence operates precisely in the particularity of circumstance, the example cannot be a template for action." (336) Per Consigny:

> "The rhetor cannot therefore reason from facts to wholes because the very facts themselves are not yet available. The rhetor's action is one which is prior to the generalization from the facts: it is one of establishing the facts."
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(What a great assessment! A way of distinguishing the rhetor from the critic, too)
Michael Leff, Quintilian, and the Renaissance humanists take up the relation between creative assimilation (*imitatio*) and adaptation (*ingenium*) of practical wisdom, to provide a way out. Invention and interpretation interact and experienced judgment moves between the past and present, tradition circulating through being to constitute "the person you really are," and from the past, something new is born in the present. **"Example is never just example, an instance to be subsumed, but the material for growth."** (337)

> "The dialectic between probability and undecideability resident in the deliberative decision is what Garver calls 'stable innovation.' This notion is based on a just appreciation of the nature of contingency; we deliberate about things that can be otherwise. The future is obscure to us because the results of our decisions can go any number of ways. This is not just human blindness, but the variability that characterizes our participation in the good. We live in the recognition that we do not ever fully control or foresee the results of our actions and decisions because the future is not just repetition. Innovation comes out of this pliant awareness, a standing rebuke to the very notion of a fixed rule. My judgment is grounded in the mutability of the future and the unreliability of the past as guide. We anticipate adaptation and assimilation in our judgments, and we go forward in our uncertainty. Because the future is contingent, our judgment is contingent. The weakness of the example from an inductive perspective is its strength in view of praxis." (338)
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(Wow, what a paragraph. Compare with Sedgwick on reparative reading's embrace of contingency in queer life - here, Arthos is perhaps giving grounds to say that this is a quality of all [human?] life)