Post on 02-Jun-2018
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
1/21
The Body of Persuasion: A Theory of the EnthymemeAuthor(s): Jeffrey WalkerSource: College English, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Jan., 1994), pp. 46-65Published by: National Council of Teachers of EnglishStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/378216
Accessed: 24/05/2010 23:49
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ncte.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
National Council of Teachers of Englishis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
College English.
http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/stable/378216?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=nctehttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=nctehttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/378216?origin=JSTOR-pdf8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
2/21
46
THE
BODY
OF
PERSUASION: A
THEORY
OF THE
ENTHYMEME
Jeffrey
Walker
hegenerally revailingoncept ftheenthymeme,r theonemost requent
in the world of
rhetoric and
composition
studies,
tends to
define
it
either as
a
kind
of
elliptical,
informal
syllogism
based
on
probable
rather
than certain
premises
and
on
tacit
assumptions
shared
by
audience and
rhetor,
or
as a kind
of
Toulmin
argument,
or as a
general
mode of
intuitive
reasoning representable
in
syllogistic
or Toulminian
terms, or,
most
simply,
as
the
juxtaposition
of
any
idea
with another
that
is
offered
as
a reason for
believing
it.
All
such
thinking
starts
from
Aristotle's
famous
dicta
that the
enthymeme
is
a
kind of
syllogism
or
rhetorical
syllogism,
and that
rhetoric is
a
counterpart
of dialectic
(Rhetoric
1.1 [1355a]; 1.2 [1356b]; 1.1 [1354a]).' This prevailing definition, however, has
recently
been
put
in
question
(see
in
particular
Conley, Enthymeme ; Gage,
Theory ).
And,
as
we
will
see,
it is
inadequate.
In
what
follows,
we
will
first reexamine the
primary
(and
not
exclusively
Aristotelian)
ancient sources
from
which a more
adequate
concept
of the en-
thymeme
can be derived.
Then,
we will
consider the
relevance
of that
concept
to
the
analysis
of modern
discourse-specifically,
to the
analysis
of Roland Barthes'
The
World
of
Wrestling
and
Martin
Luther
King,
Jr.'s
Letter
from
Birming-
ham
Jail,
both
of which
appear
in
popular anthologies
used in
composition
courses,
and both
of which
provide good examples
of modern-but
unrecog-
nized-enthymeming.
The
prevailing
definition
has,
of
course,
some
very
real
advantages.
Chief
among
them
is
its
tendency
to
emphasize
the
dialogic
relation
between writer
and
audience
by requiring
the writer to include
the
audience's
thinking
in
the inven-
Jeffrey
Walker has
just
returned
from a
Fulbright
Lectureship
in
Athens,
Greece,
where
this
article
was
completed.
He is Associate
Professor of
English
and Director of
Composition
at Penn State
University.
His
publications
include two
previous
articles in
CollegeEnglish,
and
a
book,
BardicEthos
and the American
Epic
Poem:
Whitman,
Pound,
Crane, Williams,
and
Olson
(LSU
Press,
1989).
He is
coauthor,
with Glen
McClish,
of the
anthology
Investigating
Arguments:Readingsor College
Writing
(Houghton Mifflin, 1991).
COLLEGE
ENGLISH,
VOLUME
56,
NUMBER
1,
JANUARY
1994
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
3/21
A
THEORY
OF THE ENTHYMEME
47
tion
process,
rather than
merely
adapting
the
discourse to an audience consid-
ered
after the
fact,
or considered
only
as an external other to be
manipulated
or accommodated
by
the writer's
unilateral,
monologic
action
(Gage,
Epistemol-
ogy
162-165).
Such an
approach
to
enthymematic
rhetoric
emphasizes
both
the
ethics
and the
techniques
of
persuasion,
as well as the
epistemological
and ideo-
logical
nature
of
rhetoric
by
requiring
the writer to examine
carefully
the
system
of
presuppositions
underlying
any given
line of
reasoning.
And since it is
the
epistemology/ideology
of an audience
that is in
question,
and not
merely
that of
a
romantically
isolated
individual,
this
approach
then leads to some form
of
cultural
criticism or
to
something
like the ancient
sophists'
skeptical
mode
of
inquiry
into conventional
belief.
It is also the
case,
however,
that the
currently prevailing
notion of the
enthymeme
as a rhetorical
syllogism
is
problematic
in
several
ways, especially
as we
find it too often
oversimplified
in
English
handbooks
currently
in
use
in
composition
classes.
First,
it all too
easily
permits
an
appropriation
of the
concept
that takes
inadequate
account
of what
syllogism might
mean
in
a rhetorical
context
or what it means
in
ancient Greek
apart
from
(or
before)
the
technical,
specialized significance
developed
in
Aristotle's
treatises
on
logic
and dialectic.
Plato,
for
example, appears
to
have
used
the
term
syllogismos
to
mean,
simply,
add
up
the results
(Quandahl 133).
Similarly,
we find
the
great sophist
Isocrates
using the word syllogisamenoin reference to the way an ordinary person intui-
tively
derives an inference or
judgment
from
a bundle of observations
(Against
the
Sophists
7-8).
This
intuitive
syllogizing,
moreover,
is
set
in
opposition
to
what
Isocrates
calls
eristics,
the
logic-chopping
verbal combat of
professional
dialec-
ticians who
claim to have
precise
or exact
knowledge.
Even
Aristotle,
at the
beginning
of the
Topics,
dopts
a
casual,
informal
definition
of the
syllogism
as
a
logos,
a
reasoning
or
discourse
in
which certain
things having
been laid
down,
other
things
necessarily
derive from them
(1.1
[100a]).
At
this
point
he is
probably drawing
on a
commonly
received
conception,
one that
would
be
familiar
for the audience of an introductory lecture. In the same place, dialectical syllo-
gizing
is
defined as
reasoning
from
doxa,
generally
accepted opinions,
or
more
specifically
as
reasoning
from doxa
granted
or
accepted by
one's
interlocutor(s),
one's
audience
(1.1 [100b]).
My
point
is
that
the
nontechnical
meaning
of
syllogism
in
ancient
Greek
seems
to
be
nothing
more than
ordinary,
informal
reasoning
and
inference,
and
that,
in
the context of
discussion and
debate,
this
meaning
includes informal
(as
well as
formal)
reasoning/inference
from
probable
assumptions
granted by
one's
audience.
If, then,
syllogism
can be
used
in
such a sense with reference to
everyday thought and discourse, why use enthymeme to name the same thing?
By carelessly invoking
enthymeme
as the rhetorical
syllogism,
we
may
be
making
a
distinction without a difference.
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
4/21
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
5/21
A THEORY OF THE ENTHYMEME
49
motive,
of the sometimes
uncontrollable
forces
of
desire
and wish
that
drive
human
intentionality. Thymos s, moreover,
often linked to both the
production
and
the
reception
of
passional thought
and
eloquent, persuasive
discourse.
Pin-
dar,
for
example,
tells
how
the
crafty
Hippolyta
strove
with all
her
heart
(thymos)
o
seduce
the
ever-virtuous
Peleus
with
beguiling
words and
falsely
inventing
wove
a
tale
to
persuade
her husband that Peleus had tried
to
seduce
her
(Nemean
5,
lines
26-31);
Hesiod in the
prologue
of Works nd
Days
(line
27)
tells
his
addressee, Perses,
to
lay
up
these
things
in
your
heart
(thymos).
The word
enthymema
and its relatives
clearly
are
grounded
in
such a field
of
meanings.
As Miller
and Bee have
noted,
for
example,
the
verb
enthymeomai
as
a semantic
range
that includes such
meanings
as
lay
to
heart,
consider
well,
reflect
on,
think
deeply
about,
be hurt or
angry
at,
form
a
plan,
infer,
conclude
202).
En-
thymeming,
then,
would
appear
to
include
both
the
inference-making
of
the
heart and the
strategic intentionality
of
forming plans.
In the
case of
rhetoric,
moreover,
this
strategic intentionality
includes what I
will
call kairotic
nventive-
ness -that
is,
an
inventiveness
responsive
to
what ancient
rhetoricians called
kairos,
the
opportune
at
any
given
moment in a
particular
rhetorical
situation.
For
a
pre-
or
non-Aristotelian
notion
of
the
enthymeme
in
rhetoric,
our
best
sources are
probably
Isocrates and the
otherwise
unknown
writer
of the
Rhetoric to
Alexander,
Anaximenes of
Lampsacus.
For
Isocrates,
enthymeme-
making is not only a matter of kairotic inventiveness, but is also linked to matters
of
style.
In
the
Panegyricus,
or
example,
he tells us
that
to
suit the kairos
of a
discourse with
fitting
enthymemes
and
with words
well
arranged
s
the
special
gift
of
those
of
good
intelligence
(9-10).
In
Against
the
Sophists,
ikewise,
he
portrays
the
ability
to see
what
kairos
demands,
and
speak
a discourse
wholly
wrought
with
fitting
enthymemes
and words both
rhythmic
and musical
as
the
essence of
rhetorical
skill
(16-17).
These statements
are
fairly
typical
(see,
for
example,
Evagoras
10-11
and Antidosis
46-47,
319).
In
Isocrates,
a
mention of
the
enthymeme
is seldom
without,
and
seldom far
from,
a
reference to
stylistic
matters; and indeed they often occur together in the same sentence.
Isocrates'
notion of
the
enthymeme,
then,
appears
to
include,
or to
be
linked
to,
passional
thought,
kairotic
inventiveness,
and
style-and
it
clearly occupies
a
central
place
in
his
conception
of
rhetorical skill.
But
Isocrates
will
not
give
us
the
satisfaction
of
a
rigidly
precise
or
systematic
account
of the
enthymeme,
since
in
general
he
denies the
possibility
or
usefulness of
exact
knowledge
and
does
not
consider rhetoric
reducible to
techne
for
a
discussion of this
denial,
see
Cahn).
For
more
explicit
codification,
we
must
turn
to
Anaximenes'
Rhetoric o
Alexander,
a
sophistic
techne
written
probably
in
the
generation
after
Aristotle (and for
many
centuries incorrectly attributed to Aristotle). What Anaximenes offers is the
fullest
surviving presentation
of a
sophistic
notion of
enthymeme
that
is
gener-
ally
taken both to
precede
and to
follow
Aristotle's
Rhetoric,
and that with a
long
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
6/21
50
COLLEGE ENGLISH
survival
in
Hellenistic, Roman,
and
Byzantine
treatises
appears
to be the
domi-
nant
tradition
in
antiquity (see Grimaldi,
Studies
67-82; Conley, Enthymeme ).
According
to
Anaximenes,
enthymemes
are
oppositions
or
contradictions
not
only
in
words or
in
actions..,
.but
also
in
anything
else.
Enthymemes,
he
says,
are
to
be invented
by inspecting
an
opponent's
discourse
or
an action for
anything
that is
contradictory
either with
itself or
with
the
principles
of
justice,
law,
expediency,
honor,
feasibility, facility
or
probability,
or
with the character
of the
speaker
or
the usual course
of
events. The
speaker
is then
to
make his
own
case
by
showing
that his words
or
actions are
exactly contrary
to
those that are
unjust,
unlawful
and
inexpedient,
and to
the usual conduct of bad
men,
in
brief
to whatever
is
deemed
evil,
phrasing
his
enthymemes
or
oppositions
as
briefly
and
economically
as
possible
(10
[1430a]).
Anaximenes
expands
this account
by
noting
that one invents and
deploys
enthymemes
by
following
the
methods
of what
he calls exetastic
discourse,
meaning
what
we
might
call
inquiry,
investigation,
or
critique.
Exetasis,
for
Anaximenes,
is an exhibition
of
inconsistencies
in
someone's
intentions, deeds,
or
words
(5
[1427b]),
and is
not
a
separate
genre
but a
general
method that is used
in
every
kind
of
public
discourse
(37
[1445a]).
The
actual
deployment
of exetasis
is
to
go
as
follows:
first,
one introduces
plausible pretexts
for
proceeding
to an
examination;
then,
one examines
the
actions, words,
or
intentions
in
question,
exposing
the contradictions into which they fall. Finally, Anaximenes advises the
speaker,
when
you
have
carefully
examined
everything
and have
amplified
your
points,
conclude
by giving
a concise
repetition, recalling
what
you
have
said to
your
hearer's
memory
(37 [1445a-b]).
For
Anaximenes,
then,
it
would
appear
that
an
enthymeme
is,
or
is
like,
the
argumentational
cap
that finishes
an
exetastic
movement: a
concise,
emphatic
statement
of an
emotionally
charged
opposition,
one that serves
not
only
to draw
conclusions
but also
to
foreground
stance
or
attitude
toward the
subject
under
discussion
and
to motivate
the audience
to
strongly
identify
with that stance
(this
is identification as Kenneth Burke uses it [Rhetoric17-29, 55-59]). The audi-
ence
is to feel
not
simply
that
the
speaker's
claims
are true or
probable,
but
that
both
speaker
and
claims are
good
and
admirable,
and the
very
opposite
of what is
false, bad,
and detestable.
Like
Isocrates,
Anaximenes
appears
to
link
stylistic
with
enthymematic
con-
cerns.
Only
seven
of
the
thirty-eight
chapters
in the Rhetoric
to Alexander
are
directly
concerned
with
style,
or
with
what Anaximenes
calls
the sources
of
urbanity,
but,
significantly,
he
begins
with
reference
to the
enthymeme:
Ur-
banity
is
achieved
in
this
way--you
state
half an
enthymeme,
so that the audience
may understand the other half for themselves (22 [1434a]). Moreover, of the ten
sources of
urbanity
Anaximenes
discusses,
seven seem
highly
relevant
to the
concise and
emphatic
statement
of
emotionally charged
oppositions:
brevity,
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
7/21
A
THEORY
OF THE
ENTHYMEME
51
adapting
the ethos
of the words to that of the
audience,
methods of
framing
twofold
statements,
clarity,
antithesis,
and
parallelisms
of structure and
of
sound.
Moreover,
while the other three sources
of
urbanity
do not seem
clearly
related
to
the statement
of
brief,
emphatic
enthymemes-these
are
lengthening
(by
creating
and
multiplying
divisions
within a
topic
and
dwelling
on
each),
speaking
at moderate
length,
and
composition
(the
choice and
arrangement
of
words)-they
do seem relevant to the
build-up
of
an exetastic movement and
may
perhaps
also
be
seen as variant
strategies
for the statement of elaborated
enthy-
memes.
Anaximenes's discussion of
style,
in
sum,
seems
mainly
(though certainly
not
exclusively)
concerned
with the
methods
of
effectively
stating
enthymemes-
that
is,
with the methods
of
enhancing
an
enthymeme's
prominence
and
memorability
or what Perelman would call its
presence
in its audience's mind
(New
Rhetoric
115-120,
144-148).
There
are, however,
important
differences
between
Anaximenes and
Isocrates,
and a failure to note them will commit us to
an
excessively
narrow
concept
of the
enthymeme.
Anaximenes,
after
all,
is the
kind
of
sophist
Isocrates
most
despises:
one who
considers rhetoric reducible
to
techne
and
has therefore
written
a
manual),
and
who, moreover,
focuses his
teachings
chiefly
on
the
methods
of
winning
lawsuits
(for
Isocrates'
disapproval
of
such
rhetoricians,
see
Against
the
Sophists
19-20
and Antidosis
47-50).
This
emphasis
is what
explains
the
rather prosecutorial, inquisitorial nature that Anaximenes gives to both the en-
thymeme
and the exetastic: he
sounds
very
much like
the eristical or
combative
kind
of
sophist,
always
on the watch for
contradictions,
whom
Isocrates takes
to
task. For
Isocrates,
enthymemes
are used not
only
in
the rhetorical
combats of
courts and
assemblies,
and not
only
in
eristics,
but
also
in
poetry
and
what he
calls
the
philosophical
and
panegyric
kinds
of
discourse that he
himself
practices
and
teaches;
and indeed the
enthymemes
in
these latter
genres
he
considers
most
lofty
and
original
(Evagoras
10-11;
Antidosis
46-47, 319).
It
is difficult
to see how
one could
generate
enthymemes
in
such
genres
exclusively by
indicting
the
flaws
and inconsistencies of an opponent. In a famous passage of the Panegyricus,one
can see
Isocrates
exploiting
oppositions
in
a
noninquisitorial
way
to
motivate
identification,
or
what
Perelman
calls
adherence
(New
Rhetoric
1-44,
49-54,
104-110),
with his
vision
of
Pan-Hellenism:
Athens...
has honored
eloquence,
which
all
desire in
the
wisely
skilled;
or she
realized hat
by
this
alone we
are
unique
among
all
creatures,
nd that
because
of
this
advantage
we
have
surpassed
hem
altogether;
and she
saw that
in
other
pursuits
ortune s
so
capricious
hat
often
the
wise
fail
and
the
foolish
succeed,
whereaswords
possessing
both
beauty
and art arenot the
fool's but are
truly
the
work
of an
intelligent
soul,
and
in
this
respect
the wise and the
ignorant
most
completelydifferfrom eachother;andshe knew, urthermore,hatwhethermen
havebeen
liberally
ducated
romthestart s shown
not
in
their
courage
or
wealth
or such
advantages,
ut is
most
certainly
made
manifest n
speech,
which
is
of
all
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
8/21
52
COLLEGE
ENGLISH
such
signs
the
surest
proof
of
culture
n
everyone,
and
that those
who use
discourse
well are
not
only
influential
among
their
friends
but
also are
truly
held
in
high
esteembyothers.Andso farhasourcityoutpacedallothers n thoughtandspeech
that her students
havebecomethe
teachers
of
the
rest,
so that the
word
Hellenes
suggests
no
longer
a race but a
way
of
thought,
and the title Hellenes
pplies
o
those
who share our culture
rather than to
those
who share a common blood.
(48-50)
In this
enthymeme
of
great
persuasive
force
and
enormous cultural
power,
Isocrates establishes
the
vision
that
defined the Hellenistic ideal of
paideia
for
centuries to
come.
Its
power
derives not
only
from
a
syllogistic
marshaling
of
evidence
to
justify
a conclusion
(the
claim that Athens has
become
the
school
of
all Hellas because it has most honored
eloquence
is, in truth,
weakly supported
here,
though
earlier
passages
do
give
it some
evidential
ground).
Rather,
this
enthymeme's power
lies in its use
of
emotively significant
oppositions
(hu-
man/animal,
wise/foolish,
cultured/ignorant,
achievement/luck,
etc.),
defining
eloquence
as the
distinguishing
feature
of
human-ness
and the distinctive
sign
of
an
accomplished
and wise
intelligence,
to motivate
the audience's
admiration
and
desire-the
wish
that Athens
should
indeed be
the
school
of
Hellas-a desire
that
drives
(or
simply
is)
adherence
with
Isocrates' vision
of a
cosmopolitan
cultural
identity
defined
by thought
(the
distinctly
human,
the
discursively
constructed)
rather than by blood (the animal and accidental).
In
considering
the
differences
between
Anaximenes and
Isocrates,
moreover,
we
should
recall
Isocrates'
emphasis
on
the
kairotic
aspect
of
enthymemes,
in
particular
his notion
that the best
enthymemes
will be
what he
calls
apotomos,
abrupt
(Evagoras
10-11).
Abruptness may
signify,
from
one
point
of
view,
simply
the
concise,
emphatic
quality
that
Anaximenes
attributes
to the
en-
thymeme,
or the
idea
that
in
public
speaking
enthymemes
should
be
plain-spoken
and
to
the
point.
But
the
adjective
apotomos
nd the verb
apotemno
rom
which
it
derives
have
other
kinds
of
significance
also,
including
cut off or
sever,
and
in the adjective a sense of precipitousness, or metaphorically of surprise, as in the
feeling
of
coming
suddenly upon
the
edge
of a cliff. What this
suggests
is
that,
as
opposed
to
Anaximenes'
somewhat
mechanistic
picture
of
an exetastic
movement
grinding
out
an
inquisitorial
investigation,
which
is then
pithily
summed
up
by
an
enthymeme,
for
Isocrates
the best and
most
effective
enthymemes
will in
some
sense come
as
a
surprise
and stand
apart
from
or
go
beyond
what
precedes
them.
They
will seize
the
kairos
of the
moment
to
move
the
audience
to
a decisive
recognition
that
is
or seems
lofty
and
original,
while
at
the same time
cutting
off
or
shifting
into the
background
other
possible
recognitions
that
may
be
latent
in the buildup.
This
is what
we
see,
again,
in the
passage
from Isocrates'
Panegyricus.
The
culminating
vision
or stance of
that
passage,
while motivated
and made
persuasive
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
9/21
A
THEORY OF THE ENTHYMEME
53
by
the
preceding
exetasis,
does not
inevitably
follow
from it and
certainly
does
not
summarize
it. Isocrates
might,
for
example,
turn to
blaming
Athens'
disas-
trous failure
in
the
recently
ended
Peloponnesian
War on failure to
honor
eloquence
and a
consequent
descent to
politics
determined
by
wealth,
blood-
loyalties,
and brutal force. Such
a turn
would
not serve his
purpose
in the
Panegyricus,
but it
is
latent
in his
exetasis;
and
it is
pushed
into
the
background by
what he
foregrounds.
(In
the
following passage,
he
explicitly
confronts
this
point
by declaring
that he
does not
want
to
seem
to be
praising
Athens'
cultural
achievement because
I
lack
grounds
for
praising
her conduct
in
war
[51].)
Isocrates'
enthymeme,
in
sum,
arrives
(for
its
audience)
as
a
brilliant,
inspirational
stroke of
insight,
a
decisive turn
that
brings suddenly
into focus and
gives
memo-
rable
presence
to a
particular
turn of
thought
the kairosof its moment has made
possible;
it is
indeed
apotomos.
Between Anaximenes and
Isocrates, then,
we
might
derive
a
reasonably
full
picture
of
a
sophistic,
non-Aristotelian notion of
the
enthymeme
that is
pervasive
in
the Hellenistic
rhetorical tradition: the
enthymeme
is a
strategic,
kairotic,
argumentational
turn
that
exploits
a
cluster
of
emotively
charged,
value-laden
oppositions
made available
(usually) by
an
exetastic
buildup,
in
order to
generate
in
its audience a
passional
identification
with
or
adherence
to
a
particular
stance,
and that
(ideally)
will
strike
the audience as an
abrupt
and
decisive flash of
insight. To be most effective, this enthymematic turn will exploit a range of
stylistic
schemes
(antithesis,
parallelism,
and
compactness
in
particular)
to
inten-
sify
its
impact
and enhance its
presence
and
memorability
in
the
audience's
psyche.
As
such,
the
enthymematic
turn
is
the
rhetorical move
par
excellence or
guiding
an
audience's
inference-making
and
attitude-formation in a
particular
direction.
From
this
perspective,
we can
understand
why
the
ability
to
see what
kairos
demands,
and
speak
a
discourse
wholly
wrought
with
fitting
enthymemes
figures
so
prominently
in
Isocrates'
account
of
discursive
skill,
and
why,
after
Isocrates,
the enthymeme would figure so prominently in Aristotle's account of rhetoric.
For
if
the
function of
rhetoric is
to
guide
an
audience
toward a
particular
recognition
or
stance
or
a
choice
of
actions,
then the
setting-up
and
deployment
of
impressive
enthymemes
is
indeed the
essence and
sum of
what an
effective
rhetor does. All
else
is,
as
Aristotle
says,
accessory
o
enthymeming
(Rhetoric
1.1
[1354a]).
Aristotle's
appropriation
of
the term
enthymema
must,
I
think,
be
considered
to
presuppose
all
that
we have
reviewed
thus far. It
is
significant,
for
example,
that
the
so-called common
material
topics
for
enthymematic
invention in Rhetoric
2.19-the possible and the impossible, past fact and future fact, and largeness and
smallness
(of
goods
and
evils)-are
largely
matters of
opposition
or
contrast. It
is
significant,
too,
that
the famous
catalogue
of
twenty-eight
formal
topics
in
2.23
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
10/21
54 COLLEGE ENGLISH
begins
with
opposites,
and
that,
though
not
all of
the
remaining twenty-seven
are
clearly
matters of
opposition
or
contrast,
most
of
them are
(seventeen, by my
count).
Even
those that
are not
obviously
matters
of
exploiting
oppositions
tend
to be illustrated
with
examples
that do
just
that,
as
in
topic
#5,
looking
at the
time
(from
Iphicrates' speech
against
Harmodius):
If,
before
accomplishing
anything,
I
asked
to be honored with
a
statue
if I
succeeded,
you
would
have
granted
it. Will
you
not
grant
it now when
I
have succeeded? Do
not
then make
a
promise
in
anticipation
but
refuse it in
realization
(1397b).
All
this
is
consistent
with the
picture
we
get
from
Anaximenes and
Isocrates.
The same
is true
for Aristotle's statements that the normal
language
of
enthy-
memes
is
compact,
antithetical utterance
(2.24 [1401a])
and that
opposites
stand
out more
clearly
when
juxtaposed
(3.27
[1418b]);
or his discussion of the advan-
tages
of
periodic
style, rhythm,
antithesis,
metaphors,
and
bringing-before-the-
eyes
for
enthymemes
(3.9-10);
or his advice that the
proof
section
of a
speech
should
not consist
of a continuous
string
of
enthymemes,
but rather
that the
enthymemes
should
be mixed
in
(3.17 [1418a]).
As Thomas
Conley
has ob-
served,
these
kinds
of remarks
suggest
that Aristotle is
thinking
of
enthymemes
as
nicely
turned sentences
or
[elenctic, rhetorical]
questions
raised at climactic
points
( Enthymeme
171).
Further,
Aristotle's inclusion
of
pathos
and
ethos
among
the
enthymematic
sources of
persuasion
in
2.2-17
suggests
that,
like
Anaximenes and Isocrates, he considers enthymemes to be something more than
an act
of... reason
(Grimaldi,
Studies
82)
and
to
carry
affective
force-although
he
also
says
that
enthymemes
should
not
be
used when
one is
trying
to arouse
pathos
or
project
ethos,
in
which
he seems to differ
from his
sophistic
colleagues.
One
might,
however,
resolve
the
seeming
contradiction
by
noting
that it is
mainly
the
exetastic
buildup
that will
generate
the affective
charge
and ethical
posture
that
an
enthymeme
will then
exploit;
and
one
might
note,
as
Kennedy
does
in his
translation
of the Rhetoric
[123],
that
Aristotle does
give
examples
of
emotional
appeals
that
take the
form
of
enthymemes.
(For
discussion
of this
issue,
see
Grimaldi, Studies 147-151 and Commentary349-356; Fortenbaugh 11-18; Con-
ley,
Pathe
and
Pisteis ;
Wisse
20-29;
Walker,
Enthymemes
of
Anger. )
Aristotle's
contribution
to
the notion
of
enthymeme
is,
of
course,
his
insistence
on its
underlying
rationality-his
crucial
and
enormously productive
recognition
that,
like the
dialectical
syllogism,
the
enthymeme
relies
on a
basic,
intuitive
capacity
for
deriving
inferences
and
forming judgments
from relation-
ships
between
ideas-so
that
condensed,
antithetical
expression
alone does
not
make an
enthymeme
(Rhetoric
1.1
[1355a],
2.24
[1401a]).
Aristotle's
dialectical
syllogism
is,
in
effect,
a kind
of
explanatory
metaphor,
a
simplified
one,
for
the
kind of inferential process on which enthymemes depend for their effects. But, as
Aristotle is careful
to
note
(1.1 [1355a]),
the
enthymeme
and
syllogism
arenot the
same,
and
the differences
are
more than matters
of
probability
vs. truth
or
explicit
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
11/21
A THEORY OF THE ENTHYMEME
55
vs.
implicit premises
or
reasoning
from shared
presuppositions,
all
of which
are
characteristic
of
both
rhetoric and dialectic
and are for the most
part
confined
to
the realm
of
propositional
reasoning.
We
must,
I
think,
consider
Aristotle's
account of the
dialogic rationality
of
enthymemes
as an addition to and
emenda-
tion of a
sophistic
notion of
enthymeme
that he has inherited
from
his
prede-
cessors.
The
enthymeme,
in
sum,
shares with the dialectical
syllogism
an
underlying
rationality
grounded
in
the
psychology
of
inference-making
and
of
reasoning
in
a
conversational
exchange;
but it is
also,
and
distinctively,
what
Anaximenes and Isocrates describe.
EXAMPLES OF MODERN ENTHYMEMING
We
can
argue
that the ancient
concept
of
enthymeme
has a direct
bearing
on
contemporary
discourse.
One
might,
for
example,
point
to
John
E
Kennedy's
famous ask not
what
your country
can
do for
you;
ask what
you
can do for
your
country
as an
enthymematic
turn of
Isocratean
elegance;
or one
might point
to
Lloyd
Bentsen's
memorable
gutting
of
Dan
Quayle
in
the
1988
Vice
Presidential
debate- I
knew
Jack
Kennedy;
Jack
Kennedy
was a
friend
of
mine;
and
believe
me, Senator,
you're
no
Jack
Kennedy -as
an
enthymematic
zinger
worthy
of
Anaximenes. But
probably
some reservations and
qualifications
need to be
kept
in mind. The most obvious is the fact that very few modern writers (or speakers)
have had a
training
in
argumentation
centered
on,
or
even
including,
an
explicit
theory
of
the
enthymeme,
and thus are
unlikely
to
be
self-consciously
turning
enthymemes,
though they may
in
fact
be
turning
them.
We should not
then
expect contemporary
enthymeming
to
take the
conventional
stylistic
form
of
ancient
enthymeming.
But as
Aristotle
points
out,
it
is
ultimately
not
any particu-
lar
stylistic
form
that
makes
an
enthymeme
an
enthymeme.
What
remains
characteristic
of
the
enthymeme
today,
I
think,
is
that it
is
a
stylistically
intensified
argumentative
turn
that
serves not
only
to draw
conclu-
sions but also, and decisively, to foreground stance and motivate identification
with
that stance.
And,
further,
its
motivating
force
will
derive
not
simply
from
a
propositional
logic
(the
kind
that can be
analyzed
with
syllogistic
or
Toulminian
diagrams),
but from what
Perelman
has called a
web or
network of
emotively
significant
ideas and
liaisons
that
may
or
may
not
appear
as a
structure
of
value-
laden
oppositions.
A
good example
of
modern
enthymeming-without-knowing-it
is
Roland
Barthes'
sophistical
performance
in
the lead-off
essay
of
Mythologies,
The World
of
Wrestling
(reprinted
in
Waysof
Reading
[ed.
David Barholomae
and
Anthony
Petrosky] and in InvestigatingArguments[ed. Jeffrey Walker and Glen McClish]).
Barthes,
is,
of
course,
aware of
the classical
rhetorical
tradition,
or
a certain
neoclassical
interpretation
of
it,
and of
the
enthymeme
as
well. In
S/Z he
calls it
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
12/21
56
COLLEGE ENGLISH
the foundation
of all
proof'
(201,
LXXXI/5
10).
But
for
Barthes the
enthymeme
is
only
an
imperfect syllogism
or
deduction,
being
fallacious,
incomplete,
or
merely
probable,
and founded
on a
current
opinion,
an
endoxa,
ather than a
scientific
verity.
He
consistently presents it-along
with that other
old
rhetori-
cal
deity, example/ induction -as
a
lure
by
which Balzac's
Sarrasine
deludes
himself,
a
lure
made
of
social discourse that
ultimately
constitutes his blind-
ness
and
conducts
...
the
subject
to
the
final
castration
(S/Z
153-154, LXIII;
see also
172-173,
LXXII).
As
Barthes
portrays
it,
the
enthymeme
is
a
tool
or form
of false
consciousness,
an
instrument
of
ideological
domination.
It seems
unlikely,
then,
that
Barthes conceives
himself as one who
argues
enthymematically.
But
in The World of
Wrestling,
Barthes
does
exactly that-although
the
enthymeme
as he
actually
uses it is not what he thinks it
is; indeed,
it is more like
what
Anaximenes and
Isocrates describe.
Here,
for
example,
is
the
enthymeme
with
which Barthes ends
his
essay
(it
is,
in
fact,
his
final
sentence):
In
the
ring,
and
even
in
the
depths
of their
nvoluntarygnominy,
wrestlers emain
gods
because
hey
are,
for
a
few
moments,
the
key
which
opens
Nature,
the
pure
gesture
which
separates
Good
from
Evil and
unveilsthe
figure
of
a
Justice
at last
intelligible.
21)
This flourish
of
enthymematic
eloquence clearly
functions
in
its context
as a
stylistically
intensified
argumentative
turn that
is meant to
stand forth
as an
abrupt
and
culminating
flash of
insight,
and
clearly
serves also to
project
a
stance-opposing
the
wrestler's
actual
(if
momentary) glory
to
his
apparent
igno-
miny-a
stance
with which the
reader
is asked to
identify.
Whatever
power
this
enthymeme
has
to
motivate
adherence
derives
not
only
and indeed not
primarily
from its
quasi-syllogistic
structure
of
claim-because-premise,
which taken
in isola-
tion seems
more
than
a
little
unpersuasive,
but
chiefly
from its
exploitation
of
a
network
of
oppositions
and
what Perelman would
call
liaisons,
which are estab-
lished
in the
preceding
discourse.
The chief
(though
not
only)
constituents
of this
network
are
a
linkage
of
wrestling
to the
associative
cluster
of
spectacle/thea-
ter/Greek
theater/religious
ritual,
and an
opposition
of the
supposed
ignobility
of
professional
wrestling
as fake
sport
to
the
nobility
of
theater as
sacred
spectacle.
(There
is also
an
opposition
of
the
greater
nobility
of theater
to the
lesser
nobility
of
athletic
contests.)
These
liaisons
and
oppositions
are
themselves
set
up,
early
on,
by
a
number
of
minor
enthymemes
such
as
in
the
first
paragraph,
Even
...
in the
most
squalid
Parisian
halls,
wrestling partakes
of
the nature of the
great
solar
spectacles,
Greek
drama,
and
bullfights:
in
both,
a
light
without
shadow
generates
an
emotion
without
reserve,
or
in
the
second
paragraph,
There are
people
who
think
that wrestling is an ignoble sport; it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to
attend a wrestled
performance
of
Suffering
than
a
performance
of the
sorrows
of
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
13/21
A
THEORY OF THE
ENTHYMEME
57
Arnolphe
or
Andromaque
(15).
These
two
enthymemes
themselves are
oppor-
tunistic
turnings
of
comparisons
and
linkages
set
up
in
preceding
sentences
such
as
Here
we find a
grandiloquence
which
must have been that of ancient
theatres
(15).
Insofar as the
reader
is
willing
at least to
entertain
Barthes'
opening
en-
thymemes, they
form the kernel of the entire suasive
procedure
that
follows.
This
procedure
consists,
for
the
most
part,
of
an
extended
amplification
and
elaboration
of
the
wrestling/spectacle/theater/ritual
nexus,
chiefly by way
of
an
exetasis
in
which
the
wrestling
match and
the wrestlers themselves are
examined
as a
system
of
signs
representing
the
grand mythologies
of
Suffering,
Defeat,
and
Justice
(19)
for its
lower-class
public.
This
exetasis,
which takes
up virtually
all
but the last two
paragraphs
of the
essay,
is itself
punctuated by
a number of
minor
enthymemes
that serve to establish and
foreground
its
major points.
Most
appear
as
pseudo-syllogistic
inferences,
announced
usually
with
a
therefore,
that
in-
voke
an
insight
(or
what is
meant
to
be seen
as
one)
arising
from
the
paragraph
or
paragraphs preceding
them,
and that are
given
what
might
be
called
syntactic
prominence
by being
placed
at the
beginning
(or
sometimes the
end)
of
their own
paragraphs.
What then
follows
usually
takes the
enthymeme
as
its
point
of
departure,
amplifying
or
extending
the idea and
leading
to
the next
enthymematic
turn.
Much
of
what
Barthes
presents
through
this
procedure
is
quite
simply
enter-
taining and cajoles the reader into granting the notion of wrestling as theater
while
giving
Barthes
himself the
sympathetic
ethos
of an
interested,
witty
ob-
server
who is not a
culture-snob. But the
major
function
of
this web of
enthy-
memes and
amplifications
is
to
foreground
and
give
presence
to the
nobler
implications
of
the
wrestling-theater
nexus,
as
in
this
enthymeme:
But what
wrestling
is
above all
meant to
portray
is
a
purely
moral
concept:
that of
justice.
The idea of
'paying'
is
essential to
wrestling,
and
the crowd's
'Give it to
him'
above all
else means
'Make him
pay '
(21).
At
the same
time,
the
persistent,
varied
amplification
of such
ideas
also
serves
to
keep
well
out of
sight
opposite
argu-
ments that could plausibly be drawn from the same topological nexus-for exam-
ple,
the
argument
that
considering wrestling
as theater
reveals
what
shabby
theater it is.
By
means
of
this
exetasis
interspersed
with
fitting
enthymemes,
Barthes
gives
himself
the
opportunity
to
declare,
with
another
enthymematic
flourish
in
his
penultimate
paragraph,
This
grandiloquence
s
nothing
but the
popular
and
age-old
image
of the
perfect
intelligibility
of
reality.
What
is
portrayed
by
wrestling
is
therefore an ideal
understanding
f
things;
it is
the
euphoria
of men
raisedfor
a
while
above
the
constitutive
ambiguity
of
everyday
ituationsand
placed
before the
panoramic
view of a univocalNature, in which
signs
at last
correspond
o causes,without
obstacle,
without
evasion,
without
contradiction.
25)
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
14/21
58
COLLEGE
ENGLISH
Barthes is here
drawing
on
Aristotelian notions of
catharsis
and
the
philosophic
function of dramatic
mimesis
(representation
of
experiential universals),
notions
that are
linked,
at least for the educated reader
his
essay
presupposes
and
requires,
to the theater/Greek
theater/ritual nexus. From the
position
established
in this
enthymeme
Barthes
can
move,
in
his
final
paragraph
and
closing enthymeme,
to
the
transmuting
of wrestlers-who
have now
become
the
figures
of
a
transcen-
dent rite-into
momentary gods.
Barthes'
penultimate
and
final
enthymemes,
then,
are
kairotic,
opportunistic
exploitations
of
argumentative potentials
avail-
able from
a
cluster
of
value-charged, emotively significant
ideas
already
made
present
to the reader's
thought
by
the
strategic
deployment
of
oppositions
and
liaisons,
amplifications,
and
paragraph-level
minor
enthymemes
in
the
preceding
discourse. And from this
cluster,
a virtual chord of
adherence-motivating
notions,
Barthes'
culminating
enthymemes
derive whatever suasive
force
they
have.
What we find
in
Barthes
we
see
more
clearly
still
in
Martin
Luther
King,
Jr.'s
Letter
from
Birmingham
Jail.
Unlike
Barthes,
of
course,
King
is a
modern
writer
who
quite
explicitly
conceives
himself as a rhetor. Some of his
enthymemes
clearly
manifest
the ancient
paradigm,
as in:
Just
as
Socrates
elt
that it was
necessary
o create a tension
in
the
mind so that
individuals
ould rise
from the
bondage
of
myths
and
half-truths o
the unfettered
realm of
creative
analysis
and
objective
appraisal,
o must we see the
need for
nonviolentgadflies o create he kind of tensions n societythatwillhelpmen rise
from the
dark
depths
of
prejudice
and
racism
to the
majestic
heights
of
under-
standing
and
brotherhood.
(?110)
One
can,
of
course,
see this
enthymeme
as a Toulminian datum-so-claim
kind
of
movement;
which,
again,
is
Aristotle's
point.
But
clearly
it is more than that.
Its
real
adherence-motivating
power
lies
in
its
exploitation
of
a
web
of
oppositions-
bondage/freedom,
myth/creative
analysis,
half-truth/objective
appraisal,
dark
depths/majestic heights,
racism/brotherhood-and
the
relation
of this web
to
ideas
and
liaisons established
in
the
immediately
preceding
passages,
such
as
King's alignment of himself with the Apostle Paul, the implicit opposition of
Paul/Socrates
and their
persecutors,
and
King's
narration
of the
frustrations
and
injustices
that
have
impeded
his
campaign
(and
behind
all
this,
perhaps,
the
grand
mythic
narratives these
oppositions
organize).
This web
is
what
lends
salience
and
significance
to the
enthymeme's
controlling
opposition
of Socrates
to
society,
the
alignment
of
as Socrates felt..
.
so
must we
see,
and the
varied
repetition
of
individuals
could
rise..
.
help
men
rise. The
elaborately
schematized
and
fig-
ured
style,
moreover,
makes the
enthymeme
stand out
from what
precedes
it as
a
moment
of
high-spoken,
impressive,
and even
aesthetically
suasive
eloquence.
This enthymeme, in short, exploits the kairosof its moment to present a stance
with
which the reader
is
given
a
complex
chord of rational and
passional
reasons
to
identify.
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
15/21
A THEORY OF THE
ENTHYMEME
59
Not
all of
King's
enthymemes,
however,
are so
clearly
classical-as in
the
garment
of
destiny passage:
I
cannot
sit
idly by
in Atlanta and not be
concerned
about
what
happens
in
Birmingham.
njusticeanywhere
s
a
threatto
justice everywhere.
We are
caught
in an
inescapable
network of
mutuality,
tied
in
a
single garment
of
destiny.
Whatever
affectsone
directly,
affectsall
indirectly.
Never
again
can we
afford
o
live with the
narrow,
provincial
outside
agitator
dea.
(?4)
or, likewise,
the
enthymeme consisting
mainly
of
King's one-page litany
of
when
you
have
seen,
which
I
can
quote
here
only
in
abbreviated
form:
Perhaps
it is
easy
for those who have never
felt the
stinging
darts of
segrega-
tion to
say,
Wait.
But
when
you
have seen vicious mobs
lynchyour
mothers
and
fathersat
will and
drown
your
sisters
and
brothers
at
whim;
when
you
have
seen... then
you
will
understand
why
we
find
it difficult o wait. There comes
a
time when the
cup
of
endurance
uns
over,
and men are no
longer willing
to be
plunged
nto the
abyss
of
despair.
hope,
sirs,
you
can
understand ur
legitimate
and
unavoidable
mpatience.
?14)
I do not
propose
to offer a
detailed
analysis
of
these familiar
(to
many) passages,
but
only
to note that
what makes them
enthymematic
is,
once
again,
a
grounds-
claim
kind
of
movement,
in
which the claim s not
simply
a
proposition
but an
inferential and
attitudinal
complex-a
stance-and
the
grounds
consist not
simply of a quasi-syllogistic premise but, more fully, of a cluster of
emotively
significant
ideas
(or
images)
that work to motivate a
passional
identification
with
that
speaker's
stance. Both
enthymemes,
moreover,
arise
from
and
respond
to an
exetasis
in
the
paragraphs
preceding
them
and
are
given
prominence
and
memorability
by
means of
striking figuration-the
metaphors
and
parallelisms
in
the
first,
and the
insistent
anaphoras
of
the when
you
have seen
passage
in
the
second.
What
makes
these
passages
seem
less
obviously
enthymematic
is the
absence of an
explicitly
invoked set of
oppositions.
(A
careful
look,
however,
would
make evident
what kinds of
oppositions
are
implicit,
such
as
Providence,
destiny, and God's elect vs. provinciality, the damned, and what one cannot
afford. )
Moreover,
both
enthymemes
are,
aside from
their
key
middle
parts,
somewhat
loosely
structured: the
second,
for
example,
finishes off
with
what
Aristotle would call a
maxim and an
epilogue
(Rhetoric
2.21
[1394b]).
King's argumentation
can
be
seen,
like that of
Barthes,
as
a
process
of
setting
up
and
turning enthymemes.
This is
especially
evident
in
the first
part
of
the
Letter
(?11-22),
as
King responds
point-by-point
to
the
criticisms that
have
been
lodged against
him. Each
segment
is,
in
effect,
an
Anaximenean
exetasis
leading
to an
enthymeme.
Significantly,
King's
enthymematic
turns,
like the two
I have quoted above, include what are for most readers the most potent and
memorable moments in
the text.
Further,
they
include not
only
those
passages
conventionally
taught
as
examples
of
logical appeal,
such as
the
enthymemes
in
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
16/21
60
COLLEGE ENGLISH
the
segment
on
just
and
unjust
laws
(?115-22),
but also
those
taught
as
examples
of emotional
appeal.
A
fuller
concept
of
enthymeme
makes evident that such
distinctions are to
a
large degree meaningless:
the three traditional
sources of
persuasion-ethos,
logos,
pathos-are
not
separate
kinds of
proof'
but
simultane-
ous
dimensions of the
enthymeme.
As
Aristotle,
modern
philosophical
psychol-
ogy,
and
Chaim Perelman
all
affirm,
reason and
affect
are
inseparably
interwoven
(Aristotle,
Rhetoric
2.1-11; Perelman,
New Rhetoric
140, 149-150;
the
rationality
of
emotion
is
discussed at
length
in
Fortenbaugh,
Solomon,
de
Sousa,
Rorty,
and
Searle).
Finally,
King's argumentation
well
exemplifies
the kairotic
aspect
of
the
enthymeme,
its
ability
to
seize the
possibilities
available at
any
given
moment
and
to
give
those
possibilities
a
particular
realization and salience. We see this
clearly
in
the two
major
enthymemes
that conclude the Letter.
The
first is the culmi-
nating
moment of
a
lengthy
exetasis
(?12 3-44)
in
which
King
has
been
criticizing
the failure of
white moderates and the white church to
actively
support
his
cause:
If
the
inexpressible
ruelties
of
slavery
could
not
stop
us,
the
opposition
we now
face
will
surely
fail. We
will win
our
freedombecause he sacred
heritage
of our
nation
and the
eternal
will of
God are embodied
n
our
echoing
demands.
144)
This is
immediately
followed
by
the
major
segment
of
King's
peroration
(1?45-47), an additional exetasis in which he chides his white critics for com-
mending
the
restraint of the
Birmingham
police
in
dealing
with the demonstra-
tors,
and then
turns the second
of his
concluding
enthymemes:
One
day
the South
will know
that
when
these disinherited
childrenof God sat
down
at lunch
counters,
they
were
in
reality
standing
up
for
what is best
in
the
American
dream
and for
the
most sacredvalues
n
our
Judeo-Christian
eritage,
thereby bringing
our nation
back
to those
great
wells
of
democracy
which
were
dug
deep
by
the
founding
athers
n
their
formulation f the Constitution
and the
Declaration
of
Independence.
$47)
Clearly, and as every careful reader of the Letter recognizes, both of these
culminating enthymemes
are
capitalizing
on
the
many
liaisons
and
oppositions
that
the
argumentation
of
the
Letter has accumulated
and made
present
to the
reader-and
giving
that
reader a
powerful
chord of motives
for
identifying
with
King's position.
My point,
however,
is
that each
of these
concluding enthymemes
turns
the
argument
differently,
the
first
foregrounding
the
inevitability
of
victory,
the second
foregrounding
the
ethico-political
nobility
of
the
demonstrators.
Each,
in
short,
exploits
a
different
kairotic
possibility
inherent
in
the
structure
of
ideas
that
King
has
built,
bringing
the force of the adherences/identifications
established earlier to bear in different ways. Neither enthymeme is a summing up
or a
restatement
of
the whole
argument
of Letter
from
Birmingham
Jail,
nor,
like Barthes'
concluding enthymemes
(or Isocrates'),
is either
fully predictable
or
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
17/21
A
THEORY OF THE
ENTHYMEME
61
made inevitable
by
what
precedes.
King,
for
example, might
have ended
with
denunciations
of
his
detractors;
and
indeed
such a
denunciation
is
implicit,
but
left
tacit,
as
part
of the immediate
background
(or
the
flipside)
of the
enthymemes
he turns.
King's culminating enthymemes
are,
as
Isocrates would
say,
apotomos,
abrupt,
decisive and
fitting
exploitations
of the kairos
of their
particular
discur-
sive moments.
CONCLUSION
For
both
King
and
Barthes,
argumentative
or
suasory
procedure
is
very
much
what it was for
Anaximenes and
Isocrates,
that
is,
a
matter of
setting up
and
turning
enthymemes-or,
in a
large
and
complex
argument,
a
progression
from
enthymeme
to
enthymeme
to
enthymeme, building up
an
accumulated
fund of
value-laden,
emotively significant
ideas
(oppositions,
liaisons,
etc.)
that are vari-
ously brought
to
bear,
forcefully
and
memorably,
in
the rhetor's
final
enthyme-
matic turns.
The
enthymeme
remains,
in
sum,
a
vital
principle
in
modern
discourse,
even when an
adequate
conception
of
the
enthymeme
is
unavailable.
And
indeed,
as Aristotle
says,
it could
hardly
be
otherwise
(Rhetoric
1.1
[1354a],
1.2
[1356b]).
Enthymeming
is
simply
what
people
do,
whether
they
think
of
themselves
as
doing
so or
not,
whenever
they attempt
to
persuade
by
means
of
discourse.
Can
we then
say,
with
Aristotle and
(perhaps)
with
Isocrates,
that
enthyme-
matic skill is
the
essential
or
crucial
skill
in
rhetoric,
or at
least
in
argumentation?
If,
as
rhetoricians,
we
are
to
conceive
virtually
all
discourse
as
rhetorical and
therefore
suasory-and
thus as
either
explicitly
or
implicitly argumentational-
then I think
we
can.
But with
some
qualifications.
One is that
enthymemes
or
enthymematic
procedure
may
be
different in
different
kinds
of
discourse such
as,
for
example,
fiction
or
poetry,
or the
belletristic
essay,
or the
various
kinds of
scholarly,
scientific,
technical,
and
administrative
prose.
We
need to
consider
what enthymemes are like, and how they work, in these discursive realms and at
different
points
in
history.
Another
important
qualification
is
to
say
that,
while
enthymematic
skill
may
be the
crucial skill in
rhetoric
(or
argumentation),
Aristotle's
notion
that
all
the
other
skills of
rhetoric
are
supplementary
or
accessory
to
enthymeming
may
be
looking
at the
matter
backwards.
Can we
not
say
as
well that
enthymematic
skill
depends
on all
the
other skills?
For all the
means
of
persuasion
available
to
rhetoric
are
brought
together
by,
and
contribute
to,
the
enthymematic
turn. As
Isocrates
says,
to
speak
(or write)
a
discourse
wholly
woven
with
fitting
enthy-
memes, one must be able to choose from the elements of discourse those things
that
should
be used
for the case in
hand,
and
the
tropes
for
joining
and
arranging
them,
be able
to see
what
kairos
demands,
and be
able as well
to
speak
(or
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
18/21
62
COLLEGE
ENGLISH
write)
in
words
rhythmically
and
musically arranged
(Against
the
Sophists
16-
17).
In more
contemporary
terms,
one must
must know
well
enough
the
topoi
of
a discursive
field
(such
as
those that
Aristotle
lists
for
political,
juridical,
and
epideictic
argument
in
Rhetoric
1.3-14)
to select
what should be
used for
the
particular
case
in
hand;
one must know
the various
discourse-level
gambits,
schemes,
and
strategies
by
which a
discourse
using
and
combining
those
topoi
can
be
plotted
as an
argumentative
progression
(as
opposed
to
merely arranged
according
to some static
outline);
one must be
able to
analyze
one's
rhetorical
situation
as well as
recognize
the
shifting
demands and
possibilities
of the
imme-
diate discursive moment
(arguments
arise
in
response
to
preceding
arguments,
or
in
anticipation
of
arguments
to come or
audience
responses);
and one
must have
a fluent command of the
stylistic
resources of the
language
in which one writes
or
speaks.
All
this,
Isocrates
suggests,
is
needed for
genuine mastery
of the
strategic,
kairotic
skill
of
setting up
and
turning
eloquent,
powerful
enthymemes.
No
wonder
he thinks such
mastery
requires
study,
and
is
the work of a
vigorous
and
thoughtful
mind
(Against
the
Sophists
17).
This is
not to
say
that
enthymeming
is an advanced skill that
cannot be
learned before
other,
more basic
ones,
for as Isocrates and
Aristotle
recognize,
everyone
turns
enthymemes.
But
it
is
to
say
that
a
trained excellence
in
en-
thymeming requires
what Isocrates would call an
extensive discourse education
that cultivates not only advanced literacy but alsophronesis judgment and intelli-
gence)
and
sophia
wisdom, skill)
through
critical,
argumentative engagement
with
the
argumentation
of
others
in
many
discursive
genres
and in
many
fields of
thought.
This is the
sophistic
kind of discourse education we see
represented
in
Plato's
Protagoras,
both
in
the
symposiastic
debate
on
issues
of
ethical
and
political
philosophy
and
in
the
critique
of an
argument
in a
poem
by
Simonides. A
genuine
understanding
of
enthymematic
art cannot be
acquired
from
simplified, prescrip-
tive
recipes
and formalistic
models,
but
only
from
analytical
and critical
study
of
actual
argumentation
and from one's own
accumulated
experience
as a
producer
of argumentation (in symposiastic debate, in declamation exercises, etc.) over an
extended
period
of time.
There
is,
in
sum,
a
great
deal more to skillful
enthymem-
ing,
or
to
argumentation,
than
knowing
something
about Toulmin
logic,
Venn
diagrams,
or the
basic forms of the
syllogism-though
such models
might
be
presented
(with
the
reminder that
they
are
ultimately
inadequate)
as
simplified,
approximate analogies
for the kind
of
inferential
process
that underlies
the en-
thymeme
and
gives
it
its
persuasive
force.
Such reductions
may
be
helpful
for the
novice,
but
they eventually
must be discarded.
The view of
enthymemes
that
we have taken in this
essay
is
not,
in
fact,
incompatible with what has been the conventional view. Effective argumentation
that is
ethically
and
intellectually
responsible
is indeed
a matter of
dialogic
reasoning
that seeks to
incorporate
the audience's
knowledge
and beliefs
as
well
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
19/21
A THEORY OF THE ENTHYMEME
63
as the
rhetor's,
and an
enthymeme
is still
a
figure-any
figure-
that connects
an
idea
with reasons for
believing
it and that relies on its
audience's
inferential
powers.
But that is not all
it
is and does. The
enthymeme
is
also,
and
distinctively,
a
stylistically striking, kairotically
opportunistic, argumentative
turn that not
only
presents
a claim
but
also
foregrounds
an
inferential
and
attitudinal
complex,
a
stance;
that invokes
not
only
a
premise
(or
warrant)
as
justification
but a
chord
of
value-charged, emotively
significant
ideas to motivate
a
passional
adherence
or
identification with its
stance;
and that
is
not
only
a form of
passional
reasoning
but
also an architectonic
principle
for both the
invention and
structuring
of
suasive discourse
(for
a similar
view,
see
Gage, Theory ).
This
way
of
looking
at the
enthymeme
seems
richer,
more
complex,
and
more flexible than the conventional
view,
more consistent with modern theories
of
persuasion
and
argument-particularly
those
of
Kenneth Burke and
Chaim
Perelman-and more
descriptive
of
actual
argumentational practice.
We
have,
in
sum,
a double view of
enthymemes:
enthymeme
as a
complex
structure of
intuitive inference and
affect that constitutes
the substance
of
an
argument;
and
enthymeme
as a
structural/stylistic
turn
that
caps
an
exetasis,
gives
the inferen-
tial/affective substance a
particular
realization with a
particular
salience
for
a
particular
discursive
moment,
and
by doing
so
constructs or
shapes
its
audience's
perception
of
just
what the
argument
is.
The latter is
what
Anaximenes and
Isocrates describe; the former is what Aristotle tries to analyze. The enthymeme
is
both,
and
is
in
both
senses
truly
the
body
of
persuasion.
NOTE
1.
For recent
discussion
of the
enthymeme,
see Michael
Hood's
bibliography.
The
most
relevant sources for
the
present
study
are:
Lloyd
Bitzer,
Aristotle's
Enthymeme
Revisited ;
George
P.
Boss,
The
Stereotype
and Its
Correspondence
in
Discourse to the
Enthymeme ;
Thomas
Conley,
The
Enthymeme
in
Perspective ;
Jesse
G.
Delia,
The
Logic Fallacy ;
John
T.
Gage,
A
General
Theory
of the
Enthymeme
and
The
Shape
of
Reason;
Lawrence
Green,
Enthymemic
Invention ;
William M. A.
Grimaldi,
Studies in the
Philosophyof Aristotle's
Rhetoric
53-82; andJames Raymond,
Enthymemes,
Examples,
and Rhetorical
Method. The
arguments
of
Conley
and
Gage
are
the
closest to
the
position
that
I
take
here.
WORKS CITED
Anaximenes of
Lampsacus.
Rhetoricaad
Alexandrum.
Trans. H.
Rackham. Cam-
bridge:
Harvard
UP,
1957.
Aristotle.
Rhetoric.
3
translations:]
Freese,
J.
H.
Cambridge:
Harvard
UP,
1926.
Kennedy,
George.
New
York: Oxford
UP,
1991.
Roberts,
W.
R.,
and I.
Bywater.
New
York:
Modern
Library,
1954.
8/10/2019 Walker Body of Persuasion
20/21
64
COLLEGE
ENGLISH
--
.