Today we transition into the second major part of our course, focusing on the work of Kenneth Burke. We’ve jumped some 1800 years from ancient Greece, and I would like to offer the following brief and obviously inadequate history to provide some context for Burke’s work.
As I’ve mentioned before, after the fall of the Roman Empire most of Europe finds itself under the intellectual authority of the Vatican. Catholicism spreads quickly both as a religion, a theological/philosophic system of thought, and as a political organization. During this time, most “heretic” thought is destroyed. Given their resonances with Christian thought, Plato and Aristotle are kept in play (though they are transformed). Sophist thought is lost to the West. Whoever might have controlled the intellectual scene in Ancient Greece is up for debate, but there can be no question that Plato wins the long, historical battle.
At sometime in the 14th-16th century, Catholicism’s control of Europe’s intellectual scene began to waver. In Italy, as we touched on in Grassi, a series of philosopher-rhetoricians, in part inspired by Petrarch’s art, began to rethink the power of language. But in England, and then Germany, a group of radical’s opposed Scholasticism on different grounds: inspired by the likes of Descartes and others, they were interested in “empiricism”: a philosophy that all knowledge descends from sensory experience (in short, if I can’t see it, I don’t believe it). This is the birth of science and the search for a Truth not delivered from up high in the Heavens, but from down low on the Earth. This search for truth radically reshaped not only philosophy, but also politics. American democracy is the realization of the Enlightenment belief in truth, individual experience, and progressive knowledge.
To best understand the Enlightenment, we should turn to Immanuel Kant’s seminal essay, “An Answer to the Question ‘What is Enlightenment?”. Kant, a German, structured a highly rhetorical argument for why governments (monarchies) should encourage the “free” exchange of ideas. His arguments here greatly inspired Thomas Jefferson and the American insistence on freedom of the press and freedom of speech. However, we should also note Kant’s rather Platonic undertones.
All of this is to say: the Modern Enlightenment can be described as a radical and progressive movement that greatly transformed Western thought, politics, science, industry. It was highly idealistic, even if (as Kant’s essay demonstrates) it was also cautious. Philosophers like Hegel influentially argued that history itself was a dialectical march toward human perfection (I am oversimplfying here, but I said I would keep this short). This optimistic spirit fueled much of the 19th century across Europe. And, indeed, at the turn of the 20th century, humanity had made tremendous advancements in the fields of science, medicine, philosophy, industry. But then came two world wars, the Holocaust, Nagaski, Hiroshima, the Cold War. The promised Enlightenment and optimism of the 19th century seemed a distant memory.
Burke’s work anticipates much of the late-20th century critique of the modern Enlightenment. It also echoes much of what I have identified thus far as “sophistry.” The first essay we will read, “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle,” comes from 1933–at a time when most intellectuals in the West were dismissing Hitler as a ridiculous political figure not worthy of scholarly attention. Burke disagreed.
For homework, please read Burke’s essay and Bitzer’s essay “The Rhetorical Situation.”
