Leff "What can a "Rhetoric" be?"

The Habitation of Rhetoric

Leff was adressing in this paper the idea of rhetoric as an art, but without a specific place where rhetoric fit into the arts. He also addressed the fact that rhetoric was not seen as a serious subject for a long time as well, and was almost banished from Europe before Americans saw its importance and began to examine it. Leff also addresses the issue in debate of whether the process or the product are more important.

As a way to explain what rhetoric is and define its place, he adressed the neo-Aristotelian and neo-Sophistic positions on what rhetoric was. The neo-Aristotelian ideal focused on rhetoric as a thing contained and the neo-Sophists saw rhetoric itself as a container. Therefore, the ne-Aristotelians tended to confine rhetoric while the neo-Sophists tended to liberate it. Once Rhetoric began being studied in America, new ideas emerged and have developed over time.

Many people had their opinions about the battle between Process vs. Product. Donald Bryant was one of those people, but he changed his thought on it when he changed his initial statement about rhetoric that first focused on the product, to focusing on the process. It is explained as "The shift here is from a kind of discourse to a dimension of discourse, from an emphasis on certain products to an emphasis on a certain kind of activity" (55). Leff beleives that there is a tenuos relationship between style and argument and that devices of style in rhetoric need special attention in order to be properly adapted. However, regardless of the individuals beleif, whether it be process or product, Leff states that the basics are the same. Everyone is concerned with argument, discourse, and persuasion.

As for where rhetoric belongs in the arts or where it fits in, Ricoeur states that "Owing to its connection with common opinion, rhetoric cannot become a purely formal dicipline and its content sprawls throughout the entire range of human affairs" (59). Because of this, rhetoric may not have a finite place in any particular area as he seems to beleive as the sophists did by broadening its range, rather than giving it a definite. Although it cannot be determined whether the neo-Aristotelians the neo-Sophists, or other Americans were correct in their ideas of rhetoric Leff comes to an agreeable conclusion that declares decorum as the answer and he states "As a form of activity, it must retain the freedom to encounter subjects, occasions, and audiences as each situation demands. Yet within the particular situation, this adaptive process acheives productive closure" (62). In real world use of rhetoric, it seems imperative to adhere to a blend of all of these ideals rather than stringently to one. The end result needs to effectively be met, but this allows for a less strict form which to adhere along the way. Leff suggests this with his idea of decorum as a way to blend these ideas from men of Europe and America combined.