Back to Leff for a moment.

I could have perhaps inserted this blog back into the January archives, but I thought I’d post it now so everyone would have to read it. (Ha! Take that! =) This is regarding Leff’s “Habitation of Rhetoric,” from so long ago…

First and foremost, I’m confused. So, I’m going to try and work it out on Microsoft and if anyone has any insight or corrections for me, I’m completely open to them.

At first, it seems in “Habitation” that Ricoeur’s arguments make much more sense. In fact, I’m still not sure who makes more sense. Leff is saying that decorum is a principle of action…a means of varying appeals to different circumstances and audiences. Because of this, the “essence of rhetoric becomes the constructed rhetorical thing-in-itself.” So, rhetoric does have a product…a product which one can only “create” through the activity of decorum.

Earlier in the article, he mentions poetry and metaphor. I consider metaphor to be a platform, a new way of seeing something old, per say. It gives one the chance to view a situation in a new framework. If I use the term “bell” and someone else comes along and says, “a bell is a cup until it’s been struck,” then I have a new way of looking at a cup and a bell and a new platform with which to explore the possibilities. I think, when Leff moves from talking of metaphor, and muthos, or myth, to decorum, he is essentially meaning the same end is achieved by both. If decorum is an action, rather than a possession of the mind, then one would engage it to find ways to not only appeal to one’s audience, but also to give them a new way of looking at something. Of kicking their perspective up a notch. This also reminds me very much of reading on possibility and the function of it within discourse and persuasion.

He states, “viewed within some specific situation, ths principle manifests itself as a product, as a discourse possessing the density and integrity demanded by that situation.” So, he’s saying that rhetoric, when viewed in a certain light is actually a thing to be contained as well as the container, right? He’s claiming that the action the audience is moved to, or perhaps when the rhetoric hits and registers in the audience’s brain, is the product of rhetoric. I still think rhetoric is more of a container, a driving force, and that the action is the product…but the action is not guaranteed and therefore not necessarily a product, right? It seems that product is more of a possibility but, he likes it better than reality and has moved is philosophy up to the clouds.

=)

Perhaps, and most likely, I’m wrong. So…any thoughts?