<html><head></head><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:13px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4265"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4266">Burkophiles,<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4267"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4265"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4268"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4269"> I
want to call attention to the article on the 2016 presidential campaign
rhetoric of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the new edition of the <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4270">KBJournal</i> (Vol. 13, Issue 2, Summer 2018). This study
presents, overall, in my view, a most useful and insightful integration of
Burkean pentadic theory and Toulmin’s theory of argumentation. The two authors
make a strong case for the pentadic emphases each of the two candidates made,
as: Trump’s controlling term was “agent”; Clinton’s, “agency.” Right on, in my
view.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4271"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4268"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4272"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4273"> The
special value of this critique, it seems to me, is the way it integrates
Toulmin’s concepts with those of Burke. Toulmin famously employed the notions
of “claim,” “grounds,” “warrant,” and “backing” for the warrant to show how
arguments are enthemematically constructed in political and social polemic. The
warrant and the backing for the warrant are the parts of the case being made
that are usually implicit. “A warrant thus functions,” the authors state,
“based on the audiences adherence to the warrant’s backing, which is the part
of the argument where we find guiding ideologies and worldviews.” Those guiding ideologies and worldviews are
determined by the pentadic emphasis at the heart of the “strategy” (the term
for reconnoitering the problematic “scene” Burke vouchsafes us in <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4274">PLF</i>) each rhetor exploits in his or her
discourse. This line of critique leads
to the authors’ conclusion:<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4275"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4272"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4276"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4277"> “We
provide deeper scrutiny into warrants as backed by worldviews that legitimize
grounds-claim relationships. In that the warrants and backings ‘to which we
commit ourselves are implicit,’ we propose that we can analyze and evaluate
these argument components through a Burkean focus on pentadic ratios and their
corresponding ideologies (Toulmin 93).”<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4278"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4276"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4279"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4280"> I
found in this piece most useful, also, the authors’ reference to an article by
Jon Brushke in <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4281">Argumentation and Advocacy</i>.
In public debate, arguments are made, and function in the mind of listeners,
“episodically,” Brushke says. In other words, arguments are built piecemeal
across rhetorical episodes, and not necessarily in any textbook, lockstep,
claim-to-grounds order of presentation.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4282"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4279"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4283"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4284"> Makes
good sense to me.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4285"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4283"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4286"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4287"> While,
as I said, I found this probe most convincing in operation and application, I
have a problem with the authors’ theoretical/philosophical explanation, at the
outset of the essay, of what “agent” motivation entails.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4288"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4286"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4289"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4290"> I’ll
defer that demurrer to a later time.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4291"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4289"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4292"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4293"><o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4294"> </o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4185">
</div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4295"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4296"> Ed <o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535554310080_4297"></o:p></span></div></div></body></html>