Combs, Steven C.
The Dao of Rhetoric.
“Introduction: Rhetoric West and East.”
“Greece and Rome, while highly significant, were not the sole sites for rhetoric in antiquity. Rhetoric, especially when conceived as persuasive communication, has been practiced around the world” (1).
“When these cultural contexts are sufficiently different, the practice of rhetoric within a culture may, to outsiders, look like something other than rhetoric. Perhaps that is why some scholars maintain that rhetoric is a unique product of Western culture” (1).
“[In Daoism] [n]othing is inherently stable or distinct from anything else, although reality constantly presents facets of itself that give the illusion of distinction and stability. Perceptions are inherently incomplete, because one cannot grasp the entirety of the universe…Language can not possibly represent reality, because it is finite and perspectival. Any attempts to distinguish or categorize violate the underlying unity of all things, but distinctions, like language, can nonetheless be useful in navigating the everyday world” (3).
The Dao of Rhetoric seems to be fighting the Eurocentric notions of rhetoric. Also, at least in Combs description of it, Daoism sounds a lot like postmodernism.
Chapter One. “Culture, Text, and Context.”
This chapter explains the dynamic context/universe/cosmology that Daoism projects/asserts is material reality. It also compares Confucianism to Daoism and shows how each differs (Confucianism is based in adherence to human social hierarchy; Daoism is based in adherence to working in harmony with Nature and the natural way). In Daoism everything is specific, tied to context, and any description of a happening is from the specific vantage point of the speaker at that time.
The Confucian/Daoism comparison (19-21).
The Chinese concept of identity and how it differs from the classic Greek concept (10-11).
Language as artifical distinctions which merely pull (at the moment) important things to the forground so as perform the activities important to daily life (13).
The rejection of linear thoughts and causation (a rejection of teleology?) (13).
Interesting concept of Chinese as a contextual language (14).
Chapter Two. “Laozi and the Natural Way of Rhetoric.”
This chapter essentially gives the reader the context of Daoism. This allows the reader to conceptualize Chinese rhetoric without making Kennedy-esque moves.
Definition of Dao, de, ying-yang, and wu-wei (25-31).
Chapter Three. “Zhuangzi and the Rhetoric of Evocation.”
Zhuangzi and his positioning by Combs with Aristotle and Burke (51).
The summation of how and why Zhuangzi’s rhetorical strategy is fabulous (51).
Explanation why statements which call Daoism antagonistic to rhetoric are overgeneralizations (47).
Within language are the foundations of a society’s conflict (40).
Chapter Four. “Sunzi and the Rhetoric of Parsimony.”
Combs sets up the Art of War as an “in” for Westerners, ie, it allows Westerners to study Chinese rhetoric in its context. The Art of War also serves as text, through its similarity to Greek rhetoric, which allows for an enlivening of “Western assumptions about persuasive communication” (71).
Combs enacts a few of Zhuangzi’s strategies throughout this chapter. Combs uses analogy and parable—specifically he uses the Art of War is an extended analogy.
Knowledge (62).
Strategy (66).
Responsiveness (69).
