Dialectic Unifying Rhetoric as Knowledge, Rhetoric as Action, and Kairos

The utility of a Venn Diagram in describing relationships among various concepts and ideas seems to be understated. I recall seeing them utilized throughout high school, but rarely in college with the exception of quite possibly one of these diagrams being used to show the relationships between key terms and concepts in math. The Venn Diagram seemed key for displaying the relationship between John T. Gage’s ideas on how composition should be taught, and James L. Kinneavy’s ties of Kairos to rhetoric and composition.

                               In Gage’s work, Aristotle’s description of dialectic as “knowledge that can be created in the activity of discourse” (156) notes its power to bring audience and rhetor together. Without dialectic, rhetoric is doomed to remain argumentative in the search for knowledge (Gage 156). Dialectic also entails as Gage elaborates on Aristotle, “an activity, carried out in relation to the intentions and reasons of others…” (156). Given the status as an activity through dialectic, the idea of rhetoric as action is established.  Dialectic also influences Kairos, the concept of which Kinneavy defines per Tillich as “emphasis on time, on change, on creation, on conflict, on fate, and on individuality” (90). This follows the more abstract definition of Kairos as “right timing and the principle of a proper measure” (Kinneavy 85). Dialectic’s location at the center of the Venn Diagram emphasizes its power to create a Kairos defined by Kinneavy, in which the connection established by rhetoric—both as knowledge and action—creates a sense of change and fluidity arrived at through the connection of rhetor and audience. In other words, although rhetoric stands alone with its own origins when dialectic is negated, it becomes a hybrid of ideas when it reaches the point of dialectic. Kairos also truly moves from status of simply “right timing and…proper measure” (Kinneavy 85) to become representative of “emphasis on time, on change…” (Kinneavy 90) as communication is permitted a back-and-forth flow of ideas through dialectic.

                               Dialectic ultimately results in the united hybrid of rhetoric as knowledge, rhetoric as action, and Kairos through enthymeme, given the latter is “a necessary compromise between what one who wishes to persuade may want to say and what an audience will allow to be said” (Gage 157). Dialectic begins the conversation between rhetor and audience, thus connecting the necessary parties and allowing knowledge and action to form, but it is the more specific enthymeme that allows the process more precision, or in other words permits a clearer connection of ideas. Kairos then also maintains its status as a factor considering the change and flow of ideas, and as ideas become more precise through enthymeme, so too might the concept of Kairos become stronger. It is this interplay when Kairos, rhetoric as knowledge, and rhetoric as action intersect with dialectic and enthymeme that allows an ongoing cycle of changing and flowing forms of knowledge.

                               This intersection of two categories of rhetoric and Kairos with dialectic and enthymeme seems captured fairly well by both Gage’s and Kinneavy’s arguments for a revamp of composition studies. Gage argues that prompting students to think beyond their own ideas will “improve the condition of the human parliament” (169) through encouraging thought about “conflicts and cooperations” (169). Kinneavy elaborates in detail on various aspects of what an improved composition studies program would look like, including ethical and social concerns of Kairos (98-9). Those being a few of the aspects Kairos affects, Kinneavy appears to be saying that Kairos and rhetoric are indeed connected through the bridge Aristotle emphasized as dialectic and enthymeme. Gage also supports this idea, although in the more general sense that students need to think beyond themselves. This clearly underscores the idea of an important connection between rhetoric as knowledge, rhetoric as action, and Kairos, because only when they are pieced together through dialectic and enthymeme can the ideas of a composition program with concern beyond each individual student’s viewpoints be formed.

-CS