Rhetoric and the Narration of Conscience

Author(s): David W. Black

Source: Philosophy & Rhetoric, Vol. 27, No. 4 (1994), pp. 359-373
Published by: Penn State University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40237821
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Rhetoric and th Narration of Conscience

David W. Black

Traditionally, rhetoric has been connected in one sens or another

with the process of motivation. Although such a connection remains plausible and important, the modem rhetorician is too often

viewed as a mere stylist or technician who gnrtes a conviction

by finding an incentive or an appropriate motive. In this rather

pragmatic conception of rhetorical power, acadmies tend to ignore the narrative power of rhetoric; that is, they fail to recognize
that the successful rhetorician must do more than simply find the
requisite motives that rest in a common consciousness; she must in
a very real sens create them.

By considering briefly the subtle connection between rhetoric

and conscience, I wish to argue that the conception of motivation

used in many modem dfinitions of rhetoric is inadequate and

reductive. It is reductive in two senss: (1) It conceives motivation
as a utilitarian or technical concern and thereby overlooks certain
metaphorical lments that give rhetorical expression its fundamen-

tal life. (2) Motivation is associated with process of persuasion

rather than the more fundamental and more significant art of orien-

tation. In other words, rhetorical motivation is too often seen as a

form of causation, is too often viewed as a means of social influ-

ence or as a contrived form of stimulation that simply moves an

agent from one place to another. There is a more basic sens of

motivation, a sens in which motivation does something more than

simply move an agent from one place to another. There is a sens

of motivation in which the motive itself helps create the place
toward which the agent is being moved. In effect, I wish to argue
that, when freed of its reductive meaning, motivation is not a
merely discursive or even a merely psychological reality; it is also
part of a primary and creative art that helps th mind generate its
foci.

The reductive conception arises from a tradition of intellectualism that has forced rhetoric to either model or subserve the aca-

demically central activity of argumentation. This tradition at the

Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 27, No. 4, 1994. Copyright 1994 The Pennsylvania
State University, University Park PA
359

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360 DAVID W. BLACK

same time downplays th equally significant connections between

rhetoric and narration. Indeed, th primacy of argumentation is

often presupposed by both th detractors and th defenders of

rhetoric. Proponents often claim that rhetoric in itself makes a
contribution to argumentation, while opponents suggest that rheto-

ric is subversive because it stands in th way of argumentative

clarity.

In this essay, I will suggest that there are in fact two distinct
forms of motivation: (1) An instrumental form, which is actually
th produci of an acadmie misappropriation of fundamental rhetoric; and (2) an archaic form, which is primary to the instrumental
form and which rests in a narrative activity that sets consciousness
in its first position. This more basic form of motivation is archaic in

a literal sense; that is, it finds its generai efficaey in the archai
generated by its motive or e-motive activity. Although instrumen-

tal motivation has become the primary concern for the modern
rhetorician, the social and epistemological significance of archaic
motivation should not be ignored. In effect, I wish to argue that we
must understand th power of rhetoric in two senss. Rhetoric can
produce not only a sense of motive, but also a sense of motif.

Although the terms motive and motif share a linguistic root,

their etymological connection has been greatly underexplored.
The etymology of the terms is crucial because it reminds us that in
its archaic sense - that is, in its orientational and narrative sense -

that idea of a "compelling or forceful incentive" is not separable

from th idea of a "rcurrent pattern or imagined thme." I will try

to demonstrate that whenever we separate a rhetorical motive

from its underlying motif, we understand something about the
essence of an incentive but are able to coneeive the incentive only
through the relational logic of cause and effect. We do not understand the genuine archai of motivation because we do not understand th mitigating context or fundamental ground of our motives. In other words, one could operate from a set of very real and

viable incentives but still lose track of the narrative patterns that

first generated the motives one now employs. Indeed, since these
archaic images, these first motives, generally carry a moral connotation, we misrepresent the nuance of motivation when we use the

value-neutral language of cause and effect.

I therefore wish to explore the link between motive and motif by
studying their interaction within a value-saturated entity. I want to

explore, at least briefly, the rhetorical ground of conscience. I

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THE NARRATION OF CONSCIENCE 361

think that modem philosophers hve failed to grasp the significance of conscience because the alination of motive from motif

has weakened our sens of conscience and has thus separated the
essence of morality from moral action. In the minds of many schol-

ars, the study of conscience has become either a religious or a

psychological issue. Like the activity of rhetoric itself, conscience
is viewed as a source of instrumental motivation. Few scholars

would treat conscience as if it were a metaphorical phenomenon

that links a logicai motive with a narrative motif; that is, conscience is not usually treated as a form of archaic motivation.
Although a fll description and account of conscience cannot be
developed within the confines of this essay, I hope to open a Une of
inquiry that might help scholars rethink the fundamental meanings

of rhetoric, conscience, and motivation. In essence, I hope to show

that if one understands not only th logicai but also the narrative
dimension of motivation, then one necessarily takes seriously not

only th emotive energy but also the universalizing capacities of

conscience. In other words, I think that one must ultimately look
at conscience as if it were an archaic rhetoric, as if it were a form of

motivational narration that not only moves us from one moral

place to the next, but also crtes the moral places we move
among.

I find a partial basis for my ideas in th work of Giambattista

Vico (1968) and therefore wish to begin my analysis with a review

of some of Vico's basic philosophical premises. His work is of

special significance in two senss: (1) He asks his readers, not to
deduce, but to "narrate" the truth of his philosophy (par. 349). (2)
His most important contribution to a philosophy of conscience - or

what he might cali a philosophy oiprudentia - is found in an idio-

syncratic yet highly significant narration; that is, I think that a

theory of the motives and motifs of conscience can be pulled from
Vico's taie about the origin of culture. Mythology informs the logic
of the particular yarn that Vico spins.

In this sens, I presuppose Donald Verene's point that "philosophy for Vico is reading. It is th reading of e vents in their tragic

face" (1983, 35; see also 1988, 1991). In his pioneering theory of
philosophical narrative, Verene has argued that th ultimate wisdom of Vico's philosophy not only rests in Vico's unique conception of the Muses, but grows, more specifically, from the interac-

tion of Urania, the Muse of divination; Clio, the Muse of heroic

history; and Calliope, the Muse of loquence. In fact, Verene sug-

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362 DAVID W. BLACK

gests that this latter Muse actually "prsides" over Vico's own New

Science (1983, 25-27). More precisely, Verene argues that

Vico's problem in th New Science is to discover th connection between poetry and history. . . . But to achieve this understanding we
must have a grasp of history as ideal eternai. This is only possible by
th power of fantasia to allow us to place ourselves on th level of th
divine. By th sudden intervention of th Muses we see that all human e vents have beginning, middle, and end, that they have plots,
are fables. We then grasp in an instant their narrative character.

(1983, 32-33)
Verene thus reminds us that Vico narrtes a complete and literal
storia in th sense that th New Science is both history and story,
both philosophy and metaphor. It is also a perfectly circular storia

in th sense that, although metaphor leads us to philosophy, philosophy must eventually return to an apprciation of metaphor.

In effect, Verene's interprtation asks us to reconsider th nature of metaphor. In Verene's eyes, th first metaphors of consciousness must be seen as direct identities of sense and not as th

products of transference (1981, 6). In this paper, I wish to make

th same suggestion about what I cali th motifs of conscience. In
Vico's narrative philosophy, one finds a means for treating conscience not merely as something symbolic, figurative, or pragmatic, but as a form of orientational knowledge, as a phenomenon

generating direct sensible identities that form th foundation of

our moral imagination. Verene is correct to suggest that one must
study th philosophical as well as th merely illustrative dimension

of Vico's storytelling, and I think this is particularly true when

studying Vico's fundamental tale about Jove and th giganti.
In this regard, I wish to consider Vico's fundamental tale as if it
were a philosophy of th moral motif, as if it were a theory of the

orientational metaphor. I will argue that the first motivational

metaphors, for Vico, not only shake us into action but at the same

instant create the place wherein our action unfolds. Vico understands that no action can begin, and hence no genuine motivation
can occur, unless we construct a stage on which the action can
arise. Just as Cicero or Quintilian might ask how arguers invent the
first premises of their arguments, Vico tries to narrate the motifs
that set the stage for human activity. Thus, in the first part of this

paper, I hope to show how Vico's philosophy prsents a narrative

account of the "fantastic" activities that motivated the first hu-

mans, activities that brought forth the metaphors of ci vie life.

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THE NARRATION OF CONSCIENCE 363

I

Vico could not accept the Hobbesian thesis that it was a simple
fear that produced th first societies. Given his unique understand-

ing of motivation, Vico knew that culture could not evolve from
the transitory pressure of ordinary fear. However powerful, ordinary fear was often short-lived and relative from person to person.
A unified move to civil existence had to be launched by an extraordinary fear, by a fear that could in and of itself produce a communal sens of awe or transcendence. The fears of the first human

beings - that is, the fear of wild animais or even the fear of other

aggressive humans - might hve produced immediate behaviors,

but there is absolutely no reason to believe that such fears would
hve promoted any long-term change in habit.

However, Vico (1968) does realize that Hobbes was in a sens

correct to argue that the origin of culture must be found in some

naturai activity. The first humans were absorbed in nature. Yet

Vico finds this naturai catalyst outside th immediate nature of
humans and beasts. He finds it in another naturai phenomenon.
He finds it in the energy of thunder.
When at last the sky fearfully rolled with thunder and flashed with
lightning; [th founders of gentile humanity] were frightened and
astonished by the great effect whose cause they did not know, and
raised their eyes and became aware of the sky. And because in such a
case the nature of the human mind leads it to attribute its own nature

to the effect, and because in that state their nature was that of men all

robust bodily strength, who expressed their very violent passions by

shouting and grumbling, they pictured the sky to themselves as a

great animated body, which in that aspect they called Jove, the first
god of the so-called greater gentes, who meant to tell them something
by the hiss of his bolts and the clap of his thunder. (par. 377)

The fear generated by thunder must have been for the primitive
mind an awesome exprience. Thunder generated an extraordinary fear. Unlike the down-to-earth fear fostered by the threats of

beasts or other humans, primitive persons can do nothing to remove the source of the highly dramatic and encompassing fear
generated by the claps of thunder. One can hurl rocks at a rampag-

ing rhinocros. One can wrestle with another human. In many

cases, one can simply run from the cause of one's fear. But the bold

noise of thunder is too pervasive, too powerful to finesse by an

ordinary or instinctual means.

Thus Jove, who arises in ali gentile cultures as the great god of

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364 DAVID W. BLACK

thunder, gnrtes an extraordinary sens of fear in th bodies of

th first human beings. Vico calls these first humans "giants." He

believes that they would have been of a beast-like size, since they
lived in a beast-like world. And for th obtuse sensibilities of these

beast-like giants, Jove's power was incomprhensible. Despite their

great size and strength, th giganti could not fight th force of thun-

der. Thus Jove's voice carried a motive force, crashing through th

no-longer-adequate cover of trees. The power of this mysterious

voice frightens th shameless giants into a submissive posture.
Authority was at first divine; th authority by which divinity appropri-

ated to itself th few giants we have spoken of , by properly casting

them into th depths and recesses of th caves under th mountains,
were kept chained to th earth by fear of th sky and of Jove, wher-

ever they happened to be when th sky first thundered. (par. 387)

The thunder becomes a symbol of supplication and plays both an

anthropological and philosophical role in Vico's storia. At th moment of Jove's arrivai, many of th giants were caught in th act of

haphazard copulation. This image of indiscriminate coitus symbolizes th randomness of th giants' activity; it depicts th nothingness marked by th "confusion of human seeds" and th "infamous

promiscuity of women" (par. 688).

The picture Vico paints here is both propitious and decisive.
Within this scenario, Vico builds th archai of his account; that is,
he brings life to a unique set of images that will serve as th first

premises of his argument/narration. In Vico's tale, th cultural

world does not arise because of some deep rational structure that
guides or prompts conscientious action. It arises as a necessary
extension of th rudimentary fear inspired by Jove, as an extension
of th mysterium tremendum.

The omnipotent god of thunder forces th giants to seek protec-

tion; Jove causes th giants to rush from th forest and hide in a

group of caves that will become th first bastions of a rudimentary

city. At this point, civilization Starts to develop because th fear

that th giants carry with them now maintains a kind of meaning. It
has a meaning in th sense that th giants used their robust imagina-

tions to actually bind th fear of Jove with th activity of Jove,

creating in th process an identity between th physical quaking of

their bodies and th material shaking of th sky. Jove's meaning

becomes th bodily shaking itself because th first humans sense
that they are shaking in sympathy with th sky and thus project

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THE NARRATION OF CONSCIENCE 365

into the exprience the image of their own shaking body. Jove's
shaking and the giants' shaking are identified. The giants thus
grasp the meaning of Jove experientially and metaphorically by
perceiving the awesome rattling in the sky as the shaking of Jove's
giant body. As Verene points out, the first humans apprehend Jove

by forming his reality directly through the senss. "They 'find

again' in one moment of thunder the meaning of the flux of multiple moments of thunder" (1988, 11). The shaking of the moment is
thus magnified imaginatively so as to become the meaning of other
moments of identical shaking. In this act of identity, in this act of

primeval metaphor, certain actions take on an importance, not

because they are deemed prudent, but simply because they mimic
the thoroughness of an extraordinary fear, simply because they
regenerate an encompassing sens of shaking, simply because they
imitate the civilizing image of awe. Whenever Jove appears, a
certain shaking appears. To hve rfrence to Jove is to simply
imitate his activity. One brings meaning and life to Jove through a

physio-imaginative response that rgnrtes the form of certain

mimetic gestures, a response that crtes a certain pattern of shaking in one's body, a response that imittes the shaking that has now
become identical with Jove.

From this thought must hve sprung the conatus proper to the human
will, to hold in check the motions impressed on the mind by th body,

so as either to quiet them altogether, as becomes the wise man, or at

least to direct them to better use, as becomes a civil man. This control
over the motion of their bodies is certainly an effect of human choice,
and thus of free will, which is the home and seat of ail the virtues, and

among the others of justice. (Vico 1968, par. 340)

Vico's narration thus assumes the following form: conscience

and culture arise when one motion is checked by another motion
that was itself engendered by a third motion. In other words, cultural motion arises when the giants' sexual motion is obstructed by
their shivering motion that was instilled by th cracking motion of
th sky. To set th scene simply, Jove's intervention begins to civi-

lize the giants in the sens that his disruptive voice arrests the
bestial motion of promiscuous intercourse; and it does this before
the giants satisfy their lustful urge. When Jove produces a fearful

quaking in the giants' bodies, th copulative rhythm falls out of

pace; that is, while the bodies of th giganti were in sexual motion,

the motion of the sky intervened and instilled a countervailing

motion. Jove's thunder thus forces the giants to control their lust

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366 DAVID W. BLACK

and this prsents, in a highly corporeal context, th first motives or

motifs of rgulation. It prsents th first motion of modration, th

first images of th mitigating gestures that will develop into patterns of virtue and restraint. In Vico's mind, these first patterns of
gesture generate imaginatively th basis of "th virtue of th spirit
[that] began likewise to show itself among them, restraining their
bestial lust from finding its satisfaction in th sight of heaven, of

which they had a mortai terror" (par. 504). During th uninvited

outbursts of Jove, th giants exprience incompatible motions in
their bodies. The relentless quaking of their limbs renders th sex
act physically impossible. This is why no copulation can effect its
completion within th penetrating ken of Jove.
For from this first point of all human things, men began to exercise
th freedom of human choice to hold in check th motions of th

body, either to subdue them entirely or to give them better direction. . . . Hence it was that th giants gave up th bestiai custom of
wandering through th great foresi of th earth and habituated themselves to th quite contrary custom of remaining settled and hidden
for a long period in their caves, (par. 388)

The giants rush off to th caves so that they might engage in a

more moderate sexuality; that is, th giants no longer copulate in

th direct sight lines of Jove. The giants have developed a fundamental and gesture-based sens of conscience at this point, be-

cause they have developed at least th first motif or pattern of

motion that makes conscience possible. The giants exprience th
basis of "shame" when they become self-conscious about th fact
that Jove is watching from above (par. 504). Jove is th ultimate
voyeur in Vico's psycho-sexual drama. The first lments of shame

develop when th giants sense th busy vision of Jove. Therefore,

th appropriate puns must be given room to play. In th shameridden city, understanding requires overstanding.

II

Let me now try to connect Vico's tale to a philosophy of narrative

conscience. In this process, I will try to show how a primeval sense
of archaic rhetoric is at work in Vico's drama about th first motifs

of cultural motion. Vico's story helps us see that th words persoti

and moral are really th abstract correlates of th conscience-based

phenomena of persona and morale. In a Vichian ethics, morale

would have to be defined as a moral energy that - through th

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THE NARRATION OF CONSCIENCE 367

orientational power of the imagination - has been turned back

upon itself. Through acts of propitiation, th first humans gener-

ateci the disposition or morale that modeled in its imagery the

standards of virtuous restraint. Just as our discursive sens of mo-

rality oprtes on a network of motives, our nondiscursive percep-

tion of morale arises from the motifs that appear in and through
the propitiatory gestures that the first humans used to set themselves right with Jove. In short, thse gestural motifs mark the first

appearance of restrained behavior; that is, at the level of conscience, constraint is the motif of restraint. The first appearance of
ritual arises through the mnemonic rptition of certain affective
gestures.
One might refer to thse gestures as if they were lments of a

primeval rhetoric because thse motifs in themselves perform the

essential tasks of a rhetorical language: they motivate and they

generate archai. But thse primitive acts of rhetoric are orientational rather than persuasive. They create a standpoint, a first
perspective from which th giganti generate culture. This archaic
form of rhetoric provides an archaic motivation since it makes
society possible by creating a complex of orienting motions. Archaic rhetoric thus orients a motive by building a motif. The authoritative shaking of Jove is a social motif that through mnemonic

rptition becomes a rhythmic model for regulating other social

behaviors.

These mnemonic motifs, thse gestural thmes, constitute an

intersection of imaginations; that is, each of the giants perceives
sympathetically the common image, the common motif, endemie
to a certain rgulation of their behavior. These rcurrent patterns
of gesture, thse shared sensations of shameful shaking, create the
first lments of stability within the largely volatile world of sens.

Verene makes this same point:

Through th power of fantasia what is seen and heard of the sky is
transformed into a certain that is apprehended as something with
universal memory. . . . The certain and the true, certumlverum, appear at once as the given from which ail further gods can be created.
Through this special power of metaphor something is for the first time
for the first humans. (1988, 12)

The idea of archaic motivation thus can be understood in relation

to the first "is" of exprience, that is, the primeval awareness of

Jove. This is because, when Jove drives the giants into th city, he

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368 DAVID W. BLACK

acts as th grand motivator. In this activity we see th diffrence

between a fundamental motivation and th contrived urgency of a

logicai incentive. Archaic or fundamental motivation occurs when

motion manufactures its opposing term - for example, when th

regulating motion of thunder overpowers th subordinate motion of
sexual intercourse and instills a countervailing motion of restraint.
Archaic motivation is quite literally motive-action, since this type of
inducement does not draw its force from some recondite ideai that

stands isolated from practice. The action becomes its own catalyst in
th sense mentioned above: th motive first arises as a social motif,

as an autonomous pattern of bodily movement that directs other

forms of motion, not by means of a technique or argument, but by
means of a motif-action, by means of th moderating effect of certain super-movements - for example, th overhead action of Jove.

These super-movements guide action because they command a sen-

sible respect. These over-movements - or, if I may coin a term,

thse motifactions - arise through a mnemonic process because
they are at once remembered, created, and sustained; that is, the
activity of motifaction is a modeling process that remembers by
means of metaphor its own meaning. To again employ Vico's illustration of prototypic motivation, the giants remember the shaking of

Jove by seeing that their own bodies are imitating the shaking,
thereby creating a motion that becomes the narrative motif of moral

will, a motion that becomes a restraining ver-motion. This becomes a supervisory motion in the sense that Jove's omniprsent
motion watches over the giants' highly localized motions. When the
bodies of the giants imitate Jove, when they shake in violent sympa-

thy, they create a new phenomenon in the sense that they hve now
established a meaningful relation to Jove, a relation that is perfectly
circular and metaphorical, a relation that crtes the archaic motifs
that form the first motion of conscience.
The archaic rhetorician models the narrative motion of con-

science that Vico's taie describes. The archaic rhetorician, whether

in primitive or in modem society, is concerned with the motifs of
motion; that is, the archaic rhetorician gnrtes a new motion by
imitating and redirecting a set of social nergies. When Jove thun-

ders forth into the world, an image of a super-motion appears as

the author of the lesser motion of humans. As Jove puts forth an
effort, humans put forth a sympathetic effort and thereby create a

mnemonic pattern of gesture that transforms a once aimless motion into a social motif.

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THE NARRATION OF CONSCIENCE 369

The archaic rhetorician acts in the manner of Jove. When a truly

gifted orator fully motivtes a crowd, the motion or the e-motion

of the audience modultes sympathetically. The audience's original

motion is not denied or ignored, but rather shaped into a new

motif, shaped into a new pattern of cyclic motion. Motivation
in volves a modulation of motion, a metaphoric twisting or bending

that figures a sens of mnemonic passing, a sens of circular motion. This circular motion, in turn, sets the energy of the audience's

will against itself; that is, the audience is able to generate a new
motif out of an old and familir pattern of motion. Hence the
underlying success of rhetoric rests in a speaker's ability to shape a
new disposition from an old disposition without fully destroying or

denying the old disposition. Indeed, if a rhetorician were to deny

the motion or motion inhrent in the audience's old morale, she
might lose the trust of the audience or alienate the crowd.

Every archaic rhetorician knows that one best engenders a new

belief by engaging in a mnemonic activity, by reminding the audience that it has always believed what the orator wants it to believe.

The rhetorician ingeniously pulls the new belief from the old beliefs; that is, the orator finds a new motif by moderating, by modu-

lating the existing motions of her listeners. This is the sens in

which a purely rhetorical motive differs from th logicai incentives

one employs in a contrived act of persuasion. Logicai incentives

are fully reflective entities in the sens that we reflect upon them

disinterestingly and objectively. They are the product of mdiation, not modration or modulation. The logicai incentive is at best

an off shoot of the archaic motive; that is, to summarize Vico's

story: human consciousness moves from a sens of motion - which
is the physical flux of sensation - to motif- which is the rcurrent

patterns of gesture produced when the archaic imagination turns

motion back upon itself - to motive - which is th abstract conception of motivation captured in the notion of an incentive.

The motif gnrtes a circular meaning, precisely because it

makes no distinction between its reprsentation and the object it
represents. Archaic rhetoric does not necessarily instili conviction
through explanation; it instead crtes an orientation, a guiding

topos that helps an audience build a common morale. This type of

rhetoric actually prcdes explanation in the sens that it gnrtes

within an audience an initial focus or disposition that gives the

audience a chance to relate to the ensuing explanation.
In this sens, archaic rhetoric produces, not an argument, but an

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370 DAVID W. BLACK

invocation. It brings together th diverse perspectives of an audience by creating a motif actional commonplace. From this common-

place, a particular set of arguments begins. Archaic rhetoric thus

imittes th energy of certain motions or motions that might be
shared by an audience, creating in this process a set of orienting

motifs. In this respect, th explanatory act of indicatine an object

stands in contrast with th rhetorical act of grasping a motion. In
th archaic rhetoric of th giants, there is an identity between th
shaking of Jove and shaking of th giants' bodies. There is nothing

indicated or explained in this metaphorical act because th subject

is not distinguished from its object. One cannot indicate or explain

something unless one has to some degree separated subject from

object. In this sense, archaic rhetoric does not point to an object; it
instead finds its meaning within th motif it crtes. In sum, funda-

mental rhetoric does not indicate or rehearse a motive. It directly

grasps a motion.
However, th act of indicating prsupposes th orientational
force of rhetorical grasping. The act of pointing is in fact an act of
grasping at a distance. For example, when I use my index finger to

point to a given object, I bring th object into a focus of concern.

But my hand does not become one with th object. My hand does

not com-prehend th object. On th contrary, th act of pointing

could be viewed as a way of pulling back from a primordial exprience, from an orientational clutching that gives a context and direction to th act of indicating.

This is th basis of Ernst Cassirer's argument that th biological

act of grasping is th archos of ali mental acts of comprhension;

he writes: "In th primitive instinctual stage, to 'apprehend' an
object is to grasp it immediately with th senss, to take possession

of it. The foreign reality is brought into th power of th I - in a

purely material sense it is drawn into th sphre of th I" (1955, 1,

181). Similarly, Ernesto Grassi (1980) suggests that th grasp "prcdes th dduction because we can draw conclusions only from
what we have grasped" (89). This means that we cannot explain or
indicate an object unless we have already made a place for th
object, unless we have already established an orientation or generai direction for our thought. This is why archaic rhetoric is not a
form of argument, but actually a process of grasping the motifs of

consciousness that make an argument possible. Again, in Grassi's

words, "It is clear that the first archai of any proof and hence of

knowledge cannot be proved themselves" (19). And this is why

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THE NARRATION OF CONSCIENCE 371

Grassi points out that rhetoric in its fundamental sens "is not, nor
can it be, the art or technique of an exterior persuasion; it is rather

the speech which is the basis of the rational thought" (65).

III

I think one can see how the narrative, the orientational, the motif actional power of rhetoric has been implicitly denigrateci in mod-

em theory. Verene (1983), in fact, suggests that, in the rationalistic

eyes of the modernist, rhetoric "is seen as being simply about

words, and words are understood as instruments that can form
dceptions from the passions or that can state truths if rightly
guided by pure thought" (22). By extending this premise, Verene
goes on to claim that the
modem opposition to rhetoric and loquence has influenced how we
hve read Renaissance texts and how we hve interpreted Plato's
remarks about rhetoric and the poets. It is responsible for the view
that the works of Italian Renaissance humanists are primarily works
of literature and not philosophy, and for the populr view that Piato
is the first warrior against ail forms of rhetorical and poetic speech the view that ancient philosophy is based on the same distinction
between the rhetorical and the true that is the foundation of modem

philosophy. (22)

In this same vein, Grassi adds,

Over the centuries, under the aspect of the relationship between
content and form, the thesis was again developed that images and
rhetoric were to be appreciated primarily from outside, for pedagogical reasons, that is, as aids to "alleviate" the "severity" and "dryness"
of rational language. To resort to images and metaphors, to the fll
set of implements proper to rhetoric and aristic language, in this
sens, merely serves to make it "easier" to absorb rational truth.
(1980, 26, emphasis in original)
I hve suggested that another important illustration of this same
modernism can be found in our rationalistic and intellectualized

conceptions of conscience. Yet, I hve tried to show that in its

fundamental sens conscience is something more than a moral
handmaiden or instrumental motivator. Conscience provides the
orientation, the morale, the disposition that gives logicai thought a

place to argue, that gives moral theory an object of concern. The

narration of conscience is a form of archaic rhetoric in the sens

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372 DAVID W. BLACK

that it gnrtes th motifs, th metaphors of motion, that give

ethical analysis its first exprience, its first premises, its initial
Standpoint. Conscience pro vides th topoi ofmoral argument; with-

out it, our dductions are blind.

Although discursive ideals eventually blend with conscience, although conceptual thought cornes to influence conscientious choice,
the archaic metaphors of motifaction form the cradle of conscience
and, of course, concurrently remember and imitate the archai they
create. Without the invigoration of an archaic rhetoric, the narra-

tion of conscience will fall apart. The moral law might become
unquestionably clearer, but it will be chosen less frequently. Ideal
and action will occupy diffrent sphres, and we will be hardpressed to describe the schism.
Yet, if we are going to have any chance of describing th precise

effects of this schism, we must remember that Vico's tale about

Jove and th giants does more than depict th dawn of culture.
Vico's narration becomes the model and motif of conscience, the
true story of a moral citizenry, a fantastic history that tames our

bestial promiscuity by showing th ways of sex in th city. Vico

wants us to understand both the archaic and the instrumental di-

mensions of motivation; he knows that without the orienting influ-

ence of archaic rhetoric, logicai explanation will continue to drift

from the object of its analysis.

In conclusion, one might review th dilemma we face. Although

contemporary rhetoric is used to motivate, we do not appreciate
its motifaction. The aims of contemporary rhetoric are generally
determined beforehand, determined by an external logic that our
rhetoric now subserves rather than guides. We are taught to encode and decode information. We are taught to process the information we receive. And through all of this activity, we are given a

host of incentives. Yet we are not especially motivated. We are

not filled with a genuine morale. We instead resemble a group of
social entrepreneurs, taking reasonable risks vis--vis the opposing forces of our world. Archaic rhetoric and conscience are akin
because they both reflect th ironie nature of a first place, of an
orientation that not only crtes a guiding narration, but that
holds together in imagination the distinetive motifs of our motivational life.

Department of Philosophy
University ofScranton

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THE NARRATION OF CONSCIENCE 373

Works cited
Cassirer, Ernst. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, 3 vols. Translated by Ralph
Manheim. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955.
Grassi, Ernesto. Rhetoric as Philosophy: The Humanist Tradition. University Park,
Pa.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980.
Verene, Donald Phillip. "Imaginative Universals and Narrative Truth." New Vico
Studies 6 (1988): 1-19.
Written bv Himself. Oxford: Oxford Universitv Press. 1991.

(1983): 21-38.
Vico, Giambattista. The New Science of Giambattista Vico, re . ed. Translated by
Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fisch. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1968.

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