The areas of study known as rhetoric and philosophy have a contentious history stretching back thousands of years. Yet, many of the issues they engage are either complementary or identical. Those studying rhetoric and philosophy engage in a synthetic study of human knowledge, value, and action in a way different from those scholars working in the fields of rhetoric or philosophy proper. Methods, scholarly sources, and issues often reflect the hybrid and synthetic nature of those working in the nexus between philosophy and rhetoric.
Courses | Publications by faculty members | Dissertations and theses | Faculty and courses in other departments
Courses
CMS 390P Contemporary Rhetorical Theory (Cherwitz)
CMS 390P Rhetoric and Philosophy (Cherwitz)
CMS 390R Rhetoric and the Public Sphere
CMS 390P Comparative Rhetoric (S. Stroud)
CMS 390P Pragmatism and Rhetoric (S. Stroud)
Publications by faculty members
Brummett, Barry. "Some Implications of 'Process' or 'Intersubjectivity': Postmodern Rhetoric." Philosophy and Rhetoric 9 (1976): 21-51.
Cherwitz, Richard, Ed. Rhetoric and Philosophy. (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1990).
Cherwitz, Richard, and Hikins, James. "John Stuart Mill's On Liberty: Implications for the Epistemology of the New Rhetoric." Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism, Russel Whitaker, Editor. (New York, NY: The Gale Group, 2007).
Cherwitz, Richard, and Darwin, Thomas. "Toward a Relational Theory of Meaning." Philosophy and Rhetoric, 28 (1995), 17-29.
Cherwitz, Richard, and Darwin, Thomas. "Beyond Reductionism in Rhetorical Theories of Meaning." Philosophy and Rhetoric. 27 (1994), 313-29.
Cherwitz, Richard, and Hikins, James. "Irreducible Dualisms and the Residue of Commonsense: On the Inevitability of Cartesian Anxiety." Philosophy and Rhetoric, 23 (1990), 229-241.
Gunn, Joshua. "Size Matters: Polytoning Rhetoric's Perverse Apocalypse," Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 38 (2008), 82-108.
Stroud, Scott R. "John Dewey and the Question of Artful Communication," Philosophy and Rhetoric, 41 (2008), 153-183.
Stroud, Scott R. "How to do Things with Art," Southern Journal of Philosophy, 44 (2), 2006, 341-364.
Stroud, Scott R. "Rhetoric and Moral Progress in Kant's Ethical Community," Philosophy and Rhetoric, 38 (2005), 328-354.
Stroud, Scott R. "Narrative as Argument in Indian Philosophy: The Astavakra Gita as Multivalent Narrative," Philosophy and Rhetoric, 37 (2004), 42-71.
Ph.D. Dissertations and M.A. theses
David Gilbert, "Plato's Ideal Art of Rhetoric: An Interpretation of Phaedrus"
James Mackin, "Toward an Ethics of Rhetoric: An Ecological Model for Assessing Public Moral Argument"
James Hikins, "Explorations in the Relationship Between Communication and Knowledge"
William Keith, "Believing and Acting: Toward a Theory of Rational Persuasion"
Faculty and courses in other departments
E 387M Rhetorical Theory and Ethics (Davis)
E 387M Rhetoric and Hermeneutics (Davis)
E 387M Rhetoric and Agency (Davis)
Davis, Diane. The UberReader: Selected Works of Avital Ronell. Edited collection with introduction. University of Illinois Press, 2008. 342 pp.
Davis, Diane. "Identification: Burke and Freud on Who You Are." Rhetoric Society Quarterly 38 (2008): 123-147.
Davis, Diane. "The Fifth Risk: A Response to John Muckelbauer's Response." Philosophy and Rhetoric 40 (2007): 248-256.
Davis, Diane. "Addressing Alterity: Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and the Non-Appropriative Relation." Philosophy and Rhetoric 38.3 (2005): 191-212.
Davis, Diane. Breaking Up [at] Totality: A Rhetoric of Laughter. Rhetorical Theory and Philosophy Series. Southern Illinois University Press, 2000. 312 pp.