Rhetorica:
A Speech in Time
Saves Nine
By Gabriel Blanchard
If rhetoric is for persuasion, and persuasion is for action, and action is temporal by nature, then rhetoric too has a temporal aspect.
“A Time to Keep Silence, and a Time to Speak”
We have said that rhetoric is first of all the art of communication; however, in this, we’ve departed slightly from the classical view of rhetoric, which is that it is the art of persuasion. Most previous work on rhetoric, like that of Cicero, Christine de Pizan, Erasmus, Richard Weaver, or Marshall McLuhan, have been written in the context of its persuasive function. Persuasion is, by definition, persuasion to do or think something (or to not do or think it): that is, persuasion to take action of some type, however subtle. It is thus that we come to consider the relationship of rhetoric to time, the domain of all action—at least, of all actions our minds readily comprehend. (It is not an accident that our master list of the topics of “the Great Conversation” lists time and eternity separately.)
What is time? In the name of annoying Socrates, let’s explain that by giving its three kinds: ante-meridian (or morning, hence “a.m.”), meridian (or noon), and post-meridian (“p.m.”), which are the three times of day taking action is allowed.
Alright, that isn’t really how this works; the pertinent kinds of time are the past, the present, and the future. The past is the realm of actions done, of the irrevocable,1 of history—it is known by memory. The present is the realm of current action and choice, of freedom at its maximum—it is known by experience. The future is the realm of consequences and results, of the possible, of novelty, of the foreseen and the unforeseen alike—it is known by conjecture; that is, it is unknown.
Rhetoric Post Facto, Facto, and Ante Facto
Insofar as rhetoric is persuasive, must it therefore come in three varieties: a past-type, a now-type, and a future-type. The formal names assigned to these by Aristotle were forensic, epideictic,2 and deliberative. These are alternatively, called judicial, ceremonial, and political rhetoric, after the three contexts in which the three kinds most commonly and most formally occur: courts of law (whether civil or criminal); occasions of public honor or censure for some person or group; and assemblies of the people to discuss public decisions.3 (The name deliberative is, maybe, deserving of special note; it is, obviously, related to the word deliberation, i.e. discussing and analyzing things, preparatory to making a decision. Oddly, we sometimes miss its connection to the word deliberate, as in “the opposite of by accident.” Yet a political body is—in theory—responsible, same as an individual. Perhaps we mentally disassociate the two words out of a feeling that there is safety in numbers?)
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.
Now, judicial rhetoric differs a bit more from epideictic and deliberative rhetoric than the two of them do from each other. This is because humans, since we have the ability to plan to do things beforehand (“preparing a held action,” in RPG terms), can make a full range decisions about both the present and the future. By contrast, the decisions we can make about the past are extremely limited. We can discover past facts, react to them with pleasure or pain, adjudge them good or bad, and communicate the facts themselves and our feelings and verdicts about them; however, the facts as such are set, and the closest we can come to altering this (which is not very close at all) is lying about them.
Where epideictic and deliberative rhetoric differ from the forensic kind is that deliberative rhetoric is about coming to a decision, choosing a course of action. With epideictic rhetoric, a prior choice (to praise or shame someone) is being put into practice; the rhetoric is the medium of the chosen act, rather than the means by which we are led to one choice versus another.
The Subtle Unity of Rhetoric
That said, all rhetoric, insofar as it is aimed at persuasion, tends to draw close to political rhetoric in a certain sense. The lawyer advocating his client’s innocence before a jury does not merely wish to address an extremely localized history lesson to the jurors; he wishes them to acquit her: a course of action. Nor does the mayor giving a declamation about the town’s own John Smith breaking the Olympic record for the hundred-meter dash merely want to inform us that one number (Smith’s) is smaller than another number (the last record); he wants the town to join him in celebrating how different the two numbers are4: again, course of action.
Yet by the same token, all rhetoric, insofar as it is aimed at persuasion, tends to draw close to forensic rhetoric—in a certain different sense. The problem with the future is, we don’t know anything about it; we can make predictions, but those predictions don’t all come true. Part of the reason we like knowing how things work is that it enables us to make more accurate predictions. Accordingly, all the knowledge we use in deliberating is obtained through forensic-style means. And again, deciding to accept a plan, or for that matter deciding to plan nothing and just wing it, are decisions made in the present (necessarily, and whether we persevere in them or not), bringing us back around to ceremonial rhetoric.
This points to another of rhetoric’s functions, one more akin to its use for understanding than its persuasive use. It is the role of rhetoric—and, in classical curricula, of the Rhetoric stage, typically the tenth to twelfth grades—to impress upon students the essential unity of all knowledge. Every subject is tied to every other subject, no matter how long or gossamer-thin the line between them. And, because none of us can know everything, this suggests something about the nature of rhetoric, and even of mankind itself. “Man is a political animal,” as Aristotle said; or, in the idiom of the Desert Fathers of the Christian faith, “Your life and your death are with your neighbor.”
1Which is not necessarily the unfixable. But even a fixed mistake differs (sometimes weightily, sometimes trivially and negligibly) from a non-mistake.
2This is pronounced ĕp-ĭ-dā-ĭk-tĭk or ĕp-ĭ-dīk-tĭk. It originates in the Greek verb ἐπιδείκνυμι [epideiknümi], meaning “to exhibit, show, point out.”
3Note that public here means only (in line with its etymology) “pertaining to the whole people,” whatever people is in question. The meeting of a football team to discuss strategy for the next game, while perhaps less important than a session of the US House of Representatives, would equally be a context in which deliberative/political rhetoric might be used to convince its public—in this case, the team’s members—to adopt a particular course of action.
4Not for its own sake, of course. At least, I assume that’s not the reason. I don’t know your mayor.
Gabriel Blanchard, a proud uncle of seven nephews, holds a degree in Classics from the University of Maryland and works for CLT as its editor at large. He lives in Baltimore, MD.
If you’d like to see more from the Journal, maybe check out our profiles of a few more of our favorite rhetors, like St. Athanasius, Bartolomé de Las Casas, Benjamin Franklin, and Sojourner Truth. You might also enjoy our series Texts in Context, a crash course in Western history focusing on giving background to our Author Bank, and in which we’ve just reached the High Middle Ages.
Published on 27th March, 2025. Page image of The Examination of a Witch (1853), by T. H. Matteson, a painting inspired by the Salem Witch Trials.