Rhetoric, Philosophy and Public Intellectual

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Rhetoric, Philosophy, and the Public IntellectualAuthor(s): Nathan CrickSource: Philosophy & Rhetoric, Vol. 39, No. 2 (2006), pp. 127-139Published by: Penn State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20697141 .Accessed: 29/12/2013 08:55

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Rhetoric, Philosophy, and the Public Intellectual

Nathan Crick

When we went inwe found Protagoras walking in theportico flankedby two groups.... Following behind and trying o listen towhat was

being saidwere a group ofwhat seemed tobemostly foreigners, enwhom Protagoras collects from various cities he travels through. eenchants them ith his voice likeOrpheus, and they ollow the soundof his voice in a trance. ...When he turned around with his flanking

groups, the udience to the rearwould split into two in a very orderlyway and then ircle around toeither ide and form p again behind him.Itwas quite lovely.

Plato (1997a, 315a-b)

Of all of the dramatic portrayals inPlato's dialogues, themajestic figure cut byProtagoras ofAbdera in theProtagoras stands out as themost impressive. Not

only does he possess the intellectual acuity to argue Socrates to a standstill, buthe also has the rhetorical ability to transform group of strangers into n ordered

community through only the sound of his voice. In thisway, Protagoras seemsto embody both thewisdom of a philosopher and the charisma of a rhetorician.

Historical treatments add weight to his characterization. First, Protagoras wasthe founder and chief spokesperson for the sophistic movement, which dramati

cally altered the educational system of his age by offering training in publicspeaking and civic arts to the average citizen rather than only to an elite classof aristocrats (Havelock 1964, 230). Second, Protagoras was a wide-rangingthinker whose writing and teaching extended humanistic ideals to the fields ofethics, politics, theology, education, cultural history, literary criticism, lin

guistic studies, and rhetoric (Sprague 1972, 3). Third, he was a close friend ofPericles and his theory and practice of a political rhetoric was valued highlyinPericlean Athens and led to his being given the responsibility ofwriting thelaws for the new pan-Hellenic colony of Thurii (Jarratt 1998, 26). Thus, evenifwe take Plato's characterizations to be exercises in hyperbole, there seemsto be an element of truth n Socrates's remark that Protagoras was consideredthe wisest man alive during his time (Plato 1997a, 309d).

Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 39, No. 2, 2006.

Copyright 2006 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.

127

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128 NATHANCRICK

However, despite these accomplishments, Protagoras is generally notconsidered a candidate for the title of public intellectual. The reasoning for hisexclusion isbased on the prevailing notion that idea of the public intellectualis a product of the Enlightenment (Rahe 2003, 27) and is thus a distinctly

modern idea (Pangle 2003,15). Hence, it is because of this essential, if ften

unarticulated, connection to themodern movements of progress and enlightenment that t feels not only wrong but anachronistic to apply the term intellectual'to Plato or the Sophists (Melzer 2003, 7).According to this view, theAge of

Enlightenment gave birth to the public intellectual because of its revolutionarybelief that through the dissemination of the fruits f philosophy and science, onecould enlighten the state of public opinion and thereby replace a traditional

with a rational society. Public intellectuals were thosewho acted on this faith bysituating themselves midway between the great minds and the people so asto serve the function of transmitting nd popularizing philosophic knowledge(7). By contrast, the opinion of antiquity was summed up inPlato's belief thatit is impossible that amultitude be philosophic (quoted inRahe 2003, 27).

Protagoras, being a part of antiquity, is thus placed in a historical category that

makes him ineligible to be a public intellectual, despite the fact that sophisticalthought is considered by some crucial in the epistemic shift called the Greek

enlightenment (Jarratt 1998, xviii).Clearly, modern assumptions about what it means to be a public intel

lectual are largely derived from modern Enlightenment beliefs that societycan progress through the spread of rational knowledge. Only on the basis of

Enlightenment ideas could a so-called public intellectual persist in the the

inspiriting belief that his own thoughts and insights ... once 'published' in themodern sense will inspire a transformation of consciousness by the dispellingof prejudice and the spread of theoretical truth (Melzer 2003, 8).However, thedebate about the public intellectual is not over what the role meant over fourcenturies ago. The question iswhat itmeans to us today andwhether we shouldcontinue to define public intellectualism in reference to now largely rejected

metaphysical assumptions that the public is a passive collection of isolated

minds, that philosophy is receptacle for universal truths, hat intelligence is the

capacity to grasp those truths, nd that rhetoric is the vehicle for their translation and dissemination.

The Enlightenment ideal of the public intellectual remains a popular no

tion in academia. Take, for example, Alan Wolfe's editorial in the Chronicle forHigher Education, The Calling of the Public Intellectual, which reinscribes

the notion that the function of a public intellectual's rhetoric is to dilute anddisseminate this truth oa passive and slightly irrelevant public. Wolfe begins by



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RHETORIC,PHILOSOPHY,AND THEPUBLIC INTELLECTUAL 129

defining a public intellectual as a sort of academic public relations officer who

brings academic expertise tobear on important opic of the day ina language thatcan be understood by the public (2001, B20). However, the implied altruism inthis definition isundercut by the disregard for the ctual impact of such rhetorical

performances. Speaking of how he gained his own title of public intellectual,Wolfe does not credit the relevance of his scholarship, the popular influenceof his writing, or even the recognition of his work by the public ; rather, hecredits his accomplishment to the fact that he found some people willing to

publish me (B20). Furthermore, his authority as a public intellectual comes notfrom his audience, but comes only from me, and to be true to that authority,have to be true tomyself (B20). ForWolfe, public intellectualism reduces toameasure of one's personal motivation, publishing history, and courage to tellthe truth, nd as such it is a title that one can bestow upon oneself.

Of course, the reaction against this elitist notion of the public intellectualhas been equally popular. This reaction typically takes the form of AntonioGramsci's concept of the organic intellectual, which rejects the value of rhetorical dissemination in favor of on-the-ground practices that are purposeful,agential, and organizational (Radhakishnan 1990,87). InGramsci's words, the

mode of being of the new intellectual can no longer consist in eloquence, whichis an exterior andmomentary power of feelings and passions, but in active participation inpractical life, s constructor, organizer, 'permanent persuader' andnot just a simple orator (quoted inRadhakishnan 1990, 87-88). Intellectualsare thus valued not for their ideas, but for their ideas-in-practice-with-others.

As Stanley Aronowitz explains, their social weight consists in their ability tolink themselves with 'real' agents, namely classes, which for Gramsci and all

Marxists are theonly

forcescapable

ofmaking history (1990,11). Consequently,Aronowitz praises an intellectual such as John ewey not for the philosophy that

embodied his life's work, but for his social activism that occurred largely at theend of his professional career. To Aronowitz, Dewey's commitment to socialaction never waned. He intervened throughout his life inpractical and politicalissues trade unionism for teachers as well as industrial workers, schools (as

well as education), and the defense of the rights f persecuted minorities, notablyLeon Trotsky and his Soviet followers (1993,85). Such praise naturally followsfrom Gramsci's ideal of a new class of intellectuals intimately associated with

the life world of industrial workers (Michael 2000, 7).Unfortunately, both of these conceptions of the public intellectual miss

themark for the same reason an acceptance of an eviscerated conception ofrhetoric that nds up separating the theoretical work from the larger sociohistorical situation towhich it responds. Both assume that rhetoric, by its nature, is



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particular, practical, and stylistic, whereby theory isuniversal, contemplative,and substantial. Consequently, rhetoric gets drained of content while theorybecomes pure meaning awaiting relevance. The only difference is that where the

Enlightenment public intellectual values the process whereby rhetoric translatestimeless truths for passive absorption by the public consciousness, Gramsci's

organic intellectual rejects the idea of timeless truths nd respects only thosetheories that are immediately put into practice by organized groups of socialactors. However, by dissolving intellectual work into social activism, Gramsci

effectively dismisses the value of dedicated intellectual work as we know it.Furthermore, because Gramsci is contemptuous of watered-down abstractionsand views rhetoric aswater, inhis hands rhetoric loses even the pretense of dis

seminating knowledge and is reduced to a momentary power of feelings and

passions. Intellectuals are thus left ith the unhappy choice of either sendingpress releases from the Ivory Tower or abandoning the tower completely for

active participation inpractical life.I believe this is a false choice, for both conceptions are based on the

same fallacy that something called the Ivory Tower exists as a place with

high walls that shelter an elite class of thinkers kept separate from the practicalproblems of their ge. This fallacy, in turn, s based on an implicit adherence totheAristotelian distinction between theory nd practice embodied in the tensionbetween episteme (contemplative knowledge such as science and philosophy)and techne (productive knowledge such as art and rhetoric). On the one hand, the

Enlightenment orator wants to disseminate episteme using techne. On the other

hand, theGramscian activist disregards thewhole process and instead embraces

pure praxis, or practical action. In both cases, however, episteme is impotenton its own, while techne is purely derivative. Praxis, meanwhile, because it is

separated from episteme, drifts uncomfortably toward forms of irrationalism nddogmatism. Neither of these conceptions of the public intellectual is therefore

adequate. In fact, they are both equally debilitating to promoting passionateintellectual inquiry and intelligent social practice.

However, it is difficult to envision another alternative until we reconceptualize the binary between theory and practice on which these conceptions arebased. This essay proposes that we arrive at a more enriched definition of the

public intellectual by rejecting the strict ristotelian hierarchy of knowledge and

returning to the sophistic notion of techne that bsorbs elements of episteme and

praxis within it. In itsoriginal usage, techne included every branch of human ordivine skill, or applied intelligence, as opposed to the unaided work of nature

(Guthrie 1971, 15).As John Dewey points out, it is suggestive that mong the

Greeks, till the rise of conscious philosophy, the same word, le^ur], was used



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RHETORIC,PHILOSOPHY,AND THEPUBLICINTELLECTUAL 131

for art and science, for their rt involved an end,mastery ofmaterial or stuffworked upon, control of appliances, and a definite order of procedure, all ofwhich had to be known in order that there be intelligent skill or art (Dewey

1915, 195). Thus, techne included both contemplative arts such as scienceand productive arts such as rhetoric for the very reason that they both chartednew paths of thought and action that human beings could use to navigate their

way through a changing world. In this way, to practice a techne was also to

engage in a form of praxis.Once we begin to understand that scientific, theoretical, philosophical,

humanistic, and artistic work all carry with them the potential to transform urworld by altering human beliefs, habits, and behaviors, we can begin tomove

beyond the form/content distinction that continues to separate theory from

practice, thought from action, intelligence from passion, and philosophy fromrhetoric. This redefinition neither collapses the important distinctions betweenthe varied disciplines, nor claims that there is no difference between those who

publish in obscure academic journals and those who actively engage publicaudiences. Rather, it rejects the notion that directly engaging public audiencesiswhat makes one a public intellectual. It forces us to consider that whileintellectual work may be intellectual, it is nonetheless work it is an effort to

change theworld through the transformative power of ideas. Examples mightinclude Darwin's Origin of Species, Sinclair's The Jungle, Kant's Critique of

Pure Reason, Holmes's Common Law, Dewey's Democracy and Education,

Thucydides's History of thePeloponnesian War, DuBois's Souls ofBlack Folk,Marx's Capital, Mill's On Liberty, Orwell's 1984, Emerson's Nature, Smith'sWealth ofNations, Stowe's Uncle Toms Cabin, Hegel's Phenomenology of

Spirit, Copernicus'sCommentariolus, or Plato's

Republic.For

everysuccessful

work, of course, there are thousands of failures, but one cannot even begin tomake such distinctions if they are judged by their form or content in isolation.

Only when they are all seen as forms of techne can we begin an inquiry intohow any intellectual work as awhole interacts with and possibly transforms theworld inwhich it is created.

This embrace of the sophistical notions of techne has a significant impacton how we define the public intellectual. According to the new definition,public intellectuals are not determined by counting public pronouncements,

measuring class allegiances,or

fitting their work intoa

convenient pigeonhole. Rather, public intellectuals are those who react to the problems of theirsociohistorical situation by creating enduring works that broadly influencecultural habits and institutional practices during their lifetimes. Thus, I arguethat thework of public intellectuals arises in response to and is directed toward



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resolving exigencies of their sociohistorical situation much in the same waythat rhetoric seeks to address exigencies in rhetorical situations ; the onlydifference is that public intellectuals, as intellectuals and not politicians or

pundits, respond to exigencies that are broader in time and in space than whatare traditionally considered rhetorical situations. For example, Copernicus's

work challenged traditional notions of the place of human beings in the universe;Sinclair's work revealed the horrors of twentieth-century ndustrial capitalisminAmerica; Kant's work institutionalized the separation between science and

moral values inGermany; Dewey's work established the vital connection between educational practice and democratic social life; and Protagoras's work

provided a defense of rhetorical training in the face of the aristocratic tradition.The form and the content of the work of each of these intellectuals differed, butwhat they had in common was that theywere all techne that sought to transformtheir sociohistorical situation.

What, then, is the relationship of the work of a public intellectual to heror his situation? To answer this question, I return to Lloyd Bitzer's landmark

essay, The Rhetorical Situation, which I believe establishes the ground for

a productive definition of the public intellectual. Although he had written hisessay primarily to inquire as to the nature of those contexts inwhich speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse (1968, 1),he did not restrict such an

inquiry to rhetorical discourse; the same inquiry might be made intowriters of

scientific, artistic, or philosophical discourse aswell. Thus, by analogy, a philosopher might ask,What is the nature of the situation inwhich a philosopher'does philosophy'? (1).Bitzer's essay implicitly accepts that even philosophy,traditionally themost contemplative of all arts, isnonetheless related to someactual situation. I believe we need to accept this premise in order to arrive at

an operable definition of a public intellectual that neither decontextualizes nordevalues the nature of intellectual work. When Bitzer concludes that rhetoric asa discipline is justified philosophically insofar s itprovides principles, concepts,and procedures by which we effect valuable changes in reality (14),we shouldnot believe these conditions are restricted to rhetoric; they should apply equallyto philosophy, as they do to science, art, or any other discipline that embodies

passionate, intellectual ideas in concrete form.The key to understanding how the situational perspective applies to the

publicintellectual

requiresus to broaden our conception of the rhetorical situ

ation first outlined inBitzer's essay. Bitzer defines a rhetorical situation asa natural context of persons, events, objects, relations, and an exigence which

strongly invites utterance (5).This utterance must be in the form of rhetoric,which Bitzer defines as a mode of altering reality, not by direct application



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RHETORIC,PHILOSOPHY,AND THE PUBLICINTELLECTUAL 133

of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes realitythrough themediation of thought and action (4). Thus, Bitzer arrives at histhree preconditions for a rhetorical situation: the exigence, or an imperfection

marked by urgency (6), the audience, or those persons who are capable of

being influenced by discourse and of being mediators of change, and the con

straints, or those persons, events, objects, and relations which are part of thesituation because they have the power to constrain decision and action neededtomodify the exigence (8).

All of these conditions, however, tend toward the particular inBitzer 'saccount. As he says, a particular discourse comes into existence becauseof some specific condition or situation (4, emphasis added). Thus, we have

examples likeKennedy's assassination (9) or Roosevelt's Declaration of War

(11). The emphasis on particularity, of course, has been a hallmark of rhetorical

practice since the Sophistic interpretation f kairos, or timeliness, as a radical

principle of occasionally (White 1987, 14). For the sophists, kairos alludesto the realization that speech exists in time and is uttered both as a spontaneousformulation of and a barely constituted response to a new situation unfolding inthe immediate present (Poulakos 1995,61). Thus, we find sophists likeGorgiasorHippias bragging of their ability to speak on any subject and thriving n com

petitive forums such as the intellectual contests at theOlympic Games (61).Yet we do not live only in a series of atomistic moments. Situations

certainly come and go in themoment, but they also develop and linger overtime. As Bitzer himself points out, rhetoric situations come into existence,then either mature or decay or mature and persist conceivably some persistindefinitely (Bitzer 1968, 12). In the Christian tradition, for instance, kairosdid not deal with particular human responses to individualized situations, butwas focused on the central event of Christ, who is said in the biblical writings

tohave come en kairo, sometimes translated as 'the fullness of time' implyinga culmination in a temporal development marked by themanifestation of Godin an actual historical order (Smith 2002, 55). This notion of kairos as appro

priateness within themeasure of historical time is also used in theHistory of

Thucydides, where he claims that his work isa creation 'forever': because of the

cyclical image of time presupposed throughout the book; the events will recur

(54). In these conceptions, kairos extends through time and space, expandingour notion of situations

beyondour immediate

experience.Such situations

raise the possibility that kairos signals the need to bring universal ideas and

principles to bear in historical time that in turn require wisdom and critical

judgment for their application (56).



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The latter conception of kairos undoubtedly has a certain Hegelian ringto it, but one does not need to carry over such spiritual or metaphysical com

mitments to think of kairos historically. In fact, we do it all the time when itcomes to contemporary histories of philosophy. What John Dewey wrote in

Philosophy and Civilization is now largely common sense: philosophers are

parts of history, caught in itsmovement; creators perhaps in some measure ofits future, ut also assuredly creatures of its past (1931, 4). Even antifoundational thinkers like Richard Rorty agree. InContingency, Irony, and Solidarity

(hardly aHegelian book), Rorty advocates an acceptance of Hegel's definitionof philosophy: 'holding your time in thought,' which Rorty construes to mean

finding a description of all the things characteristic of your time ofwhich youmost approve, with which you unflinchingly identify, description which willserve as a description of the end toward which the historical developments whichledup toyour timewere means (1989,55). Thus, by showing how philosophersreact to broad movements inhistory and culture, both Dewey and Rorty advancea notion of kairos that includes one's entire sociohistorical situation.

The question, however, iswhether intellectuals such as philosophers,scientists, or artists merely reflect qualities of their situations or whether theyact as agents of change. Rorty seems divided on the issue. On the one hand,he chides leftist cademics to put amoratorium on theory in order to kickits philosophy habit (Rorty 1998a, 91). Claiming that their overemphasis on

theory has rendered academics impotent when it omes tonational, state or local

politics (1999, 129), Rorty advises them to drop theory and get back into theclass struggle (259).On the other hand, he advocates a brand of pragmatism that

would treat theory as an aid to practice (30) and defines pragmatists as thoseinvolved in a long-term ttempt to change the rhetoric, the common sense, and

the self-image of their community (1998b, 41). He even praises Dewey not forhis social activism, but for his professional philosophizing. Rorty writes, the

period between the World Wars was one of prophecy andmoral leadership theheroic period ofDeweyan pragmatism, during which philosophy played the sortof role in the country's lifewhich Santayana could admire (1982, 61).

Unless we are to completely deny philosophy any rhetorical character, andthus engage in a self-defeating demarcation problem that reinscribes an absolutedistinction between theory and practice, we should pursue the line of inquirysuggested by Rorty's second position. To further his inquiry, put forward the

concept of what I call the philosophical situation. The oxymoronic soundto this concept is intentional; it encourages us to embrace Dewey's pragmaticnotion that philosophy is love of wisdom; wisdom being not knowledge but

knowledge-plus; knowledge turned to account in the instruction nd guidanceitmay convey inpiloting life through the storms and the shoals that beset life



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experience aswell as into such havens of consummatory experience as enrichour human life from time to time (Dewey 1989, 389). This definition asks usto consider that even themost abstract intellectual work as a potential form of

productive art if it anwork its way into the public consciousness and transformthe habits and common sense of a culture. After all, despite Plato's attempt to

corrupt it, the original meaning of the word sophist was simply wise man,derived from the Greek word for wisdom, sophia. Accordingly, Protagorasidentifies the wise man as one who replaces each pernicious convention by a

wholesome one(1997b, 167c)

and who does soby

the use ofwords(167b).The concept of the philosophical situation follows Protagoras's conception and

embraces all those who use the power of ideas to transform theworld around

them, whether they are scientists, artists, or sophists.Like the rhetorical situation, the philosophical situation shares the

same considerations exigence, constraints, and audience only definedmore broadly. First, an exigence is no longer limited to a particular event in arestricted time and place, such as Roosevelt's reaction after Pearl Harbor, but

expands to include problems that face an entire culture within historical time,

such as Dewey's long-term effort to construct a working ideal of democraticlife. Second, constraints are likewise broadened from specific persons, events,objects, and relations to include things like public institutions, overning bod

ies, religious beliefs, economic relations, historical forces, communal norms,and ethnic identities. For example, Karl Marx wrote Capital to identify thehistorical roots of the exigencies in his own age and then sought tomodifyinstitutional constraints by advancing his dialectical materialism, and his ideas

had a dramatic influence on social practices, even if they ultimately took a formhe had not envisioned.

The example ofMarx, however, raises themost controversial aspect ofpublic intellectualism that f audience. For, it ould be argued, Marx not onlywrote the three ample volumes of Capital, he also co-wrote, with Engels, TheCommunist Manifesto, which made the ideals of his early social theory accessible to the public. The problem with this argument is that it merely revertsback to theEnlightenment conception of the public intellectual as a go-between.It implies that ifMarx had not written for the masses as he did and had leftthiswork toEngels, then itwould be Engels, notMarx, who would be the true

public intellectual. Marx would be lumped with the rest of insular academic

theorists while political ideologues like Lenin would be championed as thenew organic intellectuals. In addition, rhetoric, in this conception, returns toits traditional role of diluting and adapting a complex message to a public thattakes on the characteristics of a passive and somewhat irrational mob. In other

words, once you deny that n intellectual work likeCapital has rhetorical value



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in its long-term ability to change habits of thought and action, you also denythat its author is a public intellectual just as you deny that the public possessesits own form of intelligence.

Who, then, is the audience of the public intellectual? Before answeringthis question, we must first dispel themyth that the public consists of amass ofindividuals and that public opinion is the static beliefs of that mass collectivelyconsidered. For, as Hauser points out, publics do not exists as entities but as

processes; their collective reasoning isnot defined by abstract reflection but by

practical judgment;their wareness of issues is not

philosophicalbut eventful

(1999, 64). Consequently, an ideal public isnot, as in the Enlightenment ideal,amonolithic group of purely rational beings who adhere to the same body ofvalues and truths. public consists of the interdependent members of societywho hold different opinions about amutual problem and who seek to influenceits resolution through discourse (32). Thus, the important ualities of a publicare the habits of thought and behavior it relies upon tomaintain communitylife and confront problems when they arise. Accordingly, we should judge therole of public intellectuals in terms of how they alter these habits, particularly

those thatmanifest themselves inwhat Farrell calls rhetorical forums, or thosesymbolic environments within which issues, interests, ositions, constituencies,andmessages are advanced, shaped, and provisionally judged (1993,282). Inother words, public intellectuals are not outside of the public talking down to

it, but are necessary members of a public sphere participating within it. Theyhave their own unique contributions tomake, no more or less significant thanthat of the average citizen.

The difference is that their contributions are less immediate. Because the

public intellectual reacts more to philosophical situations than tomore tradi

tional rhetorical situations, their work takes longer to influence the long-termhabits of a culture. Thus, their initial audience generally consists of those whoare equally aware of and have the ability to directly confront these broader issues. Typically, this audience includes those people who more truly fulfill therole of organic intellectuals teachers, journalists, politicians, social activists,community leaders, ormany of those individuals who fit the classic criteria of

opinion leader (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955, 33). These opinion leaders thenwork to apply the ideas of public intellectuals within more situated contexts ofthe classroom, the community, the town meeting, the church, the newspaper,and the political rally. However, once the ideas of the public intellectual worktheir way into the culture over time, they begin to take on a life of their own.

They solidify into certain ways of thinking and acting that become a part ofcommon sense. The facts that in theUnited States slavery isnow condemned,that democracy has become a universal ideal, that free speech is enshrined in



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theConstitution, and that e no longer believe the sun revolves around the earthare indication of the deep and lasting impact that ideas can have when they are

given concrete expression by the techne of the public intellectual.None of this is to deny the importance of encouraging intellectuals to

be active in the public sphere through publications or social action. Aronowitzis thus justified inpraising Dewey for his commitment to social causes. I simply

want to insist that these activities are not what made Dewey a public intellectual. They are what made him a responsible democratic citizen. In other words,the

only thingthatmakes the contributions of intellectuals

uniqueis that

theyproduce intellectual work. Therefore, they should be judged by how the qualityof thatwork affects long-term impacts on the public consciousness. Dewey, for

instance, was a public intellectual not because of his occasional interventionin current public affairs, but because he spent his life building a philosophicalsystem that promoted the ideals of democratic social life. Even today, ewey's

work serves as a guide for implementing democratic methods in other countries,

including China (Su 1996) and Central and South America (Donoso 2001).Iunderstand that this approach may sound distinctly w -rhetorical given

what seems tobe a privileging of theoretical content over persuasive form.Mailloux, for instance, believes that uch an account erases the significant istinctionbetween an academic professional who writes about publics only in scholarlyjournals and the intellectual who theorizes publics formultiple audiences, academic and non-academic (Mailloux 2006, 143).While acknowledging thatresearch results migrate... from academic disciplines to other sites beyond the

university, he nonetheless believes that the core of public intellectualism is therhetorical performance of disseminating and applying his or her own theoriesin lay public spheres (144). Similarly, Fuller believes that for a public intel

lectual to function as an agent of distributive justice, he or shemust also takeon the role of a professional crisis-monger and sophistic advocate (Fuller2006, 148). In both positions, the deciding factor inbeing a public intellectual

appears to be not one's long-term effects on public opinion, but themethod bywhich such effects may (ormay not) be achieved. For Mailloux, thismethodis public performance; for Fuller, it is social agitation. By contrast, I seem to

have retreated into the safety of academic specialism (or the classroom) withthe naive faith that the truth, nce discovered, will carry itself to victory on the

wings of a Platonic ideal.

This interpretation, owever, ignores the pragmatic and distinctly rhetorical quality that even abstract ideas can have when they filter into the commonsense of a culture. Public intellectuals are simply those scholars who becomeidentified with authoring those ideas. By contrast, Mailloux thinks this positionmisses the importance of speaking/writing in the public sphere and thus



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RHETORIC,PHILOSOPHY,ANDTHE PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL 139

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Bruce Robbins, 3-56. Minneapolis: U ofMinnesota R-. 1993. Is Democracy Possible? The Decline of the Public in theAmerican Debate. In The

Phantom Public Sphere, ed. Bruce Robbins, 75-92. Minneapolis: U ofMinnesota P.Bitzer, Lloyd. 1968. The Rhetorical Situation. Philosophy and Rhetoric 1:1-14.

Dewey, John. 1915. German Philosophy and Politics. New York: Henry Holt and Co.-. 1931. Philosophy and Civilization. New York: Minton, Balch & Co.-. 1948. Reconstruction inPhilosophy. Boston: Beacon Press.-. 1989. [1948]. Experience and Existence: A Comment. InJohn Dewey: TheLater Works,

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