SOURCE: Lanigan, Richard L. “Rhetorical Criticism: An Interpretation of Maurice Merleau-Ponty.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 2, no. 1 (winter 1969): 61-71.

In the following essay, Lanigan discusses Merleau-Ponty's influence on the study of rhetorical inquiry.

Traditional methods of rhetorical criticism are being echoed in the contemporary analytic and descriptive techniques of critics who focus upon the structural and stylistic elements of discourse¹ or upon the “rhetorical situation.”² In either case, the causal paradigm for investigation and prediction is an account of “audience” attitude and demography. Thus, the functional critic approaches the communicative act as an empirical schema of effects primarily reflected in the “audience” with little concern for the creative impact of the speaker and his expression. The synthetic process of discourse often emphasizes a greater concern with the “subjective” and is consequently eschewed by the more empirically minded critic.

The “objective” preference in rhetorical criticism cited above utilizes a technique contrary...