Katharsis Defining Kairos: Moment of Persuasion, Purgation, and Textuality

I propose that kairos is better defined by the audience who is offered an argument and is purged by its resolution, that the audience then internalizes the claims of the speaker and thus cannot escape their own interpretation of it.

Kairos means ‘occasion’as illustrated by Aristotle in his Poetics and in his Politics. The modern use of the Greek word 'kairos' is used as 'weather' in the everyday forcast. Occasion is subject to the 'weathering' of the reader; their background is what shades their interpretation and thus, when they begin to comment on it, the textuality of the text. The audience's interpretation can then stand as their definition within the rhetorical triangle and kairos exists within the audience who is reacting from their belief system, their experience, which shapes their interpretation and thus provides whether the text will be relative for them. The audience will ideally assert their commentary on the speaker with equal measure as they would themselves, but nonetheless their discussion of what the speaker presents is tainted with reactions formed with their own opinions and derived from their experiences and belief system.

The notion of 'proper measure and right time' sound to me a heuristic process not a definition for kairos as Corbett illustrates in his article on the composition process "The Topoi Revisited". For Enos in "Recovering the Lost Art of Researching the History of Rhetoric", reading the primary text is a way to move away from the discussion surrounding it as the discourse is diluted with interpretations, yet the interpretations of the audience are what give a text its meaning. In looking at the long list of recent scholars using kairos as an integral piece of rhetoric, Kinneavy states, "all stress the importance of the unique background of the interpreter to the business of interpreting anything". Instead of a rhetorical triangle, Kenneth Burke in his Grammar of Motives builds a rhetorical pentad using a who, what, where, when, and how model to better explain the relationship between speaker and audience, but he falls short of placing interpretation’s value when trying to explain the intrinsic and extrinsic motives of the speaker.

The speaker hopes to evoke in his audience a reaction which will concrete their relationship with his message, perhaps a sort of emotion. As the audience understands and internalizes the speaker’s message, the tension within the argument is purged. This is a type of catharsis. If kairos, as the moment of persuasion, is the moment where the audience is convinced of the speaker’s claim then catharsis can as the moment of persuasion, as kairos. Borrowing then from dramatism, the speaker is protagonist and in his humanity is flawed as none of us is perfect. Alan Paskow in What is Aesthtic Catharis?, reevaluates Aristotle’s use of Catharsis by looking between his use of it in Poetics and Politics. Paskow states, “the spectator is invited to project himself imaginatively and emotionally (as well as intellectually) into the protagonist as one confronting difficult, existential questions” (63). The speaker then is the flawed protagonist hoping to gain common identity with his audience.

In Kinneavy's "Kairos: A Neglected Concept", he looks at the emphasis of occasion in all its headings and definitions. The modern use of the Greek word 'kairos' is used as 'weather' in the everyday forcast. In looking at the long list of recent scholars using kairos as an integral piece of rhetoric, Kinneavy states, "all stress the importance of the unique background of the interpreter to the business of interpreting anything" (84). I would say the 'weathering', or occasion of the background of the reader is what shades their interpretation and thus when they begin to comment on it, the textuality of the text . While the speaker hopes to evoke a sort of emotion in his audience to concrete their relationship with his message, which kairos as a purging of the tension within a text is an emotional reaction, the audience's interpretation can stand as their existence and definition within the rhetorical triangle. The notion of 'proper measure and right time' sound to me a heuristic process, as Corbett illustrates in his article on the composition process "The Topoi Revisited". For Enos in "Recovering the Lost Art of Researching the History of Rhetoric", reading the primary text is a way to move away from a discussion of it diluted with interpretations. Kairos as a stylistic move of the speaker to have better timing and good measure is a step toward effective presentation but the audience will ideally assert their commentary on the speaker with equal measure but tainted with reactions formed their own opinions and derived from their belief system. Everyone should start a relationship of the primary source which birthed such prolific discussion of it. Everyone should try to track the ideaology surrounding it through pedagogy or some other track. One should track their own reaction of source and discussion as their encounter it and display that relationship within their commentary as they begin to enter the discussion. I think this is what is missing in students' and scholars' essays alike. To use a text as the metaphor for awaking within their own experience

Argumentation in Pedagogy

In Chaim Perelman's "Social Contexts of Argumentation", he discusses how society paves the avenues of discourse. He states, "...the development of all argumentation is a function of the audience to which it is addressed." (252). We want to shake the foundations of our audience by awakening them to the concepts we present but somewhere we want to meet what they already know--to be able to plug into their belief system (enough to change it). We try to assume what their critiques would be, how they could counterargue and we want to address these before they do. We want to use their language if they are not from the same social background as us. We want to research them because they are not us. Perelman points out that language is a 'product of social tradition' and while that is true it is filtered through the individual perspectives of the persons inside that social tradition. One could even argue that one social tradition is splintered into sub-traditions. While it is obvious that certain patterns of thought arise where an ideaology is manifested in society, for instance democracy and its implications of rhetoric, each person that lives in a democracy may have a different belief that shades their rhetoric. The question for the speaker is what do the majority of the audience believe and how can you teach a speaker to find that general belief? Do you research their social background and grab out the general beliefs produced by it and address them? To a certain extent this is possible but one must keep in mind that while social context is a good common ground, the individual has already assessed their belief system and altered what they have learned by experience.

Discovery of Perspective

In learning the progression of rhetoric throughout history, the discussions that have erupted on its behalf, and how it has shaped our academic pursuits, we have been plugged into a history that is ever-changing. We now are attempting to assimilate these concepts into our own knowledge so that we may use them for foundation in our own assumptions. In essays such as "Freedom to Manners" and "Sheridan" we have seen how ethinicity and class, ultimately the identity of speaker or reader, have splintered the discussion into many new avenues. This idea of identity has enormous value for introspection when we regard what it means to share concepts, to communicate. It is not only a subject of what should be comunicatedand how it should be comminicated, or who is our speaker and audience, but how concepts are formed and interpreted in light of identity. A speaker has formed a concept but once she shares it with her audience, it becomes their propert, they own the concept and may do with it what they will (criticize it, build upon it, or dismiss it). In Roman and Wlecke's "Pre-Writing: Models for Concept Formation in Writing" they discuss 'concept-transformation'. They describe the puzzle a writer faces when trying to put an experience into words. They distinguish the difference between 'suffering the imapct of external events' versus really experiencing. Roman and Wlecke see this as the root problem of where writing, particularly student writing, fails. Unless the speaker can make an old concept their own, unless she can illuminate it first for herself and make it apart of her identity, she will fall short of making it anew or communicating it to others.

History of Rhetoric

We had a broad overview of where our educational traditions came from. Learning how to speak and present thoughts well is at the forefront of all communication from academia right down to everyday relations. We must take into account what our audience has in mind while we are addressing them but ultimately how well we persuade them has more to do with what they can relate to. It is the reader's interpretation and not our meaning that they come away with. In Channing's A Writer's Preparation he discusses theory of property"The germ or element of thought, once common property, is no longer in its simple state. It is appropriated by being modified, colored, combined with other substances and capable of peculiar application after being subjected to this hidden transmutation." (pg.30). This transmutation is performed in the comprehension of the reader, their revelations while reading it (where it brought new insight and new perspective on old experience/knowledge). Discussing literature and criticism is thought to bring new depths to comprehension. Traveling further into life's experiences naturally brings new depth to comprehension. Likewise new revelations bring to depth. But it is how an individual assimilates the newness and makes it their own that brings vitality to any piece of literature or criticism. It is the reader's awestruck enthusiasm or vehement distaste that shapes the work and, more importantly, what beliefs and understanding they went into the work with that gives it meaning. The more readers that respond pathetically to a work, the more the number of readers will be drawn to it, the more meanings for it will increase, the more there is to discuss. Of course there will always be new revelations to be pulled from a single text because each person is unique and will read and comprehend in their own manner and build upon what they already know and build again when they know more. I bring you to a story Sancho Panza told Don Quixote: Panza had had two brothers who had a taste for good wine. A king in a nearby kingdom was having a wedding, had heard of these two brothers' expertise, and decided to call upon them to tell him if the wine he had ordered, having thought it to be excellent, was indeed excellent. One brother arrived before the other and the impatient king told him to go ahead and try the wine and say what he thought of it. The first brother tried it and deemed it to be a great vintage that his guests would enjoy; but he told the king that he detected a hint of iron in the wine. The king was angered by this absurd assertion and had the first brother hauled off and hanged. The second brother then arrived, not knowing of his brother's fate, and in tasting the wine also called it a great vintage. But he told the king that he detected a leather taste in the wine. The king now thinks neither brother is credible, in fact crazy, and calles for the hanging of brother number two. He goes on to serve the wine at the wedding celebration. Once everyone had drank to their heart's content and the wine barrel had been emptied, attention was called to a small item at the bottom of the barrel--the was an iron key hanging on a leather strap. The brothers had detected something inside the wine that wasn't of the wine but still existed within. This is what discussion ultimately strives for--to find what truths can be revealed. But each reader will find their own truth when they go searching. It is whether it can be seen by others that gives credibility.