Bøker av James L. Kastely

A revolutionary approach to rhetoric that asks why audiences need persuading. What is persuasion? For some, it is the ideal alternative to violence. For others, persuasion is simply a neutral instrumentality--a valued source of soft power. Both positions rest on a fundamental belief: persuasion is a power that resides in a speaker acting on an audience. Loving the World Appropriately asks a different, more fundamental, question: why does an audience need persuasion? In shifting our focus, James Kastely delivers a provocative new history of rhetoric and philosophy, one that describes rhetoric as more than a matter of effective communication and recasts persuasion as a philosophical concern central to notions of human subjectivity. Ultimately, Kastely insists, persuasion enables us to love the world appropriately.

What is the role of rhetoric in a civil society? This text considers this question by examining the work of writers from Plato to Jane Austen and locates a line of thinking that values rhetoric but also raises questions about the viability of rhetorical practice.