'Who Knows Not But Speaks Is Not Wise; Who Knows But Speaks Not Is Not Loyal!': Rhetoric of Philosophical Wisdom in Ancient China.

The persistent cultural conservatism in Western scholarship has led to the exclusion of Chinese rhetoric from the canon of rhetorical studies. However, the assumption that Chinese culture does not have a rhetorical tradition is misleading and inappropriate. It stems from any number of notions: that the Chinese language is not as logical as those of Western cultures; that rhetoric is an outgrowth of democracy while China's system of politics is hierarchical; that rhetoric is about logical thinking as defined by Western culture. Robert Oliver, however, contends that rhetoric should be seen as a culturally relative term, designating a "mode of thinking." While it is true that the Chinese political system is hierarchical--no two people are considered equal--this system engendered its own kind of rhetoric. The Machiavellian rhetorical theories of Han Fei-tzu illustrate the necessity of a certain kind of persuasion suited to the imbalance of power between the speaker and listener. Couching and phrasing an argument correctly could be a matter of life and death in ancient China. In ancient Chinese oratory, the speaker is always male, a person of authority and nobility; his motive is to carry out his social duty, for example, to help the ruler make just policies and promote social harmony. The audience is usually one person, the ruler, who is passive and less cooperative than the audience generally envisioned in Western rhetorical theories. (Contains 22 references.) (TB)