ABSTRACT
Donald Bryant, who wrote extensively on Edmund Burke and taught classical rhetoric at Iowa, once asked me how I defined rhetoric. I knew he was bothered by an academic fashion for including most discourse under the term, and he suspected me of being a shameless eclectic, so I stipulated that it was the art of finding the best available means of persuasion. At that moment, being caught up in the chores of administration, I didn’t have the energy to sustain a lexical exploration of the elusive term through a conflict of differing views. I did not resolve a potential conflict; I evaded it. Years later I am still struggling with the question.
