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Tradition and Agency in Humanistic Rhetoric

I intend to approach the issue of tradition indirectly by first considering some problems connected with rhetorical agency. This strategy might seem awkward, if not dangerous, since it entangles two equally complex and disputed concepts. Nevertheless, I hope to show that, within the humanistic strand of rhetoric, these concepts are linked in a way that is not currently recognized but has an important bearing on our understanding of both. Specifically, I argue that the humanistic approach entails a productively ambiguous notion of agency that positions the orator both as an individual who leads an audience and as a community member shaped and constrained by the demands of the audience. This tension, I maintain, becomes intelligible when we understand how tradition can function as a mediating force between individual and collective identities, and once viewed from this angle, tradition emerges as the primary resource for rhetorical invention. Before proceeding to this argument, I need to explain the sense in which I am using the term “humanistic,” since humanism, like tradition and agency, is also a concept that carries with it a variety of different and largely unrelated meanings. Consequently, I want to be clear that I am not referring to a kind of secular religion, as in a “religion of humanity,” or to the version of pragmatic philosophy developed by William James and F. S. C. Schiller, or to the ideological formation often called “liberal humanism.” Instead, I have in mind a rather specific development in the history of rhetoric that begins in classical Greece with Protagoras and Isocrates, appears in Rome under the sponsorship of Cicero and Quintilian, rises to prominence again in the Renaissance “humanists,” and still