Bitzer and Vatz on Rhetoric Reaction Paper

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Thus, what makes Vatz's view of rhetoric so much more applicable to rhetorical theory today is that it gives the study of rhetoric an actual purpose and a means of expanding knowledge and understanding. Bitzer's view is ultimately reductive, removing the potential for greater analysis and the uncovering of how humans make meaning by suggesting that any meaning exists already, and as such requires no further investigation. In essence, Bitzer's view of rhetoric is a thought-terminating exercise, because it reduces the object of rhetorical theory to a mere side-effect of reality, suggesting it is only worth examining as a corollary to central topic, which would be Bitzer's all-powerful situations. This is due to the fact that Bitzer begins his entire endeavor with a flawed assumption regarding meaning, such that the rest of his thesis can only progress towards a reductive and ultimately incorrect conclusion. In fact, one might not need any other evidence for the superiority of Vatz's view of rhetoric over Bitzer's than the fact that Vatz's actually allows for further investigation and the uncovering of useful, applicable knowledge, whereas the best Bitzer's theory can do is generate some idle speculation and marveling at the overwhelming influence of situations on human behavior and speech, without any pause to question how those situations may themselves in fact be created by human behavior and rhetoric.

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By examining Bitzer's theory regarding the rhetorical situation in detail before comparing it to Vatz's view of rhetoric in his critique of Bitzer, it becomes clear that one must begin with an accurate understanding of where meaning is created in order to usefully discuss rhetoric. By assuming that meaning is somehow inherent in events or situations, Bitzer begins his thesis on a fallacy, thus compounding the logical mistakes of his essay such that the entirety of it is nothing more than an exercise in futility, arguing for the inevitability of rhetoric in the face of situations which control both the speaker and audience, regardless of their individual perceptions of reality and the context they bring to the situation. Ultimately, Bitzer's essay is an argument in favor of a kind of investigative nihilism, in which nothing can be learned beyond whatever essential meaning is supposedly inherent in a given situation. Vatz's view, on the other hand, allows for one to see rhetoric as the important method of meaning-0making that it really is, allowing for deep investigation in the myriad ways in which humans relate to and alter the world around them via their individual and collective responses to the infinitely combinable facts and contexts available to them.

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