A Rhetorician's View of Religious Speech in Civic Argument
21 Pages Posted: 19 Nov 2008
Date Written: November 18, 2008
Abstract
This paper examines the role of religious speech in democratic civic argument by challenging liberal methods of addressing the issue of religious speech with a more rhetorical view of civic argument. The primary issue, from this perspective, is whether or not rhetoric's own constitutive restraints are adequate to address the risks of religious speech. After a brief analysis of liberal methods, the rhetorical nature of civic argument is described, and both the risks of religious speech and the constitutive restraints are examined.
Keywords: rhetoric, rhetorical community, religious speech, religious rhetoric, religion, constitutive restrainsts, constitutive rules, persuasion, political argument,democracy, civic argument, liberal, Stanley Fish, Stanley Hauerwas, Robert Audi, Mozert v. Hawkins, mystery, divisiveness, rudeness, fairness
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