The Deep Ecology of Rhetoric in Mencius and Aristotle

<p><b>Discusses philosophers Mencius and Aristotle as socio-ecological thinkers.</b></p><p>Mencius (385-303/302 BCE) and Aristotle (384-322 BCE) were contemporaries but are often understood to represent opposite ends of the philosophical spectrum. Mencius is associated with the ecological emergent flowing and connected; Artistotle with the rational static abstract and binary. Douglas Robinson argues that in their conceptions of rhetoric at least Mencius and Aristotle are much more similar than different: both are powerfully socio-ecological espousing and exploring collectivist thinking about the circulation of energy and social value through groups. The agent performing the actions of <i>pistis</i> persuading-and-being-persuaded in Aristotle and <i>zhi</i> governing-and-being-governed in Mencius is Robinson demonstrates not so much the rhetor as an individual as it is the whole group. Robinson tracks this collectivistic thinking through a series of comparative considerations using a theory that draws impetus from Arne Naess's ecosophical deep ecology and from work on rhetoric powered by affective ecologies but with details of the theory drawn equally from Mencius and Aristotle.</p>