THE REVIEW OF COMMUNICATION
1 (2001): 1-25
© 2001 National Communication Association

Henry W. Johnstone, Jr.: Reviving the Dialogue of Philosophy and Rhetoric 

Gerard A. Hauser 

The twentieth-century renaissance of rhetorical studies was a multidisciplinary phenomenon. It commenced with the exodus of public speaking teachers from English departments at the beginning of the century to found departments of speech; broadened its base by mid-century through the research of scholars of antiquity, American and British history, literature, political science, sociology, and speech; saw a return to prominence during the last quarter of the century in writing theory and instruction; and emerged by century’s end in the form of new rhetorics that burgeoned as fruitful paradigms in intellectual and social histories, literary and social criticism, and a variety of theoretical works across the humanities and interpretive social sciences. This movement included revival of the ancient dialogue between philosophy and rhetoric that had lain moribund since the Enlightenment. The renewal of this discussion was particularly important.

From its inception at the beginning of the century as an area of inquiry, rhetorical theory had been largely confined to historical investigation of significant works of the past. Its manifestations were in the form of intellectual histories, such as W. S. Howell’s Logic and Rhetoric in England, 1500-1700 and Walter Ong’s Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue, or commentaries on specific doctrines of historically important systems and theories of rhetoric. However, by mid-century, philosophers such as Richard McKeon and Chaim Perelman were turning to rhetoric as a mode of thought and analysis that could address basic questions of knowledge and action in an age lacking a dominant set of shared assumptions. During the last third of the century these important but relatively isolated initial statements exploded into a flurry of intellectual work aimed at theorizing rhetoric in new terms. A leading figure in this renewed dialogue--both as participant and facilitator--was Henry W. Johnstone, Jr.

Among rhetoricians, Johnstone is known as the founding and long-time editor of the international journal Philosophy and Rhetoric. The journal, inaugurated in 1968, heralded a new era in which rhetorical theory, as a domain of scholarship limited to historical interpretation, was surpassed through a fresh examination of basic epistemological, ontological, and ethical assumptions underlying human symbol use and what this might tell us of humans as symbol-using animals. For rhetoricians in the United States, the journal marked the beginning of an interdisciplinary, international dialogue on their subject. In addition to this invaluable editorial contribution, Johnstone also was a prolific scholar whose philosophical analyses of rhetoric made an important contribution to our understanding of its character and possibilities. His oeuvre provides a legacy that exemplifies the raison d´etre scholarly inquiry.

Johnstone published more than 170 scholarly papers, books, and reviews across the last half of the twentieth century, with his first paper appearing in the Polish journal Przglad Filozoficzny in 1948 and the most recent in Rhetoric Review in 2000. His work included original formulations on formal and informal logic, the nature of philosophical argument, the problem of the self, rhetorical figures, and Greek literary antiquity, with his reflections on the nature of philosophical argument being his signature contribution.

Johnstone had an abiding concern for validity. His papers, books, and edited anthologies express the development of this concern through his own formulation and analysis of what counts as a valid philosophical argument and his participation in an international dialogue with philosophers and rhetoricians that developed around his position. Collectively they are a testimony to open-minded consideration of the arguments on their merits and the resulting alteration and refinement of his position as the argument warranted.

Johnstone is most centrally identified with the thesis that all philosophical argument relies on its capacity to make a valid assertion within the framework of one’s interlocutor. Quite unlike his Belgian counterparts Ch. Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca,[1] who advocated that philosophical validity resided in appeals that could gain the adherence of a universal audience, Johnstone maintained that philosophical arguments were valid only insofar as they were deemed valid by those to whom they were addressed (1952b). For Johnstone, all arguments were bounded by the system of presuppositions in which they were situated. In his view, a proposition without an underlying system of presuppositions was open to the charge of being an arbitrary assertion. One justified one’s claims, including alterations in one’s assertions, with an eye to achieving consistency with the presuppositions on which the system rested. Six years before Stephen Toulmin’s The Uses of Argument[2] appeared, in which he advanced his much acclaimed theory of field dependent argument, Johnstone’s article on the argumentum ad hominem was advancing his own thesis, which cut across the grain of universality as the benchmark of validity.

In his original formulation, philosophical argument was a rational enterprise in which the terms of engagement were agreement on the validity of an assertion based on its ability to expose the inconsistency in another’s claims. Since the validity of a philosophical argument was dependent on its consistency with its system of presuppositions, critique would be taken as valid only insofar as it revealed an inconsistency between claim and presuppositions or undermined the presuppositions themselves, thus their ad hominem character. Although Johnstone did not have formal validity in mind, his initial formulation did require rational assent to the force of an argument once it was apparent that it had exposed an inconsistency in one’s position.

This formulation of the ad hominem was itself problematic, however, because it created an opposition between argumentum ad rem, in which the truth or falsity of a position is assessed regardless of its presuppositions, and argumentum ad hominem, in which truth or falsity are determined within the framework of the antagonist’s position. This tension created a conflict within Johnstone’s position. On the one hand, an internal inconsistency was simply a case of poor reasoning, or a matter of fact that was exposed by an ad rem argument, which was contrary to Johnstone’s thesis. On the other hand, an attack on presuppositions was always subject to denial by the antagonist as itself based on a false set of presuppositions. In this case, the ad hominem could not guarantee that one’s antagonist would acknowledge the inconsistency. Without a formal mechanism to compel accedence, Johnstone’s position seemed to show that the validity of a philosophical argument was arbitrary.

 The rationalistic character of the ad hominem thesis posed a dilemma that compromised the integrity of its initial formulation. Johnstone quickly realized that he had a consistency problem, both with his own theory and, from the antagonist’s point of view, with the apparent insulation of presuppositions against ad hominem attacks as themselves arbitrary. In other words, since the conclusions of every philosophical system are open to cogent and coherent attack from other philosophical systems, no conclusions are ever decisively secured as true. On these terms, the entire philosophical enterprise becomes, as he put it, a logomachy, a war of words (1978a, 135). It is worth noting that more than a decade before Jürgen Habermas began publishing papers and books outlining his communication-based theory of validity,[3] Johnstone had identified the addressed character of validity as the basis for warranted assent and had recognized the irremediable defeasibility of this position on its own terms.

A second consequence of Johnstone’s original formulation was its antagonistic stance toward rhetoric. Johnstone’s rationalistic formulation allowed no room for acknowledging the rhetorical character of the argumentum ad hominem because to do so would have meant that validity was not entirely a matter of rational consistency and that hortatory considerations bore on what any given arguer regarded as valid. For Johnstone, philosophy was rational argument directed at a system of presuppositions; rhetoric was non-rational appeal to the individual (which entailed the person’s susceptibilities). Philosophical arguments were bilateral appeals that adhered to a neo-Kantian principle of invoking only those argumentative moves open to one’s interlocutor. Rhetorical arguments, on the other hand, were unilateral appeals. They were strategically directed at the susceptibilities of one’s interlocutor in ways that could not be generalized as a permissible argumentative move open to all. As he held in his 1966 essay dealing with the relevance of rhetoric and philosophy to one another, since philosophy does not aim at action it “literally has no need for rhetoric” (1966c, 42).

After several papers (1961a, 1967b, 1970d), spread over a decade in which he attempted to resolve the consistency problem, Johnstone eventually concluded that in its original formulation it was irresolvable. Since validity could not be redeemed by objective properties of an argument that allowed us to demonstrate internal consistency or inconsistency among presuppositions nor by like properties with respect to different sets of presuppositions, he repudiated the problem. He then recast it from one of the validity of the philosopher’s argument to one of the philosopher’s concern for validity. In other words, he moved his conceptualization of validity from an objective property of an argument to a regulative ideal. Framing validity as a regulative ideal was significant for Johnstone’s move to rhetoric. By framing validity in this way, he opened the way for inspecting the characteristics of argument that embodied it. These characteristics have made a lasting contribution to our understanding of the rhetorical character of philosophical arguments and what may be regarded as necessary conditions for rhetorical validity.

Regarding validity as a regulative ideal had significant impact on Johnstone’s thinking from the middle 1960s forward. Johnstone had to consider what would be required to refute an antagonist’s arguments. He posited that a critic’s own presuppositions lock her into her own position. At the same time, in order to make claims that the other would consider valid requires the arguer to consider the consequences of her attack from inside the antagonist’s position. The regulative ideal of validity thus requires a person to stand both inside and outside the position being attacked, to encounter the argument and the question of its validity from two distinct perspectives. Considering both points of view subjects the person to the tension between their respective calls and mutual contradictions. This tension, Johnstone holds, is the locus of the self. For Johnstone the self emerges from apprehending this tension of contradictions.

Johnstone’s theory of the self developed in the framework of three sets of considerations. Johnstone’s new position on validity as a regulative ideal shifted his emphasis from the relationship among premises to the relationship between arguer and antagonist as reflected in the characteristics of the argument itself. One important characteristic was the implicit assumption that the arguer regarded his antagonist as beyond effective control. Here Johnstone elaborated on the distinction between unilateral and bilateral arguments.

He defined bilateral argument as one in which “the arguer must use no device of argument he could not in principle permit his interlocutor to use” (1983b, 95).  Bilateral arguments avoid tricks, deception, falsehoods, and the like; they apply the Kantian rule of ethical imperative to argument. In a unilateral argument, by contrast, the arguer uses devices of argument not available for the interlocutor’s use. These may include not only gambits and ploys that attempt to elude critical inspection but also role‑specific communication, such as directives from superiors to subordinates. Although one can imagine situations where unilateral communication would be essential to avoid chaos, in the domain of argument, unilateral appeals are never permissible because the ideal of validity requires the interlocutors’ accedence to arrive at agreement as a result of their critical assessment of the argument. Audience members can think and articulate their thoughts; they can reflect on what we say and offer reasoned assessments; if they respond positively, it is because we have secured their agreement. They are not like robots or computers, who perform on appropriate command. They are not like children who can be instructed on how to behave. They cannot be regarded as objects of manipulation through means of suggestion. Each of these strategies is abandoned when we decide to argue, when we regard our audience as free and as capable of making its own choices. In short, we must regard our antagonists as human.

By assuming the audience is beyond effective control, Johnstone introduced a second defining characteristic, namely, the audience’s freedom of response. The audience to which we offer arguments may ignore them, disbelieve them, or even refute them. Consequently, by choosing to offer arguments in support of ideas, we run the risk of having our ideas defeated. At the same time, audiences responsive to arguments also risk having their behavior or beliefs altered. Johnstone characterizes people willing to run these risks as open‑minded (1963b).

A third condition necessary for genuine arguments is that the arguer and those responding both have an interest in the outcome of the argument. They are not considering mere possibilities but outcomes with consequences that affect both sides. Because those involved have a stake in the outcome, argument entails an important element of risk. We do not have a stake in mere possibilities. Arguments entail the specific risk of whether we will be able to maintain our system of beliefs and values, the commitments of mind and of spirit that define the self, or whether we will have to change a significant commitment, thereby reassessing the self. This tension between self‑maintenance and change is essential for human growth, for getting beyond our individual and immediate experiences, and for inhabiting a common world with others who share our interests (1963b).

Collectively these three concerns—the search for unilateral arguments, the regard for the audience as open-minded, and embrace of the tension between self-maintenance and change--create the conditions for revealing the self. They also reveal the basic function of philosophical arguments. In Johnstone’s words:

I have said that argument reveals the self by confronting it with risk.  Philosophy makes clear the structure of the risks faced by a person who argues or listens to argument. It articulates a world of people and of things. It tells the self who it is and where it stands. Thus philosophy may be said to serve the emerging self by contributing to its morale. Philosophical arguments, then, have a morale function rather than an information function. If we expect general agreement regarding their conclusions, we simply do not understand them correctly. (1963b, 9)

 The morale function of philosophy is precisely to place the thinker always in the dual context of considering the argument from both his own and his antagonist’s position, to always confront the contradictions that entertaining both brings to his own fundamental commitments, and to assume the risk of elaborating and defending his own philosophical beliefs. The self is the locus of contradiction and inconsistency. It is a call to accept the burden of the self, to always engage in self-risk as the way to self emergence.

When Johnstone began developing this position as a resolution to the earlier problem of consistency, he still held an antagonistic view of rhetoric. Rhetoric, unlike philosophy, in his mind, still was addressed to individuals, not systems; relied on unilateral, not bilateral argument; sought to avoid criticism, not invite it; concealed its methods rather than revealing them; repressed its audiences desires to reach its own conclusions; and was manipulative. However, as he continued to think through his position on the self as a resolution to the problem of consistency, he became more aware of the addressed character of philosophical argument as a basic feature that did not permit a clear dividing line between what was philosophical and rhetorical in an argument. Johnstone’s later work reflects this shift in his expanded notion of rhetoric from an art of mere persuasion to one of evocation. In his paper, “Truth, Communication, and Rhetoric in Philosophy,” he claims that the argumentum ad hominem in philosophy is precisely an exercise of that function (1969a). It is addressed discourse and in that respect adapted to the position of the other, “by addressing the man where he lives, not be hitting him over the head with facts” (1978b, 137). The rhetorical function of philosophical arguments is developed in Johnstone’s concept of the wedge.

Johnstone had consistently maintained that a necessary condition for exercising reason is consciousness. For consciousness to occur, a person must be able to separate himself from the stimuli impinging upon him. There must be a gap between the person and a matter of conscious concern. Whatever introduces this gap he calls a wedge. “Only when a wedge has been said to be driven between the person and the data he receives,” he writes, “can he be said to be conscious of that data” (1978e, 58). For Johnstone, this separation of the person from impinging stimuli applies most obviously to our unconscious assumptions, such as the unconscious assumption we might make about the death penalty as a permissible punishment for some crimes leading to an uncritical response to the state’s execution of criminals for capital offenses. We need someone to call this assumption into question before we can have a conscious awareness of the death penalty as problematic in some respect. The need for something to separate us from data leads Johnstone to claim that rhetoric “is a means—perhaps the only means—of evoking and maintaining consciousness” (1990d, 333). It is “the technique of driving this wedge between a person and the data of his immediate experience” (1978e, 131). Equally it applies to unnoticed inputs of sensory data, as when a ringing telephone goes unnoticed until someone points it out, or alternatively, when we respond automatically to stimuli in a conditioned way, as the student who, upon hearing the teacher announce, “This will be on the test,” begins taking notes.

Johnstone finds the wedge present even in cases where such seemingly non-rhetorical means as threats are used to coerce compliant behavior. In “Rhetoric and Death,” for example, he uses the reaction to a raised stick or a pointed pistol as more than a simple reflex. “A threat may be considered. Its victim can decide what to do” (1980b, 67). The threatened, for her part, does not make the threat to encourage reflecting on choices or to encourage negotiation. The threat is “intended as a barrier against wedges” (1990d, 335). It is a unilateral mode of rhetoric that declares its insensitivity to stimulation at the hands or its victim by driving a wedge in one direction. The victim, for his part, may decide not to cooperate, or may comply out a sense that it is the only course open to avoid injury or death. But, even in weighing these unhappy consequences, the person is responding to the threat as a threat, not as a stimulus.

The anti-rhetorical character of threats is used by Johnstone to clarify the relationship between rhetorical wedges and consciousness. A threat conveyed by an object, say a pointed pistol, can carry meaning as a threat of death only if we presuppose an antecedent rhetoric that constitutes an understanding of death as a possibility (1980b, 98). Otherwise we would have no more reason to respond to a pointed pistol as threatening our impending demise than, say, a trusting pooch. This suggests that at least some threats--those conveyed by gesture--cannot be rhetorical by their own means. Moreover, the victim threatened can refuse to comply. When that happens, whether because the victim regards the threatener’s wish as not worthy of reply or because she unconditionally refuses to be an instrument for fulfilling the threatener’s wish, Johnstone claims, “victim and threatener are addressing exactly the same set of propositions. Their encounter has become at least a protodebate” (1990d, 336). Further, when a threat is responded to as a threat rather than as a stimulus, as an instrument of rhetoric, the person who considers the options and chooses, whether that choice be to acquiesce or resist, is making a choice and in so doing assuming agency.

For each of these points, as for the general discussion of the wedge, Johnstone intended to establish the fundamental rhetoricality of conscious awareness, which was central to his project of accounting for the nature of argument and led him to maintain, ultimately, that all argument is rhetorical at its core. The highwayman and the bully, both of whom seek to create a fusion of self and stimuli apparently lacking rhetoricality, serve as the counterintuitive case to prove the extent of the wedge and of rhetoric in human experience. For Johnstone, the wedge is a necessary condition for conscious awareness and, as such, is an inherent part of all philosophical argument. Hence, at the end of his career, Johnstone had moved 180 degrees from his original stance to affirm that rather than the opposite of philosophical argument, rhetoric lay at philosophy’s core.

In combing through Henry’s remarkably productive career, I was reminded of a distinction Henry had drawn in private conversation between academicians who engage in an activity and those who study its practitioners: the former engage in the discipline’s intellectual practices to generate new statements about a set of intellectual concerns; the latter engage in the discipline’s professional practices to transmit and comment on what others have produced. Writing in the discipline’s specialized vocabulary, adhering to its professional norms, producing evidence that allows for continual certification of professional standing, but without going through the slow and painful process of intellectual work necessary to produce an original contribution, has become increasingly commonplace in the contemporary academy. Doubtless this tendency had revealed itself in those submissions Henry received as editor of Philosophy and Rhetoric that had prompted him to voice concern over those who sought “philosophy without tears” (1990e). For Henry, the allure of professional standing meant far less than his passion for engaging a serious question on its own terms as an intellectual problem worth resolving. His own passage from an empiricist to an idealist and from an anti-rhetorician to a philosopher of rhetoric exemplify his own theory of philosophical argument, of following the argument with open-mindedness, wherever it may lead. It is an example worth following.

Henry’s formulations on the nature of philosophical arguments, and argumentation in general, and his insights into the rhetorical character of all arguing, leave a legacy of original thought that is testimony to the fruits of such labor. He was among a handful of leading figures responsible for the rebirth of interest in rhetoric during the last half of the twentieth century. He, along with Richard McKeon, was foremost among American philosophers who developed a sustained line of inquiry that seriously considered rhetoric to be an interesting class of discourse, one that could illumine philosophical speculation and inform us on the character of philosophical argumentation.

As much as his philosophical speculations, Henry’s manner of intellectual engagement contributed to this renaissance. In the Gorgias, Socrates extols Callicles as his test of gold: “I am convinced that if you agree with the opinions held in my soul, then at last we have attained the actual truth. For I observe that anyone who is to test adequately a human soul for good or evil living must posses three qualifications, . . . knowledge, good will, and frankness” (496e). Henry exemplified the spirit of Socrates’ praise. Whether he was considering a journal submission, an observation by a student in class, the criticism of his interlocutor, or the intellectual exploration of his conversational partner, he remained perfectly attuned to the possibilities in the position being advanced and willing to respond with arguments that were remarkable for their clarity and directness. He exemplified his own doctrines by arguing ad hominem and con amore. With his death on 18 February 2000, rhetorical studies lost a dear colleague and friend; the academy lost a giant.

The bibliography that follows offers evidence of the range of Johnstone’s thought, and the consistency of his scholarly practice. Johnstone initially compiled it for a commemorative issue of Philosophy and Rhetoric (1998b) celebrating his second and final retirement as editor and celebrating his intellectual contributions to philosophy and rhetoric. I have reformatted the entries he compiled to group them by type of publication, added a few works that have appeared since 1997, and included an incomplete list of secondary sources.

Gerard A. Hauser is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Bibliography of Henry W. Johnstone’s Works

Books

1954a. Elementary Deductive Logic. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. Pp. vi + 241.

1959a. Philosophy and Argument. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Pp. ii + 141.

1962a. (With John M. Anderson). Natural Deduction: The Logical Basis of Axiom Systems. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Pp. xii + 417.

1965a. (With Maurice Natanson, eds.). Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Argumentation. University Park, PA. The Pennsylvania State University Press. Pp. xii + 176.

1965b. What Is Philosophy? New York: Macmillan. Pp. i + 118.

1970a. The Problem of the Self. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Pp. xii + 156.

1978a. Ed. Categories: A Colloquium. University Park, PA: Department of Philosophy, The Pennsylvania State University. Pp. ii + 245.

1978b. Validity and Rhetoric in Philosophical Argument: An Outlook in Transition. University Park, PA: The Dialogue Press of Man and World. Pp. ii + 155.

1984a. Heraclitus ‘“Peri Physeos.” Bryn Mawr, PA: Bryn Mawr Greek Commentaries. Pp. vi + 19.

1985a. Empedocles ‘“Peri Physeos” and “Katharmoi.” Bryn Mawr, PA: Bryn Mawr Greek Commentaries. Pp. vi + 46.

1986. (With David Sider). The Fragments of Parmenides. Bryn Mawr, PA: Bryn Mawr Greek Commentaries. Pp. vi + 24.

Articles

1948. “Theoria Poznania.” Przeglad Filozoficzny (Warsaw) (Spring): 271-75.

1950. “Knowledge and Purpose.” Journal of Philosophy 47.17: 493-500.

1951. “A Postscript on Sense-Data.” Journal of Philosophy 48.26: 809-l 4.

1952a. “A Criterion of Necessity.” Review of Metaphysics 6.1: 126-27.

1952b. “Philosophy and Argumentum ad Hominem.” Journal of Philosophy 49.15: 489-98. Reprinted in Inquiry 12.3-4 (1993): 25-29.

 1953 “The Methods of Philosophical Polemic.” Methodos (Milan) 5.18: 131-40.

1954b. “An Alternative Set of Rules for the Syllogism.” Philosophy of Science 21.4: 348-51.

1954c. “Cause, Implication, and Dialectic.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 14.3: 400-4.

1954d. “The Nature of Philosophical Controversy.” Journal of Philosophy 51.10: 294-300.

1954e. “A New Theory of Philosophical Argumentation.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 15.2: 244-52.

1954f. “Some Aspects of Philosophical Disagreement.” Dialectica 8.3: 245-57.

1955a. “The Logical Powerfulness of Philosophical Arguments.” Mind 64.3: 539-41.

1955b. “Scepticism and Dialectic.” Entretiens Philosophiques d’Athénes (Athens) 2.6: 156-60.

1956a. “Hume’s Arguments concerning Causal Necessity.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 16.3: 331-40.

1957a. “Argument and Truth in Philosophy.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 18.2: 228-36.

1958a. “New Outlooks on Controversy.” Review of Metaphysics 12.1: 57-67.

1958b. “Systémes formels et systémes ontologiques.” Logique et analyse 1.1: 24-27.

1960a. “The Law of Non-contradiction.” Logique et analyse 3.1: 3-10.

1961a. “Argumentation and Inconsistency.” Revue internationale de philosophie (Brussels) 15.4: 353-65. Reprinted in Reflexivity: A Source-book in Self-Reference. Ed. Steven J. Bartlett. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1992. 443-55.

1962b. (With Chaninah Mariendial). “Scepticism and Inferior Knowledge: A Note on Aristotle’s Pluralism.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 22.4: 472-80.

1962c. “Charles Peirce, Philosopher of Science and Common Sense.” Hennathena (Dublin) 96: 1-15.

1963a. “Can Philosophical Arguments Be Valid?” Bucknell Review 11.4: 89-98.

1963b. “Some Reflections on Argumentation.” Logique et analyse 6.21-24: 30-39. Reprinted in translation. “Algumas reflexões sobre argumentação.” [Portuguese] Trans. Stella Zita de Azevedo and Rui Alexandre Grácio.Caderno de Filosofias (Coimbra, Portugal) 5.2 (1992): 39-53.

1964a. (With Robert Price). “Axioms for the Implicational Calculus with One Variable.” Theoria (Goteborg) 30.1: 1-4.

1964b. “De la vérité en métaphysique.” In Actes du Xll^e Congrés des sociétés de philosophie de langue francaise. 33-36.

1964c. “Self-Refutation and Validity.” The Monist 48.4: 467-85.

1965c. “On the Tall Napoleon.” Logique et analyse 8.31: 173-76.

1966a. “The Categorio-Centric Predicament.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 4.3: 207-20.

1966b. “A Definition of Conjunction in the Pure Implicational Calculus with One Variable.” Logique et analyse 9.35-36: 310-12,

1966c. “The Relevance of Philosophy to Rhetoric and of Rhetoric to Philosophy.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 52.1: 42-46. Reprinted in The Speaker’s Reader: Concepts in Communication. Ed. Robert L. Scott. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1969. 246-52; Contemporary Rhetoric. Ed. Douglas Ehninger. Glenview, EL: Scott Foresman, 1972. 1-14.

1967a. “Controversy and Selfhood.” Journal of General Education 19.1: 48-56.

1967b. “Controversy and the Self” Kantstudien 58.1: 22-32,

1967c. “An Inductive Decision-Procedure for the Monadic Predicate Calculus.” Logique et analyse 10.39-40: 324-27.

1967d. “Persons and Selves.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 28.2: 205-12.

1967e. “On Wittgenstein on Death.” In Proceedings of the 7th Inter-American Congress of Philosophy. Quebec: Laval University. 66-71.

1968a. (With Robert G. Price). “Syllogisms and Domains.” Logique et analyse 11.43:440.

1968b. “Reply to Professor Zaner.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 1.3: 165-67.

1969a. “Truth, Communication, and Persuasion in Philosophy.” Revue internationale de philosophie 23.4: 404-9.

1970b. “Persons and Selfreference.” The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 1. 1: 46-54.

1970c. “Persons and Selfreference: Reply to Mr. Mays.” The Journal the British Society for Phenomenology 1.3: 66.

1970d. “‘Philosophy and Argumentum ad Hominem’ Revisited.” Revue internationale de philosophie 24.1: 107-16.

1971a. “Reply to Mr. Benfield.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 32.1: 103-4.

1973a. “Rationality and Rhetoric in Philosophy.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 59.4: 381-89.

1973b. “Toward a Philosophy of Sleep.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 34.1: 73-81.

1975a. (With Robert Cater). “A Computer Language for Teaching Introductory Logic.” Educational Studies in Mathematics 6: 87-9 1.

1975b. “The Facts in the Case of Henry Johnstone.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 61,1: 89-9 1.

1975c. “Introducing Genesiology.” Journal of General Education 27.3:199-204.

1976a. “Sleep and Death.” The Monist 59.2: 218-33.

1977a. “Reply to Mr. Galloway.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 38.1: 114-18.

1978c. “Does Death Have a Nature?” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 3.1: 8-23.

1979a. “Pairs of Negative Syllogistic Premises Yielding Conclusions.” Logique et analyse 22.85-86: 109-1 0.

1979b. “Reply to Professor Brutian.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 12.2: 91-94.

1979c. “Reply to Gary E. Jones.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 4.3: 239-41.

1980a. “Pankoinon as a Rhetorical Figure in Greek Tragedy.” Glotta (Göttingen) 58.1-2:49-62.

1981a. (With Rosemarie Christopherson). “Triadicity and Thirdness.” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 17.3: 241-46.

1981b. “Toward an Ethics of Rhetoric.” Communication 6: 305-14.

1982a. “‘The Syllogism on the Negative-Entailing Interpretation of Affirmative Propositions.” Logique et analyse 25.98: 203-5.

1983a. “Truth, Anagnorisis, and Argument.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 16. 1: 1-15.

1985b. “Aristotle, Hegel, and Argumentum ad Hominem.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 15: 131-43.

1985c. “Reply to Mader.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 18.2: 181.

1987a. “Response [to papers by Carroll C. Arnold and George Yoos].” Philosophy and Rhetoric 20.2: 129-34.

1988a. “Questions about Philosophical Argumentation.” Argumentation 2.2: 153-55.

1989a. (With Dale Jacquette). “Dualities of Self-non-application and Infinite Regress.” Logique et analyse 32.1: 25-26:

1989b. “Argumentation and Formal Logic in Philosophy.” Argumentation 3-1: 5-15. Reprinted in translation as “Orizzonte intertestuale e struttura formale dell’argomentazione filosofica.” La Nottola (Perugia) 6.2-3: 105-20.

1989c. “Heraclitus and Parmenides: Invective and Argument.” Pre-Text 10.1-2: 87-89.

1989d. “Self-Application in Philosophical Argumentation.” Metaphilosophy 20.3-4: 247-61.

1990a. “Equivalence and Duality in the Theory of the Syllogism.” Logique et analyse 33.129-30: 169-73.

1990b. “The Fatality of Thought.” Bucknell Review [Issue on The Philosophy of John William Miller] 34.1: 59-69.

1990c. “A Miller Bibliography with a Brief Description of the Williams College Miller Archives.” Bucknell Review 34.1: 167-72.

1990d. “Rhetoric as a Wedge: A Reformulation.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 20.4: 333-38.

1991a. “A Homeric Echo in Plato?” Mnemosyne series 4, vol. 44, fasc. 3-4: 417-18.

1991b. “Philosophical Argument and the Rhetorical Wedge.” Communication and Cognition 24.1: 77-91.

1992a. “Judge’s Report.” Informal Logic 13.3: 184-85.

1993a. “Editor’s introduction.” Argumentation 7.4: 379-84.

1994a. “Question-Begging and Infinite Regress.” Argumentation 8.3: 291-93.

1994b. “Reply to Perry.” Inquiry 14.2. 90-91.

1994c. “W. B. Gailie’s ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’.” Inquiry 14.4: 2.

1995a. “Dialectic and Insight in Encounters with John M. Anderson.” Being Human in the Ultimate: Studies in the Thought of John M. Anderson. Ed. N. Georgopoulos and Michael J. Heim. Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. 85-98.

1996a. “Locke and Whately on the Argumentum ad Hominem.” Argumentation 10.1: 89-97.

1996b. “On Schiappa versus Poulakos.” Rhetoric Review 24.2: 438-40.

1996c. “The Rejection of Infinite Postponement as a Philosophical Argument.” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 10.2: 92-104.

1998a. “Some Notes on an Unprogrammed Editorial Career.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 31.1: 1-5.

1998b. “Henry W. Johnstone, Jr.: A Bibliography, 1948-1997.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 31.1: 6-19.

1999. (With Mari Lee Mifsud). “Wedge and Bridge: A Note on Rhetoric as Distinction and as Identification.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 29.2: 75.

2000. “Punkoinon as Paradox.” Rhetoric Review 19.1-2: 7.

Chapters in Books

1962c. “Reason Limited.” Essays in Philosophy. Members of the Philosophy Department. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. 115-32.

1967f. “Statement Concerning the Value of Computing.” Computers in Higher Education: Report of the President’s Science Advisory Committee.Washington, DC: The White House. 77-78.

1968c. “Theory of Argumentation.” Contemporary Philosophy. Ed. R. Klibansky. Firenze: La Nuova Editrice. 177-84.

1970e. “On Being a Person.” Essays in Metaphysics. Ed. Carl Vaught. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. 127-38.

1970f. “Rhetoric and Communication in Philosophy.” Perspectives in Education, Religion, and the Arts. Eds. Howard E. Kiefer and Milton K. Munitz. Albany, NY. State University of New York Press. 351-64. Reprinted in Philosophers on Rhetoric. Ed. Donald G. Douglas. Skokie, IL: National Textbook Company. 3-14.

1971b. “Some Trends in Rhetorical Theory.” The Prospect of Rhetoric. Eds. Lloyd Bitzer and Edward Black. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 78-90.

1978d. “The Categories of Travel.” Essays in Humanity and Technology. Ed. David Lovekin and Donald Verene. Dixon, IL: Sauk Valley College Press. 141-66.

1978e. “From Philosophy to Rhetoric and Back.” Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Literature: An Exploration. Ed. Don M. Burks. Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. 49-66.

1978f. “Odysseus as a Traveler: A Categorial Study.” Categories: A Colloquium. Ed. Henry W. Johnstone, Jr. University Park, PA: Department of Philosophy, The Pennsylvania State University. 109-27.

1978g. “Some Problems of Thanatology. “ Philosophical Aspects of Thanatology, vol. 2. Ed. Florence Hetzler and Austin Kutscher. New York: Arno Press. 101-13.

1980b. “Rhetoric and Death.” In Rhetoric in Transition, ed. Eugene White, 61-70. University Park, PA, The Pennsylvania State University Press.

1982b. “Communication: Technology and Ethics.” In Communication, Philosophy, and the Technological Age. Ed. Michael Hyde. University, AL: University of Alabama Press. 38-53.

1983b. “Bilaterality in Argument and Communication.” Advances in Argumentation Theory and Research. Eds. J. Robert Cox and Charles Arthur Willard. Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. 95-102.

1987b. “Argumentum ad hominem with and without Self-Reference.” Self-Reference, Reflections on Reflexivity. Ed. Steven J, Bartlett and Peter Suber. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. 88-91.

1988b. “Animals, Qualia, and Robots.” Perspectives on Mind. Eds. Herbert R. Otto and James A. Tuedio. Dordrecht: D. Reidel. 127-32.

1990e. Foreword to Rhetoric and Philosophy, ed. Richard A. Cherwitz, xv-xviii. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

1991c. “La régression à l’infini et l’argumentum ad hominem,” L’Argumentation: Colloque de Cerisy. Ed. Alain Lempereur. Liège: Mardaga. 31-36.

1991d. “Selbstanwendung in philosophischer Argumentation.” Dimensionen des Selbst. Ed. Bertram Kienzie and Helmut Pape. Trans. Marc Grünewald. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. 416-42.

1992b. (With Date Jacquette). “Self-reference and Infinite Regress in Philosophical Argumentation.” Argumentation Illuminated. Ed. Frans H. van Eemeren, Rob Grotendorst, Anthony Blair, and Charles A. Willard. Amsterdam: The Netherlands Intemational Center for the Study of Argumentation. 122-30.

1992c. “Strife and Contradiction in Hesiod.” Intimate Conflict: Contradiction in Literary and Philosophical Discourse. Ed. Brian G. Caraher. Albany: SUNY Press. 35-38.

1996d. “Philosophical Argument.” Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition, Communication from Ancient Times to the Information Age. Ed. Theresa Enos. New York and London: Garland. 514-15.

“Some Further Trends in Rhetorical Theory.” Making and Unmaking the Prospects for Rhetoric. Ed. Theresa Enos and Richard McNabb. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 57-64.

Translations

1968d. Trans. of “Rhétorique et philosophie,” by Chaim Perelman. Philosophy and Rhetoric 1. 1: 15-2.

1968e. Trans. of “The Concept of Rhetoric in the Ancient World,” by Emile Janssens. Philosophy and Rhetoric 1.3: 174-8 1.

1970g. Trans. of “Ueber die Macht der Vemunft,” by Hans-Georg Gadamer. Man and World 3.1: 5-15.

1988c. Trans. of “Peut-il y avoir une argumentation non-rhétorique?” by Olivier Reboul. Philosophy and Rhetoric 21.3: 220-33.

1990f. Trans. of “Platons Dichterkritik und das Mißverstundnis seiner  erkenntniskritischen Argumentation,” by Hermann Wiegmann. Philosophy and Rhetoric 23.2: 109-24.

1993b. Trans. of Nanine Charbonnel’s review of Rhétorique de la Modemité, by Manuel Carrilho. Philosophy and Rhetoric 26.3: 248-50.

1994d. Trans. of “Zür Kategorie des Strittigen--Ezplikationsversuch mit Schleiennachers Dialektik,” by Norbert Gutenberg. Philosophy and Rhetoric 27.4: 347-58.

Reviews

1955c. Rev. of La Méthode Expérimentale, by Bénézé. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 16.2: 284-85.

1956b. Rev. of Analytische Erkenntnistheorie, by Arthur Pap. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 17.1: 138-39

1956c. Rev. of Science and the Human Imagination, by Mary Hesse. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 16.3: 428-29.

1957b. Rev. of Methods and Criteria of Reasoning, by Rupert Crawshay-Williams. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 18.4: 553-54.

1957c. Rev. of Theme for Reason, by J. Smith. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 18.4: 554-55.

1958c. Rev. of British Philosophy in the Mid-Century, by C. A. Mace. Philosophy of Science 25.4: 305-7.

1959b. Rev. of Language, Thought, and Culture, by Paul Henle. Philosophy and

 Phenomenological Research 19.3: 410-11.

1960b. Rev. of “The Existential Import of a Proposition in Aristotelian Logic,” by John J. Morrison. The Journal of Symbolic Logic 25.4: 339.

1960c. Rev. of Formalized Syllogistic, by Arthur Prior. The Journal of Symbolic Logic 25.4: 345.

1960d. Rev. of La Notion d’ A Prior,” by Mikel Dufrenne. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 21.2: 283-84.

1960e. Rev. of L’idée de preuve en métaphysique, by Badi Kasm, and La perspective métaphysique, by Georges Vallin. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 21.2: 282-83.

1961b. Rev. of An Introduction to Modern Logic, by William Haberstadt. Philosophy of Science 29.4: 444.

1961c. Rev. of An Introduction to Peirce’s Philosophy, by James Feibleman. (London) Times Literary Supplement, 25 Aug., 568.

1961d. Rev. of Logical Positivism, by A. J. Ayer. Philosophy of Science 28.1: 95-96.

1961e. Rev. of Word and Object, by W. V. Quine. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 22.1: 115-16.

1962d. Rev. of The Concept of Method, by Justus Buehler, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 23.2: 286-87.

1962e. Rev. of Philosophical Reasoning, by John Passmore. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 23: 287-88.

1962f. Rev. of “Professor Henle on the Four Figures of the Syllogism,” by George Kimball Plochmann. Journal of Symbolic Logic 27.1:117.

1963c. Rev. of The Logic of Perfection, by Charles Hartshorne, The Journal of Philosophy 60.16: 467-72.

1964c. Rev. of Logico-Philosophical Studies, by Albert Menne. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 25.2: 292-93.

1964d. Review of Self-knowledge and Self-Identity, by Sydney Shoemaker. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 25.1: 137-38.

1965d. Rev. of Physics, Perception, and Reality, by Wilfrid Sellars, and Logic and Reality, by Gustav Bergmann. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 25.3: 421-23.

1966d. Rev. of Contributions to Logic and Methodology in Honor of J. M. Bochenski, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka in collaboration with Charles Parsons. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 26.4: 606-7.

1966e. Rev. of Signification and Significance, by Charles W. Morris. Philosophy and

 Phenomenological Research 27.1: 129-30.

1967g. Rev. of Techniques of Deductive Inference, by Hugues Leblanc and William Wisdom. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 28.2: 293-94.

1968f. Rev. of On Philosophical Style, by Brand Blanshard. Style 2. 1:97-98.

1969b. Rev. of In Search of Philosophical Understanding, by E. A. Burtt. The Philosophy Forum 8.2: 81-85.

1970h. Rev. of Essays in Philosophical Analysis, by Nicholas Rescher. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 31.2: 308-9

1970i. Rev. of “Inferential Equivalence and Natural Deduction,” by Henry Hiz. The Journal of Symbolic Logic 35.2: 325.

1971c. Rev. of The New Rhetoric, by Chaim Perelman. Man and World 4.2: 224-29.

1971d. Rev. of Studies in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, by Peter Winch. General Linguistics 11.2: 126-27.

1973c. Rev. of Writings on the General Theory of Signs, by Charles Morris. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 33.4: 579-8 1.

1975d. Rev. of Death and Beyond in Eastern Perspectives, by Jung Young Lee, and Death, by Warren Shibles. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 35.4: 583-85.

1975e. Rev. of Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life, by Sydney Hook. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 36.2: 275-77.

1976b. Rev. of The Practice of Death, by Eike-Henner W Kluge. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 36.3: 432-33.

1976c. Rev. of Suicide and Morality, by David Novak. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 37.2: 276-77,

1977b. Rev. of Grounds for Grammar, by Gregory A. Ross. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 13.2: 153-55.

1979c. Rev. of Dialectics: A Controversy-Oriented Approach to the Theory of Knowledge, by Nicholas Rescher. Philosophy and Rhetoric 12.4: 271-73.

1979d. Rev. of First Considerations: An Examination of Philosophical Evidence, by Paul Weiss. Metaphilosophy 10.1: 77-81.

1980c. Rev. of Rhétorique et argumentation, by Chaim Perelman. Philosophy and  Rhetoric 13.1: 76-77.

1980d. Rev. of Studies in Peirce’s Semiotic: A Symposium by Members of the Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism, by Max Fisch. et al. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 16.4: 357-60.

1981c. Rev. of Logique juridique, Nouvel rhétorique, by Chaim Perelman. Philosophy and Rhetoric 14.1: 64-65.

1982c. Rev. of The Truth of Freedom, by John M. Anderson. Philosophy and Rhetoric 15.4: 28 1.

1985d. Rev. of Philosophical Writing: Locke, Berkeley, Hume, by John J. Richetti. Philosophy and Rhetoric 18: 184-87

1987c. Rev. of Arguer’s Position, A Pragmatic Study of “Ad Hominem Attack, Refutation, and Fallacy, by Douglas N. Walton. Noûs 21.1: 69-72.

1987d. Rev. of De la Métaphysique á la Rhétorique, ed. Michel Meyer. Philosophy and Rhetoric 20.3: 201-5.

1988d. Rev. of The Event of Death: A Phenomenological Enquiry, by Ingrid Leman- Stefanovic. Canadian Philosophical Reviews 8.2: 64-66.

1992d. (With Barbara Johnstone). Rev. of Language and Species, by Derek Bickerton. Journal of Speculative Philosophy 6.3: 247-50.

1992e. Rev. of Philosophical Rhetoric, by Jeff Mason. Noûs 26.2: 138-40.

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1962. Natanson, Maurice. “Rhetoric and Philosophical Argumentation.” Quarterly  Journal of Speech 48.1: 24-30.

1967. Burkholder, Peter M. “”’Petitio’ in the Strife of Systems.” Tulane Studies in Philosophy 16.1: 245-47.

1968. Arnold, Carroll C. “Oral Rhetoric, Rhetoric, and Literature.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 1.3: 191-210.

1968. Hockenos, Warren J. “Reductio ad Absurdum and Argumentum ad Hominem  Arguments in the Philosophies of Gilbert Ryle and Henry W. Johnstone, Jr.” Diss. Boston University.

Zaner, Richard. “Philosophy and rhetoric: A Critical Discussion.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 1.1: 61-77.

1970. Mays, Wolfe. “Persons and Selfreference: A Comment.” The Journal for the  British Society of Phenomenology 1.1: 55-56.

1970. Pieretti, Antonio. “Argumentazione e filosofia in Johnstone.” Proteus 1.2: 143- 60.

1971. Benfield, David. “Johnstone on the Truth of Philosophical Statements” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 22.1: 96-102.

1972. Anderson, John R. “The Audience as a Concept in the Philosophic Rhetoric of   Perelman, Johnstone, and Natanson.” The Southern Speech Communication Journal 38.1: 39-50.

1975. Carleton, Walter M. “Theory Transformation in Communication: The Case of  Henry Johnstone.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 61.1: 76-88.

1975. Casey, John F. “Refutation and Argument in Philosophy: A Metaphysical  Inquiry.” Diss. Fordham University.

1976. LeFevre, Joseph C. “Philosophical Commitment and the Given: A Study in  Speculative Philosophy.” Diss. Tulane University.

1977. Barth, E. M., and Martens, J. L. Argumentum ad Hominem: From Chaos to  Formal Dialectic.” Logique et Analyse 20.1: 76-96.

1985. Mader, Thomas. “A Problem with Johnstone’s Self.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 18.1: 86-95

1987. Arnold, Carroll C. “Johnstone’s Wedge and the Theory of Rhetoric.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 20.2: 118-28.

1987. Yoos, George. “Rhetoric of Appeal and Rhetoric of Response.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 20.2: 107-17.

1998. Enos, Theresa. “‘Verbal Atom Cracking’: Burke and a Rhetoric of Reading.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 31.1: 64-70.

1998. Hansen, H. Vilhelm. “Locke and Whately on the Argumentum ad Ignorantiam.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 31.1: 55-63.

1998. Hauser, Gerard A. “Civil Society and the Principle of the Public Sphere”  Philosophy and Rhetoric 31.1: 19-40.

1998. Mifsud, Mari Lee. “On the Idea of Reflexive Rhetoric in Homer.” Philosophy and  Rhetoric 31.1: 41-54.

2000. Hauser, Gerard A. “In Memory of Henry.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.1: vii-ix.

2000. Price, Robert. “Henry Webb Johnstone Jr.: 22 February 1920-18 February 2000.”  Journal of Speculative Philosophy 14.1: 82-84.