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Accountm~ Organization8 arulSocie~, Vol 16, No 5/6, pp 572-599, 1991 0361-3682/91 $3 00+ O0 Printed m Great Brltam Pergamon Press plc

IS A C C O U N T I N G R H E T O R I C A L ? M E T H O D O L O G Y , L U C A P A C I O L I A N D

P R I N T I N G *

GRAHAME THOMPSON The Open University

Abstract

This paper critically assesses the use of the lmgutstm model within accounting dtseourse and the related interest in rhetorical formulatinns It involves a re-analysis of the "foundations of accounting" associated with the name of Luca Pacinh m the late Middle Ages The discussion concentrates upon the tnstitut~onal matrLx in which accounting emerged m the sixteenth century In particular tt stresses the role of three cruchal institutions, the Church, the pedagogic apparatuses and the publishing house Along with the more fully explored role of the commercial organmattons durmg the period, these institutions prowded the contours in which we can understand how and why accounting m its particular modem form emerged

What are w e to make of the r ecen t f lurry of

books and articles that argue for a re formula t ion of the me thodo logy of the human i tms ( and even the physical sc iences ) a long the hnes of a rhetorical invest igat ion? This is the ma in ques t ion I conf ron t m this paper. Such an issue ts t imely, I w o u l d suggest, g iven the s u d d e n red iscovery of rhe tor ic amongs t broadly "critical" scholarship and its widespread and rapid pene t r a t ion in to a range of discurs ive e n v i r o n m e n t s Whilst look- trig at this r e su rgence in the con t ex t of accounting in this p a p e r - - whe re t t ts perhaps relat ively less deve loped compared to, say, e conomics or o the r discipl ines - - I m t e n d to draw some m o r e general lessons from the analysis offered

O n e of the imtial pomts of re ference for this paper has b e e n a n u m b e r of s tudies that wan t to p r o m o t e the idea o f r h e t o r m as the "post-modernist" response to the c o n t i n u i n g phi losophical t radi t ion of ad judmat ion b e t w e e n theor ies of the social ( e g. Edmondson , 1984, wi th respect to sociology; Klamer, 1984, and McCloskey, 1986, wi th respect to economics , and Bilhg, 1987, m

the case of psycho logy) In this body of work rhe tor ic is largely p resen ted as a response to the demise of "positivism" This is the mot tva tmg force b e h i n d its re -emergence , par t icular ly tn the social sc iences w he r e the idea of a referential doma in of i n n o c e n t facts and staust ics to wh ich researchers can look to justify their theor ies has b e e n heavily u n d e r m i n e d Instead, tt ts suggested all theor ies and the facts they revoke to test those theor ies are "social and historical const ructs" which, as a consequence , are inevit- ably t amted wi th "values" and "ethmal aprioris" Under these c i r cums tances the way theor ies are justified and legi t imated b e c o m e s m u c h more one of a debate, conversa t ion or a rgumen t tn which the a t tempt is to persuade an assumed sceptical audience. Hence the interes t tn rhe to rm and tn the pro tocols of a rgumen ta t ion

Alongside these deve lopmen t s m mde e d some th ing that has largely paral leled them has b e e n a g rowing interes t m the "model of language" as that most appropr ia te to specifying the f ramework for rhetor ical mvest tgat tons of this

"I would like to thank those who attended the session of the Second Interdtsetpimary Perspectives on Accounting Conference at which this paper was given In particular Ketth Hoskm provided excellent comments from which the paper benefited a great deal Also, the three anonymous referees stimulated a good deal of reassessment as the paper was prepared for publication and I thank them

573

574 GRAHAME THOMPSON

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IS ACCOUNTING RHETORICAL~ 575

kmd. As instances of this growing recognition of the role of language wtthin the progressive accountmg literature we can cite papers by Arrington (1987), LaVOle (1987) and Lehman & Tinker (1987)

This paper crttically interrogates the appro- priation of the lingutsttc model within accounting discourse and the related interest in rhetorical formulations. It revolves a relook at the "foundattons of accounting" assoctated wtth the name of Luca Pacioli in the late Middle Ages. The analysts concentrates upon the instttutional matrix m which accounting emerged in the sixteenth century. In parttcular it stresses the role of three crucial instttuttons, the Church, the pedagogtc apparatuses, and the pubhshmg house Along with the more adequately explored role of the commercial organisattons during the pertod (the history of which is underplayed m thts account), these tnstitutions provide the contours in which we can understand how and why accounting in its particular "modern" form emerged In stressing the heterogeneous discourses that arttculated the processes and mechantsms of operation of these organisations, the analysis also conducts a critique of the employment of the "model of language" as the most appropriate frameworkmg devtce for in- vestigattons of this type Instead, focusing on the central role of the publishing house m the development of accounting leads to the formulatton of "printmg" as an alternative and more appropriate metaphorical mvestigative devtce.

This re-examination thus argues for the aban- donment of an abstract, formal and general mechamsm of investtgatlon - - the apphcation of the "model of language" - - and its substitution by a contmgent and histortcally specific con- figurative mechanism that pays parncular atten- tion to the instituttonal moment m the formanon of discourses

WHY RHETORIC AND WHAT IS IT~

Rhetorical analysis has been posed as a methodological response to the classic philosophical problem of demarcating between theorms. But tt needs to be posed rather carefully in this respect. McCloskey (1986), for instance, suggests that it is n o t aMethodological response with a capttal "M". Rather tt should be more modestly approached as part of a methodology with a small "m" By this he means to signal the passmg of the grand philosophtcal claim to adjudicate between right and wrong, or between truth and falstty m intellectual discourse. A more subtle style ofreasomng ts called for. Indeed, if we accept the sptrtt of thts suggestion the "project of philosophy" itself might be called into question t

One convenient way of representing these issues is shown in Fig. 3. This dlustrates the key issues that have informed the re-emergence of interest in rhetoric and the "model of language",

SUBJECTIVITY OBJECTIVITY

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TRUTH 'all depends' TRUTH 'absolute'

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t "Phdosophy" Is seen here as a system of typtcal problems, objects, texts, histories, books, etc., which are studied within a definite instltunonal context The "prolect of phdosophy" is to adjudtcate on the status of intellectual activity m a particular way, conchuoned by the typtcalmes lust mentioned To challenge this would be to substttute a more dtverse category of "thinking" for that of philosophy


or the "linguistic turn" as it is often called Putting it fairly obviously, the problem of Truth 2 has traditionally been solved within philosophy at either extreme of this diagram. Taking the rtght hand pole first, here Truth can be estab- hshed more or less absolutely and objectively This is a result of the method of posttivism and empiricism as usually understood On the other hand, at the other end of the diagram, Truth "all depends" Here Truth is the consequence of an overtly sublecttve a pr tort It all depends upon the position from which it ts judged This tllus- trates the method (if it can be termed as such) of relativtsm and perspecttvism The analysts' theorettcal a pr ior i determmes the Truth content of the results offered. It all depends from which perspecuve one begins, and so on

It is a scepticism about the clatms made at either end of the spectrum shown m Fig. 3 that has exercised many crtttcal philosophers of late As a reaction, how to conceptualise that area fall- ing in the middle ground between the two poles has become an issue around which a good deal of current discussion is located This ts sometimes referred to in the literature as a "fuzzy" a r e a - - a place where "fuzzles" dwell - - and it is within the grey area that much of the following discussion is located

A range of perhaps unfamiliar terms has been coined in an attempt to discuss this area in an overfly non-philosophtcal manner Thus concepts such as the plausibility and the credibility of the arguments offered to support particular theorms have been advanced tn these discus- sions, and of the feasibility ofpohcy suggestions emanating from them These kinds ofcrtterta are increasingly standmg m for the dtscredited ones traditionally deployed at either end of the spectrum shown m Ftg 3

In addition, this context accounts for the em- ergent mterest shown in language, where language ts seen as offermg a possible model for the more systematm formulatton of the grey or fuzzy area. These developments have also mvolved a

tendency to "narrattvase" the discursive process such that any analytical situatton becomes one dominated by convincing "story telling" on the part of researchers

Any dtscusston of language is, however, htghiy problematic in that there are at least two major ways in which language can be formulated as a category of analysis These are consistently elided and run together m much of the hterature dealing with accounting discourse (e g Arrington, 1987; Lavoie, 1987, Lehman & Tmker, 1987) In fact these two approaches are quite different and not to be confused

In the first place we have the traditional formulation of language being a system o f communication (This is also the approach inform- mg much of the purely philosophical dtscussion of language ) With this theory an already formulated message with a meamng is encoded by the speaker, forming the word, which is then trans- mitted to the audience in the form of a spoken message. This the audience then decodes, usually on the basts of the language's soctal context or on the basis of the social characteristics of that audience Chomsk-y's theory of language is a classic instance of this approach and it is not uncon- nected to the fact that he developed his basic theoreucal proposttions while working under contracts for the military For the military the prLne problem is to generate clear and unam- biguous messages, which fits into the communications approach to language perfectly. It was Chomsky's brdliant achievement to relate thts to a "depth model" which looked for the foundations of language in the "umversals" of the human mind - - his "deep structures" These deep structures are responsible for motivatmg meaning and encoding a message in his theory, which ts then commumcated by language 3

An alternative and altogether more radtcal wew of language is to see it as a system o f signification rather than of commumcat ton With this approach the crucial category withm language is the "sign". This ts made up of two aspects - - the

2Truth is g~ven a cap,tal "T ~ to denote its spccdic phdosophtcal connotations 3For a general lmgutsttc analysts that trms to develop a rapprochement between grammar and rhetoric along these hnes, s e e

Gray (1977)

IS ACCOUNTING RHETORICAL? 577

signifier and the signified. Both of these extst in the realm of the concept. it IS the referent that is signified by the signifier, and thrs referent IS what “exists” outside of dtscourse 4 As IS we11 known, this Saussurian concept of language has grven rise to a number of variants, perhaps the most radical of whtch argues that the sign constructs its own adequate signifieds In this case (though not w&ring to do an mjustice to thrs position by overstmplifying) it IS the srgnitIer that dominates the sigmfied. Furthermore, where this is the case the emphasis shifts to the condnions of discourse for an understanding of the origin of meaning and sense Under these circumstances the means of signification and their condittons of operation are the crucial site for the construction of meanmg. Thus meanmg Is not something already formed prior to rts commumcatron (encoded “m advance”, so to speak) for which the means of communication merely act as a transmtsston mechanism to an audience, which decodes the message on the basis of its “con- sciousness”, itselfdetermined by that audience’s social situation or circumstances Here, by con- trast, the “play” of meanmg and sense is a consequence of the play of signification Itself, as exemplitied by the system of signs that make up those very means of signification Signs exist in the form of chains, which often “&de” around, or under, each other. This unplies that all systems of signification - one of which is given by accountmg calculations - need to be “read” for then meaning with respect to a definite pertt- nence, rather than simply decoded

It is this latter theory of language that has stimulated the recent interest in rhetoric as something that can specify the nature of meaning in a text almost independently of its extra- discursive configuration. Ifrhetoric is thought to be about language as an argumentative system, where language is seen as a series of signs that constructs its own srgnifieds or narrative, and where these signrfieds dnectly represent the

referent, then the rhetorical level is the one adequate to the analytical procedure.

What is rhetoric? At first sight there mtght seem to be a simple

answer to this question After all is It not just a matter of the condittons and procedures of argumentation and persuasion that are mvolved here7 Clearly this does capture something of an answer But we need to generate a more developed response We begin by saymg what rhetoric is not

To start wnh rt is not a positivistic analysis. Here I take such a posmvrsttc analysts to mean one that first of all generates a theory or set of hypotheses (or single hypotheses) and then pro- ceeds to “test” this agamst a “real” domain of facts Such a procedure is definitely ruled out in the context of rhetorical investigations (see Rg.

3). Secondly, it is not akin to a method that tries to

logcally construct (or even logtcally decon- struct?) the terms of an analysrs, proposition or “method”. Thus would involve an attempt to subject the text to the criteria of rational consis- tency and logical order. As we shall see below when looking at the history of the “rtse and fall” of rhetoric in the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance perrod, rhetoric IS overtly pitched against logic in these terms, and I think such a stance still informs the way a rhetorrcal mvesti- gation IS properly understood today (Howell, 1956; see also Howell, 1971) 5

Thirdly, it IS not to be confused wrth a so- called “symptomatic reading” most closely associated wtth Althusserian intluence Such a symptomatic reading was formulated to help un- cover the silences and lacunae inhabmng, and perhaps more importantly, fnbibftzng texts. The lecture symptomale constructs the problematic of the text, specifying its unconsctous.

Finally, it is tmportant to recognise those promotmg the re-establishment of the rhetorical

7Iu.s IS somewhat more problematlcai than mdlcated by these remarks In that not alI signs have a real referent, e g myducal

beasts hke the centaur

*Loge IS understood here tn its modem sense - as a system of rational orders Later m the paper a dtierent sense of logtc associated wrth Ramlst pedagogcai reform fs oudmed


approach are not arguing for rhetoric m its rather discredited sense. In everyday speech "rhetoric" has connotations of bombasttc demagoguery It ts the devtce of the less than honest pohtician m his or her attempt to man- ipulate the pohtical arena. It is associated with a disreputable practice of propaganda and cajol- ery, mvolvmg flowery dtction and empty figures of speech The terms "merely rhetorical" and "rhetorical flourish" sum up this dismisstve and negative tone

Having said what rhetoric ts not we must now attempt to be more posittve and say what it is The central feature of rhetortc concerns the way arguments and conversations are conducted an an attempt to persuade. Three distanct but not separable forms of argument have been traditionally deployed here, tt is suggested: ethical appeals (ethos) revolving one's own values and one's own character, emotional appeals (pathos) involving an appeal to the feelings of the audience; and rattonal appeals (logos) addressing the capacity to reason (which do at least abide by historically current standards of logm). The preparation of, and reflection on these kinds of appeals is known as the invention of the argument (inventio). Once invented the appeals need to be organised and arranged (d/s- positio). This ts then followed by the presentation of the material m an eloquent manner ( elocutio ) 6

This accounts for the formal arrangement of a rhetormal investigation, the object of which becomes one of uncovering these features in any text. But other problems hnger. For instance, is it a "methodologmal approach" or just an "analytical techmque"~ Here we can signal a certam un- ease about exactly how to descrtbe the kind of thing indicated by the term rhetortc: an "mvesti- gation"~; an "analysis"?, a "method"?, an "approach"?; a "technique"~ Clearly it has certam methodological pretenstons of an analytical kind. These are stgnalled directly above. But descrtbing tt as an approach would seem to suggest somethmg both looser and wider m a rather grander claim would seem to be being indicated.

The predominant way in which rhetoric is described in the literature on economics and accounting ts to treat it as an analytmal method. In- deed there ts one dommant way of dealing wath It which is to describe it as a "conversation" (e.g. Klamer (1984) m the case of economics, and Arrmgton (1987) m the case of accounting) Clearly a conversation is a rather gentle form of argument and we may want to draw a distinction between "soft rhetoric" and "hard rhetoric" on this basis. Thus the conversattonal soft rhetorm would be the kind of thmg that goes on in the semor common-rooms and semmars of Ameri- can hberal arts colleges and universtttes, while a more robust hard rhetortc could characterise the argumentattve form of pubhc discourse. But in trymg to make this distinction we can begm to see the shortcomings of the emphasis on rhetoric as such It is towards a more crttical view of the lmgutstic turn and rhetortcal analysis that I now turn

PROBLEMS WITH RHETORIC AND THE MODEL OF LANGUAGE

To have a pohte civihsed conversation with someone, or even an argument with them, requires some quite strmgent pre-conditions In the first place it presupposes that both parties "speak" the same language. In the case of the social sciences this cannot always be guaranteed. Very different theorettcal a prioris can be m- volved in debates, demonstratmg deep and often irreconcilable differences in outlook How can these always be resolved by debate; Perhaps the best that can be said under these circumstances is to be able to recogmse the difference and leave it at that. But thts then revokes the second pre-conditton.

This is that a certam rationality, and a commit- ment to it, must underhe the basts of any conversation or argument. It is not just by chance that modern German rattonalist philosophers like Gadamer and particularly Habermas are revoked by, for instance, Arrmgton (1987) and Lavote (1987) in their advocacy of the "rhetoric of con-

6 Note the neat threefold character of these formulations I raise the general imphcataon of this below


versation" for accountancy Both of these authors (Gadamer and Habermas) construct their theoretical systems of"commumcat ive rationality" on an elaborate edifice of enhghtened and rationalistm behavioural foundattons To question whether this is always likely to be the case, or even ever likely to be the case, is not to decry rational argument or advocate an n'ratton- ality m its place. It is merely to register a scepti- ctsm, itself predicated on the actual expertence of modern Germany htstory. Thus even to accept a difference and leave tt at that reqmres what might be termed a rational maturity lack- ing in much of the actual practice of day to day social intercourse, let alone political debate and struggle.

Perhaps then the distinctton between soft and hard rhetoric can be overdrawn. But in one sense we might like to try and preserve it There is at least hope that a conversattonal, genuinely dialogical form of discourse could be organised, m which the mutual non-antagomstic explora- tion of positions ts undertaken. Indeed some have argued this is the actual way in which all thinking is organised (Billig, 1987). Against this, however, we should recognise the "pursuit of mastery", which can unhinge the dialogical character of discourse in its quest for a mono- logical persuasive objective. If we genuinely wish to convmce "the other" in any discussion, argument or conversatton (or "think" we do) the dialogical moment need never arrive

So much for the problems of rhetoric. In that it as interpreted within a framework of rational behavtoural norms tt can be challenged by a theorisation that rejects those norms Addition- ally it is perhaps unfortunate for those wedded to a rationalistic conception of the social order that this can break down under the harsher conditions of real pohttcal life But as well as these problems there remains a s e t of issues that have to do with the linguistic model itself These I now develop as a prelude to looking at both the strengths of the rhetorical approach in the case of Luca Pacioli and an alternative formulation to it.

The linguistic model? A range of figures are invoked to support the

ideal of language as that which offers a frameworkmg devtce for the analysts of accountmg discourse m its rhetortcal manifestation. Often included amongst these appear the names of Derrtda and Foucault. But I would argue that a closer readmg of these two authors provides a means ofcriticising the tdea of language used in this respect rather than as a support for it. To do this I want first to develop a general way m which the discursive field might be represented This is shown by the threefold structure in Ftg. 4

Reference

Symbol Referent

Ftg 4 Representatton of the dtscurstve field

Such an Ogden-Richards triangle (Ogden & Richards, 1949) characterises the conventional way language is conceived to structure discourse - - involving the symbol, reference and referent. Once this threefold structure ts opened up, however, tts terms can multiply Thus we might represent it as signifier, signified and referent, as suggested above Alternatwely it could be object, representatton and interpret- ant Finally we could mentton the specifically Marxist inflection of this via the word, the speaker and the social forces; a threefold structure that Volosinov (1973) earlier this century suggested articulated the practice of language

In Fig 4 the common three part structure is indicated by the numbers 1, 2 and 3 Language can then be indicated by the number 4. I would suggest this three part structure characterises all conventtonal theories of language and haunts discursive analysis. A general trintty formulation would be one involving the Subject, the Object, and the Transcendental Subject/Oblect (God) 7 Language or discourse could then be mdicated by the number 4, and I would place tt inside the

71 thank Mike Gane for suggesUng thts formulatmn


triangle. The threefold classifications of rhetoric indicated above; the communications theory of language involving the speaker, the word and the audience (encoder, transmitter and decoder); the signifier, the signified and the referent of the signifactory theory of language, all fit neatly into this structure. Other examples could be provided (see also Eco & Sebeok, 1984).

The challenge, then, is to provide a different way of thinking about the nature of discourse. I suggest this involves taking up the position of number 5 in the figure. Such a position ks located "on the margin" of the figure in an attempt to escape its terms In one sense, however, thks is a fruitless task since it ks impossible to be located completely outside the terms of conventional discourse. Nevertheless, the rest of this paper represents an attempt to show how this has been tried by various authors, and how the emphasis on the insututional moment in the structuring of discourse also provides a means to this end

One important point about Derrida, for instance, is that he attempts to escape from such a threefold classification by constructing a theory of "umiting" against the logocentric nature of language This comprises his decisive break with conventional practice Much of his effort has been directed at trying to develop an idea of writing which undermines "the threefold model of language". Tilts has to do with the way language ks often deployed in philosophical Methodology, as an effect of the speaker. Behind language always lurks the figure of the speaker. This figure operates as the foundataon of language, whether this be in terms of the umversals of the mind or m terms of the competence of the speaker. It gaves rise to the characteristic logocentrtc nature of discourse organised around the ontologmal being as originator of thought. For Derrida, writing (and voth it differ- ance) serves to dislodge this ontological being as the centre of discourse by displacing the work of discourse into an inanimate object m the "text" m that must be read (Derrida, 1978, 1981 ). Textual structures become the object of discourse, not language as such From this Der- rida is able to construct his characteristic em-

phasis on the "writerly" and its particular (and often peculiar) set of concepts The attempt has been to construct a new set of concepts that are not fundamentally lingukstic in form.

Foucault is another writer who is often iden- tiffed as being part of the "linguistic turn" but strictly speaking this is also not the case While like Derrida he is centrally concerned with the theory of language, it is a confusion to reduce his theory of discourse to one based on the linguistic model. On the contrary, his theory of discourse represents another attempt to disengage from that model

In The Archaeology of Knowledge (Foucault, 1972) there is a sustained attempt to develop the notion of"discourse" and "discursive formation" which is not directly derived either from linguistics or from logic The fundamental unit of discourse is the "statement" and of discursive formation a group of statements which form the "archive" But a statement is not a formulation that is either a sentence or a proposition and thus a discursive formation is not simply a series of sentences or propositions A statement ks an "event" that neither the language nor the meaning can quite exhaust. This ks because the question asked of the statement is always "why did this particular statement appear and not another?" In responding to this, Foucault demonstrates his characterkstic insistence on the institutional moment in the determination of discourse The reason why one statement may appear and not another is because of this institutional element in the constitution of dkscourse. Now this ks also the site of a major problem since tt is not absolutely clear that Foucault has man- aged to develop an adequately differentiated category of the statement from a hngulstic sign to sustain his attempt at dksengagmg from the conventional distinction between language and its institutional context (Brown & Cousins, 1980) Two thmgs are clear, however One is that discursive formations can be lndiwduated by specifying the regularities of appearance of statements, which in turn defines the effecuve field of those statements Secondly, the enuncia- tive function distributes signs to the level of the discursive formation in a manner that is proper


to the i r e x i s t e n c e Thus s t a t emen t s d o no t have the func t ion o f s ta t ing o r c o m m u n i c a t i n g any. th ing b u t r a the r have the func t ion o f supporting apractice. H e n c e s t a t emen t s mus t b e capab le o f

s u p p o r t i n g enunc ia t i ve moda l i t i e s b u t in a w a y that d o e s n o t i m p l y t h e m as s t r a igh t fo rward g rammat i ca l ca tegor ies . The fact tha t b o t h o f these are p r o b l e m a t i c a l l y l o c a t e d in The Ar- chaeology o f Knowledge shou ld no t d ive r t us f rom recogn i s ing the t r po t en t i a l in t e r m s o f the fuzzy o r g r ey areas s h o w n in Fig 3.

Thus, w h i l e De r r i da shifts t he d i scuss ion o f d i s cou r se o n t o t he " t ex t " and t h e "wr i te r ly" , Foucau l t shifts it on to t he "s ta tement" , the "archive" and the ins t t tu t tonal m o m e n t in any p r a c t i c e o f d i scu r s ive s u p p o r t N e i t h e r o f these t w o a p p r o a c h e s is s t r i c t ly based o n the l inguis- t ic mode l , h o w e v e r , and n o r d o t h e y neces sa r i l y involve a s t r ong rhe to r i ca l m o m e n t W e may w a n t to t rea t the na tu r e o f a c c o u n t i n g d i s cou r se as an effect o f r h e t o r i c and l inguist ics , bu t t h e r e a re o ther , p e r h a p s m o r e sat isfactory, ways o f d o i n g it.

In fact at this p o i n t I w a n t to d e v e l o p a c r i t i que o f Der r ida ' s fo rmula t ion i tself s ince tt s e e m s to m e he does no t qu i t e go far e n o u g h in dist in- guish ing his l ine o f analysts f rom the full nnpl ica- t ions o f the l inguis tm m o d e l For Derr ida , "wri t ing" is the cen t ra l o b j e c t o f thinkdng a b o u t d i s cou r se However , thts i tself is t he s i te o f a p r o b l e m , a s soc ia t ed wi th t he s u b s u m p t i o n o f wr i t i ng u n d e r a technology ofprinttng Desp i t e the grea t a t t e n u o n pa id to wr i t ing , and its man- i fes ta t ion in the book , D e r n d a pays l i t t le o r no at- t en t i on to t he idea o f p r m t m g and its effects. P r in t ing d i sp laces the on to logmal b e i n g o f the w r t t e r fu r the r in to an ins t l tu t iona l i sed p r a c t i c e and a t echno logy . I t installs a n o t h e r level o f dis- t ance b e t w e e n the o rg ina t lng sub jec t and the p r a c u c e o f d t s c o u r s e The i m p o r t a n c e o f this for the ro l e o f Luca Pactoh - - w h o p r o d u c e d the first printed t ex t on a c c o u n t i n g - - is s o m e t h i n g I p u r s u e in t he res t o f th is pape r . Pe rhaps i roni- cally, h o w e v e r , to d o this wi l l take us in to an e x a m i n a t i o n o f " the d e m t s e o f rhe to r i c " in the ear ly Renaissance pe r iod , w h t c h was assoc ia ted w i th the n a m e o f Pe t e r Ramus

THE DECLINE OF RHETORIC AND THE RISE OF ACCOUNTING

In the mid - s ix t e e n th c e n t u r y the P ro tes t an t p r i e s t Pe t e r Ramus was he ra ld ing the final d e c l i n e o f the anc i en t rhe to r i ca l t r ad i t ion Some fifty years ea r l i e r a Franciscan p r ies t Luca Paciol i had h e r a l d e d the beg inn ing o f m o d e r n accoun t - lng. Are t h e r e c o n n e c t i o n s b e t w e e n these two events7 This is the issue e x p l o r e d in this sec t ion. Of c o u r s e any c o n n e c t i o n s h e r e are no t s imply b e t w e e n these two f igures as ind iv idua l wr i t e r s Rather they are b e t w e e n a ce r t a in set o f in te l lec- tual issues that each o f t h e m exempl i f i ed I o rgan ise the d t scuss ton a r o u n d t h r e e separa te bu t c o n n e c t e d points , the p r o b l e m o f "bel ieF ' in t he s i x t een th cen tu ry , t he ro le o f p e d a g o g i c reform; and the r e l a t ionsh ip b e t w e e n an oral , a w r i t t e n and a p r i n t e d c u l t u r e w h i c h was in a p ro- cess o f rad ica l t r ans fo rmat ion at the t ime. Thus, as m e n t i o n e d in t he i n t r o d u c t o r y remarks , I h ighl igh t three ins t i tu t ional p rac t i ce s in the con- s t ruc t ion o f t he d i s cou r se o f a c c o u n t i n g in thts pe r iod : the Church ; t he umver s i t y and the school ; and the pub l i sh ing house .

J ames Aho ( 1 9 8 5 ) has p r o d u c e d o n e o f the mos t successful ove r t l y rhe to r i ca l mves t iga t tons w i th his analysis o f the i nven t ion o f d o u b l e - e n t r y b o o k - k e e p i n g (DEB), assoc ia ted as all accountants k n o w wi th t he n a m e o f Luca Pacioli . s Aho summar i se s his a r g u m e n t as fol lows:

Instead of argumg that DEB was originally devtsed to serve exclusively mformattonal or theoretmal ends, thts author suggests that tts purpose was largely rhetorical that ts, to lustffy an acUvtty about which there extsted m medmval Christian Europe a considerable susptcton, namely commerce itself In other words, we submtt that DEB was netther an outgrowth of the sptrtt of Renats- sance sctence nor of Thomtsttc logtc - - a posttton held by Wener Sombart m but of the art of rhetortcal discourse (Alto, 1985, p 22)

Aho goes on to p r o v i d e an e x e m p l a r y rhe to r t ca l a c c o u n t b y unpmking Pac ioh ' s t ex t a c c o r d i n g to the se ts o f t h ree fo ld c a t e g o n s a t i o n s o u t l i n e d a b o v e w h e n d i scuss ing the formal or- gantsa t ton o f a rhe to r i ca l analysts He suggests that DEB pa r t l y answer s an e th ica l p r o b l e m , first

sI am grateful to Anthony Hopwood for having drawn my attentton to thts artmle by Alto


by integrating profit-seeking into a Christian cos- mos ( thereby avoiding charges of the san of av- arice), and second by providing a "just" explana- tion of business activity via the double-entry form which balances debats with credits, advan- tages with sacrifices, recetpts with payments, and so on. In doing this It also served an aesthetic function of bnngmg book-keeping into a realm of geometric and proportionate equivalences These were classic rhetorical devices of the time, tt is suggested

There is much to admire and agree with in Aho's analysis. However, there are a wider range of issues and problems in which it maght be set if we are to properly account for the importance of DEB, of Pactoli, and despite Aho's own deploy- ment, of the demise of rhetoric as a legitimate intellectual tradltaon

Clearly Pacioli was answering a multiple set of questions in his texts m ethical, juridical and aesthetac Cructal to the development of DEB was the notion of balance Whilst this is recog- rased by Aho, Hoskan & Macve (1986) suggest it appeared as a consequence of a new way of textual writing, generated durmg the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, mainly by clerical pedagogues. The systematm writing of accounts is seen by them m terms of a textual complexity mvolving first the "doubled" character of the money sign ( to be gtven and to be received in an exchange) and then its transformation into a "double-sagn" (a representataon of a representation of value an the form of an account entry) Only after a long and hesatant development did the "doubled-sign" and the "double-sign" man- ifest themselves in the form of the double- writing on paper money Furthermore, it was a formal organtsation of the relationship between interconnected entraes of this double-writing in books of account that created the notion of a ba- lanced account late m the fifteenth century This itself created a new measure of control over flows of goods and money. There as, then, a kmd of anternal history of writing to whmh DEB can be addressed, stril¢angly illustrated by Hoskin and Macve's rich analysts

But here I concentrate on the explicit institutional settmg of early DEB. Since much has been written about the commerical and banking institutional matrix m which It developed, I ignore thts element Instead I begin with the impact of the Church and its increasingly uncertain status during the later part of the period.

This uncertainty stemmed from complex developments within theology on the one hand and from the emergence of secular philosophical and scientific discourses on the other. The complexity of religious belief m the stxteenth century is well captured by Lucien Febvre's mas- terly analysis of the posstbihty of its antithesis m "unbelief" ~ during the period (Febvre, 1982) Interestingly, m part this led to a major intellectual revtval of classical studies, particularly of Greek thought whmh was appealed to by all sades for authority (just as it is tending to be used today m a similar period of intellectual uncer- taintyg). In additton, thlS growing intellectual turmoil was fostered by the mventaon of printing by Gutenberg in Mainz during the second half of the fifteenth century Indeed, one of the ways the Church trmd to keep a control over these, events was to ban printing (e g. by the edict of Paris m January 1535) Of course such attempts proved futile in the long run as discussed at greater length in a moment (see also Febvre & Martin, 1976).

Many of these themes can be seen m play in the work of Pacioli. For anstance, take the famous portrait of him painted in 1495 and reproduced as Fig 5. Pacioli, dressed m a friar's habit, is shown instructing the young Duke Gmdobaldo of Urbino, a noted patron of mathemancs. On a table are the symbols of mathematics D com- passes, a geometrical diagram, an open copy of Euclid's Elementa, and (probably) a printed copy of Pacioli's own mathemancal treatise (the S u m m a de Aritbmetica~ Geometrictg Propor. t iont etProport ionali ta, first published in 1494

see Fig 1 at the beginning of thts paper) Drawn on a slate is one of the five perfect solids of Plato to which Pacioli pomts with his baton His other hand indicates to a place an the

9There are two basra ways the Greeks can be deployed One ts to make an appeal to them for authority The other is to use them to stgnal a dzfference Thts latter is clearly the more progresstve,


Ftg. 5 Pamtmg of Pacioh completed m 1495 by Jacopo Barbari


Elementa . In the uppe r left part of the pa in t ing is a ra ther cur ious bu t r e sp lenden t crystal

po lyhed ron (poss ibly an icosahedron) . This hangs almost suspended in mid-air and is the t rue ob jec t of Pacioli 's gaze

The compos i t ion of thts pa in t ing is revealing= Pacloh is a teacher as wel l as a priest. His m o d e is instruct ional . The crystal po ly( icosa?)hedron is symbol ic on a n u m b e r of counts . To begin wi th it represen ts the e ternal t ru th and clarity of mathematics . Pacioli was one of those responsible for the upsurge of mathemat ica l th inking in

the s ix teenth century , a good deal o f w h t c h was mystical ra ther than "scientific" (Rose, 1975). l° For Pacioli and others the Greeks symbol ised this t ru th and clarity But there is ano the r level at wh ich the mathemat ica l i m p e d i m e n t a shown in the p ic tu re work, par t icular ly the hover ing po ly ( i cosa )hed ron This relates to their religious stgnificance. God himself had worked the wor ld in a mathemat ica l form. To worsh ip God is

also to partake of this d iv ine project . Hence the hover ing po ly ( i cosa )hed ron can

be read as symbol ic of God's work ( i f no t of God

h imselO and h e n c e wor thy of the r eve ren t gaze it gets in the p ic tu re from God 's disciple on Earth. (Paciol i ' s o the r major work, first pub-

lished in 1509, was en t i t l ed De D t v i n a Propor- t /one m see Fig. 2 at the b e g i n n i n g of this paper. 11 )

For Pacioli every th ing was symmet ry and propor t ion . "Even rhe tor ic gains in e legance from prope r ha rmony" ( " In t roduc t i on to the S u m m a ~, Taylor, 1942, p. 193). So it is import-

ant to recogmse that Pacioli 's larger pro jec t was to re .emphasise a be l i e f in order sanct i f ied by God. It was no t s imply to justify the pract ice of

c o m m e r c e as someth ing no t ant i thet ical to

Christ ian doc t r ine (a l though clearly tt was this in par t ) The pro jec t was rhetormal, i f m a ra ther grand sense, in as m u c h that Pactoli was re spond- ing to a ques t ion or p r o b l e m posed for rel igious bel ief more generally. But that ques t ion was posed outs tde of the pro tocols of language in a

formal sense. It was posed by the na ture of theological bel ief and by the inst i tut ional r e q u i r e m e n t of the Church

It is in te res t ing to no te that strategies of a rgumen ta t ion a long similar l ines to these began to emerge from diverse quar ters a round this time. For instance, Letwin ( 1 9 6 3 ) is c o n c e r n e d wt th the types of a rgumen t that c i rcula ted a round the format ion of e c o n o m i c pol icy in the s ix teen th century . This ques t ion also involved what was to c o u n t as ev idence in these debates Letwin suggests that the emergen t class of mer-

chants we re no t in a pos i t ion to make their o w n po in t of v iew c o u n t in e c o n o m i c debates at the time. In re la t ion to w h o was to be t rus ted wi th

respect to e c o n o m i c arguments , the social posi- t ion of the merchan t s was no t of a s tanding that enab led them to invoke e i ther the author i ty of

learn ing or the au thor i ty of their posi t ion. They were thought to argue only for self-interest and

their o w n profit.

Medteval phdnsophy conventtonally identdied the merchant with the sm of covetonsness, even the act of pure trading, negotzum, was constdered essenttaUy vlctous Though m the stxteenth century, as the moral power of rehglon faded, the soctal utdtty of commerce was more readdy recogmsed, still merchants were not highly esteemed They could be described as 'ever utter enetmes of the weal pubhc', who cared for emachm 8 themselves alone whatever the consequences might be for anyone else In the presence of this attttude, any economtc proposal made by a merchant would be const

t°Pactoh was not a great mathemauctan but more a populartser of mathemancs For instance he gets only a passing mention m Khne's monumental history (Klme, 1972, p 237) t ~ For the source of these n o n e too original remarks about Pacioh see Taylor ( 1 9 4 2 ) Taylor carries part translations o f the Summa and the Divina, mainly their introducttons. Vartous full translations of that part of the Summa dealing with accounting exist. I have used the one contained in Geijsbeek ( 1914 ) Mormon (1969 ) provides a translation of that part of the Dtvina dealing vdth the aesthettc of alphabettcal letters and thetr constructtons

There ts clearly more to this painting that has been elaborated here Does Pactoh m fact gaze at the poly(tcosa)hedron or through it towards an mvlstble writing of the Truth of whmh the poly(lcosa )hedron ts only the wslble sign7 In addmon, tt ts perhaps God and Plato that act as the true double framers for Pacloh's gaze (I thank an anonymous referee for suggesting these posslbdtttes )


dered more suspect than ff It had been advanced by anyone else (Letwm, 1963, p 87)

U n d e r these c i r c u m s t a n c e s h o w c o u l d mer - chan t s make the i r p o i n t w i t h o u t be ing sub j ec t to susp ic ion o f sys t emat i c spec ia l p leadmg? T h e y r e s o r t e d to a n u m b e r o f t ypes o f a rgument . In the first p l ace t h e r e was t he tac t ic o f a n o n y m i t y Pamph le t s w e r e p u b l i s h e d advoca t ing var ious cou r se s o f a c t i on w i t h o u t b e i n g s igned But this was gene ra l ly t hough t to b e unsa t i s fac tory ( W i t h i n p h i l o s o p h y at this t ime, those w h o w i s h e d to p r o m o t e ideas a b o u t " evo lu t iona ry specu la t ion" m o p p o s i t i o n to the d o m i n a n t idea o f a G r a n d Des ign of ten p r e s e n t e d the i r a rgumen t s d i s g m s e d in the form o f f ic t ion o r poe t ry . O n e o f t h e m was Desca r t e s m see Harber , 1972. ) Secondly , t h e r e was an appea l to gene ra l jus t i f icat ions abou t the p u b l i c and the p r iva te g o o d co inc id ing . Some w e n t so far as to a rgue tha t the pa r t i cu l a r sugges t ions b e i n g p u t f o r w a r d ac tua l ly w e n t against the i r o w n p r iva te in teres t . But t he se w e r e stil l w e d d e d to a k m d o f p e r s o n a l t e s t i m o n y and author i ty . Wha t evo lved in r e s p o n s e was a sys tem o f impe r sona l ar- g u m e n t a t i o n m w h i c h the fo rm of a r g u m e n t it- se l f b e g a n to change. Clear p r o p o s i t i o n s and s t a t ed p r e m i s e s w e r e laid o u t and the a r g u m e n t c lea r ly and in te l l ig ib ly d e v e l o p e d The m o d e l o f a taut, d e d u c t i v e sys tem that infers its conc lu- s ions f rom a set o f s imple , c lea r and ev iden t t ru ths b e c a m e c o m m o n Wha t this all m e a n t was that cha l l engers to the a r g u m e n t w e r e fo r ced to d e m o n s t r a t e that t he p r e m i s e s w e r e e i t he r false o r imper fec t , o r that t he c h a m o f r ea son ing was faulty, o t h e r w i s e the conc lus ions w e r e b ind ing and "ob jec t ive" Eventual ly the m e t h o d o f induc- t ive e m p i r i c i s m (as a d v o c a t e d b y B a c o n ) be- c a m e w i d e s p r e a d , Letwin suggests

At this p o i n t w e v i r tua l ly c o m e full a r c l e , back to the issue o f pos i t iv i sm wi th w h i c h this p a p e r o p e n e d O n e o f t w o fu r the r t h e m e s n e e d deve loping , h o w e v e r It was m e n t i o n e d a b o v e that Paciol i was a teacher . He he ld a n u m b e r o f t each - m g pos t s m cen t ra l I ta l ian un ivers i t i es du r ing his life and was a pe r sona l t u to r to many o f the w e a l t h y and famous o f the t ime In c o n n e c t i o n to this w e can n o w raise a m o r e genera l Issue o f the

r e l evance o f t each ing re fo rm to the popular i sa- t ion o f Paciol i ' s b o o k s and in pa r t i cu la r o f the "me thod o f Venice" n doub le -en t ry book-keeping n tha t f o r m e d a m a j o r pa r t o f t he Summa. Here w e take up a n o t h e r ins t i tu t ional t h e m e in the c o n s t r u c t i o n o f d i scourse .

The scho las t i c i sm of the la te Midd le Ages r e m a m e d u n d e r sharp a t tack du r ing the ear ly par t o f the s i x t e e n t h c e n t u r y in the w o r k s o f P e t e r Ramus He o p e r a t e s as a key f igure in the de ba t e s a b o u t b o t h r h e t o r i c du r ing that p e r i o d and in the c o n t e x t o f the c o n t e m p o r a r y a t t e m p t to r e s u r r e c t an in te res t in r h e t o r i c o n c e agam Ramus was a b o v e all e lse i n t e r e s t ed m p e d a g o g y He was c o n c e r n e d to r e fo rm the p rac t i ce s o f t each ing c u r r e n t in the un ivers i t i es o f his day (Ong , 1974). To this e n d he d e v e l o p e d a formid- ab le ba t t e ry o f t e x t b o o k s and o t h e r wr i t ings ( n o t all p u b l i s h e d u n d e r his o w n n a m e ) w h i c h re- m a i n e d in c i r cu la t ion and use for o v e r two cen- tu r ies in s o m e cases T h e r e w e r e t h r e e separa te bu t i n t e r r e l a t e d a spec t s to this p r o j e c t Ramus 's Dialectic, his Rhetoric, and his Method The Method se rved to t ie t he Dialectic and the Rhetoric toge ther . Whi l e all t h r e e are h ighly n u a n c e d m his wr i t ings I t ry on ly to ou t l ine the i r ma in fea tures here .

For Ramus d ia lec t i c had t w o aspects ; inven- t ion and judgemen t . I nven t ion refers to a k ind o f t e s t i m o n y o r h u m a n o p i m o n that l odges a statement . This is s u p p l e m e n t e d by l u d g e m e n t w h i c h is cu l t iva ted b y the ca lm m i n d and refers to a k ind o f logic. These t w o features, o r d ia lec t ic , a re o rgan i sed to b e capab le o f c r ea t i ng a convictzon They are d e s i g n e d to c r e a t e a confidence in someth ing , o r a t rus t in it. Whi ls t this is s een as an effect o f r eason in the sense o f a means o f refer- r ing a conc lus ion , it is no t a fo rm of r eason seen as a w a y o f ge t t ing at a Truth w h i c h is sure, com- monsens i ca l and t h o r o u g h l y scmnti f ic in the m o d e r n me a n ing o f these t e rms Thus the logic that o p e r a t e s in this s c h e m a ~s no t a "scient i f ic logic" Rather it is m o r e a " logic o f p robab i l i ty" w h e r e the d e b a t e o r d i scuss ion gene ra t e s the l ike l ihood, and w h e r e the p r o b a b l e has to b e sufficient, if no t to d e c i d e b e t w e e n a l te rna t ives at least to resul t in a p rac t i ca l dec i s ion o r ac t ion R e n d e r e d in to the c o n c e r n w i th teaching, in-


ven t ion unde r l i e s the ar t o f p r a c t m e wh i l e judge- m e n t that o f exerc ise . The resu l tan t art o f d i a l ec tmg b e c o m e s def ined as a d o c t r i n e o f t each ing o f d i scour s ing well m n e v e r m i n d its Truth value.

Rhe tor ic is l inked c lose ly to dialectac in this p roce s s bu t i t is also rad ica l ly s epa ra t ed f rom it Rhe torm has to d o w i th c o m m u n i c a t i n g and express ing . I t has to d o w i th the vome and the audia l a spec t s o f c r ea t ing a pe r suas ive convic- t ion. But in Ramism, in an i m p o r t a n t and nove l way, the specif ical ly and ove r t l y rhe to r i ca l as- p e c t s o f Rhe to r i c a re d e n i e d and sp i r i t ed away Ramism "de- rhe tor ic i ses" Rhetorm, so to speak. I t pu t s Rhetor ic u n d e r t he s h a d o w of the Dialec- t ic, so that it is sub jec t to the o r d e r e d d ia lec t i c o f inven t ion and judgemen t . The Ramist d r ive to- w a r d s c u r r i c u l u m s impl i f ica t ion and o rde r l ines s ha s t ened this p r o c e s s o f d e n y i n g the rhe to r i ca l m o m e n t to c l a s s room p r a c t i c e and exerc ise . The t e x t b o o k o rder , so c ruc ia l to the Ramist "method" , c a m e to d o m i n a t e its pa r tmula r con- c e p t i o n o f rhe tor ic . This m tu rn b e c a m e m o r e o f a s e c o n d a r y o r n a m e n t a t i o n to the main inte l lec- tual bus iness o f i nven t ion and j u d g e m e n t

Wha t abou t the Ramist M e t h o d w h i c h s e rved to t ie the o t h e r two aspec t s together7 M e t h o d can b e def ined qu i t e genera l ly as a ser ies o f o r d e r e d s teps gone t h rough to p r o d u c e wi th ce r ta in ef l ic tency a d e s i r e d effect Thus tt is a rou t ine o f efficiency m the first ins tance Ong ( 1 9 7 4 ) suggests that this c o n c e p t i o n o f m e t h o d d id no t ex is t in the s ix t een th cen tury . Then It was s een m o r e as a pursu t t o r inves t iga t ion m its o w n r ight w i th no necessa ry ob)ec t tve revolving the gene ra t i on o f n e w and abso lu te ly c o n f i r m e d knowledge . Thus it was still se t m that t r ad i t ion w h i c h emphas l s ed a r g u m e n t and d ia logue m an o p e n mves t iga to ry s t ance In addi t ion , m e t h o d was c lose ly assoc ia ted w i th c u r r i c u l u m organt- sa t ion and pedagog ica l p r o c e d u r e It d td no t have that j u d g e m e n t a l c h a r a c t e r assoc ia ted wi th

t he M e t h o d o l o g y o f today. (See also Gi lber t , 1960.)

Ramus t ook up the issue o f m e t h o d ve ry m u c h m the t r ad i t ion o f its pedagog ica l meaning. He e m p h a s i s e d orderly arrangement a b o v e all else. Thus m e t h o d c a m e to d e n o t e t he o r d e r l y a r r a n g e m e n t o f the topics within d i s c o u r s e ) z A " topical logic" was c o n s t r u c t e d ( a fo rm o f class logic in fact ) in w h i c h it was o f cen t ra l t m p o r t a n c e w h e r e things fell in an o r d e r e d and h ie ra rch ica l ser tes o f p l aces ( w h i c h Ramus r a the r confus ingly ca l led "a rguments" ) . These p laces inc luded : genus, form, name, nota t ion , conjuga tes , t e s t imonies , cont rar tes , d is t r ibu- t tons and defini t ions. It ts the d i spos i t ion o f these divksions, d i cho tomtes , and enuncmt ions , that so e x e r c i s e d Ramus ' s Method . But he was less than sys temat tc in the w a y in w h i c h h e was ab le to hand le t h e m (a t least at the " theore t ica l" l eve l ) 13

Desp i t e this, h o w e v e r ( o r p e r h a p s b e c a u s e o f i t) , in p r a c t i c e Ramus was ab le to g e n e r a t e a h ighly soph i s t i c a t ed and successful t e x t b o o k s tyle o f p r e s e n t a t i o n w h i c h was endur ing . This was at least in par t b e c a u s e h e was ab le to p ro- duce , if no t a s imple , t hen at least a c lea r ly spat ia l i sed d o c u m e n t a t i o n o f h o w a d i s cou r se works . This was his dec i s ive advan tage in t he t each ing s t tuat ion. Wi th this advan tage w e n t an accep tance , a lmos t unconsc ious ly , o f the m o r e " theore t ica l" aspec t s that lay b e h m d and sup- p o r t e d the ge ne ra t i on o f his t e x t b o o k style, and the b o o k s he p r e p a r e d on Dialect ic , Rhe to r i c and Method . T h e y e m b o d i e d the i r o w n " m e t h o d o l o g y " in a self-ref lextve w a y w i th in the analysis that was of fered o f the na tu re o f discourse , and this was l o d g e d m the t e a c h m g b o o k s themselves .

But this was no t all. Ramus was able to capi ta l i se on a n u m b e r o f genera l , and s o m e w o u l d argue m o m e n t o u s , social and t echnolog i - cal d e v e l o p m e n t s o f his t ime In par t icu lar , this

i ZTopm s are the "things" or subject matter of dtalectm whmh came to be known through the places m whmh they were stored m memory t31n some cases st was a matter of progression from the defimuon of the parts ofa syllogosm to the defimuon of the parts of those parts, and so on down to the ultimate "singulars", t e a progression from ~antecedents" to the "consequents" In others tt was case of the reverse of this, t e the movement from the general to the special, from the "umversals" to the "smgulars" In still others tt was a combination of the two


concerned the development of writing and printing. As mentioned above the effect of Ramus's method was to institute a formal spatialisation into the representation of discourse This was associated with a profound transformation in the way in which thinking in a general sense was beginning to be conducted The development of writing, already alluded to, was partly responsible for mobdising this transformation. Wnting creates a space for a kind of silent discourse - - an internal, contemplative type of thought (Clancy, 1979). But m addition it is above all else a "visual" form of thought tt relies on the vtsualisatton of discourse. In this capacity tt is vitally dependent on a spatialisation of words and the order of presentation of arguments. This offered the vital link to the success of Ramus's method, which was highly conscious of this aspect of presentation Two things followed. In the first place the Ramist method met the growing maplicatton of the development of a written culture. Secondly, its subordination of dialogue, verbal argument, disputation and so on, i e. of rhetoric, to the dictates of dialectic reasoning also met the requirements of the growing mternal and contemplative mode of thmking. It silenced a robust and public form of rhetoric, reducing tt to mere communication. From now on the work of the intellect went on withm the dialectic only rather than within a system which included rhetoric and dialectic m a complex combmatton, and where neither was given a preference. This "prior" form of thinlang the nature of thmking, where there had been no distinction between rhetoric and dialectic, was more suited to an environment in which the spoken word formed the content of discourse where personal verbal testimony and hstening constituted the typmal modes in which knowledge was invented and consolidated

In addition, even writing should not be placed m qmte such a central position as ts implied by the comments above since this was being trans- formed itself during the period m whmh Ramus was working Indeed tt was probably this development that was decisive m the consolida- tion of the idea of method pioneered by Ramus With the printing of textbooks, embodying both

the relative ease of study via their style of presentation and the "method" implicit to them, these features became duplicable and endurable What is more, printing reinforced the ordering and spatlalisation of the visual text It demanded a more diagrammatic form of presentation, breaking up the text into its constituent parts with headings, paragraphs, a tight compact style of composition, and so on The portability of such books deepened the mdivtdualised, silent character of learning and knowledge creation, particularly tn the humaniues (Eisenstem, 1979, and below)

Ramus's Method can also be seen as a response to the problem of man's "passions" It was in the area of rhetoric that Ramus located the operation of the passions Rhetoric was contrasted to the dialectic which, as we have seen, promoted mvention and judgement. Both of these were cultivated by the calm mind A de-vocalised and mechanised rhetoric was thus constructed, subjugated in the dialectic to a diagrammatic economy, which precisely suppressed the po- tential of the rhetorical passions. Clearly it is the threat posed by the passions as roused by rhetoric m its negative sense that still registers m the modern dismtssive attitude towards rhetoric.

Can we sum up on Ramus's Method~ It oper- ated as a kind of transitional stage m the development of the modernist view of method and Methodology This modernist view - - most closely associated with the name of Rene Descartes - - offers a formalised and overtly logical atUtude towards method, the logic of scientific demonstration. This was not yet the loglc of Ramus as embodied in his dialectic.

But where does this leave the issue of Pacioli? My suggestion is that Pactoli connects up directly to the issues of pedagogical reform and particularly the development of prmtmg that were so important to the success of Ramus's project of rhetorical dental If we are to account for the success of Padoli in the case of double-entry book-keeping, we need look at both the back- ground conditions m which he wrote and the manner m which he presented his own analytical programme.


For instance, it is well known that Pacioli did not "Invent" DEB. As Taylor has noted he SpeCLfi- cally stated that he was merely writing down the system that had been used in Venice for up to two hundred years (Taylor, 1956, p 180). According to Peragallo (1938, pp. 54 -55 ) and others, Benedetto Cotrugii actually finished a written manuscript containing a presentation of double entry m 1458 (Della Mercatura et del Mercante perfetto), some forty years before PacIoh's Everything about Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportion, but it remained un- published A glance at any of the many books documenting the historical development of accounting in the Middle Ages and early Renais- sance also demonstrates that the double-entry method was relatively widely deployed, if in an elementary form, before Pacioli wrote (e.g Brown, 1905, Peragallo, 1938; Zerbt, 1952, Yamey et al., 1963; see also Chatfield, 1974 and Sapori, 1970) A typical example of a written ledger of the double-entry form is shown as Fig. 6. This was produced in 1422. An earlier example of an account, not of the double-entry form, is reproduced m Fig 7. Both of these are particularly tidy examples of their type

What marks Pacloli's treattse was the fact that his was the first book on the subject and was the first to be printed This was its decisive advantage. And it led in turn to a great many imitators Indeed these quickly Improved on the original. While they more or less copied and duplicated Pacioli's own exposition (Geijsbeek, 1914), they added worked examples and illustrated with spectmen accounts These were not contained in the Summa, though it did give some guidance on how to handle debit and credit ledger entries as shown in Ftg 8 An additional first advantage for Pacioli was that he pubhshed the Summa in the colloquial Itahan rather than in the more usual Latin. Combined with a definite touch for the common euphemism (Geijsbeek, 1914, p. 27), this secured Pacloh a

readership that did not seem to have been taped before

Hugh Oldcastle's Profitable Treatyce and Jan Ympyn's A Notable and Very ExcellenteWoorke, both pubhshed m 1543, and the first English and Dutch treatments of DEB respectively, were near enough exact duplicattons of Pacioli's Summa Ympyn's book was translated into English in 1547. Oldcastle's book seems to have been lost and the earliest extstmg systemattc En- glish treatment is to be found in John Mellis's A Briefelnstruction published in 1588 This is also heavily dependent upon Pacioli and Ympyn, and tt contains specimen accounts.

All of these early books, and many later ones, were wrttten in an instructional style. They were meant to act as textbooks. Some even took up a "Socratic method" of dialogue in the written form in which the more knowing and more hum- ble man questions about accounting Wilde the less knowing learns by formulating his answers (e.g. Richard Dafforne The Merchants'Mirrour, 1660 - - see Geijsbeek, 1914, pp. 1 4 0 - 1 8 1 ) ) 4 The impact of these kinds of books qua printed books was thus largely confined to academic circles, at least m the first instance Only gradually did they begm to have an added impact on those merchants not already famihar with rudimentary accounting procedures of the double-entry type.

Pacioli's own books were mainly about mathematics The Summa contained five parts: artthemtic and alegbra; their use in trade reckon- mg; book-keeping, money and exchange, pure and especially applied geometry Printing lent itself readily to mathematical and geometrmal exposition. Indeed it was indispensible to it. This was also the case with accounting. According to Etsenstein (1979), prmting changed the whole way in which culture was henceforth generated and understood ~s To begin with, it sttmulated an interest in the past rather than the future It led to a fascination wtth ancient wtsdom and to

t4Ong ( 1974, p 43) notes that such a "Socrattc ¢halogue" had no place m Ramtst theory or practme Clearly tt sttil represented a rhetortcal form that Ramus was at paros to ehmmate from hts parttcular textbook style tSA popular treatment of Etsenstem's thesis can be found in Etsenstem (1983) See also Chaytor (1945) Htrst & Wooiley ( 1982, pp 26--43) dtscuss many of these themes m an accessible manner


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Ftg 8 Page from Pactoh's S u m m a deahng with ledger entries


a r e c o v e r y o f wha t had b e e n k n o w n ra the r than a d i s cove ry o f the n e w Ins tead o f the single- m i n d e d focus on a s ingle book , it o p e n e d up the poss ib i l i ty o f a w i d e focus o n a r ange o f books . A manusc r ip t cu l t u r e kep t b o o k s "h idden" and sm- gnlar b e c a u s e o f the i r ra r i ty and frail ty Pr in t ing u n d e r m i n e d this and b r o u g h t in to focus a set o f of ten conf l ic t ing in t e rp re t a t i ons con t a ined in many manusc r ip t s and b o o k s that c o u l d b e asses- sed t o g e t h e r The d ivers i ty o f manusc r ip t s on account ing , for instance, w i th all the i r local vari- a t ion w e r e b r o u g h t t o g e t h e r b y p e o p l e l ike Paciol i to s tudy be fo re a p r m t e d e x p o s i t i o n o f the i r genera l ru les and o r d e r s c o u l d b e under - taken. O the r s d id the same, o f ten even tua l ly r each ing dif ferent i n t e rp re t a t i ons and conc lu- s ions a b o u t these ru les and o r d e r s Paciol i ' s r epu t a t i on as e x p o s i t o r o f DEB sp read qu ick ly m the first half o f the sLxteenth c e n t u r y as his p r i n t e d t ex t was r e - w o r k e d and t rans la ted in to all the ma jo r Eu ropean languages

It is the i m p o r t a n c e o f p r in t ing for the idea o f an o r d e r e d and ru l e -gove rned un i fo rmi ty in t he p r e s e n t a t i o n o f ma themat ica l , g e o m e t r i c a l o r e spec ia l ly a ccoun t i ng mate r ia l that largely expla ins w h y Pacioh ts stil l r e c o g n i s e d as t he "father" o f DEB He pa id pa r t i cu la r a t t en t ion to m e t h o d o l o g i c a l exac tness and the mas t e ry o f de ta i l Clear ly this t ype of account , at least in part , m e t the r e q u i r e m e n t s o f a g rowing com- merc ia l cu l ture . But the fact that it d id no t pene t - ra te in to all capl tahs t o rganisa t ions for s o m e four h u n d r e d years o r m o r e shou ld make us w a r y o f a t t r ibu t ing too m u c h to this 16 Wha t was cruc ia l for its g r o w i n g popu l a r i t y was that it su i t ed the p r m t e d form in w h i c h it b e c a m e e m b o d i e d . O n g ( 1 9 7 1 ) and Eisens tem ( 1 9 7 9 ) have a rgued that the Ramist m e t h o d o u t l i n e d above takes an i t emised a p p r o a c h to d i s cou r se h ighly reminis- c en t o f the p r in t ing p roce s s i tself Paciol i ' s m e t h o d d id m u c h the same thing, it i m p o s e d

o rgan i sa t ion on a sub j e c t by imagming it as m a d e up o f par t s f ixed in space

This was pa r t i cu la r ly t rue o f the idea o f ba lance , so c ruc ia l to t he d e v e l o p m e n t o f DEB as

n o t e d above. G e n u i n e d o u b l e - e n t r y d id e m e r g e in a p a r a g r a p h fo rm b u t i t was t he tabula, bi lat- eral form that soon domina t e d , grea t ly facilitat- ing the s u m m a t i o n o f i t ems and the i r a l ignmen t A b o o k c o u l d then be easi ly c losed, w i th assets appea r ing o n o n e s ide and l iabi l i t ies plus owners ' equ i t y on the o ther . Wi th its p r i n t e d expos i - t ion the double -en t ry m e t h o d b e c a m e the stand- ard against w h i c h o the r me thods w e r e measured and found w a n t i n g W i t h o u t such a t e c h n o l o g y the full impac t o f the m e t h o d cou ld neve r have b e e n real ised, s ince i t r e l i ed o n a careful align- m e n t and spac ing o f the entr ies , t ex t and f igures w h i c h c o u l d on ly b e p r o p e r l y r e p r o d u c e d and w i d e l y u n d e r s t o o d in a p r i n t e d form W e have a l r eady s een s o m e t t u n g o f this w i th Fig 8 show- mg the p r i n t e d w a y d e b i t and c r ed i t 1terns w e r e h a n d l e d in the Summa Figures 9 and 10 r e in fo rce this. F igure 9 d e m o n s t r a t e s the w a y Paciol i h a n d l e d the ca tegor l sa t lon o f the m- t r i cac ies o f p r o p o r t i o n s and the i r o rgamsa t ion Quant i f ied and spa t ia l i sed tab leau of this charac- te r b e c a m e a way o f thinking after the inven t ion o f p r in t ing m a d e t h e m du ra b l e and easi ly dupl ic- able. F igure 10 shows the d i f fe rence b e t w e e n a h a n d w r i t t e n page o f the Summa and its p r m t e d form. Again the t idyness and spat ia i l sed na tu re o f the la t te r make it m u c h eas ie r to r ead and there-

fore c o m p r e h e n d . The pag ina t ion o f a p r i n t e d p r e s e n t a t t o n

h e l p e d fu r the r to r e in fo rce t he a lmos t s tark spa t ia l i sa t ion and non-pr6c l sab i l i ty o f the f inancial p i c tu r e that DEB c o n s t r u c t e d of t he en t e rp r i s e Pr in t ing h e l p e d conso l ida t e a de l ibera t ive , d iagrammat ic , silent, p r iva te and ca icu la t ive m o d e o f th ink ing In this way it h e l p e d " turn" the analyt ical m m d It s t imula ted

rathe obstacles to the rapid umversahsatton of DEB are mteresungly thscussed m Hoskin & Macve (1986) One of the ways of developing the tmphcatton$ of Pactoh's project would be to set it m the context of the notion of a "governable subject". Thus DEBts part of that condtuon which creates a commercial entity separate fi'om those who either own it, marage it, or work m It. The notion ts developed m Miller & O'Leary (1987). Note, though, how my formulation treats the enterprise as an entity rather than a subject For a discussion of the tmphcatlons of this difference see Thompson (1986), Chapter 7


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Fig. 9 The organisation of proportions, from the S u m m a


t i i uoSlio metere, qui ~ ~ per La ~quai sempre in iafinitum te ~ lp~ ¢bel c,~mpa~o. .n.h*

a, rainier trcmare ditte 1~ ~ t im q u e ~ . ti~. pr~,~ troga lit m ~ digitlmieilige ooawao fai l~|gre. ¢ Ct.~tt,t,,

j tuaj t roui t l la prima ]~ fal!¢ proms, e uedi fl~lanto lapas~., ditto numero, alora, toras I quelh~ piu. uoe quetla 4iff,-rentia e pllrtiraia, per Io ch~p~ de q~sta prima B~. e q.el l . ~-hr m.,zlra de dito part,me.t~, trar.de de dita prim~ P~. E~o r,- manente sira 1~ ~_.c~ndo di qt~t tai numer,~ p~i fafaj

) ]a pro~'l, anche di que~ta ~.4"~mda ~ . e u~'4erai qnanto la s,~- perehia ditto . .mero . e anche q ~ ! piu ~'l~e ti ,tara que~ta seco.da

. ]~ partiralo t~r th~in de que~a see-on0h. ~ e q.ello the ~' x uen cha.araln, d,' ,litta ~ c ~ 1~ e I~ rima.cnte .~ra

P~ lerza de dilo num~,ro. |mi ~ml dito fa~j proua euc~er~ ~ quanto la passi 4itlo .umero. e pig|iarai ,m~,he queHa difl','rentia - e l~rtirala sempre p(.rb~ dopio dela 1~. t ' be teda . ta l dilTere.ti.

• ~mpre ~ha.a qu,*llo che neurn ~ h ' ] ~ so|a. Elo rima. eumle sira ]altra ~.'. piu pro~sim.~na, e c ~ va p r ~ ,- deodo i . infimlo, e Caar~; ~ r ~empre ripartl. meuti dele ~ schi~Ue, e ~ del~ doplale Verbi ~f i .~

, P,~ prima, de, 6. ~ie.' S ~ , " O qu" i¢ pass., de ~ p,r~,

Fi& 10. Page from the S u m m a handwritten and prmted (a facsimile of Padoli's handwritm& The ortl~nal ts to be found ir Manuscript No 3129 m the Vattcan Library To the rtght is the same passage m print)

IS ACCOUNTING RFIETORICAL; 595

that calculatlve approach so typical of commercial practice 17 It did not lust "represent" it The very mechanism of keeping a record of account m this manner located that turn of mind in a pracucal manifestation Of course this did not happen overnight, immediately after the S u m m a was first published Accounts were still kept and presented by firms in a handwritten form until well into the present century in many cases Figure 11 (a, b) shows one such rather neatly presented instance for the "Darien" Com- pany at the turn of the seventeenth century Rather, what printed instructional textbooks on accounting like that produced by Pacioli dtd was to famfllarise and popularise the method amongst a widening range of commericai estab- lishments. Thts was done initially at the behest of experts rather than actual book-keelxa-s who did not prepare books on DEB in its early stages of development Accounts could still be kept in a handwritten form, as indeed they were, with a good deal of the calculations conducted m the head, but the printed orderliness, repetitton and durability "directed" the account formulation and presentation process in a particular way.

CONCLUSIONS

This paper began with an assessment of the project in accounting to refocus the problematic nature of discursive investigation and adjudica- tion in terms ofrhetorm, the "model of language" and a narrativtsation of textual persuasion The argument has been that while thts is not without tts interest or without positive and useful results, it is not robust enough to cope with even the sharp differences of intellectual life let alone those ofpolitlCai life The rationality of argument can easily break down. Polite conversations can become strained. Often the construction of intellectual advance along the lines of the out- come of civllised conversation is actually an ex-

post rationalisation or reconstruction of the event. What is more, there may be significant intellectual advance when people just go away and ignore each other; when there is no conversation, and a "dialogue of the deaf" pertains.

One of the main problems with rhetoric remains who sets the questions, or where they are set In responding to this the protocols of language are just not sufficient. The argument has been that we need to look to the institutional moment in the construction of the discursive for help In the case of accounting and Luca Pacioli discussed here, this involved a look at the three mstltutional mechanisms which articulated the "birth" of the double-entry method in the fifteenth and sixteenth centurtes- the Church, the educational apparatus; and the printing/publishing regime at the time. Pacioli was writing at the peak m the power and security of the Church. The manner in whtch he presented double-entry book-keeping reflected that power and security m in the above analysis indmated by the remarks on the painting of him byJacopo Barbari (Ftg r 5) But there is a curious way in which the more in- tensely an institution celebrates the certainty of its position, the more it reveals tts underlying un- ease. The storm clouds for the Church were gathering even in the late fifteenth century, though they did not break until twenty years later when Luther began publishing his attacks on religious or thodoxy The growing "crisis" in the institution of the Church presents one set of contours in which we must vtew PacioH's particular rhetorical formation and delivery, and thus the manner in which he presented DEB.

But this was not the only important influence on the formation and delivery of DEB. The manner of its delivery and reception was also in- fluenced by the pedagogical debates and refor- mulation of teaching practmes at the time. Here I have concentrated upon the role of Ramism as an exemplary example of these changes, indicat- ing what they implied for the presentation ofdts-

17 A different example of the importance of the early development of printing concerns the emergence of actuarial practice Thts rehed heavily upon the ordermg emboched in printing and w a s o f central importance to the twin developments o f the msurance market alongstde the stattsttcal s~lls needed to operate It effectively Again, thts embodmd a calculanve turn of mind m a practtcal manffestatton

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Fig,. 1 l ( b ) Written double-entry book. (Page of journal of"Darlen" Company, 1701 (size of original 17~/( inches by 127/s inches) In the Advocates" Ltbrary, Edinburgh )


courses l ike DEB. Ramus was wr i t i ng in a p e r i o d w h e n Paciol i ' s t ex t was be ing popu la r t s ed as a t eac inng t ex t b y Oldcas t le , Ympyn, Dafforne and o thers , as t hey cop ied , r e f ined and p u b l i s h e d the t r o w n vers ions

This leads to m y final ins t i tu t ional c o n t e x t in w h m h the e m e r g e n c e o f DEB needs to b e consi- de red . I have a rgued the "pr in ter ly" c h a r a c t e r o f DEB was dec i s ive in secur ing its p l ace against r ival systems. I t m e t the t rnpl ica t ions o f a "prin- t e r ly cul ture" , t he charac te r i s t i c s o f w h t c h w e r e t hemse lves also e m e r g m g at the t ime t h r o u g h the inven t ion o f p r in t ing and pub l i ca t i on o f p r i n t e d books . This again s e c u r e d Paciol i a cen- t ral p l ace in t he h i s to ry o f DEB as the au tho r o f the first p r i n t e d e x p o s i t i o n o f the me thod .

W h e n o n e adds these e l e m e n t s toge ther , and i n t r o d u c e s t he final ins t i tu t ional s i te o f c o m m e r - cial and bank ing changes that many o the r s have analysed, in to t he p ic tu re , a " g o v e r n a b l e en t i ty" (as I w o u l d p r e f e r to t e r m i t - - see f o o t n o t e 16)

m the firm, as d i s t inc t f rom its owners , p rop - r ie tors , managers , workers , o r wha t have you b e c a m e poss ib l e and even tua l ly es tabl ished.

Finally to r e t u r n to the ques t i on p o s e d at t he I ve ry beg inn ing m "Is a c c o u n t i n g rhe to r i ca l 7" w e mus t r e s p o n d w i th an answer "yes", bu t a qual i f ied yes. It is yes m as m u c h that a c c o u n t m g is a rgumg and p e r s u a d i n g l ike any o t h e r d i scourse . The qual i f ica t ion is ra i sed because , o f itself, this a n s w e r is no t t e r r ib ly useful. I t has b e e n sugges ted that the t e rms o f a r h e t o r i c a re ex t ra -d i scurs ive o r l inguist ic. They are inst i tu- t ional ly set and the spec i f ica t ion o f that inst i tu- t ional matr tx , tts form and consequences , remains t he ctat ical analytmal p r o b l e m Wha t is said, h o w it ts said, and w h y it is said (as I under - s tand it, r he to r t c ) , w h i l e c lear ly an effect o f language, n e e d s to b e "p laced" in tts c o n t m g e n t m- s t i tu t iona l c o n t e x t be fo re the "reasons" for all o f this can b e p r o p e r l y iden t i f i ed

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Documents

Is accounting rhetorical? Methodology, Luca Pacioli and printing