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The constitutional dialecticRobert Wade KennyPublished online: 06 Jun 2009.

To cite this article: Robert Wade Kenny (2000) The constitutional dialectic, Quarterly Journalof Speech, 86:4, 454-464, DOI: 10.1080/00335630009384310

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Quarterly Journal of Speech

Vol. 86, No. 4, November 2000, pp. 454-464

ForumThis forum is dedicated to the life and work of Robert L. Scott whose challenge to usinspired this remarkable response among many others-Editor.

Copyright 2000, National Communication Association

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Quarterly Journal of SpeechVol. 86, No. 4, November 2000, pp. 455-464

The Constitutional DialecticRobert Wade Kenny

Key Terms

IT MAY BE helpful to keep the following relationships in mind. The first columnpresents the two constitutional types I will be using, the second column indicates how

each of these terms functions, the third column illustrates the linguistic setting in whicheach term appears, and the final column identifies the more commonly recognized termsBurke uses to form an umbrella under which my two terms reside.

Constitution Types

1) Descriptive2) Declared

Normal Function

AttributionInjunction

Typical Form

"It is.""We must."

In KB's usualparlance

SubstanceMotive

"Is that your final answer?""Yes.""Are you absolutely certain?""Yes!""How can you be so certain?""I just know. I know. I absolutely know. I'd stake my life on it.""Well, I'm sorry, but the correct answer is: Toledo.""Gee!""You said that you knew.""Well, yes. I thought I knew."

To be famed by defamation, is something only the elite of our discipline enjoys, andfew among American rhetoricians have suffered nobler slings and arrows of outrageouscommentary than Robert Scott. The cause is largely an article written more than thirtyyears ago: one which suggests we attend to the ways audiences grow certain of theirknowledge, irrespective of whether that "knowledge" is "true."

That we theorize and critique rhetorical practices which engender a normativeepistemic, was the obligation Scott charged to this discipline.' A plausible responsibility,it nevertheless encountered a taciturn audience, which at times might embrace it, at othertimes kick it for dead. For myself, I do not believe we can ever turn away from hisdeposition, however, because normative epistemics is always a considerable part of whatgets created by speech acts, and critics will therefore always find themselves obliged toaddress such productions when assessing the significance of discourse or a public artifact.

In this paper, I want to suggest that a particular reading of Kenneth Burke's theory ofconstitutional dialectic is an ideal model for chronicling the production of a normativeepistemic as well as understanding how it functions in the social sphere. My primary textwill be the Grammar? which, at one level, largely proposes that epistemic claims aresymbolically engineered through both constituting and dialectical activity.

Copyright 2000, National Communication Association

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As regards the constitutional dimension of the process, Burke says that it arises in twoforms: descriptive constitutions, which name things; and declared constitutions, which pro-claim responsibilities."' As we shall see, by virtue of their dialecticalcharacter, the two arealways present whenever symbolic action occurs. Burke says, "A constitution is asubstance-and, as such, it is a set of motives" (Grammar 342). Thus, when an infant screams"Mommy!" the intent exceeds naming (a descriptive constitution, or attribution of sub-stance) and includes an unspoken effort to proclaim a responsibility (a declared constitu-tion, or imposition of motive), whether that be "Pick me up!" "Bring me food!" "Turn onmy night light!" or a litany of other obligations which are summarily represented by theM-word. According to Burke, we regularly use this method, both through words andsigns, to motivate the actions of others. Thus I can say "I'm a doctor," or I can wear awhite coat and stethoscope. Either way, well-wishers will make a space for me next to thesick man's bed; for by appearing to be constituted as a particular thing (substance), I havecalled forth certain reactions in my audience (motives).^ My mentor, Trevor Melia,always represented this idea by saying, "to call a man a murderer is to propose ahanging." In Burke's own words, instead of calling a man " 'by nature a criminal,' yousay, 'he will end on the gallows' " (Rhetoric 13).

Burke attends to this process in the Grammar by "trying to show how certain key termsmight be used to 'call the plays' in any and all philosophies." (Grammar20l) He patientlyexamines the knowledge claims of philosophers and philosophical schools, to show howarguments for "what is" (not only the great philosophical question but also a descriptiveconstitution) arise from social and natural conditions which engender a certain "we must."Thereby, he repeatedly demonstrates that a philosopher's lived circumstance, described interms of a featured pentadic term or ratio, motivatesthe epistemic claims, or "perspectivaltruths," which the philosopher makes (Rhetoric 13).

This puts us at the heart of Burke's reasoning. Material conditions, which are bothnatural and social, generate an environment with which our human bodies must cope.v

We need (and ultimately obtain) equipment for living" because we are the symbol-usinganimal.™ By this interpretation, knowledge claims are equivalent to propaganda for abody of practices, a point Burke makes succinctly when he says, "men induce themselvesand others to act by devices that deduce, 'let us' from 'we must'... and 'we must' from 'itts'-for only by assertions as to how things are can we finally substantiate a judgment"(Grammar 337) And it is through this reasoning that Burke claims, "Men's conception ofmotive... is integrally related to their concept of substance" (Grammar 337).

We can transform this notion into a useful piece of worldly wisdom: when you want toknow what a person plans to do to you, or to some thing, or in some situation, listen to thenames he gives to you, or that thing, or that situation. The naming (as an attribution of"substance"™1) is a symbolically produced descriptive constitution, engineered for the sakeof a forthcoming doing ("motive") as a declared one.

"The well is dry, so we must drink from the sacred river," for example, employs both adescriptive and a declared constitution, using the former as a discursive device toestablish the latter. In it we find a representative, albeit abbreviated, typification of howhuman motives are instantiated, according to Kenneth Burke.

Discourse is thus engaged in a grand practice, an attempt to constitute an it is, fromwhich can be derived a we must. And because of the nature of the dialectical activity oflanguage, the process can move in the opposite direction as well. For example, when Iapproach a woman at a night club, she may say, "Beat it, loser!" Such an expression

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includes both sorts of constitution. Alternatively, she might expedite our interpersonalencounter, truncating to either "Loser!" or "Beat it!" In both cases the missing constitu-tion is implied by virtue of the one presented and this is why Burke says, " 'Substance'and 'motivation' are convertible terms" (Grammar376).

The condition which brings about this dialectical constituting is human existence,which Burke characterizes as a world-historical moment, "a kind of 'social realism' "(Burke Grammar 214) made from a recalcitrant earth that impinges on persons in amanner which compels them to maintain or abandon the worldly typifications andpractices which allow them to endure." These practices are grounded in a motivationalvocabulary which, already constituted by rhetoric, must either be maintained orabandoned through the same (Grammar 211-212). That rhetorical practice will manifestitself in the manner described herein.

At this point we can establish an initial diagram representing the nature of constitu-tions and the role they play in collective motives. In it we want to show that thedescriptive function, as an epistemic, is but another face of the declared function, as aninjunction. Here is the model I choose:

The model illustrates the two facets of a constitution, dialectic being represented bythe potential for the drum to roll, so that the other of the two types of constitution facesus. It also is capable of expressing the relationship between substance and motive, the twomore general terms Burke uses in characterizing the playfulness of experience, forexample when he says that "questions of motivation come to a head in questions ofsubstantiation and transubstantiation" (Grammar 320). It is from this relationship thatBurke also reflects on the dialectical interplay between act/scene, property/propriety,"and the like.

Burke elaborates the intricacies of the above relationship through a discussion of theAmerican Constitution. It is a choice worth pondering, for it links the methods of judicialprocess with epistemic processes in general, a linkage whose roots precede Plato, back tothe time of the Sophists; and a linkage to which Scott gives much attention in his call foran epistemic rhetoric.

By relying on the constitution as his representative anecdote, Kenneth Burke was ableto show how all knowledge claims were perspectives, and thereby lead us to consider hisGrammar in terms of how it enables such "ambiguous certainties" to function. In thatlight he reminds us that our national constitution is itself constructed from "ambiguous

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certainties" and therefore "contains some very highly generalized wishes, wishes sogeneralized that they can be 'adapted to' living conditions almost inconceivable to theFounding Fathers..." (Grammar 366) Consequently, it can, "be used as the basis ofreference, in courts of law, for the judgment of acts more widely or richly motivated"(Grammar 367). To do this, however, it must include a, "formulae for treating the state ofmutuality or contradiction among the ideals or wishes," (Grammar 374) because, "the lawthat frustrates one wish in the Constitution will, by the same token, gratify another"(Grammar 375). Consequently, "specific measures could not properly be called eitherConstitutional or Un-Constitutional. That is, they would not be wholly and unambigu-ously one or the other" (Grammar 379). In that light, the Constitution bends to ourculture's needs, so that we could say of a reasoning Court, "If it wishes to sanction themeasure, it can do so in the name of the appropriate wish. If it wishes to nullify themeasure, it can do so in the name of a different wish." (Grammar 379) Nevertheless theCourt's reasoning will not be framed in terms of cultural relativism—rather the Court willcontrive to articulate as if it straightens, rather than bends the document"1 It thus allowsadjustments of our collective reality in a manner which suggests that no worthy principlehas been surrendered, or compromised, or lost; rather that we have refined ourunderstanding of what we already knew. This then is the task of the Supreme Court:Taking the Constitution as descriptive (though it was originally declared) they apply it tocreate new declarations (in the form of rulings) which will thereafter be treated asdescriptive, the ground for future declarations. It is by this means that the Constitutiontransforms in time.

The Case law generated by the Court will subsequently play an important role in theCourt's reasoning, but not because it reduces the ambiguity for the justices. Rather "after afew decades when a sufficient number and variety of precedents had been amassed, theCourt could ground its 'mandatory' decisions in a corresponding choice of precedents,by selecting the particular kind of precedent that best substantiated, or rationalized, thefavored decision" (Grammar 379). Again Burke directs us away from a straight-line-of-facts model and invites us to consider the ambiguity inherent in Constitutional reckon-ing. He does not hold that a Court decision arises by necessity, a view that would makethe Court a mere computer "going through whatever sheer motions its design madepossible."3™ Rather, Burke suggests:

The total motivation of any act (including a Court's act of judgment) must be derived fromsubstance in its total scope, not merely in the restricted range laid down by the document-and itis from this wider area, rather than from the document, that the court must draw its motivationsfor arbitrating contradictions within the document. (Grammar376-377)

Let us, for example, imagine that Planned Parenthood v. Casey was heard fifty years ago,instead of recently in this nation's history. Is it possible that the Court would have ruleddifferently, and would they have been able to create an argument that was Constitution-ally sound in their reasoning? To deny this is to lose sight of the richness of theConstitution as a text, which not only perpetuates through cultural transformations, buteven enables those transformations. Burke's characterization of the Constitution allowsfor this kind of cultural situatedness, because it identifies those qualities in the document(and its situation) which allow it to bend, as there are bends to the social reality withinwhich it governs.

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If we were to diagram Burke's notion of the active Constitution, in a manner that givesconsideration to these subtleties, here is what we would find.

BURKE'S MODEL FOR CONSTITUTIONAL ENACTMENTS

COURT RULINGVARIOUS WISHES IN THE CONSTITUTIONwi W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8

CASE LAWCl C2 C3 IC4 C5 C6 C7 C8

ft Case law is privilegedin line with the forthcoming Courtruling. Constitutional statutes and

amendments are strategicallyassigned in consideration to theruling. Any grounding principlecan be strategically chosen and

tapered to a ruling. Through thisprocess a deliberation is articulate*

C9 CIO Cll C12

"CONSTITUTION-BENEATH-THE-CONSTITUTION"

^METAPHYSICAL! |N^XJRALISTIC| JMORAUSTT^J (RELIGIOUS^J

VARIANTS OF THE "IT IS" PRINCIPLE

In making a ruling the Court relies on ambiguous resources, which are available in theform of descriptive constitutions all the way down to the ground of existence. This is themanner that strategic ambiguity is exploited in terminologies so that, "A may becomenon-A" (Grammar xiii). At top is the ruling, which the Court makes. Beneath that thecollection of wishes which amount to the Constitution itself. Below that, severalcollections of case law (variants of "it is" established from previous variants of "let us")from which the Court may selectively style its reasoning, using them to orient theperspective taken at the levels above. And at the foundation, the various characteriza-tions of the world "as it is," the constitution-beneath-the constitution (Grammar 386-387)upon which the supported levels are established. And again we see a host of choices fromwhich this level might be selectively articulated.

The diagram should not be interpreted as an attempt to characterize rigid boundariesseparating aspects of the deliberative process. Rather, all levels subordinate to theforthcoming ruling exist within a field of possible descriptive and declared constitutions.The Court succeeds when it paints a clear boundary within the "wide range in the choiceof a circumference for the location of an act" (Grammar 84), for "in necessarilyconfronting such a range of choices, men are 'substantially' free" (Op. Cit). Thus theyproportionalize a ruling that gives selective consideration to all these regions, whilemaintaining in that ruling the impression of a non-ambiguous design. The entire processis strategic and selective-it is itself rhetorical and, for Burke, exemplifies the ever-presentambiguity in the articulation of substance, a feature that allows for creative, dialecticalmaneuvers. This is why he claims in the Grammar's opening that "we rather consider itour task to study and clarify the resources of ambiguity" (Grammar xiii).

Since the Constitution was chosen as a representative anecdote, illustrating the generalprocess that occurs as a substance/motive dialectic we would be wrong to assume wehave sufficiently contemplated its significance by examining its role in judicial action.Therefore, let us consider a more everyday case, to see if we can map the generalprinciples of our representative anecdote upon it. I use a small child's speech in the

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example to illustrate how familiar the process Burke describes is to all of us who partakein language.

(1) "Mommy, I'm six years old today."(2) "Happy Birthday!"(3) "That's not all. You know what I mean."(4) The mother is silent.(5) "It means I can cross the street."(6) "Bobby, you're too young to cross the street."(7) "But you said little boys grow up and make decisions for themselves."(8) "I also said that until they do Mommy's have to make decisions for them."(9) "But God says, 'If you love somebody, set them free.'

(10) "No, he didn't. He said, 'Honor thy father and thy mother.' "(11) "But yesterday, when I cried, you said that six was a big boy and that big boys don't cry."(12) "I know."(13) "And big boys cross the street"(14) "But you didn't stop crying."(15) "Yes but I saw a big boy who fell off his bike and he cried."(16) "It doesn't matter, Bobby."(17) "But Mommmm!"(18) "No Bobby! You're not old enough to cross the street"

At (1) Bobby articulates a descriptive constitution (his age) as he seeks a declaredconstitution (street crossing privileges) which fulfills a "real life" need (his friend Billylives over there). The mother exploits his ambiguity at (2), and responds as if she infersthe declared constitution to be a request for a birthday greeting. He responds at (3),indicating that other declared constitutions are implicit in his original articulation. Themother tries to dodge what she knows is next, but Bobby pursues at (5) proclaiming thedeclared constitution. At this point we have two levels of reasoning: a rudimentarydescriptive constitution (his age) and a declared constitution (his right). The mother at (6)takes us to a constitution beneath Bobby's when she makes the moralistic claim that he istoo young. Bobby is wise to her, however, and he selects (7) in his favor one of thevarious promises that she has offered him in the past. She responds by choosing from thatlist another promise and giving it precedence (8). Bobby then (9) goes to a religiousconstitution-beneath-the-constitution-so he thinks, but the mother counters his claimand though the two are consubstantial in terms of the status of religion as an ultimatemotive, she manages to come up with a more effective descriptive constitution from theBible. Bobby realizes this and drops that line of argument. He now (11) moves tostatements made during a prior event (case law) when she formed a ruling which couldbe interpreted as meaning that he fulfills the moralistic criterion she has imposed. Sheattempts to evade that case law at (14), suggesting that his previous action (crying) takesprecedence over his agency (chronological age) and her own prior statements, indetermining what it means for him to be older. Bobby responds by challenging themetaphysical claim that "big boys don't cry" as a descriptive constitution (15), describinga situation (case law) in which one did. The mother refuses to consider that case. Bobbythen articulates the M-word as a descriptive substance that has historically granted himtremendous declarative power (17). Nevertheless the mother finalizes her ruling, express-ing only a descriptive constitution (level of maturity) because she realizes that her six-year-old son, who is still too young to cross the street, will be able to deduce the declaredconstitution (no street crossing). Similar conversations will arise, when he asks for hisdriver's license and the right to date.

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Thus, if we reflect upon Scott's proposal for a study of the relation between rhetoricalpractice and epistemic, we see through Burke that epistemic claims, as language events,are always ambiguous, and that this ambiguity is regularly exploited to change theperspective of an audience in a manner which allows them to believe that they have notabandoned their knowledge but refined it. Such changes in the audience's epistemicnorms are made for the sake of changes in the ways that they will act, and for this reasonepistemic (although it seems to be its own end) functions as an interpolative stage inmotivation. Moreover, such changes occur when the ambiguities of substance areexploited through a dialectical engagement with descriptive and declared constitutions,and the constitutions upon which they are founded.

It should be clear now that Burke's Grammar could also be titled A Critique of the Knownor perhaps, Assault on Plato. Both the moral and the intellectual character of rhetoric hassuffered a two thousand-year insult from the pen of one of its great tutors and practitio-ners. However, had Socrates attempted to use Kenneth Burke, rather than Gorgias andhis tribe, as his representative sophistical buffoon, the history of Western thought mightbe dramatically different. Where Socrates seeks the non-ambiguous truth of things,Burke characterizes the way we develop proportional and adequate names/relationswith things. Where Socrates grounds his truth in an ideal and transcendent realm, Burkegrounds his adequacy and proportionality in the world as people live it. Where Socratesdistinguishes his truth from opinion, through the law of non-contradiction, Burkeevidences his proportional adequacy in the representative anecdote which providesindividuals and communities with viable lives. And remember, Burke devotes almost200 pages of the Grammar to a demonstration of how the philosophies of our culture arephilosophies of our culture, based on the premise that, "any given philosophy is to beconsidered a casuistry, even a cultural situation extending over centuries is a 'case' andwould probably require a much different philosophical idiom as its temporizing calculusof motives than would be required in other cultural situations" (Grammar xi).

So far we have reflected upon this process as if it dealt strictly with matters of fact, ofthe relationship between assertions and epistemics. Anyone who has tried to teach asmall child arithmetic, however, will immediately recognize that there is a differencebetween knowing in the sense of being able to repeat what one hears with conviction, andknowing in the sense of having direct experience with the subject. In fact, the processdescribed above works well as a description of the relation between assertions andepistemics because it more fundamentally describes the reckoning process that we usefor sense making in all our experience. It is at this level that the Grammar moves to anontological project, and we begin to consider, beyond our capacity for retaining andmanipulating "true" assertions, the ongoing development of our very perspective,experience, and everyday action in the world. Thus if I see a small child running onto thestreet in front of a car, I do not go through a mental list of propositions regarding thevalue of youth over age, the nature of heroism, or even the sort of interpretation myfriends and students might make afterward. I either throw myself in front of the child or Ido not. Similarly, the largely hypothetical woman mentioned earlier in the bar-story didnot run through a list of my attributes before dismissing me. Nevertheless, neither heractions nor mine indicate that we acted "without thinking" or did not "know" what wewere doing. In such circumstances, and in fact at every moment of our day, assertivepropositions and epistemic judgments are "grounded in the substance supporting thatsubstance, in the nature of existence itself" (Grammar 387). That deep, organized and

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non-thetic level is existential but also dialectical which "one should always considerlikely, when a member of the stance family is involved" [Grammar 341),*™ and we willultimately face it in Burke's scholarship or stand sadly by as it is addressed in the work ofother theorists, for this deep seated reckoning is a form of persuasion in itself, and theground upon which rational deliberation rests.

To further demonstrate the significance of constitutional reckoning in Burke, I wouldlike to apply it as a model for assessing the moral character of conduct. Because Burkecreated the Grammar not only as a source for making judgments, but more importantly asa means of generally investigating the forces which bring about human action, this is anatural area of consideration. Burke himself says, "the field of the moral is, by definition,the field of action" (Grammar 136), so we can be sure that both his pentad and hisconstitutional dialectic are fundamental aspects of any characterization he would offerfor that realm. In judging the morality of another's actions, for example, I no doubtconsider where it occurred (scene), what tools were used in the doing (agency), the roleplayed by the doer (agent), the goal of the action (purpose), alongside what was done(act). Similarly, at the existential level, when I face a difficult and pressing decision, suchas the case of the child on the street above, my mind races through an assessment of thecircumstances, focusing upon some featured term or ratio, and I act. There is no rule thatby itself can govern such a decision, even if I wished for one. For Burke, the morality ofspecific acts is not established without some form of deliberation regarding the scene,agent, agency, and purpose as well. Even the attitude figures, if one wishes to get hishexad mixed up in this for, as he says: "Two men, performing the same motions side byside, might be said to be performing different acts, in proportion as they differed in theirattitudes toward their work" (Burke Grammar 276).

From this we should be able to see that Burke has implicitly developed a theory ofmorality. To discover it, all we need realize is that morality is a term subject to dialecticalrevisionism like all others. We would find the following.

MORAL REASONING AS A CONSTITUTIONAL ENACTMENT

| MORAL JUDGMENT 1HAMURABL LEVITICUS, etc.

W3 W4 W5 W6

LITERATURE AS EQUIPMENT FOR LIVIM

SI I S2 I S3 I S4 I S5 I S6 I S7 I S8 | S 9 I S10 I S l l I S12 I S I ? * 1

/^Certain elements(wishes as in wC"1

w2) of the code afe privileged in thejudgment. Literature as public

and private discourse (S1, S2...)is selected in making the'judgment.

Some aspect of the scene-behind-the—scene is featured in coming to the.-

judgment. Moraf judgment is thus<N proportionalized. A

"CONSTmmON-BENEATH-THE-CONS'mTJTION"

jNAITJRALISTncJ J M O R A U S T T C I JRELIGIOUS^

VARIANTS OF THE "IT IS" PRINCIPLE

Burke was not a political philosopher and only chose to discuss our Constitutionbecause he saw in its structure and enactment the representative anecdote for constitut-ing at large. Thus the model he uses to describe the proportionalization of Constitutionalreasoning can be effectively used to describe the proportionalization of any sort of

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enactment, including moral judgments. However, whereas, "there will be inevitableambiguities and inconsistencies among the terms for motives" (Burke Grammar xii).moral reasoning must also be situation-specific, and sensitive to its pursuit for adequacyrather than precision. Whereas dialectical terms "fall under the head of ethics and form"(A Rhetoric of Motives 185), the rightness or wrongness of an act will also be gauged by afree-thinking individual who sees his choice as moral. Nevertheless, because his actionhas both personal and public dimensions, it may very well give rise to a publicdeliberation and lead to an accusation of immorality brought against him. For those of uswho know what it means to be free, there is really no contradiction here. Moralreasoning is always a commitment and a risk for both individuals and collectives,grounded as it is in ambiguous constitutions (assertive and existential) down to, andincluding, the fundament of world-characterizing hypothesis.

The retort to this sort of argument is typically, "What about the Nazis?" The answer,for Burke, is that the most abominable gangs of thugs in history would not have beengangs without moral constitutions that bound them together in terms of the patterns oftheir acts. Nevertheless, he considered Nazi culture perverse for specific reasons,xiv and hegenerally held that certain moral constitutions would be more adequate than others. Just as heextols the Constitution in the Grammar while dismantling The Communist Manifesto therein (andThe German Ideology in the Rhetoric), so would he suggest we approach a moral constitution, interms of whether it is representative and adequate to the human condition.

Although he considers action to be an inherently moral phenomenon, Burke eschewsany absolute ground for moral reasoning, offering instead a characterization of how themoral reasoning of others emerges from the pronouncement of some scenic substance:God, Nature, Matter, etc. Burke's own warrant for mortality is not a universal scene,which is effectively an articulation of the past in the present—rather he grounds all moralreasoning in its adequacy as servant of its community. This is because, for Burke, allconstitutions are obligated to their future, even if they are instantiated by arguments thatground them in the past. They are world making, not God-made, otherwise "there couldbe no becoming, but only unending being" (Grammar 82). Implicit here is humanfreedom, as well as a genuine respect for cultural difference. And this is made possiblebecause "men are capable of but partial acts, acts that but partially represent themselvesand but partially conform to their scenes" [Grammar 83). Though many still mourn thedeath of the gods who once offered a ground for humanity's motivational vocabulary,others, like Burke, re-Joyce in the gods who are ahead of us as we go forth to fashion andunfashion, in the smithy of the soul, the undiscovered conscience of the human race.

NotesiScott, Robert L. "On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic." The Rhetoric of Western Thought. (Eds. James L. Golden,

Goodwin F. Berquist, William E. Coleman). 477-486.iiBurke, Kenneth. A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley: University Of California Press, 1969.iiiOf the two types, Burke says that the former is the scene "in which a human act takes place," (Grammar 388) while

the latter "constitution is itself an act." {Op. Cit.) For this paper, and for much of Burke, we can think of descriptiveconstitutions as substances and declared constitutions as motives, for he says, "A concern with substance is a concernwith the problems of constitutionality." (Grammar 338) Anyone who questions how constitutions yet relate to motivewhen Burke states here that they relate to substance should bear in mind Burke's claim that " 'Substance' and'motivation' are convertible terms," (Grammar 376) so that when we deal with the word constitution "we are dealingwith a word that has to do with matters of substance and motive." (Grammar 341)

ivThis is a truncated description of the character and effect of identification (A Rhetoric of Motives. New York: PrenticeHall, 1952), a term Burke uses to elaborate upon "the rhetoric of courtship between contrasted social classes," [Rhetoric123) and he attends in particular to issues such as clothing (agency), and behavior (act) as methods people use togenerate a sense of "who they are" and therefore "how they must be treated."

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vBurke says that people cope with "sheer brute materials of the world as it is," (Grammar 100) by developing a higher"order of action and idea." (Rhetoric 184) The higher order of action we call motive or declared constitution; the higherorder of idea we call substance or descriptive constitution. And whereas "The cultural accretions made possible by thelanguage motives become a 'second nature'" (Grammar 33) they will not only function as solutions but also problemsand, consequently, must also be considered for their part in the ongoing constitution of the social realm.

viBurke, Kenneth. "Literature as Equipment for Living." The Philosophy of Literary Form. Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 1967, 294.

viiBurke, Kenneth. "Definition of Man." Language as Symbolic Action. Berkeley: University of California Press,1966,3.

viiiI turn to a six year old and say, "What does it mean when I say, 'Kati? " She answers without a moment'shesitation, "Go to your room!"

ixFor Burke, the constitutional dialectic arises by virtue of the natural and social order circumstances that call it forth.In this regard, see Bentz, Valerie and Wade Kenny. "Body as World: Kenneth Burke's Answer to the PostmodernCharges Against Sociology." Theory and Society, XV, 1, March, 1997.

xFor example, when someone says, "Excuse me, that is my chair," they are asserting the being of property(ownership), but the real purpose is to obligate the listener to propriety. Expressed in terms of our two constitutions theexpression means both, "it's mine," and "Get up!"

xiExtending the metaphor, the document is always bent, straightening being the rationale that gives credibility to theprocess.

xiiBurke, Kenneth. "Mind, Body, and the Unconscious." Language as Symbolic Action. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1966, 64.

xiiiBurke lists existence among the essential terms of the "stance" family on page 21 of the Grammar. See Kenny,Wade. Dialectical Essence, Existence, and the Foundations of Pentadic Ontology. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Pittsburgh,1994.

xivBurke, Kenneth. "The Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle." The Philosophy of Literary Form. New York: Vintage Books,1957, 164-189.

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