Robert Lee Scott was born in Fairbury, Nebraska on April 19, 1928. He received his BA from the University of Colorado in 1950, his MA from University of Nebraska in 1951, and his PhD. (SPEECH) from University of Illinois in 1955. He was an assistant professor of speech at the University of Houston from 1953-1957, and an associate professor from 1957-1964. He moved to the University of Minnesota as a Professor of Speech in 1964, where he remains today. He was editor of The Quarterly Journal of Speech from 1972 until 1974. He is a member of the Speech Communication Association. In 1981, he was the recipient of The Teaching Award of the College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota. Other awards Scott has received include: Winans-Wichelns Research Award (1970), Charles H. Woolbert Research Award (1981), Douglas-Ehninger Distinguished Scholar Award (1989), and Distinguished Scholar of Association Award (1992). His primary foci of study include criticism of contemporary public address and contemporary rhetorical theory.
In Methods of Rhetorical Criticism: A Twentieth Century Perspective Scott describes various perspectives of rhetorical criticism and applies those perspectives to speeches by and about politics and politicians. Scott is primarily interested in honesty and responsibility. Most of his books and articles deal with his perspective of these issues.
In The Speaker's Reader: Concepts in Communication, Scott argues that the speaker's role in influencing his audience is no more important than his testing his own abilities, knowledge, and beliefs. The speaker is telling his audience that what he has to say is worth understanding, believing, and acting upon. It is necessary for the speaker to believe what he is saying or he will not be successful in influencing the audience to his views. Scott identifies five nuclear concepts - form, substance, strategy, style, and tone. He does not prioritize these nuclear concepts, but identifies them as necessary for an understanding of rhetoric and successful presentation of ideas.
Scott argues against the role of rhetoric as primarily that of persuasion and views it as being the sharing of knowledge, an interaction between speaker and audience.
In 1967, he wrote "On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic" His essay was the first to define rhetoric in terms of episteme. In this article Scott is defining epistemic rhetoric is terms of tolerance, will and responsibility. It is interesting to note that Scott's was not attempting to define a new rhetoric. His original intention was to argue against professors of speech and communications who, attempting to defend and update classical rhetoric, undermined the importance of rhetoric. Since then epistemic rhetoric has taken on a life of its own and many theorists have used Scott's phrase as the base for their work. Even works that do not use the term are often discussions of epistemic rhetoric.
In 1976, he wrote "On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistmic: Ten Years Later." Here he reasserts the ethical character of rhetoric. He argues that "it is a fundamentally ethical dimension of one's thoughts and actions that rhetoric reveals." In this essay he attempts to answer three questions he says have come up most often in the time elapsed since 1967. They are: "Is there one way of knowing or many? What sort of knowing does rhetoric strive to achieve? Is rhetorical criticism vicious?"
His answer to the first question is "many." He defines a pluralistic view of rhetoric in keeping with the notion of episteme. He quotes Jean Piaget, "each discipline sooner or later has to work out its own epistemology." This idea is echoed in McKeon's idea of rhetoric as an architectonic art.
He answers the second question by first describing the social constructs of reality. The human traditions do not simply exist, but are lived. He argue that rhetoric is capable of clarifying these traditions and making choices possible as opposed to being enslaved by tradition. He also states that although epistemic can mean "knowing" or "understanding", he prefers understanding as applying to rhetoric. Scott argues, "What cannot be done away with in a community is commitment to the norms of that community. Commitment and rhetoric stand in a reciprocal relationship: commitment generates rhetoric and rhetoric generates commitment."
To the third question, Scott answers "No." He argues that as applied to rhetoric, relativism is "not an easy process promising dependable outcomes." Scott feels relativism as applied to community does not negate standards, but reinforces the standards of the community as they change and evolve.
His conclusion is that rhetoric may be the art of persuasion, but it is also a means to understand the human condition. This is his reaffirmation of his first article on epistemic rhetoric.
To summarize Scott's contribution to rhetoric, I would emphasize his commitment to knowledge, honesty and responsibility and, of course his coining the phrase "epistemic rhetoric."
Sources:
By Scott,
The Speaker's Reader: Concepts in Communication. Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman and Co., 1969
Methods of Rhetorical Criticism; A Twentieth-Century Perspective. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1980
"On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic". Central States Speech Journal 18 (1967): 9-17
"The Rhetoric of Confrontation". Quarterly Journal of Speech 55 (1969): 1-8
"On Not Defining 'Rhetoric'." Philosophy and Rhetoric 6 (1973): 81-86
"The Conservative Voice in Radical Rhetoric: A Common Approach to Division". Speech Monographs 40 (1973): 123-135
"On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic: Ten Years Later". Central States Speech Journal 27 (1976): 258-266
"Epistemic Rhetoric and Criticism: Where Barry Brummett Goes Wrong". Quarterly Journal of Speech 76 (1990)
"The Necessary Pluralism of Any Future History of Rhetoric". A Journal of Rhetorical Theory 12 (Fall Winter 1991): 195-209 (Abstract from ERIC database)
"Rhetoric is Epistemic: What Difference Does That Make". Defining the New Rhetorics. Ed. Theresa Enos and Stuart C. Brown. Newbury Park, California; London; New Delhi: Sage Publications, Inc. 1993