This essay suggests that the perspective of philosophical Taoism may be a means of transforming everyday conversations into instances of contemplation where our ordinary encounters become sites for spiritual practice and mystical experience. A different kind of communicating ability is explored through the awareness of certain principles of philosophical Taoism during the course of our...
Critical literature has largely ignored the element of purpose in Kenneth Burke's dramatistic pentad, along with its attendant philosophy of mysticism. Chiara Lubich's 1977 Templeton Prize Acceptance Speech presents rhetorical critics with a valuable opportunity to observe in practice the features of a rhetoric of purpose, as Burke has disseminated them. In fact, analysis of Lubich's speech...