Walter Carlton (1978) has suggested that the most prominent characteristic of contemporary rhetorical theory is its attempt to bring into focus the relationship between knowledge and discourse. The concern with establishing the epistemic status of discourse is not, however, limited to rhetoric. Similar questions dominate much contemporary theorizing in literary criticism and philosophy. At stake in all three disciplines is nothing less than the potential redefinition of the goals, methods, scope, and validity of these humanistic enterprises. The last 30 years have witnessed a number of efforts to both revive and define the discipline of rhetoric, to create, in effect, a new rhetoric. The proponents of the new rhetoric attempt either to characterize their discipline by opposing it to classical rhetoric or to clarify its nature, scope, and goals by investigating its epistemic status. Studies in the historical relationship between rhetoric and philosophy, and the nature of philosophical argument--in addition to contemporary strategies--can bring together the new rhetoric, philosophy, literary criticism, linguistics, and other disciplines in a revitalizing, interdisciplinary approach to the study of the nature of language. (CRH)