A revolutionary approach to rhetoric that asks why audiences need persuading.

What is persuasion? For some, it is the ideal alternative to violence. For others, persuasion is simply a neutral instrumentality—a valued source of soft power. Both positions rest on a fundamental belief: persuasion is a power that resides in a speaker acting on an audience. Loving the World Appropriately asks a different, more fundamental, question: why does an audience need persuasion? In shifting our focus, James Kastely delivers a provocative new history of rhetoric and philosophy, one that describes rhetoric as more than a matter of effective communication and recasts persuasion as a philosophical concern central to notions of human subjectivity. Ultimately, Kastely insists, persuasion enables us to love the world appropriately.

"[Kastley's] excellent synthesis of the philosophies of such theorists as Leo Bersani, Anne Carson, and Sigmund Freud makes for an intellectually potent investigation of persuasion . . . . This rewards careful study." - Publisher's Weekly

"“In this timely, impressive text, Kastely provides a rigorous reconsideration of the definitions and meanings of persuasion and constructs a clear case for redefinition. . . . Relocated from rhetoricians to subjects, persuasion is redefined to mean an action and event in which subjectivity is transformed. In its efforts, persuasion justifies the practice of rhetoric and exists as a value that, Kastely writes, is a ‘core value for democracy.’ Persuasion, a value in itself, guides individuals’ growth in ‘loving the world appropriately.’”" - Choice