This investigation examines the symbols of both thought and language for the purpose of evaluating competing theories of rhetoric as epistemic. Emerging from the literature on rhetoric and knowing are assumptions about the nature and function of the human brain that are no longer tenable in light of the evidence from neuropsychology since the advent of microtechnology. To update the literature and correct the assumptive base of the past, this investigation presents a meta-theoretical framework for understanding the symbols of both thought and language in terms that are compatible with the state of the art in cognitive theory. From the history of epistemology, three perspectives toward the symbols of thought were isolated and traced to their correlates in the cognitive sciences. By isolating from this survey those characteristics that were found to be most neuropsychologically adequate, this investigation advanced a definition of "knowing," and a description of the cognitive symbol that were consonant with the most recent evidence from neuropsychology. Three prespectives toward the symbols of language were then examined and compared with the symbols of thought. By articulating the characteristics that were common to both thought and language, this investigation advanced a perspective from which the symbol itself could be viewed as inherently epistemic. With this perspective as a framework, the investigation assessed twelve competing theories of rhetoric as epistemic. Of the theories examined, most were found to advance claims about the nature of symbolic interaction that were at variance with the characteristics they imputed to the symbol itself. Only one theory developed a position that was based on an interactional perspective toward the symbol, and only that one made a viable claim to knowing. This investigation concluded that neither a theory of language, nor a theory of meaning has as yet been developed that can adequately address the interactional characteristics of the symbol itself. The metatheoretical framework advanced by this investigation presents guidelines for the development of a theory of meaning that would be compatible with the goals of George Herbert Mead, but not subject to the theoretical difficulties that were found to be inherent to his position.
