Rhetoric and Re-Thinking: Rhetorical challenges to the question "Can a Machine Think?"

This essay explores the possibility of rethinking the question of artificial intelligence as a rhetorical system by interrogating the meaning and nature of the question, Can a machine think?. In doing so, I examine the ways in which intentional rhetorical acts have been taken as prima facia evidence of consciousness, intelligence and intentionally within the framework of AI. Models ranging from Alan Turning's Turing Test, to John Searle's Chinese Room argument, all ground evidence for artificial intelligence in the nature of primarily rhetorical acts (e.g., the ability to persuade an observer of linguistic fluency), but none examines the fundamentally rhetorical nature of the act. Departing from traditional notions embedded in philosophy of mind, I put forth several new avenues for exploration, drawing on the relationships between rhetoric and ontology, intentionality, and contingency.