Anacoenosis (AN-uh-sih-NO-sis or AN-uh-ko-uh-NO-sis, from
the Greek anakoinoun = to communicate) is one type
of so-called rhetorical questions: queries whose answers are
not in dispute. Like synchoresis, the device
engages an audience while maintaining tight control of where
the argument is going. Teachers employ it by punctuating
their lectures with one-right-answer questions, knowing that
anyone who offers a different answer will feel slow,
misguided, or disruptive. Gideon Burton (rhetoric.byu.edu)
cites an example from Isaiah: "And now, O inhabitants of
Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me
and my vineyard. What could I have done more to my vineyard,
that I have not done in it?" (5:3-4). In his funeral oration
in Julius Caesar, Mark Antony asks, "Did this in
Caesar seem ambitious?.... You all did see that on the
Lupercal / I thrice presented him a kingly crown, / Which he
did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?" (3.2.90, 95-97)."
Stuart
Gilbert, who calls this "the put-yourself-in-his-place
method," sees it operating in Crawford's questions. Crawford
wants buy-in, but he is opinionated, impatient, and drunk,
so he has no wish to entertain contrary opinions. Robert
Seidman agrees with Gilbert. So do I, up to a point, but
some of the editor's questions are perhaps better described
by the terms hypophora and erotesis.