I thought Burke's analogy of metonymy to reductionism was an interesting one. I have always had a bit of trouble separating synedoche from metonymy...and metonymy from metaphor, for that matter. But, as Burke explains, each of these terms, though not, of course, exactly synonymous, participate in one another.

Metonymy may be treated as a special application of synedoche ... We might say that synedoche stresses a relationship or connectedness between two sides of an equation, a connectedness that, like a road, extends in either direction, from quantity to quality or from quality to quantity; but reduction [metonymy] follows along this road in only one direction, from quality to quantity. (509)

Burke argues that synendochic or "representative" logic is represented in "all theories of of political representation" (508) This insight, I think, is central to public rhetoric's hermenutic function; it is the traditional (and perhaps best) way of understanding the relationship between institutions and peoples under their governance. What is particularly useful about Burke's insight is the very notion that this is a perspective, that is, a particular way of thinking that has been selected, consciously or not. As with the Pentad, if another perspective (say a ironic one) was selected, it would necessarily change our ways of thinking about such relationships. However, Burke seems to think the synedochic relation between governance and peoples is always synedochic. What do you think?