Rhetoric CFPs & TOCs
Photo: Kristoffer Trolle (creative commons)
Monday, April 29, 2019
Blogora Classic: Reading Hardt and Negri's Multitude? March 25, 2005
March 25, 2005
Reading Hardt and Negri's Multitude?
The Political and Social Theory Reading Group at Texas A&M; is taking on Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Multitude this month. As part of our ongoing experimentation on the Blogora with new ways of discussing books, I will periodically post some comments and questions on Multitude, and I hope others will join in.
A full text of Paolo Virno's Grammar of the Multitude (by one of Negri's associates on the Italian far left) is available here.
I believe the work is of interest for rhetoricians for four reasons:
1. For better or for worse, Hardt and Negri are now the most widely-read Left theorists in the world, so understanding the sources and popularity of their influence is important for those studying the rhetoric of social movements.
2. Building on Potere operaio's concept of the "social" worker from the late 1960's, Hardt and Negri contend, persuasively I think, that contemporary capitalism enlists all of social life--especially communicative labor, the production of affects--in capitalist production and reproduction. The result is that, although the industrial working class remains important, the "multitude" as potential revolutionary subject is much larger in scope than in classical marxism.
3. Their work is an effort to replace previous philosophical foundations of Marxism with post-structuralism--Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari replace Hegel. Here, I believe, is where they go wrong: Hegel was essential to Marx's thought, especially his Logic, and any effort to de-Hegelianize Marx ends up rejecting Marxism itself.
4. And, to invoke the ongoing theme of my own writing, Hardt and Negri continue to disappoint by undertheorizing persuasion.
1. For better or for worse, Hardt and Negri are now the most widely-read Left theorists in the world, so understanding the sources and popularity of their influence is important for those studying the rhetoric of social movements.
2. Building on Potere operaio's concept of the "social" worker from the late 1960's, Hardt and Negri contend, persuasively I think, that contemporary capitalism enlists all of social life--especially communicative labor, the production of affects--in capitalist production and reproduction. The result is that, although the industrial working class remains important, the "multitude" as potential revolutionary subject is much larger in scope than in classical marxism.
3. Their work is an effort to replace previous philosophical foundations of Marxism with post-structuralism--Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari replace Hegel. Here, I believe, is where they go wrong: Hegel was essential to Marx's thought, especially his Logic, and any effort to de-Hegelianize Marx ends up rejecting Marxism itself.
4. And, to invoke the ongoing theme of my own writing, Hardt and Negri continue to disappoint by undertheorizing persuasion.
Posted by jim at March 25, 2005 10:22 PM
Comments
I haven't finished the book yet, and while I have some problems with their arguments in general, I should add to Jim's "why this is of interest" that they offer an interesting account of publics--or, what they call the multitude. My question, as always, is "is this 'democracy'"? Even by their own definition? ("government for all by all") If their best example of the multitude in action is the WTO protests--admittedly an inspiring event of multiple interest groups sharing common ground--was that "democracy"? Did those protest groups get into the WTO and did they get to voice their opinion to decision makers? Did they get to participate as decision makers themselves? Even if we say that they reached the general public with their message, did that general public have any power to act on their message??? I think not. If there is no opportunity to make decisions within the Empire, then how can the Multitude be the answer? Isn't it always about power afterall? I think that their "Empire" represents the classical definition of corruption--it enforces law and order, but is subject to none itself--how do we stop corruption? Historically, hasn't the answer been revolution, not working within the corrupt empire?
Like I said, I haven't finished the book yet, but these are my nagging questions about 2/3s through.
Posted by: jen m at March 26, 2005 10:41 AM
I haven't even started _Multitude_ (since _Empire_ makes me want to toss the book across the room; "new barbarism" my arse!), but your comments about the de-Hegelizing of Marxism are very apt. To combat that move we can enlist Zizek, and should, as the newer and emerging voices in rhetorical studies are very busy zapping mediation . . . Social movement theory can continue to de-Hegelize rhetoric only at the expense of rhetoric (though, I admit I do very much admire the efforts of Ron Greene and others to create visions of rhetoric without dialectics; I simply fear that rhetoric, which I still contend is a logic and phenomenon of mediation, evaporates).
Posted by: Josh Gunn at March 26, 2005 12:29 PM
I like that, Josh: rhetoric as a logic and phenomenon of mediation. Oh, hell, do I finally have to take Zizek seriously (insert smiley face here)?
Posted by: jim at March 26, 2005 11:25 PM
I think, Jen, that H/N would say that all power generates its own resistance, and that the more globalized the power is, the more globalized the possibility of resistance is.
The WTO protests in Seattle might have been exciting to a lot of people, but I'm not sure one can stake revolutionary possibilities on that one action, and there have been mighty few since then.
I believe that we need to be able to "toggle" back and forth from actions by the multitude to more conventional political acts (increasing foreign aid, a la Jeffrey Sachs' new book, promoting the rule of law and fighting torture, making the Bush Administration take the Bill of Rights seriously). It's not a question of either/or (as a certain kind of American radical continues to think).
Posted by: jim at March 26, 2005 11:29 PM
Yes, I agree that theirs is a concept of resistance, which seems to be Foucauldian for them. But, what is resistance to the corruption of Empire? I'm re-reading William Freehling's Road to Disunion right now for my grad seminar and H&N;'s resistance seems an awful lot like slave resistance as F. describes it--when the terror of the despot is so complete both psychologically and physically (H&N;'s biopower) all the oppressed can do is find ways to "bother" The Master. True resistance is futile because the costs are too great and often unthinkable because the conditioning is so complete. Resistance may slow down the wheels of the machine, but does it stop the machine? Does resistance result in freedom? And, when the wheels of the machine are so odious, what would Mario Savio have us do? Throw our bodies against the gears and the levers until the machine breaks. Or, until the machine is accountable to the wishes of the multitude. And, that is the rub for me. How can we make the corrupt, despotic Empire accountable to the multitude? Where is our seat at the table? (and, damn could I use more clichés??)
I'm proud to be an American radical: good company I'm in! But, I'm just asking for what we've been promised: Democracy. I suppose democracy is radical afterall, esp. since we're so far from it now. If H&N; are right about the Empire, then we really have moved so far away from what could be a democratic society, that it is once again a radical, revolutionary struggle.
Posted by: jen m at March 27, 2005 11:19 AM
Monday, April 22, 2019
Blogora Classic: Leopardi, "La Ginestra" March 20, 2005
March 20, 2005
Leopardi, "La Ginestra"
From my spring break reading, a lovely poem by Leopardi--the basis of a common, secular political ethic:
La Ginestra O Il Fiore del Deserto (Broom Or The Flower of the Desert) (tr. Eamon Grennan)
[conclusion]
[Nature]: She's the one he calls the enemy,
And believing the human family
Leagued to oppose her, as in truth it is
And has been from the start, he sees
As allies all men, embraces all
With unfeigned love, giving and expecting
Prompt assistance, useful aid
In the many hazards and lasting hurts
Of the common struggle [Della guerra comune]. And he believes
It sheer madness
To arm your hand against another,
Lay snares or stumbling blocks for your neighbor,
As mad as, in a state of siege--
Surrounded by enemies, the assault at its height--
To forget the foe and in blind rage
Turn your force upon your friends,
Smite with the sword, sow havoc and panic
Amongst those fighting on your own side.
When ideas such as these are clear,
As once they were, to the common people,
And when the terror that first forged
For human beings the social bond
Against the savagery of nature
Shall, in part, be again restored
By a true grasp of things as they are, then
Justice and mercy
And an open, honest civil life
Will no longer take root in those swollen fables
On which our stolid common morals
Are mostly grounded, and where they stand
As steady as anything built on sand.
And believing the human family
Leagued to oppose her, as in truth it is
And has been from the start, he sees
As allies all men, embraces all
With unfeigned love, giving and expecting
Prompt assistance, useful aid
In the many hazards and lasting hurts
Of the common struggle [Della guerra comune]. And he believes
It sheer madness
To arm your hand against another,
Lay snares or stumbling blocks for your neighbor,
As mad as, in a state of siege--
Surrounded by enemies, the assault at its height--
To forget the foe and in blind rage
Turn your force upon your friends,
Smite with the sword, sow havoc and panic
Amongst those fighting on your own side.
When ideas such as these are clear,
As once they were, to the common people,
And when the terror that first forged
For human beings the social bond
Against the savagery of nature
Shall, in part, be again restored
By a true grasp of things as they are, then
Justice and mercy
And an open, honest civil life
Will no longer take root in those swollen fables
On which our stolid common morals
Are mostly grounded, and where they stand
As steady as anything built on sand.
Posted by jim at March 20, 2005 01:32 PM
Blogora Classic: Aune on Hermeneutics, March 19, 2005
March 19, 2005
Rhetorical Concepts IV: Hermeneutics
I. Meaning of "hermeneutics":
A. Greek word "hermeneia"=
1. Interpretation by "speech" itself, since language interprets what is in a person's mind.
2. Translation from an unintelligible language into an intelligible one (e.g. the hermeneia of tongues in I Cor. 12:10)
3. Interpretation by commentary and explanation.
4. Note the connection with the god Hermes.
B. Issues:
1. Does "original intent" matter? Or the "significance" to readers in future contexts? How creative may the interpreter be?
2. What about texts with alleged divine AND human authorship? Is there a deeper principle for framing interpretation, e.g. Luther's distinction between identifying the "law" and the "gospel" in every biblical text?
3. Does every act of human communication involve, to a greater or lesser degree, the "hermeneutic" problem?
4. The hermeneutic circle? (Schleiermacher, 19th c. German theologian, taught that in order to interpret part of a text one must understand the whole text, and vice versa.)
C. Current debates:
1. E.D. Hirsch: "meaning" and "significance" must be distinguished in textual interpretation; Hirsch famously said "I do not wish to be part of an enterprise in which it is impossible to be wrong," and so one can, as part of literary study, reconstruct through historical evidence the author's "meaning" as "intention."
2. H-G. Gadamer: interpretation is a "fusion of horizons" between text and interpreter--the reader "goes native" in the text.
3. Derrida: texts are profoundly unstable entities in which the authorial intention is often subverted by choice of figures or examples.
4. In US constitutional law, there is an ongoing struggle between those who rely on original intent, text (plain meaning), and institutional structure to construe the constitutional text, and those who treat the constitution as an "evolving" entity, more like the common law itself--adapting to new circumstances through creative application by judges. On these issues, see especially Philip Bobbitt, Constitutional Fate.
II. The Jewish tradition:
A. Distinction between guide to action (halakhah, the "way" or "path"), which is seldom revisable or adaptable to new circumstances; and the actual biblical narratives, which were interpreted very freely: midrash (creative interpretation, for preaching purposes).
B. Example: Numbers 25: 6-13. The men are busy whoring with the Moabite women. and the women entice the Israelites to worship Baal-peor, their false god. ."One of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman over to his companions, in the sight of Moses and of the whole Israelite community who were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Pinchas [the name means "Nubian," or "Negro," interestingly enough], son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, saw this, he left the assembly and, taking a spear in hand, he followed the Israelite into the chamber and stabbed both of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly. Then the plague against the Israelites was checked. . . . Hashem spoke to Moses saying, 'Pinchas, the son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his passion for me, so that I did not wipe out the Israelite people in my passion. Say, therefore, 'I grant him my pact of friendship. It shall be for him and his descendants after him a pact of priesthood for all time, because he took impassioned action for Hashem, thus making expiation for the Israelites." One rabbinic commentator, troubled by the brutality of the passage, claims that Pinchas knew that this man and woman were "beshert," that is, soul mates for all eternity, and killed them immediately that they might be together forever.
1. E.D. Hirsch: "meaning" and "significance" must be distinguished in textual interpretation; Hirsch famously said "I do not wish to be part of an enterprise in which it is impossible to be wrong," and so one can, as part of literary study, reconstruct through historical evidence the author's "meaning" as "intention."
2. H-G. Gadamer: interpretation is a "fusion of horizons" between text and interpreter--the reader "goes native" in the text.
3. Derrida: texts are profoundly unstable entities in which the authorial intention is often subverted by choice of figures or examples.
4. In US constitutional law, there is an ongoing struggle between those who rely on original intent, text (plain meaning), and institutional structure to construe the constitutional text, and those who treat the constitution as an "evolving" entity, more like the common law itself--adapting to new circumstances through creative application by judges. On these issues, see especially Philip Bobbitt, Constitutional Fate.
II. The Jewish tradition:
A. Distinction between guide to action (halakhah, the "way" or "path"), which is seldom revisable or adaptable to new circumstances; and the actual biblical narratives, which were interpreted very freely: midrash (creative interpretation, for preaching purposes).
B. Example: Numbers 25: 6-13. The men are busy whoring with the Moabite women. and the women entice the Israelites to worship Baal-peor, their false god. ."One of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman over to his companions, in the sight of Moses and of the whole Israelite community who were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Pinchas [the name means "Nubian," or "Negro," interestingly enough], son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, saw this, he left the assembly and, taking a spear in hand, he followed the Israelite into the chamber and stabbed both of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly. Then the plague against the Israelites was checked. . . . Hashem spoke to Moses saying, 'Pinchas, the son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his passion for me, so that I did not wipe out the Israelite people in my passion. Say, therefore, 'I grant him my pact of friendship. It shall be for him and his descendants after him a pact of priesthood for all time, because he took impassioned action for Hashem, thus making expiation for the Israelites." One rabbinic commentator, troubled by the brutality of the passage, claims that Pinchas knew that this man and woman were "beshert," that is, soul mates for all eternity, and killed them immediately that they might be together forever.
III. Medieval Christian tradition:
A. Familiar couplet:
Littera gesta docet; quit credas allegoria;
moralis quid agas; quo tendas anagogia
B. Four senses; useful as a way of generating sermon ideas
1. Literal: Moses leading the people Israel through the Sea of Reeds
2. Allegorical: "Prophecies" the Christian notion of "baptism"
3. Moral: How has the congregation personally been led out of danger into salvation?
4. Anagogical or eschatological: This passage prefigures our live in Heaven, the "Promised Land." [In his Rhetoric of Motives, Kenneth Burke discusses the notion of "socio-anagogic" interpretation, in which a literary work is seen to symbolize the resolution of class conflicts.]
A. Familiar couplet:
Littera gesta docet; quit credas allegoria;
moralis quid agas; quo tendas anagogia
B. Four senses; useful as a way of generating sermon ideas
1. Literal: Moses leading the people Israel through the Sea of Reeds
2. Allegorical: "Prophecies" the Christian notion of "baptism"
3. Moral: How has the congregation personally been led out of danger into salvation?
4. Anagogical or eschatological: This passage prefigures our live in Heaven, the "Promised Land." [In his Rhetoric of Motives, Kenneth Burke discusses the notion of "socio-anagogic" interpretation, in which a literary work is seen to symbolize the resolution of class conflicts.]
IV. The Protestant Reformers:
A. Attacked excessive allegorical interpretation (although believed that events in the Hebrew Bible did prefigure the "New" Testament). (Anglicans were less troubled by allegorical interpretation, and elaborate speculations about the biblical text.)
B. Emphasized the "literal" and "moral" sense.
C. Puritans' attitude toward the literal and emphasis on the "plain style" affected their preaching and, later, the attitude of many early Americans toward the notion of a written constitution, which they wanted free from the interpretive chicanery of lawyers (who were viewed much like the overly ingenious Catholic and Anglican preachers).
D. We are thus, as Sanford Levinson points out in Constitutional Faith, fighting out a battle between "Catholic" and "Protestant" interpretation.
A. Attacked excessive allegorical interpretation (although believed that events in the Hebrew Bible did prefigure the "New" Testament). (Anglicans were less troubled by allegorical interpretation, and elaborate speculations about the biblical text.)
B. Emphasized the "literal" and "moral" sense.
C. Puritans' attitude toward the literal and emphasis on the "plain style" affected their preaching and, later, the attitude of many early Americans toward the notion of a written constitution, which they wanted free from the interpretive chicanery of lawyers (who were viewed much like the overly ingenious Catholic and Anglican preachers).
D. We are thus, as Sanford Levinson points out in Constitutional Faith, fighting out a battle between "Catholic" and "Protestant" interpretation.
Posted by jim at March 19, 2005 05:28 PM
Monday, April 15, 2019
Monday, April 8, 2019
Blogora Classic: Aune and Gunn on Rhetorical Concepts II: Perelman/Olbrechts-Tyteca, March 01, 2005
March 01, 2005
Rhetorical Concepts II: Perelman/Olbrechts-Tyteca
A few weeks ago I suggested that the Blogora periodically introduce key concepts/theories in rhetorical studies. Here is an outline of some key aspects of Chaim Perelman/Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca's The New Rhetoric.
Chaim Perelman (1912-1984), professor at the University of Brussels; Olbrechts-Tyteca (1900-1987), research associate.
A. Method:
1. Rejection of logical positivism (truth=formal proof or empirical verification by scientific method) for leaving value choices in the realm of interests, passions, prejudices, and myths.
2. Rejection of an a priori scheme in favor of analysis of cases of successful argument.
3. Rhetoric and dialectic are a single whole for them: dialectic as the theory of techniques of argument, and rhetoric as a practical discipline indicating how to use them to persuade people. Definition: “the study of the discursive techniques allowing us to induce or to increase the mind’s adherence to the theses presented for its assent.”
4. Causes of the decline of rhetoric [note the implicit death-resurrection metaphor]
a. Ramism
b. “bourgeois” thought’s emphasis on “evidence” [i.e. inartistic proof], including both the personal evidence of salvation required by Protestantism and the “sensible evidence” of empiricism
B. Audience:
1. “the ensemble of those whom the speaker wishes to influence by his argumentation” ; note that this is a mental construct
2. Particular vs. universal audience: “those who are competent and reasonable.” The universal audience is “every reasonable being”; each speaker has a different conception of the universal audience, as do different cultures and time periods. Works as an inventional tool as well as a norm for differentiating good and bad arguments. [I would be inclined to redescribe this as the “reasonable person” test in the common law, or perhaps as the difference between Kantian Moralitaet and Hegelian Sittlichkeit]
3. Philosophy emerges out of the epideictic genre of oratory, which seeks to strengthen a consensus around certain values (20).
C. Where argumentation starts: with premises about the “real”:
1. facts (individual data) and
2. truths (broader principles, such as scientific, philosophical, or religious conceptions that connect facts).
3. presumptions (expectations of what is normal or likely), imposing the burden of proof on those who would dispute it; can be “common sense” or established formally (as in law).
D. Premises about “what is preferable”:
1. values: concrete and abstract. Defenders of the status quo tend to base arguments on concrete values (Edmund Burke: “the rights of Englishmen”; “Frats are contrary to the Aggie spirit”) and radicals tend to begin with abstract values (“liberty, equality, fraternity”).
2. value hierarchies (which is more important, liberty or equality?).
3. Loci (similar to Aristotle’s topoi): highly general preferences that can be used as guides to choice:
a. Locus of quantity: “Greatest good of the greatest number” arguments; “Protection of a small number of spotted owls is ridiculous compared to the number of people it would throw out of work.”
b. Locus of quality: Challenges strength of numbers: “The spotted owl’s ecological value is unique and irreplaceable. “
c. Locus of the irreparable (J. Robert Cox)
d. Locus of order (what is earlier is better than what comes later)
e. Locus of the existent (what is possible is better)
f. Locus of the person (important of autonomy, dignity, self-worth)
g. [I have added the locus of the “inevitable” in the analysis both of Marxism and of Third Wave arguments about globalization]
E. Selection of data and “presence”: the importance of engaging the imagination in argumentation (bringing before the eyes); can also work in reverse (helping us NOT see something). Establishing communion with the audience. (Figures of speech an essential part of creating a sense of presence/communion.)
1. Caesar’s bloody tunic as brandished by Antony
2. Photos of aborted fetuses or executed prisoners as "data" for a moral argument; do they help or hinder argument?
F. Techniques of association or liaison (linking premises and conclusion):
1. Quasi-logical, deductive arguments--closed or fundamentalist systems of thought tend to argue on the basic of quasi-logical deductions
a. establish an incompatibility in the opponent’s argument: “Hate is not a family value”
b. definition of terms
c. reciprocity and the rule of justice (treat like cases alike)
d. parts and wholes
e. probabilities
[f. I would add here the use of models in the social sciences, especially in economics: e.g. the supply-demand curve that “proves” that an increase in the minimum wage causes unemployment]
2. Arguments based on the structure of reality:
a. Liaisons of succession: causality, correlation, slippery slopes
b. Liaisons of coexistence: argument from authority
c. Symbolic liaisons: attack the flag=attack the US
3. Argument by:
a. Example: presupposes certain regularities of which the examples provide a concretization
b. Illustration: creates presence plus builds an inductive argument
4. Analogy and metaphor:
a. Mathematical proportion posits the equality of two relations (a/b=c/d), while in analogy we affirm that there is a similitude: a is to be as c is to d. a-b=the THEME of the analogy; c-d=the PHOROS. Phoros comes from a region different from the theme and better known than it. [Mind is to brain as software is to hardware. What does this analogy leave out? What does it help us see that previous analogies did not?]
b. Metaphor is a fusion of the domain of the theme with that of the phoros, a condensed analogy. Philosophy is always based on metaphors.
G. Techniques of dissociation:
1. Introduction of division into a concept the audience previously regarded as a single entity. “Genesis is a religious document, not a scientific document.”
2. Term I=appearance; Term II=underlying reality: this is the fundamental philosophic pair out of which the others proceed: rhetoric/dialectic, nomos/phusis, langue/parole, competence/performance.
H. Fullness of arguments and strength of arguments: each type of philosophy favors certain kinds of arguments and discounts others. Utilitarians view arguments from consequence alone as valid.
A. Method:
1. Rejection of logical positivism (truth=formal proof or empirical verification by scientific method) for leaving value choices in the realm of interests, passions, prejudices, and myths.
2. Rejection of an a priori scheme in favor of analysis of cases of successful argument.
3. Rhetoric and dialectic are a single whole for them: dialectic as the theory of techniques of argument, and rhetoric as a practical discipline indicating how to use them to persuade people. Definition: “the study of the discursive techniques allowing us to induce or to increase the mind’s adherence to the theses presented for its assent.”
4. Causes of the decline of rhetoric [note the implicit death-resurrection metaphor]
a. Ramism
b. “bourgeois” thought’s emphasis on “evidence” [i.e. inartistic proof], including both the personal evidence of salvation required by Protestantism and the “sensible evidence” of empiricism
B. Audience:
1. “the ensemble of those whom the speaker wishes to influence by his argumentation” ; note that this is a mental construct
2. Particular vs. universal audience: “those who are competent and reasonable.” The universal audience is “every reasonable being”; each speaker has a different conception of the universal audience, as do different cultures and time periods. Works as an inventional tool as well as a norm for differentiating good and bad arguments. [I would be inclined to redescribe this as the “reasonable person” test in the common law, or perhaps as the difference between Kantian Moralitaet and Hegelian Sittlichkeit]
3. Philosophy emerges out of the epideictic genre of oratory, which seeks to strengthen a consensus around certain values (20).
C. Where argumentation starts: with premises about the “real”:
1. facts (individual data) and
2. truths (broader principles, such as scientific, philosophical, or religious conceptions that connect facts).
3. presumptions (expectations of what is normal or likely), imposing the burden of proof on those who would dispute it; can be “common sense” or established formally (as in law).
D. Premises about “what is preferable”:
1. values: concrete and abstract. Defenders of the status quo tend to base arguments on concrete values (Edmund Burke: “the rights of Englishmen”; “Frats are contrary to the Aggie spirit”) and radicals tend to begin with abstract values (“liberty, equality, fraternity”).
2. value hierarchies (which is more important, liberty or equality?).
3. Loci (similar to Aristotle’s topoi): highly general preferences that can be used as guides to choice:
a. Locus of quantity: “Greatest good of the greatest number” arguments; “Protection of a small number of spotted owls is ridiculous compared to the number of people it would throw out of work.”
b. Locus of quality: Challenges strength of numbers: “The spotted owl’s ecological value is unique and irreplaceable. “
c. Locus of the irreparable (J. Robert Cox)
d. Locus of order (what is earlier is better than what comes later)
e. Locus of the existent (what is possible is better)
f. Locus of the person (important of autonomy, dignity, self-worth)
g. [I have added the locus of the “inevitable” in the analysis both of Marxism and of Third Wave arguments about globalization]
E. Selection of data and “presence”: the importance of engaging the imagination in argumentation (bringing before the eyes); can also work in reverse (helping us NOT see something). Establishing communion with the audience. (Figures of speech an essential part of creating a sense of presence/communion.)
1. Caesar’s bloody tunic as brandished by Antony
2. Photos of aborted fetuses or executed prisoners as "data" for a moral argument; do they help or hinder argument?
F. Techniques of association or liaison (linking premises and conclusion):
1. Quasi-logical, deductive arguments--closed or fundamentalist systems of thought tend to argue on the basic of quasi-logical deductions
a. establish an incompatibility in the opponent’s argument: “Hate is not a family value”
b. definition of terms
c. reciprocity and the rule of justice (treat like cases alike)
d. parts and wholes
e. probabilities
[f. I would add here the use of models in the social sciences, especially in economics: e.g. the supply-demand curve that “proves” that an increase in the minimum wage causes unemployment]
2. Arguments based on the structure of reality:
a. Liaisons of succession: causality, correlation, slippery slopes
b. Liaisons of coexistence: argument from authority
c. Symbolic liaisons: attack the flag=attack the US
3. Argument by:
a. Example: presupposes certain regularities of which the examples provide a concretization
b. Illustration: creates presence plus builds an inductive argument
4. Analogy and metaphor:
a. Mathematical proportion posits the equality of two relations (a/b=c/d), while in analogy we affirm that there is a similitude: a is to be as c is to d. a-b=the THEME of the analogy; c-d=the PHOROS. Phoros comes from a region different from the theme and better known than it. [Mind is to brain as software is to hardware. What does this analogy leave out? What does it help us see that previous analogies did not?]
b. Metaphor is a fusion of the domain of the theme with that of the phoros, a condensed analogy. Philosophy is always based on metaphors.
G. Techniques of dissociation:
1. Introduction of division into a concept the audience previously regarded as a single entity. “Genesis is a religious document, not a scientific document.”
2. Term I=appearance; Term II=underlying reality: this is the fundamental philosophic pair out of which the others proceed: rhetoric/dialectic, nomos/phusis, langue/parole, competence/performance.
H. Fullness of arguments and strength of arguments: each type of philosophy favors certain kinds of arguments and discounts others. Utilitarians view arguments from consequence alone as valid.
Posted by jim at March 1, 2005 09:04 PM
Comments
I was rethinking through the differences between P/OT and K. Burke and realized how complementary their work is. The differences touched on in our last class concerning the "experiential" focus of Burke as compared to the European "system building" and that model seems to lay out quite nicely over Burke and P/OT. The uniqueness of P/OT to some of the other European systems is its fluidity (or "relativism" for those lovers of extremism).
For me that seems where Burke and P/OT are complementary. Burke's terministic screens mights subsume some of the systems built by the linguists and other Euro-system builders, but P/OT's heavy dependence on audience and consensus make it harder to fit into a terministic screen. Rather, it adopts terministic screens according to the audience.
Posted by: Joshua at March 1, 2005 10:59 PM
Very perceptive comment, Joshua. I think you're right about P/OT's flexibility. A Burkeian or more radical poststructuralist would contend, in response, that even a "pluralist" view is still a "screen," even though it is a "thinner" one as opposed to a "thick" one.
Posted by: jim at March 2, 2005 09:07 PM
Yes, you are right, and I would actually fall into that camp of folks who would say it is impossible to not see through a "screen." Though I'm optimistic that any "screen" can be altered or changed (very few people, it seems, see everything in the same way throughout their lifetime).
A visual metaphor that comes to mind for P/OT is the old View-Master picture reel. The theory itself would be the mechnanism that would "turn the pictures" and the pictures themselves would be the different "screens" adopted toward a given audience. Something like looking through screens-within-a-screen. The most radical poststructuralists, I think, would still complain about the "fixedness" of the P/OT model as the "view-master" but for the more pragmatic theorist, it seems to offer the most number of "screens" without having to constantly deconstruct your own apparatus for critical analysis.
To me, it seems a good balance between the overzealousness of complete objectivity and complete subjectivity because it allows for change without making change the only viable achievement.
Posted by: Joshua at March 3, 2005 08:47 AM
Monday, April 1, 2019
Blogora Classic: Aune on Executing Juveniles, March 01, 2005
March 01, 2005
Executing Juveniles
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court now forbids the execution of juveniles: Roper v. Simmons
Scalia's dissent is stinging, and, I fear, correct. Let me explain. I am opposed to the death penalty, largely on the grounds that European nations are: it is barbaric, discriminatory, and does not deter crime. Executing juveniles and the retarded is particularly barbaric. But my value position does not therefore automatically translate into support for the majority in Roper v. Simmons. Why?
1. We live in a democratic republic. We "left-liberals" who populate rhetoric programs support greater citizen participation in public issues.
2. The Supreme Court is a "counter-majoritarian" institution. The more "democratic" we are, the more we should trust legislatures, the Congress, and other deliberative (not judicial) bodies to make decisions. Some leftists, notably Mark Tushnet (Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts)contend that we should eliminate judicial review in the US entirely, opting for legislative supremacy as in the UK and most of the rest of Europe. I am a centrist on these questions, defending judicial review when it targets discriminatory legislation that blocks minorities from representation: racial segregation, state-sponsored prayer, and sodomy laws are examples of laws made on the basis of systematic blockage of minority representation (my view is best described by John Hart Ely in Democracy and Distrust).
3. The Constitution is intended to be a clear document for "citizens," not lawyers. While common law reasoning allows for judicial innovation, constitutional law is best interpreted in as simple and a direct a way as possible--otherwise it will not be a "teachable" constitution, but rather a constitution for lawyers alone. The Constitution clearly permits the death penalty. No amount of casuistric stretching can create an interpretation of "cruel and unusual" that would forbid executions, short of amending the constitution itself.
4. While activists might find it more efficient and useful to target the appellate courts for making "legislation," the more we rely on the courts the more we disempower legislatures and Congress. The great paradox of US politics is that during the New Deal the Left defended legislative supremacy, while the Right defended judicial "activism." Now the camps are reversed (although if the American public ever gets in an economically redistributive mood again, look for the Right to discover the virtues of judicial activism).
Categories: Legal Rhetoric
Posted by jim at 07:43 PM | Comments (0)
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