19 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2019
    1. owerful instrument of error and deceit,

      Weak defense much?

    2. yet the complex collective idea which every one thinks on or intends by that name, is apparently very different in men using the same language.

      This sounds like Lanham's strong defense of rhetoric, the idea that meaning is communally negotiated and anchored to socio/political/cultural contexts. Although here Locke is not happy about that.

  2. Jan 2019
    1. StrongDefenseofrhetoricposthumousl

      Lanham says, "The Strong Defense assumes that truth is determined by social dramas, some more formal than others but all man-made. Rhetoric in such a world is not ornamental but determinative, essentially creative" (156). If that defense is not just restricted to "man-made" social dramas but cultural dramas, to dramas rooted in a particular historical and cultural context (joining Rickert's sense of rhetorics), then it can also be opened up to material forces beyond the human.

    2. Semantic contentfulness is not achieved through the thoughtsor performances of individual agents but rather through particular dis-cursive practice

      Is this the Strong Defense of rhetoric again? Meaning arrived at not through empiricism but a communal negotiation?

    1. Question

      My initial response to this title was to assume Muckelbauer's question was the same as Lanham's (the 'Q' question). Instead, he's tackling the "what is rhetoric?" question.

    2. "appearances" and to "seeming"

      Muckelbauer's language use and word choice here is similar to Lanham describing rhetoric as a cosmetic.

    3. return

      Unlike Lanham, Muckelbauer doesn't seem bothered by this sort of repetition. Dwelling on and returning to this question isn't "simple" repetition for him but achieves a more complex purpose.

    1. people working at Apple

      read: the executives and high-salary concept engineers "found that it engaged far more of the human personality than the highly ritualized and spiritualized competitive atmosphere at Pepsi" -- let's not forget that Pepsi and Apple are both hugely successful businesses that profit from low-wage labor; whether they're "second wave" or "third wave," the economic outcome is the same: a product consumed by millions of people. I take Lanham's point that the latter emphasizes form in relation to content and flexibility over rigidity, which (debatably) produces a better product (though I agree that a curriculum founded on these principles can produce a better student), but I question the utility in the corporate analogy here. What makes an Apple-flavored student superior to a Pepsi-flavored one? If we accept Lanham's metaphor, aren't both companies successful? Probably splitting more hairs here, but I'm always wary when we start using economic language to describe aspects of life not explicitly related to the market. To his credit Lanham prefaces this paragraph with a nod to not "sentimentalizing the life of a volatile corporation."

    2. determinative, essentially creative

      There's a weird tension here for me between the idea of rhetoric as "determinative, essentially creative." I'm perhaps inserting a reading that focuses too much on the similar-but-different word "determinate" rather than "determinative." I don't object to the creative aspect, but identifying something as "determinative" seems to suggest a kind of rigidity antithetical to the fluid, contextual nature of rhetoric that Lanham outlines. I might just be spitting hairs here, but it struck me as odd.

    3. paideia

      A paideia is similar in concept (though not identical to) to our idea of a curriculum or pedagogy; it's essentially a course of study that a Greek youth would begin at a young age and continue into their late teens. Interestingly, it is a holistic program, one that encompasses all areas of intellectual and physical pursuit. Quintilian's 12-volume Institutes of Oratory, referenced here, is a kind of instruction book for such a program. As Lanham notes, the goal here was to ultimately cultivate a virtuous, learned man that might participate productively in political life.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paideia

  3. Mar 2017
    1. There is no transcendental continuity to knowledge. in misty origini,, in ex-perience, or in the speaker. Knowledge is the function of a material discourse in a social order.

      Some possible connections to Lanham and his use of social drama.

    1. But an agreement on the reality or objective truth. And its starting point, t-1,tlbf \\ lyJ.STJ--j-use of terms, no less than an agreement about the in making this contribution, is an analysis of conception of reality and the vision of the world, those forms of reasoning which, though they are even though it may not be disputed, is not indis- indispensable in practice, have from the time of putable

      Some nice connections to Lanham and his "social dramas."

    1. ut for the analysis of the senses of "meaning" with which we are here chiefly concerned, it is desirable to begin with the relations of thoughts, words, and things as they are found in cases of reflective speech un-complicated by emotional, diplomatic, or other disturbances; and with regard to these, the indi-rectness of the relations between words and things is the feature which first deserves atten-tion.

      Is this Lanham's girl without makeup?

  4. Feb 2017
    1. a social aspect here as well, which is one of the ways that taste is rhetorical – it is a product of the dynamic relationship between the self and the world.

      A Lanham connection here.

    1. On the contrary, they arc by nature, as will perhaps appear afterwards, more friendly to truth than to falsehood, and more easily retained in the cause of virtue, than in that of vice.

      Virtuosity is some evidence of virtue, to recall Lanham.

  5. Jan 2017
    1. affairs

      It's interesting that rhetoric started as this practical system for ancient Greek society, but then comes Bloom and other people Lanham talks about whose interpretation of humanism, rhetoric and the university is super apolitical, with the humanities in the university separate from society.