76 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2019
    1. Like Thomas Sheridan, Gilbert Austin was an Irishman and a graduate of Trinity College,

    2. Austin dis­trusted the natural, conversational approach to public speaking.

      It seems like Austin wants to turn rhetoric into more of a "science."

    1. ers, whether this is not the generally received opi

      As a reader, its interesting to see Sheridan refer to the audience as "hearers." What does this say about his assumptions of his audience? Or was this choice intentional, to show that those who are hearing-capable assume that language is strictly verbal and sound based?

    2. great man

      lol. This guy really loves locke.

    3. which being used by all mankind is of all others, the subject which mankind in general, think themselves best acquainted with,

      We think we are more "acquainted" with language than other creatures and so having language is a marker of what makes us human. Obviously this makes clear cuts around what language is and what the human is.

    4. Learned vanity, which exceeds that of every other kind, still takes up arms against any thing that is offered as new

      Thinking we know everything also makes us think there's nothing left to learn.

      This has really important consequences in terms of post-humanist thinking! If we presume that there is a true definition of anything, we are allowing experience, culture, language to limit us. It is better to presume an every shifting definition of the human that responds to the situation at hand. Starting a discussion of the human with the idea that we all obviously know what a human is, is extremely limiting.

    5. Learned vanity

      I'm assuming this is referring to having vanity about how educated you are and what you "know."

    6. the learned think they know, or have it in their power to know every thing that it is possible for the human mind to be acquainted with.

      I think we feel this way now with the internet. But its really just a certain kind of knowing and a certain kind of knowledge. It also depends on how you choose to approach that knowledge.

    7. civilized countries,

      Yikes

    8. And as this is '� �Lw,..., _chiefly done by an agreement in the use of certain � qN-'­signs, it is no mailer what those signs are; there -�� being little or no naturnl connection, beLween any ' _ v verbal signs and our ideas, which is sufficiently \� evinced, by the variety of languages that are spo• ken, in the different countries of the world.

      Locke would agree, yeah?

    9. false Taste

      What is false taste? Does this mean your taste isn't attuned to the collective, or that you are literally falsifying what you believe to be aesthetically pleasing?

    10. British Education: Or, The Source of tire Disorders of Great Britain. Being an Es.my towards proving, that the Immorality, /g,ummce, am/ false Tuste, which so generally pre1•c1il, are the IICII· 11ml and 11eces.1·w}' Co11seque11ces of the present ,lefective System of Educatio11. \Vith a,1 at1e111p1 to shew, tlwt a revil'al of the Art of Speaki11g, and the S11tdy of Our 011111 Language, might crmtrilmte, in a great me,1.mre, to the Cure of those El'ils.

      ........is this paragraph really a title.........

    1. Don't wring such an admission from them, she advises, or make them feel that they are submitting by agreeing with you, and you will move them to truth more quickly. Aslell

      Accommodate, do not make the audience feel submissive...it seems unspoken that the audience for the woman rhetor is men.

    2. For Aslell, women's rheloric should focus on the art of conversation, us both Sutherland and Renaissance scholar Jane Donawerth have argued. This is women's proper rhetori­cal sphere, different from but in no way inferior to the public sphere in which men use oratory.

      Again, kind of taking a sexist notion (women should remain in the private sphere) and twisting it around into an argument that could empower women (women are actually better than men at practicing rhetoric within the private sphere, an area that is not inferior to the public sphere).

    3. If one's content is logical, it will be easy to remember.

      This is a weird argument to me. Is the assumption that if its logical, then its "true?" And there is one "truth" that we know innately?

    4. lso the proper virtuous behavior in the rhetor's life 10 inspire confi­dence.

      So the Christian's virtuous reputation acts as its own form of rhetoric to convince the audience of the rhetor's truthfulness.

    5. is view of Christianity emphasized that humans had inborn conceptions of the true and the good that naturally attracted them to these qualities when they were en­countered in the world.

      Our "taste" in what is good is innately human.

    6. She clearly presented a vision of women as a group who suffered because of their gender and who needed to band together to help each other.

      Ok fine, I guess that's kind of feminist.

    7. The tillc is somewlmt misleading given that Astcll, a politici1l conservative, never questioned patriarchal hierarchies, whether in the Church, lhe state, or the family.

      Agreed...we tend to play fast and loose in labelling people, things, brands etc feminist when they really just involve women.

    8. e to serve God whatever their circumstances and lo support themselves through teaching if that hecame necessary.

      Astell is in a way working to expand how people defined the woman--maybe she can be more than just a wife or maybe she can be defined by more than her dowry or family wealth. Still, she has to work within the confines of the time, framing the school as a way to make the woman a better wife and mother or a better servant of god rather than something beyond those things.

    1. Finally, Vico proposes a curriculum that concludes with the study of eloquence, a study which he secs as interdisciplinary and (in modern terms) meta-theoretical, a way to link the other disciplines and bring them to bear on important public issues.

      This calls to mind Muckelbauer's discussion of rhetoric's "promiscuity." However Muckelbauer would probably not like the idea of calling rhetoric "interdisciplinary," because that would promote the idea that there are specific, stable "fields" that we may choose to combine with the "field" of rhetoric.

    2. Such a method oppresses rather than inspires students. Thus, if the educational system accepts Cartesianism, it will unduly privilege naturnl science and mathematics while devaluing other kinds of knowledge, and it will do so to the detriment of society

      cc: Yagelski

    3. herefore, the university's curricular philosophy or "study methods" will have a profound ef­fect on both the individual and society.

      Robert Yagelski basically makes this argument, citing Cartesian dualism as a major factor in why we're destroying our planet. In ignoring the interconnectivity of all things, we fail to understand the myriad effects our actions have on the (natural) world around us.

    4. in his own time he was regarded as a reactionary because of his opposition to Descartes.

      man, people really loved that guy huh?

    1. When the critic has no delicacy, he judges with­out any distinction, and is only affected by the grosser and more palpable qualities of the object: The finer touches pass unnoticed and disre­garded.

      Anyone can see a beautiful film and agree that it is beautiful because of their internal response to it; only the critic with delicacy and understanding can be trusted to explain what particular elements of the film make it beautiful

    2. If the work be addressed to persons of a different age or nation, he makes no allowance for their peculiar views and prejudices; but, full of the manners of his � own age and country, rashly condemns what seemed admirable in the eyes of those for whom _., alone the discourse was calculated.

      So, taste becomes a way to understand what has the most mass appeal, and so helps us to understand the best way to appeal to a particular audience?

    3. to reduce every expression to geometricaltruth and exactness,

      Per my last comment: is being reductive and ignoring nuance the perversion?

    4. abuse or perversion of terms from their na1ura

      Some violent wording here. What does Hume mean here by "natural?" Does he actually believe that anything is natural? How can we pervert anything when knowledge is constructed by sense data and thus not based in any objective truth? Am I totally misunderstanding Hume?

    5. Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplatesthem;

      Right--beauty is about a relationship to a thing or an opinion about a thing, not about the thing itself. Beauty has as much to do with the viewer as it does with the beautiful object. Recognizing beauty or having taste involves a network of actors in a given context. Does Hume believe that it is our job to consolidate these recognitions into one general rule for recognizing?

    6. t is natural for us to seek a Standard of Taste;a rule, by which the various sentiments of menmay be reconciled;

      Even if there is no "truth" and so no "true" or "pure" way to define right and wrong, we still need to come to some sort of agreement on what we generally believe is right or wrong within a given context.

    7. ustice, temperance, meekness, charity,

      It is built into the definition of these words that these are qualities we should strive for/that these are objectively good qualities (?)

    8. And no one,without the most obvious and grossest impropri­ety, could affix reproach to a term, which in gen­eral acceptation is understood in a good sense;

      So our understanding of what is "right" and "wrong" and our want to uphold such ideas is somewhat indebted to language and its inherent biases?

    9. These works can serve as touchstones.

      Would Hume be into the canon?

    1. wam standards in nature,

      Is "standards of nature" another word for "examples?" Or is this just my brain trying to get a word to signify another word in order to understand it?

    2. Uejlcctim1 is the act of relat-ing our ideas to one another, forming mental a'isociations, and examining the men-ial processes of which we arc aware: thinking. doubling. believing. and so on

      We "know" through a network--there is no one objective truth to be discovered but rather a version of a truth generated through a series of mental processes/decisions/operations/techniques/cuts.

  2. Jan 2019
    1. he body is always discursivelyconstructed

      Does this mean that Foucault asserts that our understanding of the body/human is constructed by how we talk about it/represent it?

    2. It is difficult to imagine how psychic and socio-historical forces alone could account for the production of matter.

      So, social constructivism relies too much on the creations of humans (here, social constructions) to account for power relations/how we perceive matter (?)

    1. ? It is difficult to imagine how psychic and socio-historical forces alone could account for the production of matter.

      So, social constructivism relies too much on the creations of humans (here, social constructions) to account for power relations/how we perceive matter (?)

    2. he body is always discursivelyconstructed

      Does this mean that Foucault asserts that our understanding of the body/human is constructed by how we talk about it/represent it?

    1. This field is notaiming at anything like a consensus about a new ‘humanity’, but it givesus a frame for the actualization of the many missing people, whose‘minor’ or nomadic knowledge is the breeding ground for possiblefutures.

      Again, tagging for definition

    2. o actualize the emergence of amissing people

      tagging for definition

    3. it is clear that the critical posthumanities are caught in the acceleratingspin of the neoliberal logic of capitalizing on life itself.

      The connection between neoliberalism/capitalism and post-humanism has been fascinating so far, even when its a little over my head. Hopefully we can discuss more in class.

    4. ecause life, as it happens,is not the exclusive prerogative of humans, this opportunistic bio-geneticpolitical economy induces, if not the actual erasure, at least the blurringof the distinction between the human and other species, when it comes toprofiting from them.

      Is the question, how can we expand on our understanding of the human without in turn expanding opportunities for exploitation for profit?

    5. ans-speciesalliances enable experiments with sexual diversity, alternative sexualitiesand gender system

      This is so interesting! I'm also interested in what it would be like to connect post-humanism with queer theory and feminist theory to recalibrate how we think about reproduction and sexuality. Perhaps changing our emphasis on/understanding of human life (and so, reproduction) would allow us to move away from trying to legislate women's bodies/trying to control what a "family" structure should look like.

    6. A profound sense of non-belonging

      It seems that humanism is concerned with categorization, and post-humanism is concerned with merging, transgressing, and destroying categories, which allows those who are un-categorized or outside of what has been categorized as normatively human (those who are non-belonging) to be understood as post-humanist. Maybe?

    7. It is rather a normative category thatindexes access to privileges and entitlements. Appeals to the ‘human’are always discriminatory: they create structural distinctions and inequal-ities among different categories of humans, let alone between humansand non-humans

      Our definition of the human has historically included whatever group was allowed to have rights; we have also historically de-humanized groups in order to strip them of their rights.

    8. Pope Francis (2015) joined this debate, supplementingCatholic dogma on Natural Law,
    9. with Naomi Klein’s analysis of thedestructive role of capitalism

      An interesting detour if you're up for it, in which Klein mentions the Pope's thoughts on ecology and anthropocentrism:

      https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-visit-to-the-vatican

    10. ‘Man the brand

      "Man as brand" AND "brand as man." Brands have identities now, and can even roast us on twitter.

      https://www.thewrap.com/12-times-people-got-roasted-twitter-sassy-corporations-moonpie-taco-bell-photos/

      But seriously...as we "brand" ourselves more and more (i'm thinking of the selves we present on instagram and twitter, and social media 'influencers'), the line between human and corporation online is seriously blurred.

    11. Subjectivity is not restricted to bound individuals, but is rather aco-operative trans-species effort (Margulis a

      This is kind of what Foucault was saying with "Self Writing," no?

    12. but it stopped short of embra-cing the affirmative aspects of the pos

      Right--didn't we talk about Foucault being potentially "antihumanist" rather than posthumanist?

    13. Anthropocene4

      Here's the endnote, because scrolling to the bottom is a long journey:

      The term ‘Anthropocene’, coined in 2002 by Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen, describes the current geological era as dominated by human action through technological mediation, consumerism and destruction of the resources of planet earth. It was officially adopted by the International Geological Congress in South Africa in August 2016.

    1. We and our students are continually “jacked in”—to computers, toculture, to capital, to chemicals.

      We are constantly under the influence, and rhetoric is in the business of influencing. Everything is (influencing) everything. @abigail.jarvis

    2. machines have helped produce a rhetorical map of what anorganism “is,”

      Machines do not simply exist in our service; they have helped to define what we think we are, and therefore have shaped how we engage with ourselves/the world. Our relationship with the machine is...symbiotic?

    3. . In short, money doesn’t mean; it mov

      This makes me think of today's discussion about childhood language development--words as signals rather than symbols. Here, we might consider money as a form of rhetoric. It may be more productive to examine what it does/what it attempts to do/what it connects/what it transforms, rather than what it simply is.

    4. ” In short, just as isthe case on the conceptual front, a posthuman politics can neither acceptnor refuse humanism, for a refusal would effectively be a continuation ofa humanist dialectic.

      I have nothing to say here really except whoa, this paragraph just blew my mind.

    5. weapo

      Interesting how Muckelbauer/Hawhee adopt Deleuze's use of "weapon" here (and interesting that Deleuze used "weapon" in the first place, although I don't know the context there)...is it used in place of "tool?" Is rhetoric violent/combative/defensive/competitive? What would Le Guin say about this?

    6. simulacrum

      "...simulacrum is defined as "a material image, made as a representation of some deity, person, or thing," as "something having merely the form or appearance of a certain thing, without possessing its substance or proper qualities," and as "a mere image, a specious imitation or likeness, of something" (OED)."

      http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/simulationsimulacrum.htm

    7. chimera

      (in Greek mythology) a fire-breathing female monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.

      or

      A thing which is hoped for but is illusory or impossible to achieve.

    8. short, eXistenZ does not render the human as an object that connects toother objects, but as an effect or moment of multiple “inhuman” connec-tions—connections that are always on their way elsewhere

      Whoa. This reminds me of our readings that discussed how to "define" rhetoric--not as a thing in and of itself, but rather a meeting point of a variety of things, connecting, transforming, and then carrying on in new directions.

    9. wherein the category of the human must first beimagined as relatively discrete in order for it to be connected to (andpotentially troubled by) its Others (human plus machine).

      Interesting. So the very definition of a cyborg assumes that we have a stable definition of what a human is, and that humans are not constantly transforming based on outside factors. Following this logic, humans are strictly (and statically) human until they are violated by the Other. So there's kind of a human/non-human binary that is created and the cyborg is situated in the center as "half human, half machine."

    10. cyborg

      A fictional or hypothetical person whose physical abilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by mechanical elements built into the body.

    1. syllogism

      syllogism: an instance of a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn (whether validly or not) from two given or assumed propositions (premises), each of which shares a term with the conclusion, and shares a common or middle term not present in the conclusion (e.g., all dogs are animals; all animals have four legs; therefore all dogs have four legs ).

    2. ven conversation, that could be seen as per­suasive in intent.

      Is this still true? That is, do we still consider rhetoric to be fundamentally persuasive? Do we consider Foucault's examples of self-writing as rhetoric to be persuasive then, and if so, who is being persuaded and of what?

    1. they can be found, on the other hand, in the correspondence with others and the exchange of soul service.

      Perhaps then, we engage in self narrative (and maybe even all forms of personal expression) not to self-indulgently talk about ourselves, but to reach out to others.

    2. “The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.”

      To explain something clearly to someone else, you have to first explain it clearly to yourself (and commit it to memory).

    3. However personal they may be, these hupomnemata ought not to be understood as intimate journals or as those accounts of spiritual experience (temptations, struggles, downfalls, and victories) that will be found in later Christian literature. They do not constitute a “narrative of oneself”; they do not have the aim of bringing to the light of day the arcana conscientiae, the oral or written confession of which has a purificatory value. The movement they seek to bring about is the reverse of that: the intent is not to pursue the unspeakable, nor to reveal the hidden, nor to say the unsaid, but on the contrary to capture the already-said, to collect what one has managed to hear or read, and for a purpose that is nothing less than the shaping of the self.

      Its interesting to me to think about instagram, twitter, tumblr as the modern hupomnemata. We use these technologies to document aspects of the self (often performatively), and in turn we tend to remember what we spend time documenting. The process of documenting also leads us to emphasize certain aspects of the self, which may in turn shape the self, for better or for worse.

    4. askesis

      The practice of severe self-discipline, typically for religious reasons.

    5. Now, then, let the written account stand for the eyes of our fellow ascetics, so that blushing at writing the same as if we were actually seen, we may never ponder evil.

      This reminds me of Megan Boyle's liveblog, in which she posted all of the events of her life online as a way to force herself to get her life together. It didn't work, but it does speak to how public internet writing/posting (self writing) involves sharing aspects of our lives in order to construct an identity or prove something about ourselves to the outside world.

      https://www.thefader.com/2018/10/02/megan-boyle-liveblog-interview

    1. Instead, it might be productive not to think that we know what rhetoric is at all

      Maybe because we don't yet know all of the things that rhetoric could potentially be? Because rhetoric shape-shifts depending on context or field, the answer seems infinite.

    2. dentity

      Perhaps identity requires a fixed notion of the self; because rhetoric depends on a variety of ever-shifting factors (I think), it is constantly in flux and incapable of fixity.

    1. The We Defense argues that there are two kinds of rhetoric, good and bad. The good kind is used in good causes, the bad kind in bad causes. Our kind is the good kind; the bad kindjs used by our opponents.

      And this doesn't work because good and bad themselves are rhetorical concepts (?)

    1. I differ with all of this.

      From what I know about Le Guin's work, this comment isn't surprising. From her wiki page:

      "Several of Le Guin's works have featured stylistic or structural features that were unusual or subversive. The heterogeneous structure of The Left Hand of Darkness, described as "distinctly post-modern", was unusual for the time of its publication] This was in marked contrast to the structure of (primarily male-authored) traditional science fiction, which was straightforward and linear."

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin#Style_and_influences

    2. Wanting to be human too, I sought for evidence that I was; but if that's what it took, to make a weapon and kill with it, then evidently I was either extremely defective as a human being, or not human at all.

      So many of us consume art in hopes of finding evidence that we are human! And often, in doing this, we seek universal truths only to discover that the universal is often assumed to be male. Telling stories, especially histories, from a strictly male viewpoint implies that there is only one way to be fully human.

    3. That is a new story. That is news.

      Agreed, it's interesting that our default understandings of history are so male-centric. The stereotypical "caveman" has a spear, but we don't consider as much the "gatherer" aspect of hunter-gatherers, or the craftmanship of early people outside of weaponry. Maybe it is less about violent hunting stories making better stories and more about us devaluing stories about relationships, craft/art, and other aspects of humanity associated with womanhood.

    4. Fifteen houcs a week for subsistence leaves a lot of time for other thingS'

      Given that time was conceptualized and used differently in this period, I'm interested in how the way we think about time effects the way we understand the body and vice versa. During the prehistoric era, time was understood based on one's own internal clock, rather than the current time system we use today. With modernity, bodily anxiety increased as the polity was expected to work during specific, somewhat arbitrary hours determined by someone else. This new way of understanding time, (I think) ushered in by industrialization, totally shifted our relationship to our own bodies in that it made bodies more mechanized. From a post human standpoint, constructing time led us to reconstruct how we relate to the human body, and what we believe is "natural" for our bodies.