Philosophy and Rhetoric

Holding All Things Together: Insights from Physics on the Nature of Reasoning

by Gary Gillespie

Audiences are swayed and moved by arguments. Persuasion is a force that causes minds to change positions. The movement... more Audiences are swayed and moved by arguments. Persuasion is a force that causes minds to change positions. The movement metaphor in argumentation theory explain the effects of reasoning spatially. Based on classical ideas of stasis, propositions are compared to points on a topological plane. Audiences are invited to move from a neutral place to accept the grounds of the debater.

This paper takes the movement metaphor farther by comparing human reasoning to other concepts in physics. Cognitive and affective processes are parallel with the interactions of particles and waves of energy. Verbal and nonverbal communication form a duality that is symmetrical like properties of the natural world.

We find that four types of reasoning can be compared to the four fundamental forces in the universe. Moreover, discoveries in quantum mechanics provide insights into the nature of thought on several levels.

The Task of the Name: A Reply to Carol Poster

by Jason Helms

Pour Protagoras: Angenot et le sens du social. Dialogues de sourds. Traité de rhétorique antilogique de Marc Angenot. Mille et une nuits, 450 p. Dialogues de sourds. …

by Yan Hamel

‘De sofist, de keizerin en de concubine: Philostratus’ brief aan Julia Domna’, Lampas 30 (1997) 74-86.

by Jaap-Jan Flinterman

After introducing the author and the addressee of Philostratus' Letter to Julia Domna, this paper offers a... more After introducing the author and the addressee of Philostratus' Letter to Julia Domna, this paper offers a characterisation of their relationship, a concise analysis of the functions of imperial cultural patronage for the parties involved, the first Dutch-language translation of the letter, and a discussion of its contents. Special attention id given to the place of the letter in the 'querelle des philosophes et des rhéteurs', and to the comparison of Julia Domna with Aspasia implied in the references to Aeschines' dialogue 'Aspasia'.

‘“... largely fictions ...”: Aelius Aristides on Plato’s dialogues’, Ancient Narrative 1 (2000-2001) [2002] 32-54.

by Jaap-Jan Flinterman

It must have been in the late 1980's, while working on my PhD and trying to familiarize myself with Imperial Greek... more It must have been in the late 1980's, while working on my PhD and trying to familiarize myself with Imperial Greek literature, that I first read the so-called Platonic orations by Aelius Aristides (admittedly in the translation by Charles Behr – I found and still find Aristides' Greek quite intimidating). In these curious texts the second-century orator makes a stand against the attack by Plato's Socrates, in the Gorgias, on oratory and on the four leading statesmen of fifth-century Athens: Miltiades, Themistocles, Cimon, and Pericles. Crossing swords with Plato over a distance of half a millennium may strike us as grotesque, and in dealing with Aristides it is sometimes difficult not to succumb to the temptation of having a good laugh at his self-importance and leaving it at that. But I also found in these texts much that was intellectually interesting, historically fascinating, and at times even moving. In the late 1990's the Platonic orations for some time became the focus of my research, resulting in two articles: 'The self-portrait of an Antonine orator. Aristides, or. 2.429ff.', in Erik Nis Osten¬feld (ed.), Greek Romans and Roman Greeks. Studies in cultural interaction. Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity 3 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press 2002), 198-211); and this paper, which originally appeared in Ancient Narrative 1 (2000-2001). The paper focuses on Aristides' constant harping on the fictional nature of Plato's dialogues. It tries to locate Aristides' observations on this issue within the tradition of anti-Platonic polemic, to determine their relationship to theorizing on the dialogue form among early-imperial Platonists, and to elucidate the functions of this line of reasoning in Aristides' apologetic strategy.

Brunetto Latini y la reconstrucción del ethos republicano

by Clément Godbarge

Published in 'Foro Interno', 2005

This article introduces the portrait of a key figure of political humanism. Brunetto Latini developed in a lay... more This article introduces the portrait of a key figure of political humanism. Brunetto Latini developed in a lay intellectual environment, influenced by the consolidation of the autonomous political sphere of the city. The gradual opening of power to a large spectrum of citizens led to a change in the daily practice of politics. The Florentine bourgeoisie, as a source of an unprecedented economic growth, brought new rules to the political game and sought to legitimate them before the leading European political actors. Brunetto Latini took part in this process by providing a theoretical corpus to the fragile Florentine republic, thus setting the ethical and practical bases of the vivere civile. His encyclopaedic work is nurtured from the many intellectual traditions with which he was in contact, and demonstrates an unusual interest in the ancient thinkers. He wrote in romance languages and is known to be the first to popularize Aristotle’s Nicomaquean Ethics and Cicero’s De Inventione. The Florentine memory remembers him as the master of a whole generation. Among his students, we may highlight Dante Alighieri, who dedicated a Canto from the Inferno to his master.

Antifonte 44 D.-K.:: una investigación sobre el comportamiento humano, QUCC 89 (2008) 87-115

by Gustavo Veneciano

A paper published in Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 89 (2008) 87-115.

"Postmodern Spacings: A Colloquy

by Martin E. Rosenberg

This was a colloquy on the nature of space, its hybridities with respect to virtual and real environments, in terms of the relationship between different constructions of space as well as different models of duration. Participants included Mark Nunes, Martin E. Rosenberg and Paul Bains.

_Postmodern Culture_: Found online at Project MUSE (JHUP): Volume 8, Number 3, May 1998
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/toc/pmc8.3.html

“The Human Barnyard” and Kenneth Burke's Philosophy of Technology

by Ian Hill

Must We All Be Rhetorical Historians? On Relevance and Timeliness in Rhetorical Scholarship

by Brett Lunceford

Lunceford, Brett. “Must We All Be Rhetorical Historians? On Relevance and Timeliness in Rhetorical Scholarship.” Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric, 1, no. 1 (2011): 1-9.

Rhetorical scholarship, if it is to remain relevant, must be actively applied to current events. This essay proposes... more Rhetorical scholarship, if it is to remain relevant, must be actively applied to current events. This essay proposes an alternate mode of scholarship, one that takes advantage of the online medium and integrates the speed of journalism with the rigors of scholarly analysis. Such a mode of scholarship dissemination is not meant to replace the current journal system; rather it serves a different end—that of providing scholarship to the public as a whole. I argue that scholarly analysis of current events will enrich the dialogue that is already taking place in the public sphere and help citizens to more fully take part in democratic practice.

Adorno on Science and Nihilism, Animals, and Jews

by Babette Babich

Original citation:  Babich, “Adorno on Science and Nihilism, Animals, and Jews.” Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy/Revue canadienne de philosophie continentale. Vol. 14, No. 1, (2011). 110-145.

Adorno’s readers are unsettled by the barest hint of anything that might be taken to be anti-science  Yet for... more Adorno’s readers are unsettled by the barest hint of anything that might be taken to be anti-science  Yet for Adorno, so-called “scientistic” tendencies are the very “conditions of society
and of scientific thought.” Yet his readers tend to refuse criticism of this kind. Scientific rationality cannot itself be problematic after all. Rather than science, it is scientism that is to be avoided. But is Adorno speaking of scientific rationality or scientistic rationality? 
Similar observations can be made with regard to animals (as Adorno saw them vs. his interpreters). And so on.  But overall, and in general, how are we to read Adorno?

Philosophy of Rhetoric

by James Comas

Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition: Communication From Ancient Times to the Information Age, edited by Theresa Enos, 515-18. New York: Garland, 1996.

Problematology and Contingency in the Social Sciences

by Nick Turnbull

Published in Revue Internationale de Philosophie 61(4) (2007): 451-72.

Wherever we look in the social sciences today we find references to contingency.1 It goes by many names—postmodernity,... more Wherever we look in the social sciences today we find references to contingency.1 It goes by many names—postmodernity, liquid modernity, indeterminacy, problematization, destabilization, flux, radical undecidability, and so on. But whichever term is used social scientists have identified how modernity has been called into question and causality and certainty have been replaced by a more problematic...

PLAN DE L'ARTICLE

* The necessity of contingency in the problematological difference
* The problematological difference in social exchange
* Rhetorical social relations
o The subject
o Social practice
o Social relations and social systems
o Politics
* Conclusion

Rhetorical Agency as a Property of Questioning

by Nick Turnbull

Philosophy and Rhetoric 2004, 37(3): 207-22

Working paper on the structure of Nietzsche's Gay Science

by Joshua Kortbein

Draft only

A substantial part of my strategy in interpreting Wittgenstein’s Investigations involves connecting the book’s... more A substantial part of my strategy in interpreting Wittgenstein’s Investigations involves connecting the book’s literary form closely to therapeutic conceptions of Wittgenstein’s aims and method. My project here is to give an analogous reading of the ways that Nietzsche coordinates his rhetoric (specifically, that relatively conventional rhetoric, typically occurring at naturally salient beginning and ending points in the text’s structure, by which he manifests himself as an author and communicates how he intends for his reader to take up or respond to his writing) with his literary form and exploits features of that form (specifically, its inherent capacity to prolifically generate beginnings and endings) to elicit a great deal of reader activity aimed at self-knowledge and self-cultivation (which Nietzsche tends to conceive of as ‘self-overcoming’). These general facts about Nietzsche’s writing are better recognized than they are about Wittgenstein’s, partly because of the different traditions in which they’ve been read and partly because of obvious differences in their thought, but I think that insufficient regard for the form of his writing has nevertheless made interpreters too hasty about reconstructing Nietzsche’s views or attributing a philosophical system to him. The working paper here consists of observations about Nietzsche's pronoun use in The Gay Science, preliminary to a later interpretation of the structure of the book.

Ways to go on after Wittgenstein

by Joshua Kortbein

In progress

A study of the rhetoric and poetics of therapeutic (and non-therapeutic) continuations of Wittgenstein’s contribution... more A study of the rhetoric and poetics of therapeutic (and non-therapeutic) continuations of Wittgenstein’s contribution to philosophy, including work by Kripke, Wright, Diamond, Cavell, and Mulhall. Special emphasis on the personality or impersonality of each author's writing, and on the special role of voice.

Dialogues about criteria

by Joshua Kortbein

for the 2009 North American Wittgenstein Society meeting at the Pacific APA in Vancouver

A reading of §28 of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations which seeks to support 'therapeutic' readings by... more A reading of §28 of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations which seeks to support 'therapeutic' readings by developing a critical vocabulary for talking about the dialogical exchanges which frequently occur in Wittgenstein's writing, drawing on the notion of 'criteria' elaborated in Stanley Cavell's work.

Note on history of philosophy and philosophical poetics

by Joshua Kortbein

Draft only

A note about the relation I see between the history of philosophy and my work on the nature of philosophical writing. A note about the relation I see between the history of philosophy and my work on the nature of philosophical writing.

Opponentrecension av Maria Jönssons doktorsavhandling Som en byracka. Självbiografi, estetik och politik i Agneta Klingspors författarskap, Samlaren 2007, s. 337–343

by Annika Olsson

”Intellektuell på 1960-talet. Jan Myrdal eller Sara Lidman?”, Häften för Kritiska Studier 1999:4, s. 22–40

by Annika Olsson