S522 Lecture 5February 24

Rhetoric: decoding argumentation

If…anyone had said that there was a kind of thread…which far surpassed the thread of linen or of wool in fineness and at the same time in

strength, and also in beauty and softness, men would have begun immediately to think of some

silky kind of vegetable, or of the finer hair o some animal, or of the feathers and down of

birds; but a web woven by a tiny worm, and that in such abundance, and renewing itself yearly, they would assuredly never have thought. Nay, if anyone had said anything about a worm, he

would no doubt have been laughed at as dreaming of a new kind of cobweb.

Francis Bacon

[If a man had said] there was a new invention by means of which the strongest towers and walls could be shaken and thrown down at a great distance, men would doubtless have

begun to think over all the ways of multiplying the force of catapults and mechanical engines by weights and wheels and such machinery for ramming and projecting; but the notion of a fiery

blast suddenly and violently expanding and exploding would hardly have entered into any man’s imagination or fancy, being a thing to

which nothing immediately analogous had been seen, except perhaps in an earthquake or in

lightningFrancis Bacon

If…anyone had said that a certain instrument had been invented by means of which the

quarters and points of the heavens could be taken and distinguished with exactness, men

would have been carried by their imagination to a variety of conjectures concerning the more

exquisite construction of astronomical instruments; but that anything could be

discovered agreeing so well in its movements with the heavenly bodies and yet…simply a

substance of metal or stone, would have been judged altogether incredible.

Francis Bacon

Metaphors add or enlarge meaning through transfer

Metaphors make ideas possible

Metaphors make innovation possible

Metaphors make innovation comprehensible

Metaphors set the terms of reference for what is

comprehensible or salient.

Metaphors are embedded in cultural context

Metaphors change the cultural context

“Metaphors can kill”

Lakoff

Michael BilligArguing and Thinking

1987/1995Cambridge University Press

Plato

Protagoras

The word in language is half someone else’s. It becomes ‘one’s own’ only when the speaker appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic expressive intention. Prior to this..the word does not exist in a neutral or impersonal language…rather it exists in other people’s mouths, serving other people’s intentions: it is from there that one must take the word and make it one’s own.Bakhtin, 1981 [1935]

. “Every utterance must be regarded as primarily a response to preceding utterances of the given sphere (we understand the word ‘response’ here in the broadest sense). Each utterance refutes, affirms, supplements and relies upon the others, presupposes them to be known, and somehow takes them into account.”

Bakhtin 1986

Logos

Anti-logos

Argumentation:

Statements imply another position which they are countering. One can only

understand the meaning and intention of a statement if you understand what it is

arguing against.

What is seen as problematic

has to be explained and justified

What is taken for granted

is not explained, or if it is, it is in terms of ‘natural’, ‘inevitable’, functional’

and is used as a logical underpinning for other explanations

• Who is the audience? How do you know?• What is being argued against? What is the

logos for which this is an anti-logos• What is taken for granted• What is seen as problematic• What is assumed about what the audience

knows (shared metaphors, facts)• What is assumed about what the audience

believes and values• What is assumed about what/whom the

audience will perceive as an authority

• Open loop: closed solution

• Closed loop: open solution