- Feb 2017
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English professors, because literature provided teachable content, something to write about other limn oneself or arbitrarily chosen subjects in which the teacher was not an expert.
Side note: would the Great Books theory include books of composition instruction like Strunk & White's Elements of Style or any of the books Nathaniel passed out on Thursday?
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technology
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relic of the outmoded classical curriculumT and in olhcrs it was absorbed into the study of classics.
Rather ironic considering how many ignored the classics.
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When a real storm cloud thunders above him, he wraps himself in his cloak, and with slow steps he walks from beneath it.
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Whenever, as was perhaps the case in an-cient Greece, the intuitive man handles his weapons more authoritatively and victoriously than his opponent, then, under favorable circum-stances, a culture can take shape and art's mas-tery owr life can be established.
Quote from "The Rock" (1996)
[about killing]
Stanley Goodspeed: How do you... do it?
John Mason: I was trained by the best. British intelligence. But in retrospect I would rather have been a poet. Or a farmer.
Stanley Goodspeed: Okay.
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it is like a servant who goes in search of booty and prey for his master.
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n, as in a dream, any-thing is possible at each moment, and all of na-ture swanns around man as if it were nothing but a masquerade of the gods, who were merely amusing themselves by deceiving men in all these shapes.
Wonderful!
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tree can suddenly speak as a nymph,
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regular web of concepts that the waking man clearly secs that he is awake;
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t is always building new
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imitation
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If we arc forced powers which continuously break in upon him, to comprehend all things only under these forms, powers which oppose scientific ''truth" with then it ceases to be amazing that in all things we completely different kinds of "truths" which bear actually comprehend nothing but these forms.
rather tragic
ought we forget rather than learn?
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If but for an instant he could es-ut" L· -~ \ cape from the prison walls of this faith, his "self ~1\C~ll.J consciousness" would be immediately destroyed.
Could we view Platonic Socrates in this way?
By breaking out of prison, rather than destroying the "law," self-consciousness is destroyed?
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His method is lo treat man as the measure of all things,
Little Protagoras action
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When someone hides st,."I\ something behind a bush and looks for it again in t&.K ~ the same place and finds it there as well, there is +\M.~ not much to praise in such seeking and finding.
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one constructed of spiders' web
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Here one may certainly admire man as a mighty genius A)J ·:.,,,.';. of construction, who succeeds in piling up an in-finitely complicated dome of concepts
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exist
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We speak of a "snake": this designa-tion touches only upon its ability to twist itself and could therefore also fit a worm.1 What, arbi-trary differentiations!
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Schopenhauer
all down hill from here...
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It is only by means of forgetfulness that man can ever reach the point of fancying himself to possess a "truth" of the grade just indicated.
I like this very much.
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nd besides, what about these linguistic conventions themselves? Are they perhaps prod-, ucts of knowledge, that is, of the sense of truth? Are designations congruent with things? Is Ian+ guage the adequate expression of all realities?
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fatal curiosity
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which is the means by which weaker, less robust individuals preserve them-selves-since they have been denied the chance to wage the battle for existence with horns or with the sharp teeth of beasts of prey.
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Once upon a time, in some out of the way comer of that universe which is dispersed into number-less twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of
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To examine a set of interpretations requires rhetorical analy-sis, and so it can be argued that Nietzsche's method is rhetorical as well.
Better question, what isn't rhetorical?
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Truth must be seen similarly us a convention of dis~ course, for there is no way to convert things directly into language.
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Words arc signs of our im-pulses and do not represent "u many-sided, respectable knowledge of things.
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Not only were his subjects idiosyncratic, but his style was poetic, aphoristic, dra~atic, and colorful.
As far as our readings go, did we not just establish technical writing as the new fad?
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It is Spencer (not Darwin) who coined the phrnse survival of 1l1e fittest,
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imita-tive character,
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Regarding language as an apparatus of symbols for the conveyance of thought,
Thinking a thought of Hill
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"Gross vulgarity is a fault to be pre-vented; but the proper prevention is lo be got from habit-not rules." Similarly, there can be little question that good composition is far less dependent upon acquaintance with its laws, Chan upon practice and natural aptitude.
"A good deal can be said of the advantages of rules, much the same as can be said in praise of bourgeois society. A man shaped by the rules will never produce anything tasteless or bad, just as a citizen who observes laws and decorum will never be an unbearable neighbor or an out-and out villain; and yet on the other hand, say what you please, the rules will destroy the true feeling of Nature and true expression!" (32) Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther
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technical writing
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echnical writing
Is our ability to define technical writing just as futile as our working definition of rhetoric?
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This search focused on the structure of the mind and all but ignored language, let alone rhetoric.
doesn't this get at the hopeless delusion that Nietzsche is babbling about?
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people seek pleasure and avoid pain
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substance
I suppose Astell would allow a little style and effect, as long as the substance was true.
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nd concluded that human nature could best be seen not in classical literature but in unsophisticated characters-leech-gatherers and idiot boys, for instance.
Seems a little harsh...
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s Coleridge plainly put it, poetry i!. not rhetoric at all. Poetry. unlike rhetoric, is the expression of the poet's feelings. It is a mimetic art that medi-ates between people and nature. If poetry, like rhetoric, seeks to stimulate the emo-tions, it docs so for quite different reasons-poetry for contemplation, rhetoric for action.
Lanham pushpin
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mechanistic approach
"ars est celare artem: art consists in concealing art"
I do not dig this mechanical, technical, scientific method dissection of writing. Unfortunately, this article is filled with this pre-Freudian crap. You wouldn't tear Raphael a new one because he painted The School of Athens figures in the wrong order.
Are these mechanics the result of the scientific method?
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adapting trnditional rhetoric
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imitate
Imitation, what a wonderful tactic!
Good artists copy; great artists steal. -P.P.
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according lo social historian David Cressy, only 20 percent of women were sufficiently literate lo sign their names, even though the Renaissance had improved opportunities for their education (sec the introduction lo Part Three)
Blog post that furthers Cressy's findings.
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prima facie
prima facie: based on the first impression; accepted as correct until proved otherwise.
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testimony as a form of moral evidence. By testimony. Campbell means not only the assertions of witnesses in the courtroom, but any assertion about experience-the assertions, for example, that constitute an historical record.
Campbell testimony
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Rhetoric must prove the truth thus discovered to people who have ( ri...,t-o~ = ca,. not themselves made the discovery.
What a sentence!
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Whately picks up the domi-nant trends of the day
Would you like something to read?
Do you have anything light?
Uhh... how 'bout this leaflet polite literature?
Yes, thank you.
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The works of Blair and Campbell were often used together as course texts, and most new textbooks simply rang changes on their ideas and materials.
Sounds a little like Dead Poets Society
McAllister: You take a big risk by encouraging them to be artists, John. When they realize they're not Rembrandts, Shakespeares or Mozarts, they'll hate you for it. Keating: We're not talking artists, George, we're talking freethinkers.
McAllister: Freethinkers at seventeen?
Keating: Funny — I never pegged you as a cynic.
McAllister: Not a cynic, a realist. "Show me the heart unfettered by foolish dreams, and I'll show you a happy man."
Keating: "But only in their dreams can men be truly free. 'Twas always thus, and always thus will be."
McAllister: Tennyson?
Keating: No, Keating.
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, including some works in Latin am.I Greek. Composition in the vernacular replaced Latin composition throughout the Continent, and Latin dis~ appeared almost completely from the public primary schools.
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If he b brief, it is because few words suffice;
"Omit needless words." -Strunk and White... again
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substantive and verh.
"Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs." (71) An Approach to Style, Strunk and White Elements of Style
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the art
THE Ohio State University
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rhetoric is not a science but an art
Division between rhetor and rhetorician?
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impressively complained,
ha-ha
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Most include a handbook or grammar as the basis for correct and clear composition. All included an analysis of style
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She will show you some interest-ing experiments, blackboard exercises and charts.
First thoughts ran to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang... I wish it wasn't so.
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not 10 strike back when one is struck
Eye for an eye...
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Hardened, materialistic mule congre-gants will listen to the mother-minister because of their memories of their own lov-ing mothers
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ust b~cause .it was () · the expected thing to do.
Remember your Blair! Do not blindly follow the crowd.
This, along with the suffrage movement as a whole, reminds me of a short story by Anna Quindlen about a woman choosing her last name.
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a move she resisted
Like Douglas, she plays this game on the preexisting turf of the white man. I suppose it is easier to infiltrate an organization than to create a new one. Certainly a new church would be separate; but equal?-probably not.
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Another remedy is to look carefully at the exact meanings of words used to describe women's activities in the early Christian Church. Willard gives further examples of readings in which literal and loose inter-pretations are irrationally mixed
Did she pull the John Kerry move?
In a way, she got her foot in the door by using Bible quotes and American history. Now she says that some of it needs another look... preferably through eyes that are partial to temperance.
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exploded
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Practical advice
This paragraph sounds a bit like Whatley's standardized textbook for stylistic advice.
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conciliatory
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Mattingly has shown, Willard and the temperance women who followed her lead also made heavy use of tmditional cultuml references, especially to the Bible and American history, to identify their reforms with accepted values.
Appealing to higher authority... good move.
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not flamboyant but utterly sincere and able to convince her hear· crs that she cared deeply about them even when the audience was large.
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Alcohol became big business.
Tags
- textbook
- John Kerry
- Disney
- authority
- Astell
- Whatley
- Douglas
- Monty Python
- Dumb Annotation
- half-assed definition
- sheep
- truth
- Simpsons
- explode
- alcohol
- move
- Blair
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o.1\ \-\.;<, 0~ 0. \lpt,V\.C,\1,--Af\-W~II ~t,lh;(}' ;V\S\d..l, f;o~VU. c,lS
At least in terms of getting inside someone else, John Kerry flipflopping is what I picture.
EDIT: If you have the time, I would recommend watching the full documentary. Go Bucks!
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The propositions, "Twelve arc a dozen," "twenty are a score," unless considered as explications of the words dozen and score, arc equally insignificant with the former. But when the thing, though in effect coinciding, is consid-ered under a different aspect; when what is single in the subject is divided in the predicate, and con-versely; or when what is a whole in the one is re-garded as a part of something else in the other; such propositions lead to the discovery of innu-merable and apparently remote relations. One added to four may be accounted no other than a definition of the word Jive, as was remarked above. But when I say, "Two added to three arc equal lo five," I advance a truth, which, though equally clear, is quite distinct from the preceding.
A bit of a mix between Locke's simple knowledge and the idea that "sounds have no natural connection with our ideas." (817 near the bottom right)
EDIT: cue Locke's Three Minute Philosophy
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Now, it is by the sense that rhetoric holds of logic, and by the expression that she holds of grammar
Is "sense" really a stepping stone for (T/t)ruth?
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some expressive features, not decorated as for show (all ostentation being both despicable and hurtful here), but such as appear the natural exposition of those bright and deep impressions, made by the subject upon the speaker's mind; for here the end is not pleasure, but emotion.
Perhaps a little sprezzatura going on?
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power over the thoughts and purposes of his audience.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding the first grid presented, but would this fall under the faculty of will>persuasion(end)>vehemence?
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As in this exhibition, the task of the onuor may, in some sort, be said, like that of the painter, to consist in imitation, the merit of the work results entirely from these two sources; dignity, as well in the subject or thing imitated, as in the manner of imitation; and resemblance, in the portrait or per-formance.
"Good artists copy, great artists steal." -Pablo Picasso
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By reputable, he means the generally accepted usage of ed-ucated people and particularly of well-regarded writers. National means usage and pronunciation that are most widely understood throughout a country-again, usu-ally among the educated class. And present refers both lo "not absent" (that is, not foreign or faddish) and to "not obsolete."
What would this look like today?
We're so accepting of everybody that use has melted into a hodgepodge of dialects and definitions.
Would it be possible to nail usage down this cleanly today?
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being
This word is key in allowing Douglas to personify the idea of a "brand new fact." And yet this polish is short lived, as Collins will ask for "just the facts."
As if Fred found himself to be a brand new word in the dictionary; rather than ask his place in a sentence, Collins wants the scientific, dictionary definition of this fact... surely that will tell him all he needs to know!
Well as a matter of fact...
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If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell
Would Fred have read this books?
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they were edited again before being published; antislavery tracts might furnish material for speeches.
Correct me if I am wrong, was this not the manner in which Roman orations were presented?
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white ghost wriler
Dude was just that good.
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"All that I know I have·s1olen,"
I keep muttering about "Picasso" in every other reading. I suppose I shall, once again, proclaim that ironically ascribed quote:
Good artists copy; great artists steal.
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read the Bible and keep reflective journals
A little Great Books/Latour notebooks action going on?
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Cicero il; hardly to be reckoned among the num· ber; for he delighted so much more in the prac-tice, than in the theory, of his art, that he is per-petually drawn off from the rigid philosophical analysis of iL,; principles, into discursive decla• mations, always eloquent indeed, and often highly interesting, but adverse to regularity of system, c,4.,~ and frequently as unsatisfactory to the practical .5-"~'"~ student as to the Philosopher.
Didn't he establish that the issue for rhetoric "is to determine what people will take to be true or persuasive?" (1001) And that it sometimes doesn't follow logic?
This, apparently lacking, regularity of Cicero's sounds a lot like the sometimes that Whately throws in.
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Logic
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providing standard textbook advice on perspicuity and cor-rectness.
And they will make a new edition every year until the end of eternity. If one will take the poker equivalent with Doyle Brunson, the problem with writing a book such as this is that you reveal all your secrets.
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Sometimes persuasion accords with logic, sometimes not.
Sometimes
Because, as Whately will note in this paragraph, character, audience, judgement, emotion, naturalness, and other things, will all play a part as well. Sometimes
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"progressive approach"
Sounds a bit like our discussion on the Constitution/recycling. We use such laws as the basis of our society, yet we are human, every scenario and every circumstance is extreme in its differences.
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systematic
Although, as Whately points out, Quintilian was systematic, I get the distinct impression that, perhaps beginning with Blair and Campbell, we have moved to a more technical, systematized, psychological form of rhetoric.
Did the scientific method really dip that far into the realm of rhetoric?
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Ifhumanistswanttoremainperpetualchildren,thentheirpoetrywill,touseBentham'salliterativepairing,neverbeanybetterthanpushpin,willindeedbetaughtasifitwerepushpin
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www.csicop.org www.csicop.org
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Conspiracy theories include claims that a major drug company hid reports stating that its leading anti-inflammatory drug caused heart attacks and strokes (Specter 2009) and that environmental scientists have conspired to keep refereed journals from publishing papers by researchers skeptical that global warming is a crisis (Hayward 2009; Revkin 2009).
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It is useful to think of conspiracy theorizing as a meme, a cultural invention that passes from one mind to another and thrives, or declines, through a process analogous to genetic selection (Dawkins 1976).
"...there is always some end proposed, or some effect which the speaker intends to produce on the hearer." (Campbell 901)
Conspiratorial end?
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convincing answers to all questions.
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ollow the crowd blindly. :I'w-, "'•'" ,_"i"'i.A t¼i
I find this change in car consumerism, in Britain, accurately portrays both the dangers of blindly following the crowd (PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE just watch for a few minutes, or until 34:05 (only 5 1/2mins), and why Polite Literature is simply a fad for a lower class to "get ahead," or gain some air or exclusivity.
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True criticism is a lib-eral and humane art. It is the offspring of good sense and refined taste. It aims at acquiring a just discernment of the real merit of authors.
Surely we are urged to follow in the steps of Roger Ebert (at least when critiquing movies). To find kernels of value in artistic works, to appreciate them, to learn from them, ought that not be the goal of a critic?
We ban Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn from schools! Is there really no artistic merit of which we ought discern?
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pri-vate application and study
Perhaps a couple of notebooks could be of aid!
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hetoric and criticism have some-times been so managed as to tend to the corrup-tion, rather than to the improvement, of good taste and true eloquence. But sure it is equally possible to apply the principles of reason and good sense to this art, as to any other that is culti-vated among men.
I might be wrong, but... Weak Defense?
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Be/le,1· let1res
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Blair shifted the attention of educators "away from deliberative, forensic, and epideictic discourse and toward poetic discourse,"
Quintilian was "too focused with systematic rhetoric." One should practice the virtues. Rhetorical writers are not to be neglected. It's "polite" to know the ancients.
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Astell recommended that women study virtually every subject that men studied ex-cept for classical languages
Odd...
Just about one hundred years later, Mary Wollstonecraft publishes "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." In addition to the denial of women from certain, albeit many, areas of discourse, she is also angered that there is no aim, no "simple principle" as she puts it, for women to strive for.
Odd because in this age, wouldn't "male principles" derive mainly from the classical texts?
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have taught them perhaps to repc.1l their Calechism and a few good Sentences, to read a Chapter and say their Prayers, tho perhaps with as little Understanding as a Par-rot, and fancied that this was Charm enough to se-cure them against the temptations of the present world and lo waft them to a better
Polly want a cracker? Polly want a cracker? Polly want a cracker?
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Serious
In the Rules/Guidelines of /r/AskReddit note --{Serious} Tags-- under the heading Thread Tags
*Calling attention to the sentence:
"This tag designates the thread is is applied to as a serious post, off-limits for joke replies and irrelevant or off-topic comments and discussion."
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Now, since sounds have no natural connection with our ideas, but have all their signification from the arbitrary imposition \ l .;.s.~l' of men, the doubtfulness and uncertainty of their signification,
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this is { ~~chiefly done by an agreement in the use of certain ~ signs, it is no matter what those signs are; there -~~ being little or no naturnl connection, between any ' , V verbal signs and our ideas,
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But when a man has got so far, as I can see no reason that he should stop there, or that he should not farther endeavour, lo make himself master of every thing, which 1:an add grace, or force to his delivery;
Nathaniel, isn't there a quote on your door that says, "You cannot die on every hill" ...or something to that effect?
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- Jan 2017
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forget, if possible, my individual being and my peculiar circumstances.
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But allow him to acquire experience in those objects, his feeling becomes more exact and nice: He not only perceives the beauties and defects of each part, but marks the distinguishing species of each quality, and assigns it suitable praise or blame.
Sounds a lot like the Great Books theory–simple exposure to good art will yield a good critic.
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practice
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If some negligent or irregular writers have pleased, they have not pleased by their transgressions of rule or order, but in spite of these transgressions: They have possessed other beauties, which were conformable to just criticism; and the force of these beauties has been able to overpower cen-sure, and give the mind a satisfaction superior to the disgust arising from the blemishes.
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An explanation of the tenns commonly ends the controversy; and , the disputants are surprized to find, that they had been quarrelling, while at bottom they agreed in their judgment.
"...upon ex-amination found that the signification of that word was not so settled or certain as they had all imagined; but that each of them made it a sign of a different complex idea. This made them per-ceive that the main of their dispute was about the signification of that term; and that they differed very little in their opinions concerning some fluid and subtle matter, passing through the conduits of the nerves; though it was not so easy to agree whether it was to be called liquor or no, a thing, which, when considered, they thought it not worth the contending about." -Locke pg. 822
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Moreover, Blair enacts Hume's argument that good taste, based as it is on experience, can be learned.
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noting that rigid adherence to rules does not guarantee favorable re-sponse and that deviating from rules often produces wonderful results.
"It is an old observation, that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric. When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation. Unless he is certain of doing as well, he will probably do best to follow the rules."
William Strunk (The Elements of Style, Introduction)
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.;.
I find it to be so. A dog has a natural tendency to snarl when threatened, as a cat purrs when pleased (or whatever reason a cat has to purr). Do humans have a "natural" propensity to "aww" whenever baby pictures or puppy videos pop up?
Perhaps learned gestures have similar "connections." Back to the Rick and Morty episode at 4:29 Rick admits to having taught a population of aliens that giving the middle finger actually means peace among worlds. Perhaps since it is in fact a sign, its connection to an idea seems rather arbitrary.
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ambiguities through excessive ornamentation.
Sounds like bad girls aren't allowed to wear makeup...
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'>yllogism
All men are mortal Socrates is a man Therefore Socrates is mortal
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enculturation.net enculturation.net
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pointing to the moment of its historical origin
"[The Elements of Style] was Will Strunk's parvum opus, his attempt to cut the vast tangle of English rhetoric down to size and write its rules and principles on the head of a pin."
Introduction Strunk and White "The Elements of Style"
I originally brought this up because of the pin-pointing relationship. However, by using the word "tangle," White comes off as the precursor to Rickert's entanglement, knotted hair, intertwinement fixations.
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milieu
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Rhetoric might simply be a term for the intersection and articulation of divergent connections, regardless of their vocabulary or their "traditions" (and this "theoretical" point might have many "practical" implications, from the way we pose—or don't pose—the problem of rhetoric/composition to the strategic demands of placing a paper at any particular journal or conference (Farris), to the function of implicit and explicit citations in our writing).
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The power of strong words to guide the soul constitutes rhetorical essence.
"How to Win Friends and Influence People"
*note the... well, really note all of it. I've never read it, but it sounds like Rhetoric for Dummies
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intertwinement
Ya think? Entanglement, intertwinement, someone could really use a notebook (or several) to sort through this bad hair day!
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A second notebook should be kept for gathering information in such a way that it is possible simultaneously to keep all the items in a chronological order aml to dispatch them into categories which will evolve later into more and more refined files and subfiles. There exists lots of software nowadays that maintain this contradictory specifica-tion, but older hands like me have benefited enormously from the tedious rewriting of data onto cards.
Perhaps if you lived at 221B Baker Street, this is how notebook number two would pan out...
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keep track of all our moves
"My heart, as it always strays from one object to another, unites and identifies itself with those which soothe it, wraps itself in pleasant imaginings, and grows drunk on feelings of delight. If, in order to hold them, I amuse myself by describing them to myself, what vigorous brush-strokes, what freshness in colour, what energy of expression I bring to them!
All this, I am told, people have found in my works, although they have been written in my declining years. Oh, if only they had seen those of my early youth, those I sketched during my travels, those I composed but never wrote down! Why do I not write them you will ask. But why should I? I reply. Why rob myself of the present charm of their enjoyment, to tell others that I enjoyed them once?
Confessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau (158)
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So,atleast,SteinerconjecturesthatBluntmighthavethought.HeistryingtofindanexplanationthatwillmakeBluntaheroalongthelineslaiddownbyAllanBloom,toputhimagainontherightside,asa"manofthe-ory,"sothatthishorriblesplitwillbeamistakeormisunderstanding,notabetrayal.
Is there any solace in the fact that he was "self-confessed?" (p.179)
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Ifyouseparatethedisciplineofdiscourseintoessenceandornament,intophilosophyandrhetoric,andmakeeachaseparatediscipline,itmakesthemeasiertothinkabout.Thusbeginsmoderninquiry'slonghistoryoflookingforitslostkeysnotwhereitlostthembutunderthelamppost,wheretheyareeasiertofind.
Divide and conquer! Is this the precursor to Whitehead's table of contents?
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