April 07, 2009 Humanities Core Course

Today's Plan

1) Last Week?

2) Discussion Focus (Papers or Exams?)

3) Office Hours

4) Thoughts on Logic

5) Summarizing, Paraphrasing, Quoting, Citing

6) Today we'll talk a lot about Essay Seven.

First the Prompt (pick the passage), then Aristotle, then Hart v. Me, and then finally Kastely.

The prompt commands you to assess the success of a counterargument in Antigone

Essay Seven's Title is “Analyzing Counterargument: Techniques of Argument in Antigone." I take this as a clue towards something we've already done, Aristotle's Rhetoric. Aristotle distinguishes between Dialectic and Rhetoric. Remember?

When you seek to influence someone, then you are engaged in Rhetoric. When you are merely appealing to the truth of what you are saying, you are engaged in Dialectics. In this way, Rhetoric is ubiquitous, and Dialectic is somewhat rare. Put another way, Dialectics communicate the truth, whereas Rhetoric concerns how something is communicated. Dialectic is concern with "what is said," whereas Rhetoric is concerned with "how it is said." Also, you may notice, it seems to be the case that there are at times different objects corresponding to Dialectics and Rhetoric. Dialectics seems to aim at cases where "yes" or "no" answers are possible, whereas Rhetoric seems to aim at cases where there are more than two possible answers, and where something must be done.

There are some further differences that should be kept in mind.

Dialectics ≠ Rhetoric

Dialectics then proceed by means of deduction only whereas Rhetorics proceed by both deduction and induction. You can think of it this way: Dialectic restricts itself to only the deductive part of logos and so does not use the inductive part of logos, and does not appeal to ethos and pathos. Rhetoric, on the other hand, utilizes both the deductive and inductive parts of logos, and appeals to ethos and pathos.

Dialectic uses deductive or syllogistic logic, which is the employment of premises which lead necessarily to a conclusion. If the premises don't lead necessarily to the conclusion, then it is not deductive, and then it is not valid.

Rhetoric uses both deductive logic, but more importantly, uses inductive logic. There are two main forms of inductive logic, the rhetorical deduction, which goes from the accepted and the known, to the unknown, and examples or paradigms, which go from something known to something less known.

More on Rhetorical Deduction (or Enthymemes):

Remember what makes it a rhetorical deduction and not a logical or dialectic deduction: rhetorical deductions go from their premises to their conclusions in a non-necessary way. There are two non-necessary ways they go from their premises to their conclusions, with probability and signs.

The rhetorical deduction derived from probability says: It is more often the case that those who wear helmets while riding bikes suffer less severe head wounds in an accident than those who don’t. Therefore it is better to wear a helmet. The rhetorical deduction from signs argues from the experienced necessary connection between the sign and what it signifies. If fever always indicates illness, then finding that someone has fever allows the conclusion that he/she is sick.

(Remember, experienced necessity is not the same as actual necessity.)

That discussion set the stage for our analysis of Kastely's article. But before finally getting to Kastely's article, I want to have our discussion of Professor Hart's thesis in mind.

Professor Hart's Thesis ...

Hart's Introduction to Her Thesis: "Hegel suggests a reading of "Antigone" that strictly separates the personal/familial and the political in order to oppose them to one another. Antigone (as woman) is a representative of the family; Creon is a representative of the state, and as spokespersons for different value systems they collide. Who is right? According to Hegel, they are both right because each espouses a valid ethical system. Yet each is tragic because each represents only part of the totality of moral life."

Hart's Explicit Thesis: "The strict division of the personal as Family and the political as State that supports Hegel's thinking on the play, while useful, is not necessarily borne out by closer examination of the text. Creon is not purely associated with the State and Antigone is not purely associated with the family."

My Critical Engagement of Professor Hart's Thesis ...

Hart's Implicit Thesis: Today we were told by our professor that Antigone seems to teach us to shy away from one-sided moral judgments, that we need to "tolerate ambivalence." Moreover, we were told that "we need to learn to live with doubleness."

How could have Antigone merely tolerated the two opposing edicts, one from the gods, and another from the polis? Would Antigone be able to live up to the theme of this quarter if she had merely tolerated the ambivalence of the two opposing edicts? No. We read Antigone insofar as she does not tolerate ambivalence. Antigone is of interest because she faces two opposing laws, and she acts–she "does."

We came to a conclusion, a kind of synthesis of Professor Hart's thesis and my challenge to it. What was that synthetic conclusion?

Now, finally, Kastely's argument.

I think that his thesis is something like this: in the humanities, when teaching students about arguing, we should focus less on formal arguments which end up doing violence to difference, but should instead focus on arguments as forms of inquiry which acknowledges and tolerates difference.

My objection:

But we are in a world which requires action, not the mere tolerance of difference.

What do you think?