Written Communication Jul 1985

The Politics of Meaning: Scientism, Literarism, and the New Humanism

W. ROSS WINTEROWD

Abstract

The social sciences and humanities bring different attitudes and methods to the problem of meaning. From the “scientismic” point of view, meaning is quantifiable and is largely what Tulving called “verbal” knowledge. The scientismic view, however, is flawed in three ways: its failure to account adequately for “episodic” knowledge, to view language as an event, and to understand modes. The literarist view of meaning is equally flawed. However, the scientismists have most of the political power; hence, the literarists are losing the battle for their set of values and their versions of literacy. A realignment of literary studies under the aegis of rhetoric is necessary.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
1985-07-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088385002003003
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
rhetorical criticism literacy studies
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Hartwell (1987)
    Creating a literate environment in Freshman English: Why and how
    Rhetoric Review

References (28) · 2 in this index

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    Written Communication
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Show all 28 →
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