Rhetoric Society Quarterly Sep 1991

The dissatisfactions of rhetoric: Philosophy and politics in the teaching of writing

James Crosswhite University of Oregon

Abstract

I am about to argue for strengthening place of in teaching of writing. Recent work in and composition is already studded with appeals to and to philosophers, and such appeals have been made for many different purposes. My own reason for pursuing in this context is for purpose of setting up productive conflict among terms philosophy, politics and rhetoric. Although part of way I measure productiveness of this conflict is by its ability to reveal interdependence of terms, I intend more specifically to argue for as way of responding to-and to some degree resisting-the inevitable politicizing of teaching of writing. Consequently my appeal to differs in purpose from Ann Berthoff's famous appeal to as study which enables us to understand relationship between, in Richards' terms, what is said and what is meant, or, in Berthoff's own words, the nexus of hermeneutics and semiotics (Counter-Response 84). This account of is strongly slanted by orientation of literary critic-to point where a of knowledge becomes equivalent to a theory of imagination (Forming 6). Berthoff puts this theoretical commitment to work in pedagogy that uses classroom as philosophic laboratory in which teachers teach students how to form by teaching them that they form (2). I share John Schilb's concern that this formulation won't be able to help clarify relation of philosophy and rhetoric (67-68) in any useful way. More to point, I also share Schilb's belief that understanding of relation of and can be enlivened by consideration of how politics can serve

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
1991-09-01
DOI
10.1080/02773949109390929
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Topics
rhetorical criticism first-year composition writing pedagogy teacher development
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References (28) · 1 in this index

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