Philosophy & Rhetoric Jun 2022

Rhetoric, Methodology, and a Question of Onto-Epistemological Access

Jason Kalin DePaul University ; David R. Gruber

Abstract

ABSTRACTAssuming that withdrawal is ontological, no method of inquiry will breach the “essence” of an object. As such, this article raises a question of onto-epistemological access to complicate the development of recent rhetorical theories and rhetorical method/ologies informed by object-oriented ontologies and new materialisms. This article wonders about the drive to know and to feel forwarded in these rhetorical method/ologies without discussing how things hide from other things and from themselves, how things elude critics, and how scholars access others through ethnographic and embodied methodologies. Explicating epistemist and anti-epistemist approaches to the question of onto-epistemological access, this article makes a modest proposal for rhetoric scholars to conjure rhetorics of unavailable diversities to remake the gap between knowledge and reality again and again.

Journal
Philosophy & Rhetoric
Published
2022-06-01
DOI
10.5325/philrhet.55.2.0127
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Topics
rhetorical criticism qualitative research
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