Of Sand and Stone

Day 3
Class is interesting once again. Though our class is described as Advanced Argumentation, Critical Reasoning, and Public Speaking; we tend to spend a great deal of time on Philosophy. Not that I mind terrible much—Philosophy is one of my favorite topics. It is my “home court,” if you will.

For this week we had quite a bit of reading: articles by Michael Foucault, J. L. Austin, and James Baldwin. It may seem impetuous to state so after only a brief reading, but Baldwin is a great writer. The quality of his prose veritably seeps from the pages. Note that agreement with an author is not synonymous with the greatness of an author—Baldwin steps into his own biases once or twice as we all do—but there is no denying the quality.

Foucault and Austin, by turn, are—to my mind—lesser part writers and more philosophical communicators, though no less influential and both men are widely read in academia. Specifically we hear from Foucault on his definitions and conditions of “parrhesia.” From Austin we discuss the instances of “performative utterances.” Both men attempt to define types of communication. What they have in common is that they use the words “true” and “truth” in unique ways to communicate philosophical points. In Foucault’s case, the proof of truth is evidenced by the saying of it. In Austin’s, the reality of truth is created by the act of saying.

I can see the validity in both positions, but only in the framework of their intellectual constructs. We must let authors define their terms within their own works to evidence their positions. But such definitions and constructs must remain in context lest they extend beyond the scope of their isolated arguments into areas for which they are unsuited. I detect that Foucault’s and Austin’s definitions—intended to remain contained within their litero-philosophical laboratories—has escaped into the wild. Thus, like wildfire, that which was designed as constructive wrecks havoc and damage to the psyche—cracking foundations best left whole.

It is therefore little wonder to me that those who are given first to reading the works of Foucault and Austin (et al) prior to or instead of Jefferson and Madison (et al) might feel the world more made of sand than stone, and noble ideas more malleable than authoritative.

Day 2, Of Fallacies and Irony

I am halfway through my second day of class. An attentive reader will notice that the date reflects a greater passage of time—two weeks to be precise. This is due to the Martin Luther King holiday and since this class meets once per week for three hours at a crack, I got a week off. The Reverend King certainly deserves thoughtful remembrance (the “thoughtful” part being in short supply these days) and students, bankers, and certain government workers benefit in a less cerebral manner of respite, but benefit we do.

With today’s class we launch again into the worlds of argumentation and rhetoric. “Launch” is rather an overstatement. It’s more like we skip as a stone skips across the surface. The reading assignment due for today (26 odd pages) took all of two hours. The subsequent quiz given at the beginning of class today had two questions that were merely definitional and easily dispatched from the first page of each chapter—yet still the quiz was met with furtive groans from the majority of the class. Ah, the challenges that will face them in the workplace if they think that this is hard!

We have spent quite a bit of time discussing rhetoric, logic, and the fallacies. A brief time was spent on the use of words and symbols to avoid ambiguity. Irony ensued when the professor (again, a bright and likable fellow) forgot the meaning of the symbols he wrote and could not reconstruct the logic in his logic statement because…well, he was not sure what they meant. Irony defined.

Back to the studies.

As the title and subtitle of this blog suggests, I am attempting to record my journey through the ostensibly liberal-dominated world of academia. The last post suggested that I was in fertile territory for such and today added evidence. We are studying the Formal and Informal Fallacies—this is wholly correct and appropriate for a course in advanced argumentation. However, the examples used by the professor to demonstrate the fallacies are rather telling.

To demonstrate the fallacy Argumentum ad Hominem - Circumstantial (personal benefit unrelated to the conclusion) the professor cited the following phrase:
“Lowering taxes is good for the economy because you will have more money!”

To demonstrate the fallacy Argumentum ad Populem (popular believe is unrelated to truth)he said:
“90% of people believe in some form of a higher power so therefore there is a God.”

To demonstrate Ignoratio Elenchi (irrelevant conclusion) he said:
“Condi (Dr.) Rice said that we could not wait for a ‘smoking gun’ to invade Iraq because the smoking gun would be a ‘mushroom cloud.’”

(I focus on the use of Liberal position statements rather than the obvious points that this combines two different statements by two different people—neither of them Condi Rice—and takes them out of context, thus committing formal fallacies of fact.)

But to demonstrate the Ambiguity Fallacy of Accent, he predicted that the opposition would emphasize the middle name of one current presidential candidate to create an unfair impression of the man:
“Barak HUSSEIN Obama”

Although the professor certainly may have additional, more even-handed examples at his disposal, these were the only ones discussed. I also should say that their Liberal bent does not necessarily make them incorrect or un-useful examples of the related fallacies (in the logic statement sense). But their selection and use in conjunction with the topic at hand is certainly slighted.

It is a further irony that the professor fails to realize that he is creating the fallacy of bringing his bias to the table in the discussion of fallacy

Until next week,