SEPTEMBER 10, 2018 (Walter Fisher)

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018 BLOG POST
"Narration as Human Communication" By Walter R. Fisher

Fisher's essay was interesting on many different levels, and I believe it was operating with pretenses in sociology and philosophy as he spent quite a bit of time discussing the human narrative experience and also what this experience means for the public. In one of many definitions aimed to help readers understand the significance of the narrative structure, Fisher writes, " The meaning and significance of life in all its social dimensions require the recognition of its narrative structure" (377). He suggests here that employing a narrative mode of consciousness, as the human rational human experience, holds a great deal of weight, that is, in order to derive meaning or significance from life we must recognize the narrative structure of life.

The idea of deriving meaning and significance from life makes me think of Kenneth Burke, who postulated that man is a "symbol-using" being. Burke, a rhetorical theorist, argued that humans use symbols to communicate and create them for meaning-making. Symbols like words, for example, hold meaning for us and allow us a somewhat flexible medium for the development of language, communication, and in many ways, the narrative social experience.

Human communication  and decision-making must be in argumentative form, Fisher's paradigm, follows the tradition of Aristotle's theory, what he calls The Rational World Paradigm, which surmises that humans are rational beings, that communication and decision-making are forms of argument, and that the world is filled with puzzles that can be solved through logic. But the specification that being rational is being learned is perhaps, in my opinion, the most important aspect of this ancient paradigm. Rationality comes from knowledge.

Fisher proposes another metaphor to represent human beings, what he calls homo narrans. He argues that narration is the master metaphor and follows Burke's definition of man as "symbol-employing." If I understand this master metaphor correctly, Fisher is suggesting that because every element of the human experience is subjective in the narrative, this metaphor becomes a type of lens we can look through to understand our own conceptions on a spectrum of logic and truth. This is a philosophical dilemma that Fisher proposes, but it seems sensical enough in terms of what implications follow the narrative experience through the social, political, theological, or other forms of the human experience that would engage decision-making or communication.

He writes, "The materials of the narrative paradigm are symbols, signs of consubstantiation, and good reasons, the communicative expressions of social reality" (383). Fisher indicates here that the narrative paradigm, his alternative view that human communication is in argumentative form, depends on human use of symbols to generate meaning, a similarity in substance or essence, and logical reasoning. This is Fisher's equation for understanding the narrative paradigm.

It seems important to note that the narrative experience is rooted in perspective, which has limitations for communication and the social world we occupy.

Towards that later part of the essay, he addresses public moral argument, which he argues has an underlying persuasive element. He discusses attributes of the most effective argumentative public moralist by suggesting that this individual acts as a counselor, and shares his/her narrative experience with the public using rationality and logic. In response, the public uses a specific set of criteria to determine what belief they choose to accept based on what these counselors argue. This can either inspire the public to action or inspire them to inaction. Fisher writes, "... public-social knowledge is to be found in the stories that we tell one another... to observe not only our differences, but also our commonalities, and in such observation we might be able to reform the notion of 'public'" (393).

SEPTEMBER 3, 2018 (Stanley Fish)

SEPTEMBER 3, 2018 BLOG POST
"Rhetoric" By Stanley Fish

I had a little bit of background information coming into this essay. I recall discussing Stanley Fish in one of my introductory writing classes with Professor Scott Parker. During class he mentioned a recent book by Fish titled "How to Write a Sentence," which was actually just a book of sentence workshop methods for the common writing student.

With the background information applied, I suppose I should probably begin to comment on Fish's essay about rhetoric. When I began reading, I found the epigraph interesting. The epigraph from John Milton's Paradise Lost seemed somewhat out of place, but once Fish went about explaining his selection I couldn't help but nod in appreciation. Milton was defining rhetoricians in the classical sense, that is, intelligent and manipulative conversationalists, or orators, perhaps. This tradition began with the Greeks, with the people before Socrates who did ask for payment to educate young people and to speak to crowds. Socrates didn't ask for payment for his speaking or his conversations with the young aristocracy. The difference here is that Socrates was interested in simply sharing his wisdom and the truths that he believed arrived from achieving that intellect. Although he himself was a brilliant rhetorician, it is believed, based on the dialogues of Plato, that he was not maliciously manipulative, i.e. he had no interest in stealing or cheating people. Socrates was even proven to be morally sound in his decision not to flee his execution in the second to last dialogue, Crito.

I suspect the assumption here was that manipulating others, in any way, was immoral, even if this was done with words, and not for any particular reason besides an intellectual challenge. Plato's Euthyphro demonstrates the Socratic Method, which I understand to be an cooperative, but argumentative educational dialogue between two people attempting to find a question's answer.

A few thinkers later and we arrive at Aristotle, who proposed that rhetoric is "the art of persuasion," which many people cling to for the sake of understanding rhetoric. I am tempted to take this quote at surface level, but I'm also tempted to ask what a person's definition of "persuasion" is, and how it may affect the way we view or think about rhetoric. Also, how do we define "art," and what does it mean to think of rhetoric as an "art"? Anyway, Aristotle, in Fish's essay, defines a difference between the Homo seriosus and the Homo rhetoricus. 

Aristotle defines Homo Seriosus, the Serious Man, as possessing "... a central self, an irreducible identity," while he defines Homo rhetoricus, the Rhetorical Man, as "... an actor" (127). What kinds of implications or misguided notions is Aristotle under when he defines a difference between these two types of men? Are all people not "serious" and "rhetorical" at the same time? Is being authentic and being an actor not something everyone does depending on the situation?

Continuing on in the reading, I'm tempted to explore the dilemma of manipulation when it comes to rhetoric. Is this a misunderstanding, or a fear from society? Rhetoric, in my terms, is a form of expression. All communication is a form of expression with some intended purpose. The purpose of rhetoric is too broad to refine, but I still view it as an expression. Now, rhetoricians are no necessarily manipulative, that is, verbally manipulative. It boils down to intention and presentation, like Aristotle's steps of rhetoric, invention, arrangement, and style. With persuasive ability comes a certain amount of desire, which rhetoric promises delivery from. Rhetoric is built on persuasion, but it also deals widely in influence, and we see full circle that influence creates persuasion and rhetoric can construct its own tower, giving the rhetorician a place on top.