Sophists Rule!

For some reason, I'm having trouble following directions this summer. But here's my short version of the last two prompts.

First, my favorite canon is arrangement. Really. It's amazing to me the effect organization has on meaning and effectiveness. A poorly organized document or video or sentence, and it's incomprehensible to the audience. Good organization and the document makes perfect sense. People in general and students in particular tend to over look arrangement as important, but it will really make or break an artifact.

Secondly, three important things I've learned.

First, I learned how to covert powerpoint slides to video with voice over cool--and a corollary to that is I should probably let my husband do the voice work--he's got a voice made for radio.

Secondly, I learned that Plato really does think that rhetoric has value if not primary value. And also that he was a looney toon--ok I already knew that--but seriously. Plato must have thought at some point that he had come to know the truth otherwise why would he postulate that one can know truth but not tell it. And what was that moment like when Plato thought he had come to understand the true thing about...what? trees or beauty? probably math, but still what was he thinking to believe he had seen the true form of anything? Clearly he was in some sort of altered state when he had that brain wave.

Thirdly, I've really come to understand the various definitions of rhetoric i.e. it's style; it's persuasion; it's a good man speaking well and understand that how you define rhetoric really matters when it comes to the value that language has. Are you more of a sticks and stones person or a pen is mightier than the sword person?

Kendall

Sophists Rule!

Outline
Thesis: The historical rhetorical and philosophical tradition concerning truth makes embracing postmodern communication theory difficult for both applied rhetoricians i.e. those who create useful texts like technical communicators as well as the culture at large. Embracing this new view of communication is critical for rhetoricians and audiences to produce and use texts that work in the information age.

I. Tragic ramifications of miscommunication
a. Challenger, Three-Mile Island Mining Accidents
b. Texts create organizations.
c. How miscommunication happens.
d. Professional communicators necessary to create safer, consumer-friendly environments and products
II. Why technical communicators aren’t more empowered.
a. Culture at large doesn’t value their work.
b. Technical communicators don’t value their work.
III. Historical relationship of truth and knowledge to language.
a. Sophists and empowered view of language
i. Language has incredible power to persuade
ii. No absolute Truth only conditional truth.
b. Plato, Truth and rhetoric
i. Rhetoric not based in Truth unethical for Plato
ii. Truth was a felt-sense that philosophers could feel but not communicate.
c. For 2000+ years Western culture defines truth as something outside language, although language can define truth.
i. Aristotle on Truth
ii. St. Augustine on Truth
iii. Bacon on Truth
iv. Locke on Truth
v. Nietzsche on Language
IV. The string that ties language to truth snaps: in the Twentieth Century philosophers grapple with relationship of language to truth; Foucault and others begin to understand that Truth is irrelevant—there’s only language.
a. Wittgenstein tries to create a view of language that ties language to truth but he can’t do it and abandons the effort.
b. Foucault finally declares an end to “the tyranny of the signifier.”
V. Modern communication theory and applied rhetoric (technical communication): the more practically minded apply the end of Truth to texts and language.
a. Brief history of technical communication and communication theory
b. How such theories empower both technical communicators and their audiences.
VI. Strategies for adopting 21st Century communication theory despite 2000 years of history.
a. Research that demonstrates relationship between knowledge and language.
b. Education
1. Curriculum must emphasize 21st Century articulated theory of communication.
2. Teach foundational knowledge not transient skills like software programs.
3. Management training.
c. Professionalization
1. Develop professional standards.
2. Supply workforce with enough professionals so that employers will never hire non-professionals.

Sophists Rule!

Outline

Thesis: The historical rhetorical and philosophical tradition concerning truth makes embracing postmodern communication theory difficult for both applied rhetoricians i.e. those who create useful texts like technical communicators as well as the cultural at large. Embracing this new view of communication is critical for rhetoricians and audiences to produce and use texts that work in the information age.

I. Beginning of Rhetoric and Philosophy
a. Sophists and empowered view of language
i. Language has incredible power to persuade
ii. No absolute Truth only conditional truth.
b. Plato, Truth and rhetoric
i. Rhetoric not based in Truth amoral for Plato
ii. Truth was a felt-sense that philosophers could feel but not communicate.
c. Plato wins the Truth debate plunging Western culture into a 2500 year search for Truth while simultaneously stretching the string that tethers language to truth tighter and tighter.
i. Aristotle on Truth
ii. St. Augustine on Truth
iii. Bacon on Truth
iv. Locke on Truth
v. Nietzsche on Language
II. The string snaps: in the Twentieth Century philosophers like Wittgenstein and Foucault begin to understand that Truth is irrelevant—there’s only language.
a. Wittgenstein tries to create a view of language that ties language to truth but he can’t do it and abandons the effort.
b. Foucault finally declares an end to “the tyranny of the signifier.”
III. Modern communication theory and applied rhetoric (technical communication): the more practically minded apply the end of Truth to texts and language.
a. Brief history of technical communication and communication theory
b. How such theories empower both technical communicators and their audiences.
c. What happens when communicators and audiences don’t understand how the discursive reality created by texts work.
d. What rhetoric and technical communication departments can do to banish Plato and truth in their contemporary texts. (We can never really banish Plato, but we can place him in his historical context.)