ABSTRACT In contemporary U.S. public discourse, calls for achieving equity abound. Many metrics now measure equity being achieved. I inquire into whether equity can be said to be achieved and still be equity. Inquiring as such leads me to excavating the menacing and actual cultural violence of developing such achievement. Simultaneously, this excavation shows the rhetoric of equity qua equity as a means of abolishing the conditions for that violence to take hold. I put forward that equity cannot be said (...) to be achieved without the conditions of possibility equity offers being colonized. If a commitment to antiviolence speaks, it cannot say, “Equity achieved.”. (shrink)

This article focuses on Homers idea of reflexive rhetoric. The majority of Homeric deliberation scenes contain no deliberative calculi. One approach to this problem would be to generalize from the scenes where Odysseus uses deliberative calculi to those where he does not. One might argue, though, that data have to be transmitted to and outputted from a computer via interfaces, one where data are transformed into electrical impulses, and one where the output is printed as information. The deliberative calculus cannot (...) be the essential link between deliberation and persuasion, though it undoubtedly figures into the process of self-persuasion to the extent that it either explicitly or implicitly brings about a particular decision. In this perspective, the fact that Homer is frequently silent about deliberative calculi is irrelevant to the question of whether Odysseus persuades himself. The idea of Homeric rhetoric is alleged to pose the problem of anachronism. Moving toward an account of reflexive rhetoric allows to see in even greater detail the centrality of rhetoric to human condition. Accession Number: 18705553; Mifsud, Mari Lee 1; Affiliations: 1: Department of Rhetoric and Public Address, Whitman College.; Issue Info: 1998, Vol. 31 Issue 1, p41; Thesaurus Term: RHETORIC; Thesaurus Term: AUTHORSHIP; Thesaurus Term: LITERATURE; Subject Term: HOMER; Subject Term: ODYSSEUS (Greek mythology); Subject Term: ERRORS & blunders, Literary; Subject Term: PHILOSOPHY; Number of Pages: 14p; Document Type: Article. (shrink)

This essay explores Johnstone's idea that "rhetoric is a wedge." In particular, it explores the place of this idea in Johnstone's philosophy of argument, the need to confront this idea with argument, and ways of confronting it with ad rem and ad hominem arguments.

The rhetorical structure of Vico’s pedagogy is shaped predominantly by the ars topica. While most would associate the ars topica with the classical Greek and Roman cultures, where theories of topoi predominate rhetorical theory and pedagogy, this essay shows that the ars topica in the rhetorical structure of Vico’s pedagogy must be heroic in nature, rather than classical. Embodied in the figure of Homer, the ars topica in Vico’s pedagogy stands beyond the technical consciousness of the classical world. The figure (...) of Homer stands for the imaginative poetic capacity to make figural connections and to escape the reduction of meaning to technical formulae. Such escape, for Vico, ensures the life and liberty of not only the individual mind but the civic realm. (shrink)

Introduction : setting the stage for the research narrative -- Foucauldian props for data interpretation and representation i -- Foucauldian props for data interpretation and representation ii -- Data analysis choices and the crisis of representation -- Data analysis choices and the fictional representation of narrative -- Raising the curtain on sunnyside college -- The performance of collegiality -- The fluidity in the emerging relations of power -- The unfolding of leadership distribution -- Bringing down the curtain? -- Presenting conclusions (...) and theorisations : the quasi-final stage. (shrink)

We studied the role of worldviews in the endorsement of proposals for the legalisation of recreational cannabis. Drawing on literature on generalised belief structures, we developed categorical measures for five worldviews drawing on commonalities in the typologies reviewed. We proceeded to study the relative influence of worldviews in support of a range of items concerned with the legalisation of recreational cannabis amongst a randomly generated sample in Malta. Our findings demonstrate that the Orthodox worldview stands in contrast to all others (...) in opposing the proposals and constitutes the resistance group to legalisation. On the other hand, no other worldview unilaterally supports the proposals albeit these are, on an individual basis, favourably perceived. Our study further demonstrates that proportions of variance accounted for by the worldview measures we adopted are comparable to those exercised by demographic variables demonstrating significance. We propose that the study of worldviews is critical in understanding social and political alliances that come together to support or oppose particular politicised projects or collective courses of action. (shrink)

As we so often trip about and lose our breath over speaking precisely to "what is rhetoric?," it should come to no surprise that being asked what we want of rhetoric, of language, of an other moves us to fidget, even brings us to blush. But if we pause with these questions, lips parted without yet the words to answer, we may notice a peculiar craving that churns before the naming. We want of rhetoric—but what? We are compelled toward rhetoric—whereto? (...) We seek in rhetoric—for? If this desire, what Hannah Arendt calls an appetite for love for its own sake, refers to the will to "have and to hold," our love in/for/through rhetoric always seems to slip from capture. So much so that after a whirl of... (shrink)