Stasis and Premonitions

I think what Kastely accomplishes in this article is reconsider formal argumentation, but he ultimately comes to is the idea of stasis, only this time we can take it not a useful tool but as vital part of democratic citizenship.

Building off of Johnstone, Kastely claims that,

<<The point of philosophical argument, then, is not to seek agreement but to engage in criticism that allows one to see more clearly and more critically the understanding to which he or she has been led. It is an ongoing examination of commitments and the consequences of those commitments. Philosophical argument discloses what separates us intellectually.>>

The goal of argument should not be to intimidate your opponent with your conviction, but rather to enter a bravely into a vulnerable space where your mind and the minds of many are turning. It is not to replicate banal platitudes about abortion which you find convincing but to engage in a real conversation, in which the rhetors are at stasis. Publicized political discourse, i.e. the real world example, does not often have these moments.

I perhaps do not have much bad to say about this article because I am not as smart as you guys and some of it went over my head.

Just before I read Box-Logic my mind was wondering. I was thinking about doing research for a class I like better than this one. In Antebellum Novel, we are about to start working on a collaborative project, and I was envisioning a timeline that spans the length of the authors life that we are writing a profile on. We have class in 315 which has a long table but it is just me, Devin, Eric, and Dr. Okker--lots of open space.






So I got to thinking how I could have years jotted down on scraps of paper arching across the length of the table with pictures, letters, and annotations all inching up, down, and sidewise to mate up with their spot on the timeline. I was rather happy with this idea, but then I thought about how messy it would be. And I thought we would need a box to store it all in.

Low and behold some smart ass Dadaist thought of it first. It was a moment of creativity and I am not even sure I actually want to do it, but somehow Sirc channeled me sometimes before I realized we had two readings instead of one and told me to think like collector and not essayists. (I actually think this is a weird antagonism because as I was riding my bike the other day I was thinking about how one of the tropes of the essay is actually a trope of romance--the catalog. The catalog, the parade of pilgrims and their accoutrement (or for the materialist just the accoutrement) is an essay way to make associative, spatial, and temporal connections. I like Sirc suggestions (even if his art school rhetoric is grating to my ears) but I am afraid he does not imagine the essay as an art form, but instead kicks it under the bus with its inbred five-paragraph cousin.

I have been researching portfolios as a method of assessment and, of course, the portfolio is used in a wide array of field from art to fashion to business--a series better represented as a Venn diagram. Using portfolios to grade can be rather business like, meaning they can be a pain in the ass. Teacher and student making sure you have all your ducks in a row, every t crossed and every i dot dot dotted. Or it can be glamorous, representing only your very best work. Or it can be like the art box containing: drafts and proofs, notes and queries, photos and diagrams.