Constitutive Rhetoric
Constitutive rhetoric is a theory of discourse devised by James Boyd White about the capacity of language or symbols to create a collective identity for an audience, especially by means of condensation symbols, literature, and narratives. Such discourse often demands that action be taken to reinforce the identity and the beliefs of that identity. White explains that it denotes "the art of constituting character, community and culture in language." Development of constitutive rhetorical theory The constitutive model of rhetoric dates back to the ancient Greek Sophists, with theories that speech moved audiences to action based on a contingent, shared knowledge. Kenneth Burke contributed to the theory of constitutive rhetoric by highlighting identification, rather than persuasion, as the major means by which language functioned. Burke contended that social identity is founded "spontaneously, intuitively, even unconsciously." Edwin Black's theory of the second persona also ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Discourse
Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. Following work by Michel Foucault, these fields view discourse as a system of thought, knowledge, or communication that constructs our world experience. Since control of discourse amounts to control of how the world is perceived, social theory often studies discourse as a window into Power (social and political), power. Within theoretical linguistics, discourse is understood more narrowly as linguistic information exchange and was one of the major motivations for the framework of dynamic semantics. In these expressions, denotations are equated with their ability to update a discourse context. Social theory In the humanities and social sciences, discourse describes a formal way of thinking that can be expressed through language. Discourse i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Culture
Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tylor, Edward. (1871). ''Primitive Culture''. Vol 1. New York: J. P. Putnam's Son Culture often originates from or is attributed to a specific region or location. Humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across societies. A cultural norm codifies acceptable conduct in society; it serves as a guideline for behavior, dress, language, and demeanor in a situation, which serves as a template for expectations in a social group. Accepting only a monoculturalism, monoculture in a social group can bear risks, just as a single species can wither in the face of environmental change, for lack of functional respo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Heracles' Bow
''Heracles' Bow: Essays on the Rhetoric and Poetics of the Law'' is a collection of ten essays, written by James Boyd White in 1985, that examine forensic rhetoric as it creates community, as an example of what White calls constitutive rhetoric. White supported the Law and Literature Movement. This movement was in contrast to two other movements of the 1970s and 1980s, Law and economics and Critical Legal Studies (CLS), in holding that a scientific view of law left little room to examine the rhetoric of written and spoken law itself. Content summary In ''Heracles' Bow: Persuasion and Community in Sophocles Philoctetes, James Boyd White, through an analysis of the ancient Greek play Philoctetes, distinguishes between two methods of persuasion: dolos (deceitful persuasion) and peitho (genuine statements made for the purpose of forming community). White compares using rhetoric on another person as a means-to-an-end against viewing the person as an end-in-itself. He relates t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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United States Declaration Of Independence
The Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America in the original printing, is the founding document of the United States. On July 4, 1776, it was adopted unanimously by the Second Continental Congress, who convened at Pennsylvania State House, later renamed Independence Hall, in the Colonial history of the United States, colonial capital of Philadelphia. These delegates became known as the nation's Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Fathers. The Declaration explains why the Thirteen Colonies regarded themselves as independent sovereign states no longer subject to British colonization of the Americas, British colonial rule, and has become one of the most circulated, reprinted, and influential documents in history. On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed the Committee of Five, including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman, who were charged w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida;Peeters (2013), pp. 12–13. See also 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was a French Algerian philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, and which was developed through close readings of the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophyVincent B. Leitch ''Postmodernism: Local Effects, Global Flows'', SUNY Series in Postmodern Culture (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), p. 27. although he distanced himself from post-structuralism and disavowed the word "postmodernity". During his career, Derrida published over 40 books, together with hundreds of essays and public presentations. He has had a significant influence on the humanities and social sciences, including philosophy, literature, law, anthropology, historiography, applie ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Neo-Aristotelianism (literature)
Neo-Aristotelianism is a view of literature and rhetorical criticism propagated by the Chicago School – Ronald S. Crane, Elder Olson, Richard McKeon, Wayne Booth, and others – which means: "A view of literature and criticism which takes a pluralistic attitude toward the history of literature and seeks to view literary works and critical theories intrinsically." In the field of speech communication, now communication studies, neo-Aristotelianism was among the first rhetorical methods of criticism. The first mention of using Aristotle's concepts for criticism was in Hoyt Hopewell Hudson's 1921 essay, “Can We Modernize the Study of Invention?” where Hudson implied the use of topoi for “speech or argument.” Its central features were more fully explicated in Herbert A. Wichelns's "The Literary Criticism of Oratory" in 1925. It focused on analyzing the methodology behind a speaker's ability to convey an idea to its audience. In 1943, neo-Aristotelianism was f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New Criticism
New Criticism was a Formalism (literature), formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object. The movement derived its name from John Crowe Ransom's 1941 book ''The New Criticism''. The works of University of Cambridge, Cambridge scholar I. A. Richards, especially his ''Practical Criticism'', ''The Principles of Literary Criticism'' and ''The Meaning of Meaning'', which offered what was claimed to be an empirical scientific approach, were important to the development of a New Critical methodology. Cleanth Brooks, John Crowe Ransom, W. K. Wimsatt, and Monroe Beardsley also made significant contributions to New Criticism. It was Wimsatt and Beardsley who introduced the ideas of Authorial intent, intentional fallacy and affective fallacy. Also very influenti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Formerly applied primarily to Economy, economic, Political philosophy, political, or Religion, religious theories and policies, in a tradition going back to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, more recent use treats the term as mainly condemnatory. The term was coined by Antoine Destutt de Tracy, a French Enlightenment aristocrat and philosopher, who conceived it in 1796 as the "science of ideas" to develop a rational system of ideas to oppose the irrational impulses of the mob. In political science, the term is used in a Linguistic description, descriptive sense to refer to List of political ideologies, political belief systems. Etymology The term ''ideology'' originates from French language, French , itself coined from combining (; close to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Interpellation (philosophy)
Interpellation is a concept introduced to Marxist theory by Louis Althusser as the mechanism through which pre-existing social structures "constitute" (or construct) individual human organisms as Subjectification, subjects (with consciousness and agency). Althusser asked how people come voluntarily to live within class, gender, racial or other identities, and argued that this happens through "state apparatuses" (such as the family, mass media, schools, churches, the judicial system, police, government) continually telling individuals what they are from infancy. In this way, apparatuses maintain the social order. In Althusser's view, apparatuses call us (or ‘hail’ us, French ''interpeller'') by labels, and we learn to respond to those labels. In this Structuralism, structuralist philosophy, social structures constitute subjects rather than individuals constituting their own subjectivity for themselves. Origin of the term The term ''interpellation'' is more common in French� ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Louis Althusser
Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher who studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser was a long-time member and sometimes a strong critic of the French Communist Party. His arguments and theses were set against the threats that he saw attacking the theoretical foundations of Marxism. These included both the influence of empiricism on Marxist theory, and Marxist humanism, humanist and reformist orientations which manifested as divisions in the European communist parties, as well as the problem of the cult of personality and of ideology. Althusser is commonly referred to as a structural Marxist, although his relationship to other schools of French structuralism is not a simple affiliation and he was critical of many aspects of structuralism. He later described himself as a social anarchist. Althusser's life was marked by periods of intense mental il ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marxist Theory
Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew from various sources, and the official philosophy in the Soviet Union, which enforced a rigid reading of what Marx called dialectical materialism, in particular during the 1930s. Marxist philosophy is not a strictly defined sub-field of philosophy, because the diverse influence of Marxist theory has extended into fields as varied as aesthetics, ethics, ontology, epistemology, social philosophy, political philosophy, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of history. The key characteristics of Marxism in philosophy are its materialism and its commitment to political practice as the end goal of all thought. The theory is also about the struggles of the proletariat and their reprimand of the bourgeoisie. Marxist theorist Louis Althuss ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |