Episteme, Techne, Phronesis (AcWriMo Update)

Having a schedule of specific times for writing every day is helping, though I missed Tuesday entirely, had to bump my writing time to later in the day on Monday because of a doctor's appointment, and seriously overslept on Friday. It is challenging to change from a habit of fitting my writing time around everything else in my life, to fitting everything else around my writing time. Still, other than Tuesday I did spend at least 2 hours writing, or doing writing-related reading every day this week, and as a result I have written 1300 more words for my first portfolio paper--not even remotely close to my goal, but progress nonetheless. I have also written about 3700 words of annotations for the books and articles I read this week. The balance of writing should really have been be the other way around, but at least my extensive annotations will help me when it comes time to study for my comprehensive exams.

One of the things I'm trying to do with my revision is to construct a new theoretical framework from which to make sense of my data, and in fact to make new sense of the entire project. When I say "make new sense," I mean that it already makes a kind of sense. I know what happened, and even a good deal about the chain of cause and effect that led to the point I'm at now--the point of having a mess of data that I need to write something meaningful about. I'm not exaggerating when I say mess, by the way. It's such a mess that I've spent the better part of the past five months in a cyclical pattern of anger, anxiety, and avoidance over what to do with it. This, my colleagues and advisor assure me, is not uncommon and does not mean I am a total failure as a researcher. So they say.

To make new sense of my research means to go from merely knowing what happened, to constructing particular meaning from it, meaning that will be recognized as meaningful by the community of scholars I'm trying to join. To do that, I needed a theory, grounded in the discipline, which would not only help me interpret the data but also the ultimately quite haphazard method by which it was obtained. To find it, I went all the way back to Aristotle, mainly by way of Janet Atwill and Joseph Dunne.

The ancient Greeks loved knowledge, and they loved to classify and systematize absolutely everything--including knowledge itself. They recognized, and had words for, many kinds of knowledge: nous meant first principles, which must be apprehended since they cannot be derived from observation or logic; episteme, or theoretical knowledge, is logically demonstrable truth; sophia is the power of both apprehending first principles and demonstrating theoretical knowledge; phronesis is practical knowledge, or the virtue of wise action; and techne is productive knowledge--that is, the power of rational creation, or of knowing how to intervene in specific cases in order to bring about a desired end. Whereas episteme is universal, techne and phronesis are particular, and whereas phronesis constitutes a mode of being, techne is about accomplishing specific ends. Though there is some ambiguity about the boundaries (and even the legitimacy) of some of these definitions of knowledge, the ancient Greeks as well as modern theorists generally agree that rhetoric is a type of techne. Atwill, however, gives an account of rhetoric that seems closer to phronesis. Even Dunne admits that the distinction between the two is ambiguous; his whole book is a project of teasing out the difference.

Anyway, the problem I had with my portfolio paper is that I wanted my research project to yield episteme. I wanted to be able to construct a rational account connecting my data to universal principles as unambiguously as possible. It couldn't possibly have worked--not only because I am such an amateur when it comes to designing and conducting such a study, but because the subject itself is one of particulars and not of universals. What I need--and what I ought to be seeking, is not theoretical but practical or productive knowledge, a rational but highly flexible way to deal with inherently messy and largely uncontrollable situations, ideally in order to increase the likelihood of bringing about specific ends. In order to be a techne, that way has to be teachable: it can't just work once, or only for me. As Charles Bazerman explains, "We consider theories successful when we do better with their guidance than without, when we accomplish more of what we wish when following their accounts than when following any or no other account. When considered this way, theories can be seen as heuristics for action" (103). Really though, I'm not sure that what I have--an application of Kenneth Burke's "comic frame"--amounts to a techne, or is more a type of phronesis. In any case such a heuristic would not only help me make sense of the data at hand but also make sense of the larger process of doing this research and writing project--and, I hope, future projects.

If you've actually read this far, congratulations! You're a giant nerd. Here's a cookie. 

...What's that? Aristotle ate your cookie! What a jerk. No, no, it totally wasn't me. It was Aristotle. Check out that guilty look on his face! Well, you know what they say about gifs bearing Greeks.

Source of images: Wikimedia commons.

Berry Experiments

I should be revising a portfolio paper right now. I promised my committee chair I'd send her a complete draft by the end of the month--which is Monday. And I promised my study buddies I'd have a draft of it to workshop tomorrow. But here's the thing: I've been working like a dog all week, and my brain is fried. I need a break from academic writing. So I decided to make myself some treats.

Plus, I wanted to try my hand at the step-by-step cooking/baking photo blog post genre.

See, it was my turn last Saturday to do the grocery shopping, and I love berries. And they were on sale. So I bought a lot of them. I mean A LOT. So on Sunday, I made a pie. A chocolate uber-berry no-bake non-dairy cheesecake.* Mmmm-MM! It was delicious, and by far the most attractive pie I've ever made. Not that that's saying much--I'm pretty new to the pie-making business.

But it didn't use very many berries. I still had a lot of berries. And you know, fresh fruit doesn't last forever. So I made some chocolate covered strawberries. 

Chocolate covered strawberries are easy (and also tasty). I wanted to try something different. I still had tons of raspberries, so I decided to make some chocolate raspberry cups. I put some melted white chocolate at the bottom of a mini-muffin pan, put two raspberries in each, and then I poured some melted semi-sweet chocolate over the top. Later, it occurred to me that I might have trouble getting the chocolate out of the pan, because I didn't use liners or anything. But I poked at their edges with a knife and they popped right out. 

And they were DELICIOUS. 

Except there was too much chocolate. 

I know, right? I can't believe I'd say that either, but it's true. There was too much chocolate. They were hard to bite into, and the raspberry-chocolate ratio wasn't right. Well, we ate them anyway. Mostly I ate them. But I did share some with my roommates.

Even after completing this highly educational experiment, I still had a lot of berries. I could have just eaten them, but I had bigger ideas. I planned further experiments for my remaining test subjects, but didn't carry them out until tonight, spurred by the fact that my brain was beginning to dribble out of my ears from all that academic writing, and those berries weren't going to keep forever.

I decided to ditch the muffin pan. I dropped a bit of white chocolate in rows on a wax-paper covered cutting board and put a berry on top of each. In retrospect, maybe I should have left some just like this, because look how pretty! Or maybe I could have melted the chocolate to an even thinner consistency and just drizzled some delicately over the top. But who am I kidding? I'm not really the delicate type.

I wanted them completely covered in chocolate. I figured that it would get really messy if I tried to roll them in chocolate and then put them back on the paper. I also figured I could just pour chocolate over the top of them.  

That sort of worked. But I could tell that I was going to end up with a "too much chocolate" problem again. Also, it wasn't looking very pretty. I decided to roll them after all, and then drop them back onto the wax paper.

Just as I predicted, it was messy. Overall though, I think they're slightly better looking than the "dribble chocolate over the top" models. And they certainly have a more reasonable berry-chocolate ratio. When I finished making my twelve white-chocolate-enhanced berries, even though I'd been snacking on the raw ingredients as I worked, I still had a few more raspberries left. So I just rolled those in chocolate too. Might as well.

Messy, but DELICIOUS. I plan to conduct follow-up experiments to improve my methodology and satisfy my need for chocolate and distractions from doing actual work.

*Chocolate Uber-berry No-bake Non-dairy Cheesecake Recipe: 

Ingredients:

Sliced strawberries

Raspberries

Blackberries

Any other berries you want

1 8-oz package of plain Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese

2 C thawed non-dairy whipped topping

3/4 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 C (1/2 stick) margarine, softened

1/2 C sugar

1 graham cracker crust

Directions:

In a microwave-safe bowl, heat chocolate chips on MEDIUM for 1 minute. Stir. If needed, heat in additional 30-second increments on medium until melted and smooth.

In a large bowl, mix cream cheese, margarine, and sugar on medium speed until creamy. Gradually add whipped topping and chocolate, mixing on low speed until well blended. Spoon into crust.

Arrange berries on top of the pie any way you want. Chill in refrigerator until firm (about two hours) before serving.

Writing on writing

This is going to be longish, folks--I've got some catching up to do on my word count. And since I'm having trouble thinking of what to write about, I'm going to do what any self-respecting scholar would do: I'm going to go meta, and write about writing.

The first human writing was primarily numbers, for record keeping. Wikipedia tells me that the first writing of language occurred in at least two times and places, independently: in ancient Sumer around 3200 BCE, and Mesoamerica around 600 BCE. The Sumerians, humanity's earliest known writers, wrote using a stylus on clay tablets, and their writing was initially used for bookkeeping.

The Egyptians, who may or may not have developed their hieroglyphic writing system due to the influence of the Sumerians, used writing not only for economic but also for religious and military purposes. Semitic workers developed an alphabet in Ancient Egypt around 1800 BCE. These "Proto-Semites" wrote graffiti and "votive texts" on Mount Sinai.

The Ancient Chinese wrote divinatory texts on bones and turtle shells. And the earliest known writers in the Americas, the Maya, likewise initially tended to employ writing for sacred purposes.

Eventually people started using writing not only for economic or devotional purposes, but also to record ideas and poetry. I sometimes wonder whether those early writers ever struggled to think of what to write.

Plato's Socrates (really the only Socrates we know, since he never wrote anything himself) was suspicious of writing. He argued (quite correctly, as it turned out) that writing would destroy memory and cause people to profess knowledge they did not actually possess. Memory and knowledge meant something rather different in oral cultures than they do now, of course. It is true that, if you can write something down, you don't have to commit it to memory--and that a memory recorded externally is qualitatively different from a memory etched in the mind. Our memories are not what they were.

The problem with writing, Socrates said, was that you can't ask it questions--or at least you can, but it can't explain itself; it can only repeat the same words again and again. And that is why it doesn't count as knowledge--to know something means to be able to explain and re-explain how you know it. Writing doesn't "know", it just "is," but it enables people who can read it to pretend to knowledge they haven't "earned"--they haven't worked it out for themselves, but just gotten it from a book. So, with writing, something was lost, but something was also gained.

I wonder how often Plato struggled to find words for his ideas. I wonder how often he struggled to find ideas for his words.

The problem of what to say (or write) and how is one of the two primary concerns of rhetoric (the other is analyzing what's been said and how). Classical rhetoric broke the problem down into five canons: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Scholars continue to argue about which of the canons deserve the most attention, but since I've started this blog, invention has been on my mind.

For ancient rhetoricians, invention was all about the topoi--the topics, or places to find things. But they weren't really talking about things to write about or places where ideas could be found--such a catalogue, being potentially infinite, could never be completed, and Aristotle, the great systematizer of ancient rhetoric, did something much more clever. His topoi represent "basic categories of relationships among ideas". And the ways we can construct relationships among ideas turn out to be rather more manageable.

Anyway. Those who know me, know that I am rarely at a loss for something to say. But having something to write seems to be quite another matter. And having something to write about every day seems positively daunting. Aristotle reminds me that it isn't so much having something to write about, but about making connections.

Audience is another problem. Not only do I have to think about who might be reading this blog, but also who might read it in the future. Like everyone, I have multiple identities: sister, daughter, friend, colleague, scholar, teacher, student, Latter-day Saint, woman, Latter-day Saint woman (yes, those are three distinct, though never separate identities), Doctor Who fan, roommate, among others. Many of those identities overlap, but they are sometimes in tension with one another (scholar and Latter-day Saint, for instance, are often perceived by others as being in tension, if not generally by me--but that perception itself generates a tension). And new identities arise over time.

When I write this blog, which "me" am I? And which of "you" am I writing to? Perhaps, in writing this, I am calling forth new identities for myself and my audience. All of these identities and the tensions between them are, of course, sites of rhetorical invention--they represent potential relationships among ideas, as well as actual relationships between people.

The stakes are not trivial. It may be that I will never have more than a handful of readers. Perhaps only family and friends, but potentially also future employers, colleagues, federal agents, and the odd web-crawling AI. I hope, at any rate, that my readers will be friendly, or at the very least, kindly disposed toward the "me" that is embodied in the words that I write.

The full title of this blog, generously supplied by my good friend Nancy, is "Rebeccaland: where everything is just like it is in my head." That title was a bit too long for Blogger to display properly, so I shortened it, but in shortening it, something was lost. Indeed, I've been meditating on this very interesting title for the last few days. Nancy loves layers of meaning--I mean, loves them even more than I do, and that's saying a lot. She's a Joyce scholar.

The title is both the product of invention, and a new site of invention. It is the product of the particular relationship among the ideas that I have of Nancy and she has of me and each of us have of what blogging is or can be--among other things. It also represents the potential range of topics this blog might contain, and suggests a certain attitude toward them (an attitude which is tied to that complex of interpersonal perceptions I just talked about).

Basically, I think that this blog isn't so much going to be like the inside of my head (which is really full of a great many things that ought best to stay inside my head; they won't stand for being shoved onto the front stage of a blog), as it is like what Nancy thinks the inside of my head is like--a bit like Disneyland, only without the commercialism, and with more books. So, like a cross between Disneyland and a library. Or, to put it another way, it will be full of random happy geeky things with a generous side of pondersomeness (and the odd neologism sprinkled in here and there).



Word Count

Friday: 221
Saturday: 1893
Running total: 3815
Day 3 target: 5001