John D. Schaeffer

Bio: John D. Schaeffer is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Rhetoric & Dialectic. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 4 publications receiving 135 citations.

Defining Reality: Definitions and the Politics of Meaning

Abstract: Edward Schiappa, Defining Reality: Definitions and the Politics of Meaning Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003 xvi + 213 pp $6000 cloth; $2500 paper Every author who writes about definitions faces the temptation to refer to Alice's conversation with Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking-Glass "The question is," says Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things" "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-that's all" While Edward Schiappa does not refer to this passage in his book, it is clear that he stands foursquare with Humpty Dumpty Defining Reality brings social-constructivist theory to bear on the process of defining terms After introducing his own constructivist and pragmatist theory of definition, Schiappa proceeds to analyze the history of several legal controversies that hinge on definition These include "legal death," "rape," "wetlands," "art," and "human person" Then he proceeds to examine how controversies about definitions set technical, personal, and public meanings at odds with each other His conclusion argues for a social constructivist and pragmatist definition of definition, one that will escape what he sees as a "metaphysical absolutism" that "implies a potentially dangerous ideology" (178) Schiappa begins his introduction by distinguishing two kinds of definitions: the "fact of essence" which purports to state what something is and a "fact of usage" which describes how a word is used-this being the lexical or "dictionary" definition (5) Schiappa immediately dismisses both forms of definitions precisely because each claims to state a fact, that is, a proposition that describes a state of affairs from a neutral or objective standpoint Schiappa, on the contrary, argues that definitions should be considered as "ought propositions" rather than as "is propositions" (10) Definitions, he says, are "rhetorically induced" (29) The author then describes how meaning is acquired and defining is learned While Schiappa cites several modern linguists as his sources, this section (and some others) seems to borrow from the old general semantics developed by Alfred Korzybski and popularized by S I Hayakawa in his Language in Thought and Action, now in its fifth, and much revised, edition Many of Schiappa's metaphors derive from general semantics: the ladder of abstraction, reality as a territory of which language is a map, etc He concludes this part of the book by claiming that formal and informal definitions "can be understood as persuasion aimed at shared understanding and denotative conformity" (31) Schiappa then turns to his case studies to illustrate his constructivist view of definitions Schiappa says that definitions become problematic in the context of some controversy A definitional gap occurs when one encounters an unfamiliar word Checking the word in a dictionary usually resolves the matter A definitional rupture, on the other hand, occurs when the very process of defining becomes problematic (8-10) Schiappa's first example of a definitional rupture is "death" Schiappa analyzes how "brain death" is dissociated from the conventional meaning of death, cardiorespiratory failure Schiappa points out that defining "death" did not become a problem until the development of medical procedures for organ transplants "Brain death," or irreversible coma, is a desirable definition because it allows the "harvesting" of organs that are still viable Cardiorespiratory failure usually renders other organs unusable for transplants Schiappa says that the argument for a practical and useful definition ought to be conducted ethically, but he rules out of court any argument from ethics When a person's organs can be harvested is ultimately a case of "practical utility," Schiappa only says the discussion should be ethical, that is, it should not be about real definitions because they, according to Schiappa, are "ethically suspect" (48) …

James J. Murphy, Richard A. Katula, and Michael Hoppmann. A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric

Abstract: James J. Murphy, Richard A. Katula, and Michael Hoppmann. A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric. 4th ed. New York and London: Routledge, 2014. xii + 287 pp.Routledge's popular A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric has been thoroughly revised for its fourth edition. Two authors of the previous editions have died in the interim between the third and fourth editions: professor Forbes I. Hill and professor Donovan J. Ochs. The two remaining authors, professors James J. Murphy and Richard A Katula, have been joined by professor Michael Hoppmann in producing this new edition. While retaining the general framework of previous editions, the fourth revises every chapter as well as the classical texts appended for study.While previous editions identified the author(s) of each chapter, this new edition does not do so. Additionally, unlike the previous editions, this one adds a helpful synopsis at the end of each chapter. Chapter one, "The Origins of Rhetoric in the Democracy of Ancient Athens" expands significantly the first chapter of the third edition. It adds more historical background about the rise of Athenian democracy and the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars. Most importantly, this edition includes several paragraphs on the role of women in Athenian society. Chapter two, "Rhetorical Consciousness and the Rise of the Sophists," reproduces the second chapter of the third edition, but with the addition of a section on Demosthenes not included in the previous editions. This chapter is especially important for its discussion of the various kinds of sophistry and the narrow focus of Plato's attack on it.Chapter three discusses Aristotle's Rhetoric, and this chapter is substantially revised from the previous edition. The authors have revised their very helpful outline of the Rhetoric which is then followed by a detailed synopsis of the work that is carried over from the previous edition. The distinguishing feature of the revision, however, is an expanded and clearer presentation of Aristotle's treatment of the enthymeme and the topoi. One of the advantages of this chapter, retained from the previous edition, is a useful discussion of the ambiguity of the term "probability" in Aristotle's treatise. Finally, the chapter includes an excellent exposition of Aristotle's anatomy of emotions, justifying his reputation as the first psychologist. The entire chapter is one of the most readable presentations of Aristotle's subtle (and sometimes confusing) work.Chapter four departs from the previous edition. Entitled "From Greek to 'Roman' Rhetoric with Synopses of Thee Pragmatic Handbooks," the chapter reorganizes and expands on the third edition's chapter on the codification of Roman rhetoric. The three "pragmatic handbooks" are the Rhetorica ad Alexandrian, the rhetoric of Hermagoras of Temnos, and the Rhetorica ad Herrenium. While the third edition treated each of these also, this edition greatly expands that treatment to include recent research. Along the way, the authors briefly summarize and analyze some works of lesser importance. First, the authors present a detailed outline and explication of the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, giving it a much more thorough treatment than that in the previous edition of their work. Second, their analysis of Hermagoras includes a very detailed study of Hermagoras's writings on stasis theory, illustrated with a very useful diagram. This section is one of the highlights of the new edition. It incorporates the latest research on stasis theory and makes it accessible to a less than expert reader.After discussing Hermagoras, the authors introduce some material on early Roman rhetoric. They provide useful historical background on the careers of Cato the Elder, Marcus Antonius, and Fucius Ficinius Crassus, indicating their contributions to early oratorical practice. Then they turn to Cicero's youthful De inventione. They provide a selection of passages only slightly altered from the previous edition, and they point out the significance (and shortcomings) of the work. …

Peter Mack. A History of Renaissance Rhetoric 1380-1620

Abstract: Peter Mack A History of Renaissance Rhetoric 1380-1620 Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011 335 pp $150 cloth Peter Mack's A History of Renaissance Rhetoric 1380-1620 presents a detailed account of the rhetorics published during the mentioned dates Mack states his method immediately: "My main focus will be on a host of individual thinkers and their works" (1) His purpose is to give students "a reasonably full idea of the new doctrines of Renaissance rhetoric, even where these were not widely taken up later" (3) Mack outlines four major themes of his history: 1) the consequences of greater knowledge of ancient literature and the classical world; 2) the place of rhetoric in education; 3) the impact of ideas from dialectic (logic) on rhetoric and vice versa; 4) the adaptation of the tenets of classical rhetoric to a changed world His summaries let the authors speak for themselves This is not a critical history Mack establishes some preliminary definitions and parameters He briefly surveys the diffusion and reception of classical rhetoric in general (13-32) and in Italy in particular (33-55) After recounting the stories of the recovery of classical rhetorical texts, Mack proceeds to summarize the texts of Quatrocento Italian rhetoricians The major theme of this section is how these writers accommodated newly-discovered Aristotelian rhetoric to the existing framework of Roman rhetoric In this section, and throughout the book, Mack refers to the research of Lawrence Green and James J Murphy whose Renaissance Rhetoric Short Title Catalogue 1460-1700 provided the data on publication, diffusion, and popularity of hundreds of Renaissance rhetoric texts Mack usually repeats their findings and infers the extent of the texts' popularity, geographical provenance, and durability After concluding with the early Italian rhetoricians, Mack proceeds to the major figures, beginning with Rudolf Agricola Mack credits Agricola with introducing dialectic, or logic, into the study of rhetoric Mack summarizes De inventione dialectica and notes the subdivisions and claims of each of its three books He takes at face value Agricola's conflation of the topics and the categories as a source for invention This uncritical approach will recur in his treatment of Ramus Before proceeding to Ramus, however, Mack summarizes the contributions of Erasmus, certainly the most influential of Renaissance rhetoricians Mack points out that Erasmus revived the classical focus on audience He further praises Erasmus's Adagia as aiming not only to improve students' writing but also their lives Next Mack turns to Erasmus's De copia which he summarizes succinctly and praises for its adaptability to a progressively ambitious curriculum Mack discusses Erasmus's Parabolae as an effective defense of metaphor and other comparisons, as well as an introduction to elocutio Mack then turns to the De conscribendis epistolis, which he argues was one of the most influential of rhetorical treatises Finally, Mack gives a spirited if brief analysis of the comparatively neglected Ecclesiastes On the whole, Mack's account of Erasmus is a high point of his book From Erasmus, Mack turns to the rhetorical writings of Philip Melancthon Melancthon was a tireless Protestant reformer who, in 1519 published De rhetorica libri tres, in 1528 a logic text book, and then in 1547 another rhetoric text book, Elementa rhetorices libri duo, that Mack calls one of the most influential of the century (107) Mack points out that, from the beginning, Melancthon saw rhetoric and dialectic as mutually dependent Dialectic "teaches things nakedly, while rhetoric adds style as a sort of clothing" (112) Melancthon also added a fourth genre to the three traditional types of discourse: the didascalic genre which aimed at teaching Melancthon departed from his predecessors by organizing his treatment of invention according to the genre of the discourse rather than according to the parts of the oration …

The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction / the Great Tradition / the Ethics of Reading / Twentieth-Century Rhetorics and Rhetoricians: Critical Studies and Sources

Abstract: Michael G. Moran and Michelle Ballif, eds. Twentieth-Century Rhetorics and Rhetoricians: Critical Studies and Sources. Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 2000. xxxii + 423 pp. $99.50 cloth. "This volume desires to represent the multiple ways in which rhetoric has been conceived, theorized, and practiced by rhetoricians during the last 100 years" (xii-- xiii). With this ambitious declaration the editors promise a comprehensive summary of twentieth-century writing about rhetoric, and they deliver it, not with perfect even-handedness, but with remarkable completeness. The volume includes critical essays on forty twentieth-century rhetoricians. The essays are arranged alphabetically by name of subject, and after each essay there is a bibliography of the primary texts of the rhetorician and of critical and historical studies of his or her work. The length of the critical bibliographies varies widely, but many are more comprehensive than one might expect from such a collection. Furthermore the list of rhetoricians covered is also very comprehensive, since the editors include rhetoric theorists, composition theorists, and many literary critics who address rhetoric in some way. Thus the volume includes essays on Bakhtin, Foucault, Derrida, de Man, and other postmodern critics. It also includes essays on Frank Aydelotte, Gertrude Buck, and Albert Kitzhaber, three twentiethcentury rhetoricians who are seldom included in surveys of modern rhetoric. The essays were written by forty-three different scholars; some are collaborative pieces. With such a number of contributors the essays vary in focus and attitude toward their subjects, but the overall quality is high. The essays follow a general pattern that begins with a brief biography, a summary of major works and ideas, a summary of how these were received, and a general evaluation of the subject's enduring legacy. Within this framework, however, individual contributions vary in tone from hagiography to curt dismissal. Ray Dearin's essay on Chaim Perelman achieves a happy medium. Dearin draws upon Perelman's background in Poland and Belgium, in philosophical positivism, and in European jurisprudence to narrate the story of Perelman's The New Rhetoric. That story is a model of how to place a major work of rhetorical theory into broader cultural and intellectual contexts. Simiarly, James F. Zappen's essay on Bakhtin places that seminal thinker into the contexts not only of life in the Soviet Union but also of the Western philosophical tradition. Zappen's essay eloquently states the case for considering Bakhtin a rhetorician, and along the way he explains in understandable English the major ideas of this difficult and elusive thinker. Finally, Luanne Frank's essay on Michel Foucault is one of the best introductions to his thought available, and Tilly Warnock's piece on Kenneth Burke summarizes and explicates the thought of this most protean of thinkers with amazing clarity and economy. All these essays show a deep understanding of their subjects and an equally deep sympathy for them. Taken together, the essays on scholars whom one would call "compositionists" present a history of the teaching of writing in twentieth-century America. Christopher C. Burnham's essay on James Britton, Nidra Reynolds and Claire Roche's essay on Peter Elbow, and Sherrie L. Gradin's essay on Donald Murray together constitute a brief but sharply focused account of the emergence of process theory. Conversely, Theresa Enos's essay on Frank D'Angelo, Shannon Zimmerman's essay on E. P. J. Corbett, and Roxanne Mountford's essay on Andrea Lunsford detail the permutations of classical rhetoric in the American composition classroom. In addition to these compositionists, the volume also contains essays on James Moffett, James Britton, and Walter Ong, scholars who bridged the gap between rhetoric theory and composition practice. In general, the essays on rhetoric-as-composition give the reader a brief but comprehensive overview of the emergence of composition as a discipline separate from rhetoric as a theory of communication. …

The Parasocial Contact Hypothesis

Abstract: We propose a communication analogue to Allport's (1954) Contact Hypothesis called the Parasocial Contact Hypothesis (PCH). If people process mass-mediated parasocial interaction in a manner similar to interpersonal interaction, then the socially beneficial functions of intergroup contact may result from parasocial contact. We describe and test the PCH with respect to majority group members' level of prejudice in three studies, two involving parasocial contact with gay men (Six Feet Under and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy) and one involving parasocial contact with comedian and male transvestite Eddie Izzard. In all three studies, parasocial contact was associated with lower levels of prejudice. Moreover, tests of the underlying mechanisms of PCH were generally supported, suggesting that parasocial contact facilitates positive parasocial responses and changes in beliefs about the attributes of minority group categories.

Positivist Dogmas, Rhetoric, and the Education Science Question

Abstract: Explicit versions of positivism were cast off some time ago in philosophy, but a tacit form continues to thrive in education research, exemplified by the “new scientific orthodoxy” codified in the National Research Council’s Scientific Research in Education (2002) and reinforced in the American Educational Research Association’s Standards for Reporting on Empirical Social Science Research in AERA Publications (2006). The author rehearses previous critiques of positivist “dogmas” in education research and applies them to the new orthodoxy. Then, borrowing from the emergent field of the “rhetoric of science,” he explores how pursuit of the education science question has nourished a positivist conception of education research. He concludes by suggesting that the education science question should be reframed and briefly suggests how.

What is sex and why does it matter? A motivational approach to exploring individuals' definitions of sex.

Abstract: What sexual experiences qualify as “having sex”? We investigated two assumptions apparently underlying research on how individuals make these judgments: that individuals have clear definitions regarding what qualifies as sex and that these judgments depend on how closely the activity being assessed matches their definitions of sex. Using open-ended questionnaires, 100 students, 51 women and 49 men, described their experiences that were “almost but not quite sex” or “just barely sex” and situations where there was uncertainty or disagreement about whether the experience qualified as “sex.” In contrast to the above assumptions, many respondents expressed ambiguity about their definitions of sex, and their decisions about labeling an experience as “sex” often seemed influenced by the consequences of applying this label.

The Structuring of Invisibility Among the Hidden Homeless: The Politics of Space, Stigma, and Identity Construction

Abstract: This ethnographic portrayal relies on participant observations at two supplemental support programs for youth without homes, narratives collected through in-depth interviews with educators and case managers, and focus group interviews with youth participants to explore the discursive (re)production of invisibility among youth without homes. Structuration theory is used to frame macro and micro forces coalescing to enable and constrain processes of invisibility among the hidden homeless. Analysis reveals how invisibility shapes (and is shaped by) processes of stigmatization, “street smarts” as enacted by youth, and “Mayberry” and “not in my backyard” community discourses, and how the disappearance of youth without homes simultaneously serves and undermines various stakeholders.