The Future of Invention

John Muckelbauer

Description

The Future of Invention links classical rhetorical practices of invention with the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida and proposes that some of the most crucial implications of postmodern theory have gone largely unattended. Drawing on such classical rhetorical concepts as doxa, imitation, kairos, and topos, and engaging key works by Aristotle, Plato, the Sophists, and others, John Muckelbauer demonstrates how rhetorical invention can offer a nondialectical, "affirmative" sense of change that invites us to rethink the ways in which we read, write, and respond to others.
Acknowledgments
Introduction

Part I: Orientations

1. The Problem of Change

2. Why Rhetoric? Which Rhetoric?

The Scope of Rhetoric
Humanism, Postmodernism, Performative Ethics
Singular Rhythms

3. How to Extract Singular Rhythms: Affirmative Reading and Writing

Styles of Engagement
Arguments
Affirmative Strategies

Part II: Intensities

4. Imitation and Invention

Reproduction: Repetition of the Same
Variation: Repetition of Difference
Inspiration: Difference and Repetition
Refrain

5. Itineration: What Is a Sophist?

Sophistic Targets, Sophistic Topography
Resembling Thought
Seeing and Time
Returns

6. Situatedness and Singularity

Audience
Situations and Synthesis
Kairos
Situatedness as Singularity

7. Topoi: Replacing Aristotle

Aristotle’s Place
Rhetoric’s Place
Scholarly Style

8. The Future of Invention: Doxa and “the Common”

The Time of Invention
Doxa and the Common
The Time of Invention (echoes)

Notes
Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie du langage
• Literary theory

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791478400
• Langue: English

Extrait

T H E F U T U R E O F I N V E N T I O N

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T HE F UTURE OF I NVENTION 

Rhetoric, Postmodernism, and the Problem of Change

John Muckelbauer

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2008 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu

Production by Diane Ganeles Marketing by Fran Keneston

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Muckelbauer, John, 1969– The future of invention : rhetoric, postmodernism, and the prob- lem of change / John Muckelbauer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7914-7419-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Rhetoric. 2. Postmodernism. I. Title.

PN175.M83 2008 808—dc22

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

C

o

Acknowledgments Introduction

n

te

n

ts

P ART I: O RIENTATIONS The Problem of Change

Why Rhetoric? Which Rhetoric? The Scope of Rhetoric Humanism, Postmodernism, Performative Ethics Singular Rhythms

How to Extract Singular Rhythms: Affirmative Reading and Writing Styles of Engagement Arguments Affirmative Strategies

P ART II: I NTENSITIES Imitation and Invention Reproduction: Repetition of the Same Variation: Repetition of Difference Inspiration: Difference and Repetition Refrain

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3

15 16 25 33

37 39 41 43

51 57 65 72 77

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Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

THE FUTURE OF INVENTION

Itineration: What Is a Sophist? Sophistic Targets, Sophistic Topography Resembling Thought Seeing and Time Returns

Situatedness and Singularity Audience Situations and Synthesis Kairos Situatedness as Singularity

Topoi: Replacing Aristotle Aristotle’s Place Rhetoric’s Place Scholarly Style

The Future of Invention:Doxaand “the Common” The Time of Invention Doxaand the Common The Time of Invention (echoes)

Notes Works Cited Index

79 85 87 90 97

99 102 108 114 120

123 129 133 138

143 144 150 164

167 181 193

Acknowledgments

was extremely fortunate to have studied in the intense intellectual I ecology that was the rhetoric program at Penn State University in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. This book is deeply indebted to the multiple forces that pushed me in so many productive directions during those years and since. I especially want to thank Jeffrey T. Nealon for his friendship (in the strongest sense of the word); I will remain inca- pable of adequately acknowledging his generosity. I also want to thank Rich Doyle, whose itinerant speed provoked my enthusiasm for think- ing and continues to infect my work. Marco Abel, Debbie Hawhee, Ryan Netzley, and Dan Smith all taught me about the inventive force of hospitality in many unexpected forms. Charles Scott, Marie Secor, Jeff Walker, and Evan Watkins were each patient guides through countless conceptual and institutional labyrinths. And as for the sense of affirma- tion that engineered this project, Aubrey and Sharin Kelley contributed more than they can imagine. I am also lucky enough to be part of a vibrant and collegial depart- ment at the University of South Carolina. Christy Friend, Brian Hender- son, Chris Holcomb, and Steve Lynn were especially generous with their time, providing helpful answers to my interminable questions and offer- ing engaged responses to portions of the manuscript. Through their own singular styles, so many others here and elsewhere insistently reminded me of the “practical” dimension of my “theoretical” obses- sions, including Trey Conner, Jeremiah Dyehouse, Mindy Fenske, Pat Gehrke, Ashley Graham, Kristan Poirot, Brooke Rollins, Rebecca Stern, Shevaun Watson, Qiana Whitted, and Team Renaissance (George Geckle and Andy Shifflett).

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THE FUTURE OF INVENTION

Finally, I would like to thank my parents for . . . well . . . too many things. An early version of chapter 4 appeared as “Imitation and Invention in Antiquity: An Historical-Theoretical revision” inRhetorica 21(2003): 61–88. An early version of chapter 5 appeared as “Sophistic Travel: Inheriting the Simulacrum Through Plato’s ‘The Sophist,’” in Philosophy and Rhetoric34 (2001): 225–244. I wish to thank those publications for permission to reproduce this material. I would also like to thank the State University of New York Press’s anonymous reviewers for their careful readings and suggestions and Larin McLaughlin, Diane Ganeles, Fran Keneston, and Pat Hadley-Miller at the State University of New York Press for helping me through this process.

Introduction

“What shall be the destiny of thought, since we know very well that it must be affirmative invention or nothing at all.” —Alain Badiou,Ethics

his book exists at the intersection of several different academic T fields, the most prominent among them being rhetoric, continental philosophy, literary theory, and classics. Of course, none of these fields has ever been a settled, homogenous place. Each has always been com- posed of a vast array of performative actions, including multiple differ- ent traditions (some explicit and others less so) as well as many different, divergent lines of inquiry. As a result, it would be more precise to say that in writing this book, I simply followed one of these lines through these different fields, mapping its conjunction with other lines, its interruptions, proliferations, false starts, diversions, and, occasion- ally, its escapes. Such an “interdisciplinary” or even “a-disciplinary” itinerary is not without a number of obvious risks. Not the least of these is that rather than accomplishing its goal of offering some intriguing points of inter- section to scholars in different fields, it risks appearing largely unrecog- nizable to everyone. For this reason, I thought it would be helpful to begin by clearly delineating some of the contours of the project and by explaining how the different parts of the book try to fit together. At the level of the proposition, the argument of the book is not ter- ribly complicated: I begin by claiming that despite the extraordinary pro- liferation of scholarship associated with so-called postmodern theory, some crucial implications of the postmodern challenge have gone largely unnoticed or unattended. These implications concern what I call “the

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