Scott R. Stroud

In this article, I argue that speech act theory can be altered to accommodate art objects as evocative illocutionary speech acts that areaimed toward reaching understanding. To do this, I discuss the example of Zen Buddhism’s use of the koan, an aesthetic object that can be seen as evoking a given experience from its auditors for the purpose of reaching understanding on a point that the teacher wishes to make. I argue that such a reading of art as evocative can be merged with hypothetical intentionalism insofar as it recognizes a certain orientation on the part of the auditor to approach art in a certain way. In the case of koans and other artworks, the approach is one of considering what claim an author may want to convey through the auditor’s experience of the artwork

There are few contemporary thinkers in the tradition of American pragmatism as prolific or as creative as Richard Shusterman. His thought and work range from analytic aesthetics to political philosophy, from ethics to the importance of bodily habits in modern society. The volume edited by Dorota Koczanowicz and Wojciech Malecki highlights the remarkable international reception of Shusterman’s ideas. The majority of the contributors to this volume are Polish academics, a fact that stems from its origin in a 2008 conference in Poland on Shusterman’s work. A few additional essays were solicited from scholars in the United States and other parts of Europe to round out the diversity of this collection’s offerings. ..

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 37.1 (2004) 42-71 [Access article in PDF] Narrative as Argument in Indian Philosophy: The Astavakra Gita as Multivalent Narrative Scott R. Stroud Department of Philosophy Temple University Indian philosophy has often been described as radically different in nature than Western philosophy due to its frequent use of narrative structure. By employing poetic elements in their use of language, such texts attempt to convey deep metaphysical truths and philosophical positions about reality that are in many cases quite different from Western ideas (Babbili 1997). Often, these ways of conveying truths are an integral part of that truth. One particularly useful form is narrative, taking instantiations such as a dialogue between characters. Philosophical dialogues such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Astavakra Gita (also known as the Astavakra Samhita ) use a portrayed conversation involving a guru or deity to convey didactic lessons and values to the receptive audience, both ancient and modern. As texts such as the Bhagavad Gita gain in popularity and circulation in the Western world (Minor 1982; Paine 1998; Sharpe 1985), philosophical and rhetorical inquiry must be extended to explain how these texts function in an argumentative philosophical context.Stroud (2002a, 2002b) has advanced the idea that such ancient Indian narratives argue through the use of contradictions and conflicting value structures;1 he labels such texts as multivalent narratives since their use of contradictory value structures compel audience members to reconstruct the narrative's message and allow for the acceptance of novel views. Multivalent narratives are to be distinguished from polysemic narratives (Fiske 1986) in that the latter concern different audience members finding a preferred position from the ambiguous story. Polysemic narratives involve the difference in meaning of the same story to different auditors. Condit criticizes this notion of polysemic narratives and advances her own concept of polyvalent narratives. The concept of a polyvalent narrative involves different auditors understanding the same story in similar ways, but differing in how they evaluate its message. Condit's research with a popular television [End Page 42] show and two students from radically different backgrounds on abortion finds that they understood what occurred in a very similar fashion; they differed in that they "disagree[d] about the valuation of those denotations to such a degree that they produce[d] noticeably different interpretations" (1989, 106). Thus, the auditors differ as to their response to a certain story and how it treats their own cherished values. Stroud (2002a) provides a thorough justification as to why the concepts of polysemic and polyvalent narratives do not capture what can be called multivalent narratives. The important factor in distinguishing these three concepts is that the third involves contradictions at the level of values within a text and the reader's necessitated activity of trying to synthesize or reconcile such contradictions. It is this activity that is the hallmark of multivalent narratives.This employment of multivalent narrative offers a challenge to familiar Western conceptions of argumentative discourse and demands further investigation. This study explores the ways a particular text, the Astavakra Gita, argues its philosophical positions to its audience of potential "pupils."2 Using the insights provided by theories of narrative and reader-response theory, I will argue that this text advances its claims not through overt syllogism or validity claim redemption, but through textual indeterminacy between the audience's disposition and the foregrounded theme of non-individuation in the text. This tension, increased by certain textual devices, results in consistency building by the audience, which enables the transcendence of these two viewpoints (reader and text); it is this experience, not claim, that the Astavakra Gita seems to be advancing to any given audience.In order to explore this interpretation of this text and its argumentative relationship to an audience, insights from both literary studies and rhetorical theory must be used in laying a foundation. The work of Wolfgang Iser (1980, 1989, 1993) and Walter Fisher (1987) will assume roles of particular importance in this endeavor. Iser's theory of aesthetic response provides a useful description of the phenomenological process of reading such a...

The American pragmatist John Dewey was no stranger to the problems of economics and their effects on the quality of work experience. Indeed, in his Democracy and Education (1916/1985), he remarks that “the greatest evil of the present regime is not found in poverty and in the suffering which it entails, but in the fact that so many persons have callings which make no appeal to them, which are pursued simply for the money reward that accrues” (MW 9:326–27). This was not a uniquely American problem, as he continued to discuss the “problem of labor” in his lectures in China from 1919 to 1921. There his analysis of education and what it has to contribute to capitalistic economies takes on a more comparative shade ..

This essay will argue that this position advanced by Shusterman rests ultimately on a misconception of Gadamer's notion of interpretation, and as such, is not a strong challenge to Gadamer's insights concerning the process of human understanding. Shusterman's emphasis on understanding being pre-reflective and interpretation being conscious disavows Gadamer's analysis that they are identical in so far as they both refer to an individual's situatedness in tradition and its concurrent impacts on the production of meaning. In order to demonstrate how this is so, this essay will first examine some of Shusterman's; key arguments and conceptualizations in regard to the "hermeneutic universalism" espoused by individuals such as Gadamer. The ways that the Gadamerian notion of understanding can be maintained in light of Shusterman's critique will be illustrated. In all, Gadamer's notion of understanding will be shown to highlight the role of the traditional "prejudices" always given to the subject that inform his or her acts of understanding; this "substratum" to any act of understanding/interpretation will in turn be seen to facilitate the acts of understanding Shusterman points to as counterexamples

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Simulation, Subjective Knowledge, and the Cognitive Value of Literary NarrativeScott R. Stroud (bio)IntroductionLiterary narrative holds the power to move individuals to thought, reflection, action, and belief. According to a longstanding view of literature, it is this impact on the reader that leads to literary narrative being valued so highly in our culture and in others. What exactly is the value of literature? Humanists such as Peter Lamarque and Stein Olsen1 argue for this value in terms of perennial themes that literature allows one to "grapple with," as opposed to cognitivist accounts that discuss the value of literary narrative in terms of conveyed truths or knowledge. One particularly important position that explains the cognitive value of literature can be labeled the "Subjective Knowledge Theory" (SKT). Such an account of literature places its value in the subjective perspectives or experiences the narrative opens up to the reader. Thus, one can gain knowledge of "what it is like" to be caught in the throes of jealousy, endangered by an opposing army, or captivated by the lure of magical prowess. Lamarque and Olsen, however, argue that SKT is fundamentally flawed in its analysis of knowledge derivable from the literary narrative and in terms of its account of literary practice.I wish to defend a version of SKT in this article. In order to do so, I make and defend the following claims. First, Lamarque and Olsen's critique of SKT relies on a conflation of two distinct types of knowledge—the knowledge provided by the simulated subjective experience and its appropriation/ generalization to forms useful for the reader's real life activities. I will argue that the former of these outcomes is due strictly to the aesthetic features of the literary narrative, whereas the second involves a non-necessary psychological reaction to the text (that is, judgments of the veracity or usefulness of the text for one's own purposes). By conflating both of these into the cognitive knowledge derivable from the text, Lamarque and Olsen's critique can [End Page 19] gain its purchase against SKT. If these two processes and the resultant sorts of knowledge are separated, then the SKT account does seem to show how literature holds value in itself and in relation to the reader's moral activities/ judgments. Second, the process of simulation is the primary means by which one can gain any type of subjective knowledge from a literary narrative. This type of knowledge will be gained by virtue of the literary narrative's aesthetic qualities, which result in a certain type of activity in the reader. Third, I will argue that the second sort of knowledge—that derived from the simulated subjective experience—results from the process of reader identification with the values, beliefs, and/or behaviors of the simulated agent. This sense of identification involves selective appropriation and generalization and will be shown not to be subject to the critiques of simple identification offered by Noël Carroll.2 It is at this stage that individuals learn what they believe they ought to value, how they ought to act, and what they should believe from their experience of simulation in reading the literary narrative. Notice that this knowledge is separate from the first sort of knowledge, which is knowledge of what it is like to experience x through y's eyes.As I elucidate and defend these claims, I hope it will become clear that this is an account that does justice to the value resident in literature and in the activities readers do after they partake in the aesthetic object of the literary narrative. Thus, I will conclude by showing how this account does not fall prey to the conflation that both critics and supporters of SKT commit in muddling the different types of knowledge available from and in relation to a literary narrative.Before I proceed, it is important that some basic concepts are clearly set forth. A narrative can be defined as any representation of two or more events over time. The number of events and the relationship among them can be as simple or complex as one likes, but the crucial aspect is that the representation supplies the...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 37.1 (2004) 42-71 [Access article in PDF] Narrative as Argument in Indian Philosophy: The Astavakra Gita as Multivalent Narrative Scott R. Stroud Department of Philosophy Temple University Indian philosophy has often been described as radically different in nature than Western philosophy due to its frequent use of narrative structure. By employing poetic elements in their use of language, such texts attempt to convey deep metaphysical truths and philosophical positions about reality that are in many cases quite different from Western ideas (Babbili 1997). Often, these ways of conveying truths are an integral part of that truth. One particularly useful form is narrative, taking instantiations such as a dialogue between characters. Philosophical dialogues such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Astavakra Gita (also known as the Astavakra Samhita ) use a portrayed conversation involving a guru or deity to convey didactic lessons and values to the receptive audience, both ancient and modern. As texts such as the Bhagavad Gita gain in popularity and circulation in the Western world (Minor 1982; Paine 1998; Sharpe 1985), philosophical and rhetorical inquiry must be extended to explain how these texts function in an argumentative philosophical context.Stroud (2002a, 2002b) has advanced the idea that such ancient Indian narratives argue through the use of contradictions and conflicting value structures;1 he labels such texts as multivalent narratives since their use of contradictory value structures compel audience members to reconstruct the narrative's message and allow for the acceptance of novel views. Multivalent narratives are to be distinguished from polysemic narratives (Fiske 1986) in that the latter concern different audience members finding a preferred position from the ambiguous story. Polysemic narratives involve the difference in meaning of the same story to different auditors. Condit criticizes this notion of polysemic narratives and advances her own concept of polyvalent narratives. The concept of a polyvalent narrative involves different auditors understanding the same story in similar ways, but differing in how they evaluate its message. Condit's research with a popular television [End Page 42] show and two students from radically different backgrounds on abortion finds that they understood what occurred in a very similar fashion; they differed in that they "disagree[d] about the valuation of those denotations to such a degree that they produce[d] noticeably different interpretations" (1989, 106). Thus, the auditors differ as to their response to a certain story and how it treats their own cherished values. Stroud (2002a) provides a thorough justification as to why the concepts of polysemic and polyvalent narratives do not capture what can be called multivalent narratives. The important factor in distinguishing these three concepts is that the third involves contradictions at the level of values within a text and the reader's necessitated activity of trying to synthesize or reconcile such contradictions. It is this activity that is the hallmark of multivalent narratives.This employment of multivalent narrative offers a challenge to familiar Western conceptions of argumentative discourse and demands further investigation. This study explores the ways a particular text, the Astavakra Gita, argues its philosophical positions to its audience of potential "pupils."2 Using the insights provided by theories of narrative and reader-response theory, I will argue that this text advances its claims not through overt syllogism or validity claim redemption, but through textual indeterminacy between the audience's disposition and the foregrounded theme of non-individuation in the text. This tension, increased by certain textual devices, results in consistency building by the audience, which enables the transcendence of these two viewpoints (reader and text); it is this experience, not claim, that the Astavakra Gita seems to be advancing to any given audience.In order to explore this interpretation of this text and its argumentative relationship to an audience, insights from both literary studies and rhetorical theory must be used in laying a foundation. The work of Wolfgang Iser (1980, 1989, 1993) and Walter Fisher (1987) will assume roles of particular importance in this endeavor. Iser's theory of aesthetic response provides a useful description of the phenomenological process of reading such a...

The relationship between William James and the stoics remains an enigma. He was clearly influenced by reading Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus throughout his career. Some work has been done on the thematic convergences between Jamesian pragmatism and stoic thought, but this study takes a different path. I argue that the rhetorical style that James uses in arguing for his moral claims in front of popular audiences can be better understood if we see it in light of the stoic style of argumentation. I look at a text James read closely and recommended to close acquaintances—Marcus Aurelius's Meditations—to extract a sense of stoic rhetorical style. James's use of the stoic's tactics of vivid examples and rhetorical questions to shape the rhetorical experience of his audience and to thereby make his points becomes understandable as a possible extension of the stoic style of persuasion.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of RhetoricScott R. StroudPragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric by Robert Danisch Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007. Pp. xii + 190. $39.95, cloth.The classical pragmatists are an infuriating bunch for those in rhetorical studies. For instance, the commitment of William James and John Dewey to uncertainty and change in politics and epistemology stands to position them with those studying rhetoric as a necessary tool in the uncertain situation that humans find themselves in—be it in nature or in society. But the pragmatists steadfastly avoid engaging (or even using) the concepts of rhetorical theory or practice. Even the commentary of James and Dewey on "communication" is vague and often perfunctory. Thus, contemporary rhetorical scholars find themselves at an impasse—Do they talk about the pragmatists, even though the pragmatists do not engage the rhetorical tradition in a sustained fashion, or do they simply ignore this important and fairly original strain of American thought (perhaps in favor of European lines of philosophical thought)? I believe that the more interesting choice is to pursue the former option and to engage the pragmatists in terms of what they have to offer communication studies and the study of rhetoric. This, of course, will necessitate acknowledging their compatibility and relative lack of engagement with the rhetorical tradition. The rewards of such a constructive engagement, however, could be great for the study of communication and rhetoric.This is the path that Robert Danisch's recent book, Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric, sets out to traverse. The stated project [End Page 96] of this work is to show the compatibility of the classical rhetorical tradition and the pragmatist tradition. Beyond this, Danisch attempts to show that rhetoric is essential to the pragmatist project and that a variety of rhetorics can be identified in the actual work or practices of important American pragmatists. As he clearly puts it in his concluding chapter, "This is precisely the purpose of pragmatism—it was designed as a philosophy that would ultimately extend beyond itself to invent tools, techniques, ideas, and instruments of change that it alone could not imagine. It is my contention that rhetorics and rhetorical theories are just those tools, techniques, ideas, and instruments" (144). I believe that Danisch goes an admirable distance in making this case and in furthering the still-nascent work that strives to connect rhetoric and pragmatism.Danisch begins his case for connecting rhetoric and pragmatism by addressing the two traditions in general terms. First, he limits his inquiry to classical rhetoric, although his concluding chapter features issues and figures within more recent rhetorical scholarship. This is a defensible strategy, as "rhetoric" is almost as ambiguous and inexact as "pragmatism." What connects both classical rhetoric and pragmatism, according to Danisch's way of setting up the analysis, is that both traditions represent approaches or orientations toward the world and society. Both see the world as fundamentally uncertain, and both see human action as playing a vital role in creating what actually "is" the case, whether it is in terms of scientific knowledge or political institutions. He clarifies this in terms of how rhetoric and pragmatism focus on action—"The question for both pragmatism and rhetoric concerns method. Active human agents employ tools and techniques designed to order and influence human affairs; pragmatism and rhetoric share this concern" (39). Thus, both focus on methods of guiding and directing human action such that it results in the sort of world that we want to instantiate or create. Danisch attempts to explore the connection of these two traditions, and he promises that beyond being possible, it will be rewarding in three ways. First, pragmatism seems to offer the resources and opportunities to develop "rhetorics based on its principles and fit to the problems of contemporary democracy" (15). Second, such an engagement of pragmatism with the concepts of classical rhetoric will reaffirm the importance of these classical concepts in today's circumstances. Third, both pragmatism and rhetoric will be improved, since "philosophies are improved by exploring their relationships to rhetoric, and rhetorics are improved by exploring their intellectual justifications" (15). Some may be uneasy...

In his work on aesthetics, John Dewey provocatively (and enigmatically) called art the "most universal and freest form of communication," and tied his reading of aesthetic experience to such an employment. I will explore how art, a seemingly obscure and indirect means of communication, can be used as the most effective and moving means of communication in certain circumstances. Dewey's theory of art will be shown to hold that art can be purposively employed to communicatively evoke a certain experience through an auditor's experience of an art object. Such a use is shown to be an extension of Dewey's conceptions of scientific method and the role of experience in criticism and communication, and is discussed in light of examples drawn from contemporary film, sculpture, and classical Japanese poetry.

ABSTRACT This article explores what the contours of a pragmatist theory of rhetoric would be like in its democratic instantiation. The threat of partisan thought and dogmatism in argument is examined as a threat to the sort of democratic community pragmatists such as John Dewey desired to create. Partisans fail to realize not only their own limitations in pursuing the true and the good but also the fact that solving problems through overly partisan forms of reasoning or argument only creates future obstacles to community life. This provides an extended reading of what Dewey meant by free communication: communication not only free from legal constraints and censorship but also free from the binding habits of thought and interaction that can be identified as “partisan perfect reasoning.”

While Immanuel Kant is an epochal figure in a variety of fields, he has not figured prominently in the study of rhetoric and communication. This book represents the most detailed examination available into Kant's uneasy but often misunderstood relationship with rhetoric. By explicating Kant's complex understanding of rhetoric, this book advances the thesis that communicative practices play an important role in Kant's account of how we become better humans and how we create morally cultivating communities.

In this article, I argue that speech act theory can be altered to accommodate art objects as evocative illocutionary speech acts that are aimed toward reaching understanding. To do this, I discuss the example of Zen Buddhism's use of the kōan, an aesthetic object that can be seen as evoking a given experience from its auditors for the purpose of reaching understanding on a point that the teacher wishes to make. I argue that such a reading of art as evocative can be merged with hypothetical intentionalism insofar as it recognizes a certain orientation on the part of the auditor to approach art in a certain way. In the case of kōans and other artworks, the approach is one of considering what claim an author may want to convey through the auditor's experience of the artwork.