The framework that Janice Lauer provides in Invention’s first two chapters (and a spoiler alert: throughout the entire book) is summarized here: "Theorists also disagree over whether invention is hermeneutic or heuristic or both (i.e., whether invention’s purpose is to interpret and critique existing texts, produce new texts, or both)."
In our discussions of invention, as indicated in our definitions and especially in our questions, we linked invention to originality. What do you make of this difference in focus between Lauer's and ours, or do you even see it as a difference?
Folks, sorry I missed our inaugural class meeting! I personally think of invention as a process of discovery, and I do link it to originality. Lauer says heuristics focus on the process of discovery, whereas hermeneutics focus on interpretation of pre-existing texts (citing Augstine). In Rhetoric: Discovery and Change, YBP deal with heuristic methods as well. As suggested by their book, all sorts of pre-writing exercises are heuristic practices for drawing out the ideas that are in one's mind. The model of the mind as a storehouse or well-spring would be appropriate to this (the heuristic) view of invention. It is strongly subjective and individual rather than social and intertextual. That is not to say it is less valuable than a hermeneutic approach to invention; in fact, I don't think the two can be separated.
ReplyDeleteAnother argument would be that invention is hermeneutic, intertextual, and socially constructed. I see hermeneutics as a way to get one's mind (and subject position) into and around a discourse. I value this position, but I don't hang my hat on it. So I'll add another question. Do we know enough about the human mind to determine once and for all that there is no such thing as originality? Or is this view a postmodern trend?
My first reaction is "best of luck creating an interpretation of an existing text without creating a second (hence secondary) text." In other words, isn't hermeneutic also heuristic? The easy answer is often "both"-- but I think in this case it's especially fitting.
ReplyDeleteAs we sought a definition (and then revised it as visitors came and went), I found myself searching over and over again for metaphors that could account for the creation of new from the existing-- in other words, of linking hermeneutic and heuristic. I think I started with chemical reactions (as opposed to physical reactions), wherein the admixture creates something substantially different than the original. Then Scott came along and added assemblage, another good metaphor for accounting for the new (called "becoming" in assemblage).
I then tried to think of something brand new under the sun. Like polymers (plastics) and, Kristie added, things like feminism and Universal Human Rights. That was an effort to link hermeneutic and heuristic by linking rhetorical invention to a popular concept of invention.
Lastly, I tried to conceive of the different axes along which our definitions of invention revolved-- to look at it rhetorically, I guess. Axes I came up with included: purpose/chance, process/product, new/given, individual/collective. Choose any one from the set of pairs, and you end up with a different definition of invention. All of which revolves around, IMHO, juxtaposition. Putting dissimilar things together and experiencing the change that occurs in contrast. Like, a chemical reaction.
My initial response comes from a connection I see between this question as related to invention and my visual rhetoric class in which make a distinction between analysis and production. So, I do see them as separate entities in at least one context. (I would not find the visual rhetoric class as engaging if it were only analysis and no production.) I agree with Matt, though, that they related and often are hard to separate, but I think the kind of "work" they accomplish can be distinct and potentially important to deal with separately. I'll have to admit with invention, I have long thought of it as heuristic rather than hermeneutic.
ReplyDeleteLike Michael, I’ve always understood invention through the lens of heuristic rather than hermeneutic; for me, it’s always been a means—a process, however varied and contextual—that assists me in the composing of a given text. Even the term I emphasized in the last sentence, “process”, is one that appears in every group’s definition of invention. That means something, doesn’t it? Sure: invention as hermeneutic would also be a process (that is, a process for interpreting and/or critiquing a text), but all the definitions, as far as I can tell, take a heuristic approach: as groups, we focused predominantly on invention as a means to produce, and as the blog prompt says, produce something original. Again, this “original” production could be understood as “an original interpretation” or “an original critique”, but if that’s the case, then as Matt suggests, doesn’t using invention as a hermeneutic necessarily entail using invention heuristically to create that hermeneutic? I guess I have difficulty seeing where one process stops and the other begins; there appears to be more overlap and thus more of an interwoven mess that makes it difficult to delineate individual processes. Then again, I often have this problem when dealing with binaries. Better yet, I’m probably just not grasping fully the differences between heuristic and hermeneutic.
ReplyDeleteLastly, the concept of “originality”, one we’ve as a group linked to invention, is troubling itself, as is evinced in our collective questions. In short, we want specified guidelines for what counts as original. The problem, it seems, is that we rely heavily on the old to create the new; moreover, we often times incorporate the old in our efforts to create the new (for print texts, a common example is the direct quote or a visual; for multimedia texts, a good example is de-contextualizing sound, visual, and/or video from one context and re-contextualizing it in another to alter meaning and interpretation). There’s also the trickiness of past experience and knowledge, of how what we’ve done prior to composing a text influences to varying degrees the production and content of a text.
Although I agree that the heuristic and the hermeneutic are linked, I would favor a hermeneutic view of invention, which I think our experiences composing and teaching the act of composing would support. Isn't every attempt at originally an effort to respond to what previous texts have failed to provide or elucidate? Doesn't our ability to define any text or process as original depend upon a survey (interpretation and critique) of existing texts?
ReplyDeleteAlthough this view of invention seems to diminish the agency of the composer and value instead rhetorical history pre-existing knowledge, which might also seem to necessitate a recentering of the composition classroom with teacher as rhetorical expert, I would argue that it is the very scaling back of the impact and novelty of the act of inventing that makes it seem possible to me. Viewing invention as the task of critiquing and interpreting existing texts --through the production of new texts--provides a tangible starting point for composition.
In response to the prompt, I am lead to think in terms of Wolfgang Iser's reader response theory, in which a sort of middle ground between subjectivity and objectivity is claimed. While Iser's theory deals with reading and the generation of meaning through the reading process, I believe this is also applicable to the invention process that occurs during composition. Iser theorizes that the reader and the text form opposite poles. The interaction that occurs between these poles during reading generates a "virtual text", a fusion of both the objective meaning of the text and the subjective response of the reader to that text. I wonder whether invention is, indeed, the fusion of two poles--the hermeneutic analysis of pre-existing "texts" and the heuristic development of something "new." In this way, nothing can ever be truly new (it will always be a composite of prior texts). On the other hand, no text produced can ever be truly hermeneutic, in that it will always rise from (to borrow Tony's phrase) the writer's creative well-spring.
ReplyDeleteIn the introduction, around the same place as the introduction of the question of heuristics and hermenetics, Lauer quotes Young and Becker, saying "...rhetoric tends to become a superficial and marginal concern when it is separated from systematic methods of inquiry and problems of content” (127, qtd in Lauer 1). This leads me to think that regardless of the discussion and the question of the possibilities of one or the other, that Lauer's argument is necessarily "both."
ReplyDeleteOddly, it isn't until later that she mentions "both" as an option. But I ended up mostly wondering, besides the heuristics and hermeneutics, whether "superficial and marginal concern" suggests a starting point for the definition of rhetoric in a larger sense than just invention. If it is the hermeneutics and heuristics (or, here the "systematic methods of inquiry and problems of content") that keep rhetoric from being useless, then it is the "both" answer by definition--and "both" then also applies to "rhetoric" as a whole.
As Marian suggested, the terms “heuristic” and “hermeneutic” are linked such as through Rory’s comment that invention connects directly with the idea of process. He stated that “invention as hermeneutic would also be a process (that is, a process for interpreting and/or critiquing a text).” Thus with that reasoning, the two terms go hand-in-hand with the understanding of invention—both the definition of and the act of doing—and consequently are a part of our teaching of composition. We encourage discovery even as we ask students to interpret: think about asking freshmen to write an inquiry-based research essay…they must create a question in which they attempt to “discover” an answer while they are “interpreting” the data and context that surrounds the question. Originality, depending on how we defined it as a term, would be the result or the student’s finished essay. However then the question begs, “Well, what if the student asked a question that (many) others have before. How can the student’s work even have an element of originality?” It depends on how leisurely we define originality. For example, if we state that to be original a composer must simply compose a “lively piece” of composition (to hearken back to a phrase I heard Anne Beaufort use at C’s two years ago) then term itself is a bit loose (if for no other reason than I just made up a definition myself for it…was that original?!?! Or no because it was based on something I heard but used in another context. Hm….), yet the student could still completely create an original piece simply because it was composed by them. I have to wonder, though, if we could ever really figure this out—can something ever really be (fully) original? I wonder, too, if that’s why Lauer doesn’t really engage with the idea. Perhaps the answer is in the discussion itself in that we define terms based on how we use them and how we want our students to use them.
ReplyDeleteWhen "both" is a possible answer to an either or question (and sometimes when it isn't), I find I almost always select it. It's not that I'm indecisive (I am), but I find that few questions worth discussing have a clear cut, black or white answer. And that is the case with heuristic vs. hermeneutic invention.
ReplyDeleteIn typical post-modern fashion, I resist the concept of originality, if by originality we mean anything like the solitary genius, creating "original" work, untouched by the influence of anything that may have come before. I think of all texts as existing in relationship to other texts, being influenced by them and, in turn, influencing them.
So, when we sit down to create something new, we call upon our knowledge of what already exists to guide this creation. In this way, invention is hermeneutic.
However, if this thing that we create is to be compelling, interesting, or persuasive, there must be something "new" about it. Since I generally believe "there is nothing new under the sun," then the newness of invention must be our way of looking at and presenting an arrangement of those existing things at our disposal. Our "spin," if you will. The skill of making old things seem new is what I would call originality, and this skill is, I think, vital to the process of invention. This originality is the heuristic part of invention.
And yes, I'd like to have my cake and eat it too.
Question: Lauer makes a point of emphasizing the crucial role that historical era plays in the definition/operation of invention. So I wonder if this question of hermeneutics/heuristics might be better asked/answered if we add "for whom" and "when"?
ReplyDeleteFor example, here we have Plato who sees rhetoric (at least in the Phaedrus) as "directing the soul by means of speech" so that the soul (mind) recollects what it already knows (but has forgotten). So is this hermeneutic or heuristic? And if the subject matter for rhetoric (according to Plato) arises from dialectic (at least for the "good" rhetor), then is dialectic the heuristic process and rhetoric the hermeneutic process?
And are these questions, which comment on the texts of the posts (at least implicitly) and on the text of the Phaedrus explicitly, hermeneutic or heuristic?
Or, maybe, as Plato suggests to Phaedrus, we should start our speech with a definition of hermeneutic and heuristic? (You can tell what I've been reading.)
Nothing like muddying the waters...
For me, our discussion in class last week was less about originality than it was about epistemology. (Yes, the question of originality is part of this, but more on that in a minute.) It seemed to me that in claiming invention as a process by which we "invent the new from the old," so to speak, we were at least alluding to a social epistemic sense of rhetoric in which meaning/knowledge is invented not only through the interaction of the elements comprising the rhetorical situation, but also through an interaction between ourselves and the texts that have preceded us. Conversely, claiming that invention produces something entirely new seems to allude to a neo-Platonic sense of rhetoric whereby the rhetor is entirely capable of producing meaning/knowledge on his or her own. It's interesting to think of our discussion in terms of heuristics and hermeneutics because it would seem that the social epistemic sense of invention would define it as both whereas the neo-Platonic sense of invention (if it's even fair to call it that) would define it primarily as a heuristic (if it's unnecessary for us to interact with previous texts, then it's reasonable to assume that it's unnecessary for us to interpret those texts). I'm sure I'm being overly reductive here, but again, I felt like we were dealing more with epistemology than originality.
ReplyDeleteAs for originality, I'm still a bit unsure as to what I think; however, I do want to say that aligning oneself with a social epistemic sense of rhetorical invention does not necessitate the disappearance of originality.
Something that came up several times last Tuesday was that invention is a recursive process that happens at multiple times and, perhaps, to multiple ends throughout the composing process. While, I agree that there is a necessary understanding/awareness of other texts that we must have before we can say much about the originality of any singular text, I wonder if invention does not also function as a hermeneutic that we might apply to our texts throughout the process of creation. Is it an act of interpretation and critique that motivates the multiple moments of invention through the creation of a text? Are we applying invention as a hermeneutic when we critique the existing text of our nascent work as part of the process of creation or invention? Is it by this means of interpretation and critique that we direct and redirect our texts?
ReplyDeleteThis is all to say, I guess, that invention is a little of both. When Lauer writes that psychologists "posited that heuristic strategies work in tandem with inuition, prompt conscious activity, and guide the cretive act but never determine the outcome," I am on board with the notion of a guiding, non-deterministic and creative act. However, this notion of intuition almost makes me stop in my tracks. While perhaps we could describe early stages of invention in terms of intuition -- intuiting what we want to say, etc. -- intuition seems to come into play less and less throughout the process. While it might be nice to say that a term paper I've written was intuited -- that would be a lie. I see a process that may start as such, but as the composition progresses and the piece is (re)seen, invention becomes perhaps more of a hermeneutic and less of a heuristic.
This may be one of the ironies of originality. Willy-nilly originality is great -- but works of originality that resonate appear more often to emerge through what appears to be a rigorous process of (re)invention. Here, the creator may start with an intuition, but then pushes beyond this -- thinks further and deeper -- and somewhere in here is using invention as a means of self-reflection, meta-interrogartion -- as a hermeneutic.
I wanted to see what the dictionary says about "originality" after reading these posts. There are four definitions, but this one actually uses the word "inventiveness"--
ReplyDelete2. As an attribute of persons: original thought or action; independent exercise of one's creative faculties; the power of originating new or fresh ideas or methods; inventiveness. (OED Online, 2010).
Several people said we need a definition of originality, although I'm not sure this is the one we want. Just food for thought. It's also kind of funny how "original" and "originating" are parts of the definition of "originality."
I would have to agree with everyone thus far that invention is certainly both heuristic and hermeneutic. But I pause when it comes to originality. Lauer writes, "whether invention's purpose is to interpret and critique existing texts, produce new texts, or both" (3). To me, this implies that invention is both an act of creation and an act of discovery, but I don't know where originality fits in that equation, if it does at all. In fact, originality was not a part of my definition of invention because I don't believe it is a requirement. In the four drafts my students work through to reach their final product, they critique existing texts (the reality TV show they chose to write about) and they produce a new text (their own argument about their show), but I wouldn't say the texts they produce are not necessarily original. New, yes. But, independent of influence from other sources, probably not. True originality seems rare, to me, because we are so influenced by past texts and authors and their words help us shape our perspectives, definitions, attitudes, methodologies, etc. Having never taken a rhetoric course before (I'm coming from an MA in literature), these terms are still somewhat murky to me. I don't believe invention should always include originality, but it shouldn't totally exclude it either. I'm just not sure where it actually fits.
ReplyDeleteGoing later I guess requires a sense a recapping.
ReplyDeleteMany of us seems to be saying that heuristics and hermeneutics are connected or at least intertwined in nuanced ways. This is, in part, what we discussed last night with the notion of critical consumption AND critical production. It's difficult to think of one without the other. But just a side note: this whole situation is rather chicken and egg for me. Did we learn to critique first and then produce or produce first and then critique? Or perhaps we simply cannot put these processes on a linear "chicken and egg" timeline. Is that what we are trying to do?
Second, man alive, we are tripped up by "originality." We have all officially succumbed to the postmodern world, and now we can't reconcile what it means to create something "new." In the cafeteria yesterday a student had a shirt that stated in bold letters "artist create something out of nothing." I have the distinct feeling you all are making the same "umm I'm not too sure about that face" as I did when I read it. I think we may do ourselves an injustice if we do not consider remediation, remix, and mashup theories in this invention course. I think Bolter and Grusin and Lessig could really help, or perhaps more accurately, complicate things for us in our impending discussions on originality and "newness"
I think one reason we find it so easy to associate invention with heuristics and not so easy to connect it to hermeneutics is because we tend, as Michael points out, to make a distinction between analysis and production, which, in my mind at least, is to say between reading (the analysis of written text) and writing (the production of text). However, as Marian and Caleb make pretty clear, while the physical actions and products of reading and writing look very different to the human eye, the mental processes involved in reading and writing are very much the same. I think every time we read, and also every time we write, we are inventing our own ideas – about what one or more people have thought or said on a subject. Our own ideas are the new “texts” that are produced, which is why, imo, invention must always be, at least to some degree, heuristic. But those ideas are never produced in a vacuum – they are always socially constructed in response to the ideas of others to which we have been exposed – so invention is also, again imo, always hermeneutic as well. As far as originality goes, I have to agree with Scott’s implication that originality, even using Tony’s definition, does not (and cannot) require one to create ideas without referencing or building upon anyone else’s (as this would be impossible). Every idea that comes through the invention process, though, is original in that it brings a new or different perspective on whatever topic is being addressed than has been offered before. I think pretty much everything we create is some form of remix, remediation, or mashup (hey – I like that word :)), but these can still be classified as original (and if they can’t, then I’d like to posit that nothing can!) because, again using Tony’s definition, they are still the result of the independent exercise of someone’s creative faculties and represent new and fresh versions of the others’ original ideas or methods.
ReplyDeleteOK, following Dr. Fleckenstein’s lead, I think I’m going to try to think through this via mapping and cartography because that’s what I’m reading these days. Last week, Dr. Fleckenstein asked our group to consider what the difference between “invention” and “discovery” was and what role discovery might play in our definition of invention. In regards to Dr. Yancey’s question, I wonder if there is a way to link up these two terms to heuristics and hermeneutics into some kind of operational network.
ReplyDelete“Invention”, to some degree, seems to imply an intent by the producer whereas “discovery” suggests something closer to serendipity. Put in terms of the process of mapping territory, invention, in my mind, involves the actual drawing out of known space on a map, actually combining specific known spatial data about the territory into a document. In this way, this map/invention represents the assembling of doxa—of common knowledge, of known beliefs. It is a heuristic act, to a certain degree, but this kind of invention insists on a construction involving multiple parts/data that is already “present.” This architecture is supported by a hermeneutic process that, as I see it, crosses times (a canon of past hermeneutics by previous cartographers that developed doxa up to that point, but there is also a simultaneous, active hermeneutic that is ongoing, present, entangling with the past analyses, becoming, and, of course, being rhetorical).
[So this leads to a question: what role might we give to time in the process of invention? When is the fit occasion for invention? Of course, I’m winking at kairos here ;) ]
Getting back to my point, the traditional cartographer doesn’t necessarily discover anything new, just repeats, re-articulates doxa. I would argue that simply doing this is invention, because an artifact is created (no value judgement should be placed on it) that never existed before. Even though the map is a reproduction of a map we are all familiar with, it is still invention; but because there is this exact re-articulation of doxa, I would say that discovery isn’t present here.
Part II (apologies for length)
ReplyDeleteOf course, counter-cartographers and artists that play with the epistemological assumptions of the map do much the same thing as the traditional mappers but end with a different result. Like the trad. mappers, the radical cartographer starts with a history of hermeneutic systems (in this case, related to geography, cartography, philosophy etc), but then interprets this analysis in a different way in the present time. It seems to me, then, that this kind of invention involves discovery—there is a certain degree of serendipity here, and some degree of the creation of new knowledge, of venturing out (metaphorically speaking) into new territories—and, thus, a heuristic. Of course, I agree with most of all of you—I think that there is never a solitary “heuristic” time and then a “hermeneutic” time or vice versa: there seems to be a continual oscillation between the two, they seem to be inextricable.
I was reading about Cortes’ encounter with the Aztecs yesterday—and I wonder if this example might help me think through this a bit more. Cortes “discovered” this civilization (its occurrence was, to a degree, based on a random, serendipitous unveiling of new knowledge). In this sense, then, the discovery of the Aztecs could be considered a heuristic event. After that initial instant, however, I wonder if hermeneutics assume a primary role (although discovery is still, potentially, ongoing)—Cortes analyzed the “text” of this civilization based upon doxa, upon his understanding of ‘civilization’ reflective of his own experiences/knowledge, and, I think, this analysis guided his (and the conquistadors and explorers that followed) experience with the Aztecs, guiding his process of discovery. So I guess I’m saying here that invention operates as a kind of terministic screen that determines what is filtered in—what existing knowledge is let in (both what is available, what is known, and what the rhetor wants to apply) and this determines the coordinates for potential discovery. Because Cortes saw the Aztecs in a certain way, his process of discovery was pre-determined in a way and this determined his response.
Did I get anywhere in this little voyage?
I agree with many of you when I have to say that I don't think there is any question that hermeneutic and heuristic processes work together w/r/t invention. I'd also venture to say that the more interpretation and critique of existing texts take place, the more developed, thorough, and relevant and the production will be.
ReplyDeleteI think there are some parallels between Lauer's focus and ours, and the largest connection between the two seems to be, as others' have grasped, the issue of originality. I think production implies originality, even if we're talking about the production of cogs in a factory, which is ultimately the place/time of origin for however large batches of identical cogs.
However, if we're talking about originality in the sense of something that has never been done before (the definition Tony pointed out and also one that Marian hinted toward with her notion of it as "an effort to respond to what previous texts have failed to provide or elucidate"), then we're veering into metaphysical terrain in which Plato's logic (as Dr. Fleckenstein explains) would maintain that nothing is original, just remembered. Which in a twisted way I sort of agree with.
Like many of you, I usually think of invention as heuristic more than hermeneutic, but I think that one of the definitions we came up with last week in our first meeting points out that we do see its value in both areas--"Invention is a recursive, contextualized, and goal-driven process that incorporates pre-existing knowledge and prior experiences to create and/or assemble meaning." So yes, we do think of invention as heuristic in that our goal is to create/assemble meaning, but we use use existing texts to help us reach that goal.
ReplyDeleteI’m jumping in late to this *hermeneutical* discussion, but I’d like to try to make the argument that there is a strong line of division between a heuristic approach and a hermeneutic approach. Josh mentions that he believes “there is never a solitary ‘heuristic’ time and then a ‘hermeneutic’ time” which I’m not in disagreement with exactly, especially not on his birthday. ☺
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do believe that while heuristics are attached to some elements of intertextuality, and hermeneutics are attached to the inquiry and newness associated with heuristics, in my mind the two concepts can’t be closely intermingled and moved between because of difference in purpose and ends. If one finds oneself developing a heuristic and discovering amazing new things when one thought she was involved in an interpretative, hermeneutic project, one is now working on an entirely different project, with a different purpose resulting in different ends. Maybe…I’m new.
Regarding the hermeneutic vs heuristic debate, I'm still fundamentally uncertain of where I stand. I admit I do favor the hermeneutic perspective because I believe that all "new" texts are responses to/interpretations of previous texts. Like Marian said, these resposnses/interpretations address the (un)conscious insufficiencies in either content or expression of their predecessors.
ReplyDeleteFrom this perspective, I would argue that invention is contingent upon the "originality" which the (re)visioning of old texts into texts necessitates. No two composers will produce the same text in the same way. Their inventive practices, as Lauer alludes to, are structured by the signifying practices of their community which are a response to the "hegemony" (either a confirmation or refutation of that hegemony). Similarly, two members of the same community will never internalize and express these practices in the same manner. Originality will happen, regardless of our assessment of its quality. I place a lot of agency within composers, I guess. So my definition of invention is modified: invention is an ORIGINAL(different for every composer, maybe?) method of inquiry the goal of which is the production of texts. (However, this "method" sounds a lot like a heuristic...which complicates my perspective of hermeneutics entirely. Awesome.)