Wow! That was a lot of reading and a lot to absorb, wasn't it?Given that you agree with the presumed answer to this question, two *quick* questions:
1. In a single sentence, what's the key point here, and how is it key (e.g, key for understanding invention as a rhetorical canon; as a point of tension in intellectual history; as connected to teaching)?
2. What one question does this chapter raise for you?
Looking forward to your summaries and your questions!
1.Lauer’s inclusion of an extensive history of the many faces of invention lends itself to a textured understanding of invention’s debated role in rhetoric, epistemology, and the classroom.
ReplyDelete2.Lauer notes James Berlin and Robert Inkster’s claim that current traditional pedagogy “foreclosed heuristic processes by failing to discriminate among heuristic, algorithmic and aleatory processes” (64). What is the relationship of current traditional pedagogy’s foreclosure of heuristic processes to past (well, further in the past) foreclosures or disregards of heuristic processes?
1. The problems that have been associated with invention across the centuries are closely tied with broader conversations concerning epistemology and have yet to be resolved, leading to continued controversies in the 21st century as to the role of invention in the composing process and the composition classroom.
ReplyDelete2. According to Lauer, James Murphy suggests that the role of topics in Aristotle is tied to “finding, rather than creating, conscious choice among a fixed stock of alternatives” (20). Understanding that discovery is the uncovering of what previously exists (but is unknown), how does this concept of "finding" and "a fixed stock of alternatives" fit in with our previous discussions and attempts at defining invention?
1. When someone asks you "what is invention?" the best response (and the one I use when my mom asks what rhetoric & composition is) is "that depends what year it is and who you ask." In other words: invention has covered a variety of rhetorical and non-rhetorical, epistemic and non-epistemic, heuristic and hermeneutic, textual and non-textual processes and practices in the last 2500 years.
ReplyDelete2. This is a question I'm stealing from Gunter Kress, who asks it about reading: given the variety of processes and practices that the term 'invention' historically points to, is it possible that the term needs revision? In other words: is Colin Brooke right in Lingua Fracta, that the canons need refiguring and that Proairesis might replace Invention in an ecological understanding of the canons?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteInvention’s intricate history centers a lot on the purpose and location of invention—is it inside or outside of rhetoric, interpretation or investigation, logic or a beginning, heuristic or hermeneutic, etc, etc—and as each century past, rhetoricians defined invention, based in part, on their view of rhetoric, epistemology, and pedagogy and these varied definitions are (as Caleb pointed out) still very much a part of how we, in the 21st century, define, enact, and teach invention.
ReplyDeleteTo jump in with Matt’s line of questioning: I wonder where we are in terms of (re)envisioning invention for the 21st century—for the classroom and for our own composing practices—and which part of invention's history are we relying on to aid this (re)envisioning?
1. Anything worth discussing has a long and often contentious history; Invention as a rhetorical concept is no different.
ReplyDelete2. On p. 14, Lauer explains that Untersteiner says Kairos implies conflict as the starting point of invention--but in what comes before, while Kairos is the point at which conflicting ideas come to fruition, it is Dissoi Loggoi that is the point of conflict, with Kairos as the resolution through invention at the right time.
I wonder if I'm lost or if I'm arguing here. But isn't Kairos the way in which invention begins resolution and Dissoi Loggoi is what sets up the conflict?
Matt and everybody—check it out. One thing I have figured out with Greek terms—Greek is way different from English. It is like that maze with the Minotaur and Ariadne and the red thread… or their favorite design motif—the Greek Key- an endless series of boxlike connected rooms… Greek terms are infinitely unpackable it seems to me. Prohairesis A Process of Acquiring Virtue… the link below is to Charles Chamberlain’s article “The Meaning of Prohairesis in Aristotle's Ethics” which covers some different definitions of prohairesis-- he argues that they are all basically inadequate to describe the process (Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-). Vol. 114, (1984), pp. 147-157 http://www.jstor.org/stable/284144?seq=11 ). Prohairesis is a “vital part of Aristotelian ethics” and is used throughout his works, “especially the Politics and Rhetoric” (148). In Nichomachean Ethics it is called “the decisive factor in virtue and character (ethos)” and in Rhetoric called “the distinguishing mark of the morally virtuous man” (Aristotle, qtd. Chamberlin 147). Scholars disagree on what it translates as, but agree that “no natural English concept corresponds to Aristotle’s” (148). The term prohairesis most closely means “the process of forming a new desire” says Chamberlain, and other common translations of the word as ““choice”, “will”, “purpose”, or “resolve” (…“Kenny’s purposive choice”) are inadequate”, he continues, because they each select one segment of prohairesis—which is a “commitment” – or a becoming, and represents the “process of forming new desires” (157).
ReplyDeleteI am not sure how this concept dovetails with invention, except in the connection to generation and becoming. A few people had already linked “process” to invention as a key term and this word seems to continue that somewhat. However, not being familiar with the work you cite Matt, I would say that chamberlain makes a good case that the concept is rather misunderstood as “choice” or selection, when it is really more amorphous, like--- the means of growing into a virtuous stance. I wonder does this still point to invention? Seems very Platonic to say so, whereas the sophists might not use the same blanket term? We wrest rhetoric from rhetoricians and give it to philosophers?
It seems to me we are down to fact vs. fiction with the idea of invention. Fiction implies that I can, must "make it up"-- like belles lettres and creative writing and poetry, etc. and "it" (my product) can be for the sole purpose of my enjoyment and need not ever be shared--like a mushroom grown in the dark, and selfish. However, if rhetoric, must have a public or civic purpose and be shared and published-- and deal moreso in facts? In which case I'd best not make them up (Jason Blair) and in which case, it is never more than a rearranging or exclusion/inclusion of the known... So why is it invention and not arrangement? The canon boundaries are so fuzzy and blurred I can't conceptualize of them distinctly as separate functions of the composing process.
ReplyDelete1. I think I'm going to go with Matt D here and suggest that Lauer's key point is that invention has been defined, theorized, and taught over a number of centuries by a number of different scholars from a number of different approaches, and that nothing is really settled.
ReplyDelete2. My question: does the messy/contentious history of invention epistemology and pedagogy necessarily reflect the nature of invention itself?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1. Many current and historical discussions of invention center on questions about the purpose of rhetoric and the nature of truth--does rhetoric/writing/composition produce truth or simply express it, does invention occur as we write/compose/speak or does invention simply determine terms and topics before discourse begins?
ReplyDelete2. I'm interested in the long-standing tension between invention and genius and the belief that geniuses do not need to plan, invent or strategize. To what degree does this belief persist and how does it influence our teaching? (Perhaps the most common question at fiction/poetry readings is "can you teach writing?" This question seems to imply a belief that genius requires no education and that writing education does not aid or create genius).
1. Over the past 2500 years, the study/pedagogy of invention has been diminished from kairotic discovery (the somewhat serendipitous seizing of a particular utterance at the right time and place) to the current traditional perspective of invention as (mere?) arrangement or organization.
ReplyDelete2. What is the significance of Adam Sherman Hill changing terminology from rhetoric to composition? In other words, if we differentiate between the two, do we privilege one over the other? If so, what are the implications of this?
Invention, like the other canons, is interpreted according to the perceptions of rhetoric prevalent at a given time in history, and reflects the social contexts and exigences of that time.
ReplyDeleteMy question is this: How is a writer constrained by the social context which shapes invention and do we fully recognize those constraints in applying invention to composition pedagogy?
Lauer gives an overview of invention in each historical time period including key scholars and key debates, many of which seem to center on epistemology.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that scholars are still undecided about what and how to teach invention in the composition classroom (if at all), so I'm wondering what are some really useful ways to bring invention into the classroom without necessarily bringing all the historical baggage with it?
1. There has never been consensus about the art of invention and what activities of discovery and creation are or are not included in it (even the Greeks had at least three different schools of thought); when rhetoric as a whole is regarded poorly, invention typically fares likewise, with “true” creative processes located science or in other arts; so, when we teach invention, we must decide whether we are teaching actual making of knowledge or simply the putting together of knowledge made in other disciplines.
ReplyDelete2. If we claim that invention is, in fact, a knowledge-making activity (as I am inclined to do) how can we demonstrate or quantify this knowledge making, and how does it relate to knowledge made in other fields or in other ways?
2.
1. Invention, a key term for rhetorical theory, has had a long and contentious past in which its relationship to knowledge-making and pedagogy has fluctuated in response to rhetoric's perceived value.
ReplyDelete2. How about two questions not directly related to the reading?: (1) What does it imply about the role and importance of invention in modern rhetorical theory when some of the twentieth century's major theorists--e.g., Burke, Bakhtin, Foucault--do not explicitly address invention? (2) Based on my reading in visual rhetoric thus far, most theorists have not explicitly addressed the role of invention in analyzing and producing the visual. What might invention look like if visual rhetoricians addressed it directly?
Like everyone has already noted, Lauer’s key point is that invention is a term that has been continually modified in the long history of rhetoric; the utilization of the term, ultimately, is tied to the role/use value of rhetoric in a particular time/community, and is specifically reflective of how a community envisions the relationship between rhetoric and knowledge.
ReplyDeleteHere’s a question: since this is Lauer’s point, what might this tell us about the value/role of space/place in the definition/application of invention? I'm defining "space", as Massey does, as a process--but we can go further and say that space/place itself is a site of invention. I'm also winking at Bitzer’s rhetorical situation, Aristotle’s concept of probable knowledge and kairos in general, but (hopefully) from a different angle: how might the particular space(s) we occupy represent literal, material topoi that offer a multitude of invention possibilities/constraints?
1. I felt like Lauer provided a trajectory of the complexity of the term "invention." In fact, I think she begins by situating the term in the contested rhetorical canon for this reason.
ReplyDelete2. My question stems from her attention to subjectivity. What role does subjectivity have on our theoretical and pedagogical understanding of invention and epistemology?
Lauer presents a chronological breakdown of the divergent readings of the interpreters of invention scholarship focusing on prominent players and their different explanations of invention, its role, and its epistemology.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Lauer presents a comprehensive historical review, I’m curious as to how she would proceed past the nineteenth century. Like Kara mentioned, what does invention look like in the 21st century? I also wonder how we (as teachers) introduce invention into our own classrooms. Which strategies that Lauer reviews do we pull from? What does invention look like for us today in our own classrooms? How do we incorporate it?
1. In rhetorical history there have been A LOT of definitions of invention (based on what constitutes it, its purposes, and its underlying epistemology) which result in difference notions of how to teach invention (as art, natural talent to cultivate, imitation or practice)all based on the historical contexts of the time periods. I also learned that as a field, we like to study invention :)
ReplyDelete2. I am jumping on board with the "and then..." question that has popped up in other people's post. Right away I got sad that she ended after the 19th century. The history is familiar, what is invention NOW? in the 20th and 21st century? And like lovely Jen, I cannot help but wonder what that means for me a teacher of composition in a computer classroom...
The key point: Scholarly treatment of the rhetorical canon of invention—that is, how we understand, apply, and teach invention—differs not only according to the era (e.g., Classical Greek, Roman, Second Sophistic, etc.) and according to the key figures within that era (e.g., Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle having different conceptions of invention during the Greek era) but also according to scholarly interpretations of those eras and figures, making invention a convoluted and messy concept.
ReplyDeleteLingering Question: According to Lauer’s overview, the historical context of the time seems to dictate not only how invention is understood but also who is able to partake in inventional acts. The former, the concept of agency and who has it, remains an important question in the field of rhetoric. How does agency, if at all, affect how we currently understand and utilize invention in the 21st century?