SO during class I had all of these ideas going through my head in regards to the Berlin article and now I want to discuss them. I mean this whole idea about TRUTH is odd, all over the article I see that Berlin is referencing it, yet rhetoric has nothing really to do with truth… Rhetoric, as it is defined by me Microsoft word (as generic as they come), is defined as “speech or writing that communicates its point persuasively.” Nowhere is there an implication of truth, it’s all simple persuasion. Yet, Berlin wants us to recognize the dogmas behind our teaching methods, as Dr. Cauthen explained, but most teachers aren’t concerned with those things. I mean we all employ a teaching style because it fits the way we see the world, and thus want to perpetuate its use in the field, and little regard is paid to ethics. I mean I am as pessimistic as they come and this whole idea of truth and ethical compass is not flying with me.

I love this statement, “Truth is rational,” because it describes something that should be so but isn’t (768). Not all individuals are rational or logical, and because of this, truth is irrational and filled with ideology and emotions. Since speech is filled with what Foucault calls heteroglossia, it is important to keep in mind what Berlin says in regards to “rhetoric as the determiner of reality” (774). This argument, to me, has a firm foundation because it takes into account that reality is not fixed. This notion that reality is in flux, leaves not only room for error, but also takes into account that reality is faulty. As the other trains of thought, they find truth and reality, while this New Rhetoricians point of view takes into account that which the others don’t, the idea that reality does not exist as a universal phenomenon.

I guess that’s all that I have in my head for now in regards to this article. I enjoyed the philosophical trip down epistemology and how it correlates to certain teaching methods, Berlin’s correlation is ingenious to say the least.