Reality -- what a concept.

[Seth L. Kahn-Egan]

See insertions below...

Seth Kahn-Egan
Syracuse University
PhD Student in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric
slkahneg at mailbox.syr.edu
315-423-8042 (home)
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On Wed, 13 Jan 1999, CJ wrote:

> To be entirely, inadequately, unsatisfyingly incomplete yet brief:
>
> Lloyd Bitzer argues that a writer's duty is to observe the material (real)
> world, and its situations which are *discovered* through the senses, and to
> translate those observations into words as clearly, as thoroughly, and as
> truthfully as possible.

I'm not sure that's what Bitzer's argument is; you're making the same
assumption that Vatz does, which is to say that Bitzer depends on a
foundational notion of materiality.  I would respond by asking where in
Bitzer you see that; my reading of Bitzer is that he never even comes
close to addressing this issue--so, to presume that he's advocating some
kind of foundationalism seems kind of harsh to me.

> reader -- and Seth, I have to (sorry) agree with your mentor that Vatz
> reads Bitzer very well indeed.... he is simply unrelenting in his assertion
> that Bitzer is falling back on outdated, traditional assumptions no longer
> made by readers and thinkers who have been exposed to even a smidge of
> semiotic theory.  I was probably more receptive to Vatz than my classmates
> who had not read Hayden White's _Tropics of Discourse_.

Again, I think it's at least possible that Bitzer wouldn't argue against a
semiotic approach.  Instead, maybe the problem with his argument is that
he simply didn't anticipate Vatz's reaction.  Bitzer doesn't use terms
like truth and reality to describe transcendant metaphysical conditions.
Maybe he's not a postmodernist, but he's certainly not a neo-platonist
either.

> > In the end, whether it seems "postmodern" or not to say so, it is
> impossible not to concede that the "reality" transmitted from one mind to
> another by means of  text is going to be colored by the perceptions,
> abilities, background, word choices and syntactical ideosyncrasies of the
> author, AND by the experience, background, opinions, etc., of the reader.
> (stasis)

No argument there.

> All three may narrate the same event. However, Vatz would argue that,
> outside of a very narrow group of context-familiar auditors, these are
> three Vastly different stories.

It would help me if you could cite something from Bitzer that counters
your reading of Vatz on this point.

I'm not entirely sure why I feel compelled to defend Bitzer in this
debate; maybe it's the same impulse that draws me to Burke, i.e., that
instead of simply being off the theoretical mark, he cast his argument in
perhaps dated terms.

Seth Kahn-Egan, Syracuse U.