Argument can be viewed in dialectic, where one develops a hypothesis and then examines its antithesis in order to validate or invalidate the original hypothesis. This shadows the process of hypothesis development. How does one develop the hypothesis in the first place? Just pull one out of the air? And what if it's wrong? Abandon it and start over?
This "either/or" approach coincides with the "persuasion" and "conflict resolution" views of argument. You're persuaded, or not. You win or lose.
That is, of course, only a part of argument. Sometimes there is no head-to-head. Sometimes hypothesis evolve over the course of an investigation. Sometimes there is no conflict. Sometimes the purpose of an argument is to generate truth, which will then resonate with an audience and be persuasive, but persuasion is the by-product and not the goal.
Crosswhite's chapter "Argument as Inquiry" examines argument as an epistemelogical device. He positions argument as the mechanism that discourse communities use to create and reinforce knowledge creation.
He points out that traditional view of argument breaks down the process of argument into discovery (which includes everything leading up to the formulation of a hypothesis) and justification (everything afterwards). Argument as inquiry breaks down that distinction between pre and post-hypothesis. Discovery and justification inform each other, each turning the other upside down in a continuing process until "truth" develops.
When is it truth? Scientists using this method would say it is truth when it produces repeatable results. Others may say it is truth with the members of the discourse community says it is, when the argument finds resonance within the community. That is an imperfect answer, but we are imperfect beings.
Crosswhite claims that a physics professor teaches students particular hypothesis not to be persuasive, but to point out what types of arguments are persuasive within their discourse community. It also demonstrates to the students what kinds of arguments should be persuasive to themselves if they are to be successful scientists.
In a distributed inquiry, the discourse community as a group sets themselves upon this discovery/justification wheel and informally rolls with it. Claims, evidence, refutation, hypothesis revision or reversal, all together, each community member putting their knowledge into the pool, and investigating everything else they see in the pool. This process happens all the time, but is seldom codified.
Part I: the summary
I have a new phrase this week, courtesy of John Ruszkiewicz. In his paper, "Blogs as Arguments" he coins the phrase "distributed arguments." His paper uses the Trent Lott case as an example of a blogged argument.
What is a 'journalist' who is sheparded around by the military and told where and where not to be and what and what not to say? Sounds more like "war tourist" to me. These are the embedded journalists, and in my opinion they set a dangerous precedent for denial of the free press. Other people think this is the journalistic equivalent of microcontent and that, ultimately, the aggregate of embedded journalist's reports will reveal a clearer picture of the result. Some journalists like Robert Fisk prefer to take their chances and report free of restriction. There are also military bloggers who report their own observations from the front lines. Sometimes these reports vary greatly from what mainstream media is telling us.
I've found it difficult to post for the past few days. I find myself facinated with the elements of war coverage, from media coverage versus blogging coverage to foreign coverage, all interesting stuff.
So far, I've only seen one non-american blogger in Iraq, "Salam" writes "Where is Raed." He's been blogging as time and power allows, and his existance has sparked debate over whether or not he is real. His coverage is facinating.
You can view many warblogs (a genre unto themselves) together in the warblogger aggregator.
The coverage is so varied, from media outlets giving supervised coverage via the "imbedded reporters" (via cyberjournalist.net) to some soldier-dude changing his name to Optimus Prime (yes, like the transformer).
Blogs seem to be making public the very personal quest to come to terms with what is happening in the world now. For some people, that means punditry and commentary, for others it means inquiry into the various rumors and stories that swirl around the world. For still others, it means doing everything possible to forget about what is going on right now.
For me, I'm all about the forgetting.
(warning: blatent opinion follows)
The emporer of America has chosen to bankrupt our country and send an invading army to occupy a mostly obsolete country that couldn't do anything to us if it wanted. And we foot the bill for his games. And we will be paying for it for a long time to come; spiritually, diplomatically, fiscally. Suddenly America, who once stood for freedom, is the red-white-and blue menace. Thanks dubya.
I feel a little better now. But only a little.
This NCTE article criticizing online censorship points out that students have a need and a right to understand and critically analyze the powerful nonprint media sources of their daily information and entertainment. " (via Kairosnews.org)
This is an old article, but a great description of blogging in its many forms "What we do when we blog" brings together some of the varied blog formats and describes them in great detail.
The CNN article talks about blogging creating a virtual "Hive brain."
Quote from the article: "The way bloggers link and influence each other's thinking could lead to a collective thought process, "a kind of hive brain," said Chris Cleveland, who runs Dieselpoint, a Chicago maker of search software that recently worked with Blogger.com."
This is the information world that students live in and will be sucked in further as this kind of interaction becomes more mainstream. Check out the ragingcow discussion at the end of the article. Blogging meets advertising, and it is completely seamless unless you know how to look.
PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW WHAT THEY'RE LOOKING AT!
This is my 101 syllabus for a blogged 101 class.
There are some changes from the normal 101 syllabus in that I've reduced the number of formal writing assignments, with the intent of making up that work by use of the blog.
The class will also need to me more interactive and more attuned to peer review, so the participation grades go up and a new participation grade specifically for the blog appears.
The next step is to adapt some of the writing assignments for use on the blog. The assignments will end up being shorter, but it evens out in the end with the amount of commentary on each other they need to do.
Lyn Oshima of the College of Ed strongly advocates media literacy for students. She's a part of "Shared Visions", a program at UNM that encourages educators to use technology in education by setting up mentoring programs for teachers with "Master Technology Teachers" and developing best practices guidelines.
Stuart-Hall-o-rama is a quick-and-dirty guide to the world of media and cultural theory. And they use the word 'panopticon'. Apparently before he thought the media was the message, Marshall McLuhan thought the media was the devil.
Tasty!
So the rhetoric professors on Rhetorica are all really interested in political rhetoric. The Professors who blog use their sites as pundit sites, which is interesting, but not what I'm interested in for Comp. They do have a rhetoric primer that could be quite useful for 102, however.
Polling is one way in which journalists and politicians take the pulse of their constituencies. Daypop directly and constantly points out what bloggers see in the news, write about and link to.
An American looking at Daypop's scores today, for example, would learn that Cricket is on the world's mind today while American football isn't. Cool, no?