Lesson for Week 12: Day 2
12.2
Find an argument in one of your sources and take a shot at analyzing it using classical reasoning patterns or Toulmin's description of reasoning.
Although "invention" is usually referred to as the first of the five cannons of rhetoric, we have seen that the process of stasis logically precedes invention. Only when you know where the disagreements lie can you begin to create arguments that address those disagreements. Aristotle said that you can rely on "inartistic arguments," such as witnesses, authorities, even torture, or you can create your own arguments, "artistic arguments." To guide a person in this creation process, he named a set of relationships that may exist among things. You can almost think of these relationships as mental constructs, especially if you are of the opinion that it is our minds that make meaning by creating relationships among our perceptions. He called them the topics, or the topoi, Greek for "places." Please click on the link in the preceding sentence to find out more about them.
Although this system of topics offers you a number of mental perspectives from which you may view your subject, modern theorists have sometimes reduced the number of topics. Richard Weaver, for instance, argued that people tend to argue from one of four topics (definition, comparison, cause and effect, circumstance). He claimed these four arguments reflected the person's underlying philosophical disposition. People who argue primarily from "status" use definition and comparison he said, because they see things in reality as having substantial essences that don't change. It is the notion of unchanging essences that he refers to when he refers to status. People who argue primarily from cause and effect or circumstance see the world as being made up of transitory things with out substantial essences. He called these arguments based on "function." He claimed those who argue from status are conservative, wanting to keep things as they are. Those who argue from function are liberals in favor of change. So definition and comparison tend to be arguments used to shore up the status quo; whereas cause and effect and circumstance tend to be used to support change.
We can see these types of arguements at work in Goreham's PowerPoint presentation. Those who appeal to nature, life, creation, and the environment tend to argue from definitions about the essential nature of creation and generally resist GMOs. Similarly, those who argue from personal autonomy are really defining the human as free and are worried that GMO companies will take that freedom away. Similarly those who argue from social justice invoke human rights as though they were God-given, again an argument based on definition. On the other hand, those who argue from beneficence project improvements that science will bring through transgenic engineering. This is an argument from cause and effect (science is the cause; and beneficence is the effect). Nonmaleficence is sort of the conservative side of cause and effect--do no harm and don't do anything unless you're sure you won't be doing harm. In this slide show we see that the five kinds of principles tend to fall into arguments of definition and cause and effect.
We don't find arguments from comparison or circumstance, probably because of the survey's being conducted early in GMO days. Some people today argue that releasing GMO wheat will result in contamination of organic wheat seed stocks as has proven to be the case with the release of GMO beans. That is an argument from comparison, basically conservative. Others argue that the purity level for certifying organic crop seed should not be zero because it is now impossible to achieve 0% contamination of seed. That's a pretty strong argument, but it is one that falls into Weaver's category of the argument from circumstance: "we have to do this because circumstances demand it." It is an argument for changing standards.
Weaver was a conservative, so he was suspicious of cause and effect and down right opposed to arguments from circumstance. He called arguments from circumstance the "abandonment of reason."
In any case, the topics, whether you use Aristotle's long list or Weaver's short list provide fruitful categories for creating arguments to support your case. These arguments would fit into the "confirmation" part of the polemic argument (see lesson 10.2). You should build up as many arguments as you can in statements like "this (your claim) is the right way to think, because . . ." The "because" is the reason you give, and it will probably be one of the topics. Eventually, you need to whittle your list of arguments down to three or four really strong ones and support them with as much evidence as you can find.
1. Make an entry in the blog about what your topic is how your research is going.
2. Read about progress reports and activity reports in The Handbook of Technical Writing and continue working on your paper.