Yesterday’s Plato, Today!

1. Yesterday’s Plato, Today! A discussion of Kathleen Welch’s “The Platonic Paradox” and some other related texts by Skott Bechara

2. Plato Watching Socrates Read From PrognosticaSocratisBasilei by Matthew Parris. (Neel 17)

3. The Five and Sometimes Three Canons of Rhetoric and Sometimes Composition Are easily assimilated into composition. Are remnants of an oral culture. Right?

4. LOL NO! Welch Claims: We need all five or we’re ignoring the contribution Plato has made to Rhetoric. Essential for all Rhetoric and Composition. (Welch 5)

5. Delivery Redefined (Rehistoricized) (Welch 8)

6. Memory Redefined (Rehistoricized) • Welch writes: Memory is, as Yates claims in The Art of Memory, inherent in his rhetoric because rhetoric partakes of the Forms and the soul’s attempt through language to have access to them… memory in the Platonic sense is the groundwork of the whole [Yates cited]. • What? Memory is also the existence of the past within the present. It is there that culture and rhetoric largely exist… (Welch 8)

7. Double-what? Let’s discuss. • I think Welch is trying to say that we use memory to create a cultural framework for our writing. • This memory is not necessarily a personal memory, but a cultural one. • Example: Exigence for the film “Reign Over Me,” was rooted in post 9/11 cultural tragedy. • Example again: Rhetorical debate surrounding “ground zero mosque” also rooted in post 9/11 cultural tragedy, but also in United States citizens ability to worship freely. • Removing the cultural significance of 9/11 removes the persuasiveness of the works (or the reason for the works to exist at all).

8. But Wait, We’re Completely Changing What Plato Originally Meant! This Presentation Sucks. • Hold on, Matt. I will totally address this.

9. The Platonic Paradox(es) • Plato faced a struggle similar to what we face today: a technological struggle. Writing was a new field, and it faced a blistering amount of suppressing fire from Plato’s hardened bunker. • But Plato built his bunker and reinforced it with writing. • Welch: “Writing his ideas enabled him [Plato] to preserve them in spite of his complaints against writing” (14)

10. Paradox Part 2 • Plato’s resistance to new technology of writing and his artistic manipulation of it. • Neel: “[Plato] has set out to define thought for humanity…he uses rhetoric and writing to define and occupy a moral highground, then destorys the means he used to accomplish this” (23) (Welch 16)

11. Plato, Technophile and Technophobe • Plato has fully embraced a new technology—writing—in order to persuade people that writing isn’t useful. • My Grandfather: Modern Day Plato. Sends me text messages about how much he’d rather we just talked on the phone because it’s easier—less typos. • Welch: “By the time Plato complains that writing threatens intelligence, there is no going back…we cannot choose to avoid this change.”

12. Sounds Familiar (Welch 16)

13. Back to Plato and Matt • Plato chose to write, and his five canons are apparent in his process. He has reappropriated delivery and memory himself through the writing medium and the dialectic/Socratic dialogue genre. • Ong: “Technologies are artificial, but—paradox again—artificialiality is natural to human beings. Technology, properly interiorized, does not degrade human life, but on the contrary, enhances it” (In Welch 14-15)

14. A Modern Application We can do as Plato did and reappropriate the terms so suit our genres and mediums. An essential part of composition has to do with the canons’ relationships.

15. So, What I’m Saying Is. . . • Plato, according to Welch, is asking us to make these terms our own, not because he said to do so explicitly, but because he did so himself. • Welch: “If meaning is to emerge from the discourse… language must be used interactively and must aspire beyond the apparent world” (17) • The canons, with some reappropriation, are completely applicable to modern composition.

16. Questions for Me?

17. More For Discussion! • Any new ideas or interpretations of “memory?” Is “memory” a useful canon, or should we just call it something else? Should we roll with four canons? • How ethical is Plato in his writing? • Should we be integrating medium and culture into FYC classrooms?

18. References Neel, Jasper. Plato, Derrida and Writing. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1988. Welch, Kathleen. “Platonic Paradox: Plato’s Rehtoric in Contemporary Rhetoric and Composition Studies.” Written Communication5:3. Sage Publications. 1988.

19. Further Reading! Gee, James P. Situated Language and Learning: A critique of Traditional Schooling. Routledge. New York, 2004. Hawisher, Gail E. and Cynthia L. Selfe. “The Rhetoric of Technology and the Electronic Writing Class.” College Composition and Communication 42.1 (1991): 55-65. Lankshear, Colin and Michele Knobel. “Researching New Literacies: Web 2.0 Practices and Insider Perspectives.” E-Learning (2007) McLuhan, Marshal and Quentin Fiore. The Medium is the Massage. New York: Random House, 1967. Schirmer, James R. “Acquiring Literacy: Techne, Video Games and Composition Pedagogy.” Diss. Bowling Green State U, 2008.