Crafting

The difference between the time I spend crafting and the time I spend on other coursework that we've done so far is the levels of enjoyment that I get out of the activities. Even though the readings for this class have been much more interesting than the readings in the other classes that I'm taking right now, I associate them with work that I don't love because I do all my homework at the same time. Also, when I'm crafting I'm doing a specific craft that I really like doing. For example, this week I baked. When I'm baking I am enjoying myself because of all the scents and I usually like listening to music when I'm baking. Also, I am very attentive to my food and plan ahead. I'm very type A in the kitchen. I like setting everything out perfectly and making sure that I have all my ingredients all set up too. Sometimes when I'm baking I have to be very adaptive because certain times the recipes need a little changing. For example, when I was baking my s'mores bars, I thought the crust that I was making could have used a little more butter. Next time, I'll be able to remember that and add more.

Some of those same adjectives do relate to the ways in which I do my other coursework. When it comes to my studies I am type A there too. I like to get things done in a specific way. All my stuff is always laid out in front of me when I'm doing homework for this class or any of my other classes. The work for this class is done in a different medium than most of my other classes; in a blog. I do enjoy that change of pace. It gives me a new place to express my ideas and makes me a little more excited to do homework for this class than others.

CHAPTER 2

First use of "techne" is in the Odyssey

Ta peirata: end, limit, boundary

• Use of techne and ta peirata together: tie art to its boundaries

In ancient contexts, techne is never reducible to an instrument or a means to an end

Definitions of Techne:

1. Never a static normative body of knowledge-dynamis (power), a trick/trap, stable enough to be taught and transferred but flexible enought to be adapted
2. Resists id with a normative subject; never "private" knowledge, never confined to a specific human or god, not the product of a unique genius
3. Marks a domain of intervention and invention; appears when one is outnumbered by foes or overpowered by force

God and Goddesses of Art

Associated w/ gods/goddesses who are id-ed w/ invention, craft production, and the disruption of lines of power

• Either caught b/w dual identities, crossing and recorssing the boundary b/w human and the gods, or defined by power of transformation

Prometheus

• Characteristics: trickster to the tragic hero
• gift of the power of art and technology (fire) is credited w/ precipitating the divison of labor that brings about complex social orgs like a city
• the craftsman

Hephaestus

• patron god of fire and craft
• has curved feet-->polymorphic character (associates himself w/ a crab) caught b/w identities

Hermes

• Messenger god, associated w/ invention
• Cunning crafty intelligence--> trickster (part of techne)

Metis

• Power of metamorphisis (dual identities--part of techne)

Athena

• Armed goddesses who oversees city, the crafts, and the arts
• Androgynous figure (double identity? both male traits and female traits)

Hephaestus and the Bonds of Love and Art

• Shows how techne shifts a balance of power and reverses techne
• Hephaestus =cunning/trickster-like when he made the trap for Aphrodite and Ares (cheating on Hephaestus)
• His art transforms Aphro and Ares desire into bondage
• Moral summarizes the value of techne: even though Ares is a swift fast god and Heph has a handicap (his feet) craft helped Heph catch Ares

Power, Cunning, Intelligence, and Time

Earliest uses of techne (in Homer and Hesiod)-->convey the sense of trick or contrivance

Associated with apate: deception pg 53 describes many more associations

Foregrounded in the various uses of techne: economic value, location in culture

Techne has an important dimension in relation to subjectivity; Ex: used as nouns, verbs, etc

Techne used as a "class marker"--distinctions based on social classes

• As the artisan class specialized diff hierarchies dvlped within the class itself

Techne's value/class status dependent upon one's perspective

Metis-different kind of reasoning, "cunning intelligence" "flair, wisdom, forethought, subtlety of mind, deception, resourcefulness, etc."

• Applied to situations which are transient, shifting, disconcerting, and ambiguous

Kairos is the time associated w/ techne

Deploying an art at the "right moment" in situations is difficult/sign of a true rhetor

"Knowing what" and "knowing when" are the heart of kairos

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion

Arts of Resistance and Transformation

Bia and kratos refer to bodily strength

• Kratos power over" either subjects or another force
• Bia is associated with compulsion

Associated w/ fraud and sometimes set against the alternative power of persuasive speech
Ananke: necessity, but also force, constraint

Used with moira when referring to a limit or boundary that techne is challenging
Moira: generally associated to fate; however its meanings vary

References to moira as a redistributed portion are not confined to myth

Aporia: no path, no exit

Poros-way out

Images that depict artistic invention are topographical

• Refer to paths, places roads (poros denots a means or passageway)
• hodos: a way,road, method, system

CHAPTER 3

Techne is frequently defined against physis (nature), automaton (spontaneity), and tyche (chance)

Techne/ology, Science, and Ancient Medicine

Ancient techne doesn't allow us to use our common wisdom about sci/tech

• The concept of pure sci or tech didn't really exist in ancient Greek

Relationships b/w Greek science, dialectic, and rhetoric

• Ex: logoi (arguing both sides of an issue)

Science did matter to ancient Greeks

Arts of the physician and rhetor overlapped at many points

• Both known as technai

Traces of Aristotle's four causes (material, formal, final, and efficient) were consistent with earlier treatments of techne

Both Aristotle and Plato have differing conceptions of techne but agree on the primacy of philosophy

Epistemological boundaries are equivalent to social boundaries in techne as well as a sense of theoretical knowledge as a spectacle is part of

• Important in understanding the ancient conception of theoretical knowledge
• Theoria (theory)- concerned w/ sight but it is sight as a perspectival "gaze" not in regards to vision

Empeiria most clearly distinguishes techne from ancient speculative traditions

• Empeiria: experience, practice, craft

Aristotle insists that this capacity to recall, combine, and evaluate is the source of art and the critical difference b/w humankind and animals

The Interstices of Nature, Spontaneity, and Chance

Most persistent limit imposed on techne has been that of nature

• The boundary b/w nature and culture is the product of negotiation; nature's borders are a provisional stopping point in the negotiation

Aristotle depicts an esp complex relationship b/w art and nature

• Physis= completely dependent on techne

Aristotle also uses techne to distinguish form and matter-or formal and material causes

Art imitates the action of nature

• Like nature, art is "making for a purpose"

He also acknowledges that there must be at least two different kinds

• Art that determines the structure/dimensions of the house must be differ from the art used in making bricks and beams

Aristotle's def of physis is hard to define

To automaton=translated to "the self-acting, spontaneous"

• Reaches a limit of techne bc it often refers to a phenomenon/domain that does not yet admit human understanding or intervention

Tyche marks a limit of art, but it marks it in an intricate way

• Tyche=chance (also, act of god, act of a human being, agent or cause beyond human control)

Tyche often refers to a point of indeterminacy that cam be exploited by techne

• Also a limit of knowledge and indeter. that may be exploited

Aristotle's meaning of tyche shift slightly depending on their content (def's up above^^)

Fuzzy logic: everything is a matter of degree, something may "both be" or "not be"

Hauser-Chapter Two Notes

John Dewey argued that in decision making, the actions of groups/individual people carried indirect consequences for the lives of the citizens that were not a part of the decision making process.

• Ex: Holy Year in Rome

"Rhetorical communication can be used to foster or to inhibit participatory processes" p.17

Rhetoric as a Social Practice

Earliest examples of rhetoric was in Greece--their oratory was examined in their political and military assemblies

• Most effective speeches shared certain traits--same as today
• Rhetoric=powerful in bringing agreement that could change human relations

Perciles example of the Athenians being killed in battle, but the speeches afterward had a focus of celebrating the virtues of public life, which created than image of grieving citizens to see beyond personal loss to a model of citizenship practices.

• Happens today too-Sept 11th

Aristotle: two dominant aspects of public discourse=method and social consequences

Social practice refers to modes of conduct that are constitutive of an act

• Do this in teaching a lot-try to make the students feel confident in their skills so that they participate in the classroom, attempt homework, etc.

Rhetoric as an art of practical discourse emerged in relation to other discursive social practices pertaining to public life: narrative and dialetic

Narrative

Cooperation requires agreement among individuals concerning common interests and usually norms that express them

• Social norms, traditions, organizations, etc

Homer's tales had moral tales that had validity in every day life.

• Tales showed political/social guidance that the citizens needed

Narratives transmit norms--doesn't challenge them

Dialetic

The Republic by Plato attacked the way that poets didn't teach critical thinking

Philosophers wanted the norms of communal living to be based on truths

Dialetic was a method of question and answer

• Plate learned this from his teacher Socrates
• Critical examination
• Discover the Truths for yourself through active discussion

Today, dialetic=critical thinking

• My opinion: dialetic is more used in the classroom while narrative is something used outside the classroom/workplace and is less formal

Dialetic truths are based off of assumptions--however, no guarantee that the world is reflected accurately in those assumptions

No guarantee that dialetic will lead to appropriate action

Rhetoric

"When we confront social problems, we lack an obviously correct course of action. What we decide to do is contingent on what we want to accomplish, what we value, and what we find intellectually, emotionally, and ethically appealing." p. 24

Rhetoric focuses on making action

Sophist rhetoric was based on the idea of arguing from probability

• Teaching their students a thought process---arguing from both sides of an issue in order to discover which had the stronger argument (called dissoi logoi, or two-sided argument)

Prepon=appropriate for a specific time and place (characteristic of sophist rhetoric)

Kairos=right time and right place

• Timing
• Ex: "I Have a Dream Speech"

Look at table on p. 30 for differences/similarities between narrative, dialetic, and rhetoric

Rhetorical modes of thinking are still important today--still face problematic situations that require common effort to be resolved.

Rhetoric as a Method

Rhetoric is generally understood as using symbols to induce and coordinate social action

• Ex: music, dance, cinema
• Influence our perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors

Basic concern in rhetoric: how party A speaks or writes to party B to affect that person's choices

Methodical rather than substantive

• More concerned with hows of communication than whats being communicated

Both dialetic and rhetoric are modes of arguing

• Dialetic is used when experts discuss in technical fashion
• Rhetoric used to suit laypeople

Dialetic and rhetoric are very similar; have important differences too

• Windows example/lawsuit

Logos-arugment based on reason

Pathos-appeal based on emotion

Ethos-argument based on authority

First Post-Blogs

I occasionally read blogs that I come across on stumble upon. However, I don't have a certain blog that I come back to a lot. When I am online, I tend to go on social networking sites to keep up with friends and family, do homework, and shop sometimes. My favorite kind of reading is not on the internet, I prefer books. I chose this particular blog because I have posted on it before for one of my other English classes and thought it was very easy to use. I have yet to make any changes to the template, but I would like to play around with colors, pictures, and font if I can. As I'm writing this particular blog, I think it might be a little less formal than some of my other writing because that's what I'm used to when I'm writing online. Using a pen and paper tend to make my writing more formal. Before the looking at the question about my writing being different I really was not thinking about whether my writing was different than in other mediums, but I can see changes.