Rereading the Fahnestock excerpts last night, I began to panic that they might not be of general interest. However: I’d already made copies, and, given my uneasy relationship w/ the copier in the graduate lounge, that settled the matter.
Despite your (real or imagined) grumblings about the reading: I will insist that Fahnestock’s book is fascinating. As noted in the preface, it extends the disciplinary conversation beyond the realm of metaphor (which Sturken & Cartwright discuss on p. 302) to look at the use of other figures in scientific argumentation. Her argument here (which Mark Turner makes w/r/t metaphor) is not only that the scientific use of rhetorical figures suggests the influence of culture on scientific looking, but also that patterns of language use are reflective of cognitive structures that literary critics and scientists alike bring to bear on their scholarship. While she demonstrates the danger in failing to interrogate the rhetorical strategies involved in scientific argument, she also points to the figures’ generative role in scientific invention.
A few discussion points (the second and third are rather unwieldly, as per my M.O.):
1) The two visual figures of antithesis that I’ve excerpted are not especially high quality (even in the original). So, while we can discuss the examples provided, I am also interested in bringing Fahnestock’s methods of reading to bear on other visual texts we’ve encountered.
2) In anticipation of the conversation on teaching visual rhetoric, I wanted to discuss Fahnestock’s invitation to consider the educational implications of work in rhetoric of science. Perhaps scientific literacy does not involve merely knowing the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as C.P. Snow suggested in 1959, but also possessing the critical tools to read visual and verbal presentations of science, as opposed to the aura of magic? authority? dread? that currently surrounds them and often precludes a critical engagement (especially as this aura is not merely invoked to sell hand cream, but to persuade on public policy issues.) What role might visual rhetoric play in the development of these skills?
3) Finally, antithesis seemed a particularly appropriate figure to consider in a discussion of scientific looking because it points to the ways in which the sciences and the humanities have also been constructed as opposites through pairs of contrasted or oppositional terms. What is the threat posed by literary, philosophical, and sociological interrogations of scientific vision, as perceived, e.g., by physicist Alan Sokal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_Affair)? Are there limits to the non-scientist’s ability to read scientific texts (visual and otherwise)? Are rhetorical or cultural studies appropriate ways of reading these texts?
touchstone
Reading these three sets of texts together, I couldn't help applying Fahnestock's methodology to my reading of Brian's and John's selections.
The Gladwell piece clings rather fervently to a cut between language/voluntary/suspicious and face/involuntary/reliable. What it fails to take into account to the level of my satisfaction is the complicated relationship between affect, emotion and language. While trying to circumvent language (and suspicious rhetoric) by getting the straight FACS from the face, the system glosses happily over the rhetorical/linguistical construction of emotional categories. "Angry" "Happy" "Sad" "Anxious" etc. are not pure affective experiences but (socially) constucted/interpreted emotions. Ekman might be able to associate certain muscle contractions (A.U. six and twelve) with certain emotional lables (Happy) but, in doing so, he has NOT established an empiracle, non-linguistic link between muscluature and affect-- he relies implicitly and inescapably on the link between affect and emotion (by no means a perfectly understood, intuitive or universal connection). By setting "involuntary" affect over against "intentional" physiological control of the facial muscles, he also conceals another possible level of intentional control (one well known to method actors): conscious manipulation of emotional states. I might not be able to intentionally flex the muscles around my eyes to effect a genuine smile, but I can manipulate my emotional state into a false happiness that effects the physionomical signs of genuine affect. Gladwell's piece was really, really interesting and thought provoking on the level of content, but I also found it terribly interesting at the level of its self-effacing rhetoric.
The fingerprint interview was also interesting as an example of rhetorical/linguistic structuring in what is usually thought of as empirical science/evidence. On one level, I was thinking "well, of course" through most of the interview. Of course the questions we ask determine the answers we find. Of course our original intention towards an inquiry bears significantly on the conclussions we reach. (Heidegger and Gadamer set this up for us in rich detail decades ago.) I found it really interesting that the interviewed expert used a linguistic tool to point out the "contextual" component of cognition; matched pairs of phonemes (did, dud, dad, dod; dit, dut, dat, dot) are regularly used to differentiate between salient and incidental differences in languages. His 12, 13, 14; A, B, C graphic follows this pattern almost exactly. The most interesting thing about this interview is that it was on the news. The revelation that we encounter "empiracle" evidence linguistically COUNTS AS NEWS in western culture! The "new science" attack on rhetoric has, indeed, been too successful.