I'm leaning towards what adam said too... I think lakoff is saying that its not that there isn't truth out there, but that presenting that truth or even hoping on a road towards it isn't necessarily going to get you places (like elected, or your ideas pushed through congress). To get what you want, you have to consider the way people ACTUALLY think. Sometimes that may align with T/truth, sometimes you have to appeal to their "frames". I felt like he was going more against Mill's whole basis for rhetorical goings on when he basically says that people just aren't all that rational. And honestly, its a portion of Mill that I've had trouble dealing with. I think that people are capable of being rational beings... but that takes a little bit of work, and thought. But thinking about it just now, I almost feel as if the definition of rationality was a bit more loose with Mill, where as with Lakoff its not so much... maybe? I don't know...
amy_lee

I don't think that Lakoff is an antifoundationalist. He seems to think that there is a truth out there, but I would also say that he is being very realistic because he seems to realize that voters today don't neccessarily always care what the truth is or recognize it. He realizes that people are going to stick to their core values and beliefs no matter what evidence is shown to them to prove otherwise. Lakoff basically is just saying that if you want to convince someone and win an agrument, the truth usually isn't the best path to take. This does not mean that he doesn't believe that there isn't a truth out there.

I agree with Adam. Lakoff is not being an antifoundationalist; he does not deny there being a truth. I also agree with Page where she says that it would be hard to make a case for him being a foundationalist or antifoundationalist. He dogs truth, but never says theres no such thing. I have no idea what Plato would characterize him as.

I must agree with Mr. Adam, although he was probably inebriated, he makes a good point. When he is against the truth, it is not for the same reason that antifoundationalists are. Antifoundationalists are against truth because they believe that truth can never be reached, in other words, we wouldn't know truth if it shat on us. Lakoff believes that truth doesn't make a difference not that it can't be reached.

I think the Lakoff believes in truth and facts, but when it comes to translating these facts into truths to present to voters, truth does not convince people to change their minds. I don't think Lakoff dismisses truth, but endorses the idea that people's pre-set frames will either take in or dismiss truth because of what they believe: "concepts are not something that can be changed just by someone telling us a fact. We may be presented with facts, but for us to make sense of them, they have to fit what is already in the synapses of the brain. Otherwise facts go in and then they go right back out" (p.17). Our belief is not set on truth but construction of pre-existing frames. Lakoff pointed out that construction of frames with ideas and words which are routinely repeated so that they become permanent in our thinking. So to create frames one can base them on facts but values are the most important component to put at the fore front. When we frame our values we create language to talk about them in positive ways that people want to hear: it’s the idea, but with a more pleasing outward appearance.

When evaluating Lakoff’s method of argument in comparison to Socrates’ in the Gorgias, I think Lakoff employs similar strategies of defining and framing issues, but unlike Socrates he does not advocate that interlocutors set the language of a dialogue together. The elenchus method argument asks questions about the ideas introduced within an argument – “Go back to the beginning and tell me what you and Pindar mean by ‘natural right’ (p. 74) – and defines definitions of word meanings that go to build the dialogue - “but don’t be surprised if a little later on I repeat this procedure of asking additional questions” (p.14).

This is not at all what Lakoff instructs Democrats to do. Lakoff’s instruction is basically an play-by-play outline reviewing what has gone wrong and what democrats must do to get back on the offense in this game of “us vs. them.”

Unlike Socrates’ strategy, Lakoff does not encourage democrats to fined a shared language with republicans, but argues for democrats to take on this strategy because those who define frames and set ideas are the ones who are in control: “If you keep their language and their framing and just argue against it, you lose because you are just reinforcing their frames” (p.33).

Lakoff advocates a system of doing what works. “What is good for the gander is good for the goose” (p.21) meaning that democrats must take on the same strategies of framing issues to their values, defining words with means that resonate with their values and those values shared among voters, and going after conservative dialogue which employs the “Orwellian language strategy” deceitful and hidden meanings.

To me, Lakoff hinted at this idea that the people do not know what is good for them and democrats must work harder at taking the facts and personalizing them with their own beliefs that lie in this comatose-like state within people’s minds. I thought of it as a sleeping giant which only needs be awakened to take a stand, but democrats test out what works when trying to alert the other values which people while align with.

Lakoff repeatedly emphasizes that people vote their moral convictions and identities. There lies the components which move voters in their decision to put the person they want in office. Facts (the truth) won’t work and advocating for the goodness of their own self interest won’t work either because pre-set frames are that powerful that people have to be re-indoctrinated to even vote for their self-interest: “People do not necessarily vote in their self-interest. They vote their identity. They vote their values. They vote for who they identify with. They may identify with their self-interest….but they vote their identity fits their self-interest, they will vote for that” (p.19).

Lakoff argues for framing their values and truths (the making of an anti-foundationalist), but he also brings a more subtle foundationalist sentiment that their truth is the truth but people aren’t going to buy into it just because those are the facts.

Lakoff uses the example of the 2004 elections between Al Gore and George W. Bush to illustrate where people do not vote their own self interest: “It assumed that people vote their own self-interest. ‘How,’ Democrats keep asking me, ‘can a porr person vote for Bush when he hurts them so badly?’…But poor conservatives still opposed (Gore) because as conservatives they believed that those who had the most money – the “good” people – deserved to keep it as their reward for being disciplined. The bottom 99 percent of conservatives voted against their self-interest.”

Lakoff and other Democrats wonder how poor people can vote for the true person who was looking out for them versus a person who was not promising to cut the taxes that offer programs to them. The truth in this case was that the democrats are the party that traditionally helps the underprivileged, but the poor conservatives voted for someone who would not do this even though they likely needed the help.

So maybe Lakoff is an anti-foundationalist in the sense that he admits that truth doesn’t “set people free” or change the minds of others, but he does believe that people need to be convinced with whatever tactics available, because the democrats know the truth.

“Liberals and progressives typically react to this strategy in a self-defeating way. The usual reaction is, ‘Those conservatices are bad people; they are using orweillian language. They are saying the opposite of what they really mean.’ Imagine if they came out supporting a “Dirty Skies Bill” or a “Forest Destruction Bill” or a Kill Public Education Bill.” They would lose. They are aware people do not support what they are really trying to do” (p.22).

Ultimately Lakoff forms this underlying argument that people don’t know the truth about what is good for them, but the people only need to be pacified so that they democrats can get in office and bring about the true change needed and govern in a honest fashion that is concerned and acts on the behalf of all people.

So is Lakoff Anti-foundationlist? Yes. He argues for using methods of argument that frame the “nurturant” mode of thinking around their progressive ideas. But Lakoff is also making an overall argument to expose what the republicans are doing as wrong in politics and the strategies they use to deceive voters as some kind of evil that must be turned around for the good and the future of the country.

Although Lakoff places stress on progressive values (empathy and responsibility) his argument is centered on the framing of the issues. Reading this did remind me a lot Gorgias, in that it is the effectiveness and persuasive quality of the speech that matters. Lakoff says that if the frames don't fit the facts, then the facts will be ignored and the frame will be kept 37. This seems pretty opposed to the (Socrates', right?)idea that truth will eventually be self-evident. And I don't attribute this so much to Lakoff's attack on 'the truth will set you free' as I do on his emphasis on how to argue - and how much he focuses on what words to use, when talking to certain people (i.e. the crazy right) This is also reminiscent of Antonius, in encouraging progressives to study the other side's arguments, so that you will be ready for them, not necessarily giving them substance for their arguments such as values.

and by the way, isn't an attempt at composing a set of progressive values doing exactly what the title of the book says not to? By using the very word 'values', even if you center them around hippie words like nurturance and empathy, are you not highlighting the perception many saw as a big reason Kerry lost the election: that the progressives had no real binding beliefs or values. I seem to remember a resurgence of the use of the words 'values' and 'morals' a lot since the 2004 election as a response to the idea that the conservatives have had a 'monopoly on morality' ...

I'm charging Lakoff with antifoundationalism. Sort of. He seemed to me to be selling a particular flavor of civic humanism, one tailored to the perceived conservative-liberal split in our country. By bringing it back to moral principles on family he makes a fairly convincing claim that what people understand as truth is traditional and shared.

His attack on "just-the-facts" truth need not be taken as the denial of foundational truth; it merely means that if there is such a thing, we cannot wholly encapsulate and convey it using language, because it is an incomplete communication mechanism that appeals to our associations with other concepts and words. A world in which the primitive progressive view of truth was possible would be one in which every concept could be said only one way, with everybody reading in the same set of implications and associations.

What is perhaps antifoundationalist about Lakoff is that while he has great ideas for "mobilizing your base"--phrasing ideas so that people who share your values will understand them--he seems resigned to the fact that groups of people will hold fundamentally different views on how the world works that are totally immutable and yet irreconcilable (multiple perceptions of Truth). He acknowledges that we can passively understand other attitudes, and teaches how to argue for particular policies using clever and appealing phrasing, but doesn't seem interested in a deeper debate over the significance and even truth of people's moral worldviews. This seems close-minded, even if the book is being written for a progressive audience.

Posted sober at 2:03 PM on 4/17/06.

I think he is not an antifoundationalist. I agree with drunsky mcsdrunkalot adam. (kidding!) I think one can believe in truth, but it is a matter of private affairs. To argue truth in the public sphere is quite a difficult thing to do, because you will always be faced with somebody who not only disagrees with you, but believes the exact opposite. So that makes your truth quite hard to prove unless your audience is extremely naive and you speak better/look more dateworthy. ("People do not necessarily vote their self-interest, they vote their values") Basically, no matter what you say, claim, or believe, in the public, the only thing that really matters is an ability to speak, following the guidelines of appropriate debate and a knack at persuading others in your direction. So, I believe he would fall under the category of "modern day Bush speech to the state of Alabama."

What Lakoff's coming against, in that passage, is the liberal view of people as rational beings being the basis for public argument. So when he's coming against "the truth," it's a very specific truth--the just-the-facts-sir kind. And moreover, he's not denying even that such a truth (or perhaps a higher truth) exists--he's just calling it wildly ineffective.

Plato wouldn't necessarily buy the efficacy argument--in fact, to quote a half-bit philosopher, he would probably "take a shit on it." But just because Lakoff is instructing parties on how to pander, it doesn't mean he's an antifoundationalist. That school, as you might remember, is more than the charge leveled at it--the prototypical antifoundationalist is a bit like Antonius, trying to expose the public to multiple versions of events and finding the most reasonable or effective. Lakoff is arguing for efficacy, not because he believes there is no truth and we can only find the most reasonable solution, but rather because he believes that even if something is fact, we won't accept it unless it fits our current frame of mind (kind of like how a dogmatic foundationalist will assault views different from his/her own).

So note that Lakoff isn't discarding the notion of "truth" or "Truth"; he's just saying those notions won't persuade anyone in argument, and they won't lead people to make rational decisions. "People do not necessarily vote their self-interest," he says. "They vote their values" (19). There's an element of civic humanism to this observation.

He makes his position clearest on p33, with his list of guidelines. Particularly, look at #3, where he reiterates his statement about the truth. "Frame the truths effectively from your perspective." Explicit acknowledgement of truth(s)! Just, he makes them subsidiary to the framing process. He does talk about speaking from one's moral perspective, but that's too vague to judge as foundationalist or antifoundationalist.

So, to reiterate, Lakoff is not an antifoundationalist in that he never knocks the truth--he's just a huge panderer, apparently, which is true of Gorgias & co., but was only subsidiary to their main function as antifoundationalists. Lakoff isn't pandering for the same reason they are; he might even be pandering for more civic humanist reasons. We've talked a lot in class about how Americans prefer to uphold family values and such like, so isn't Lakoff just instructing liberal (rhetorical tradition) liberals (partisan view) how to tap into the same civic humanist technique pool as the republicans do?

Well, think about it, and also think about "gay apples" and "gay telephones" (47).

P.S. Don't pity me because I'm writing my discussion leader post on Saturday night. Just because I'm doing my rhetoric homework, doesn't mean I'm not drunk.