Recontextualizing My Logic

I have to say, in a very not-formal manner, that I had so much fun working on this exploratory! It was 100% different from what I’ve always done to learn the concepts and ideas from readings, and work in group projects, but using these online tools to get a sense of what the readings have to offer using online tools was absolutely amazing and so, so cool. The tool that I resonated with the most was Alex’s catalogue of electronic texts; when we filled out the chart in our google doc, I was trying to hide the amount I wanted to bounce in my seat because I was drawing so many comparisons and making connections between the readings and within each term that we explored. If I succeeded, you’d have to ask my group members.

The conclusion I came to after making the schema, was that the Enlightenment was a period where words evolved from their “natural” meaning to conform to the new ideas that were being formed: politics, science, society and philosophy. Take, for example, logic. It’s “natural” definition seems to be a method of reasoning or argumentation, while in Locke, at least in the 18 times it has been found, logic has made itself known as complicating understanding or communication because of lack of consistency. Locke says, “everyone has a right to put into his complex idea those qualities he has found to be united together…and with reason thinks he has the same right to put into his complex idea…” (Locke 821), and that it is this form of particular thinking that allows communication to become so muddled. He goes on to bring the example of liquor. He mentions that the room full of physicians had argued because each one had a different notion of the word: “each of them made it a sign of a different complex idea” (p.822). What the Alex Catalogue taught me, in reference to the term logic in each of its respective contexts, that logic was being downplayed and was being related to communication and probability instead of standing on its own. Or, everything is co-dependent of each other: how the probability of logic interferes with communication between men.

The issue with this logic of mine was that I was being closeminded and only relying on once source: Locke. I was taking his ideas and morphing them into something that I could create and I could make resonate with my thought process. When I read Mao’s article, however, I realized that my line of thinking was way off. Though it might be true that communication is definitely hindered due to individualistic logics, my thoughts were entirely subjective, trying to make my answer relate to every possible concept available to me. Mao’s article helped me realize that I need to “[recognize] how the conditions of the present can influence the act of representation and even perpetuate the existing power imbalances” (Mao 47). I used these terms and these texts to correlate to a singular idea—Enlightenment—and have drawn conclusions as to how these terms have played a role in the Enlightenment, or how it has changed the language in general in regards to the political, societal, science and philosophical standards that have been marked in literature. What I must do instead is focus the rhetoric of it all, or what Mao describes as “how does it shape and guide human conduct? How does it articulate its ontological and epistemological functions?” (p.49). How do the terms virtue, civil/ity, logic, probability, communication, nature and history impact the world as a whole? Not just during the Enlightenment period. How have these words come to today’s definitions—what is their etymology?

I’ve always been a fan of English. I love how everything is open to interpretation and how I can’t possibly be wrong. Though, overtime, my naiveté has subsided and allowed me to think in terms of how in every case, there can be a wrong answer, regardless if a rebuttal is coming from my professor, another student or a stranger. I’ve evolved into to thinking that there is always a right answer, and it’s been my goal since then to deduce what I could possibly do to make my answer as perfect as possible. This exploratory helped me, again, to do just that—explore beyond the field of right and wrong and only maintain that there is only the logic of “there is” and “there isn’t”. In this case, I’ve learned that I am right, only to the degree if what I believe that what I say is the only correct manner of thinking. I’ve learned that I’m always wrong as well, because there are many different sides to an idea or thought, and I can only account for one. But if I learn to take this into account when I think, speak, or write, I can come that much closer to the right answer—but, then again, who’s to say there really is one?

Works Cited
Locke, John. “From An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present. 2nd ed., edited by Patricia Bizzell, Bruce Herzberg, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001, pp. 817-827.

Mao, LuMing. “Writing the Other into Histories of Rhetorics: Theorizing the Art of Recontextualization.” Theorizing Histories of Rhetoric. Edited by Michelle Ballif, Southern Illinois UP, pp. 41-57.