Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic theory of rhetoric presents a significant tension between an “Iron Law of History” and a “comic” attitude. Comic framing in ironic awareness of one’s own shortcomings in a conflict, as well as those of one’s opponent, moderates aggression but also appears to dissolve the ground for the identification and censure of wron…[Read more]

Alan Sokal’s concern about a decline in intellectual standards includes an indictment of what he calls current “subjectivist” trends accompanying a general erosion of “objectivity “ stemming from postmodern views such as deconstruction. This erosion is identified most importantly in postmodern claims about the instability of rigorous distinc…[Read more]

Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive analyses expose the sense in which hermeneutic strategies fall prey to the “metaphysical exigency”: an unargued and concealed choice significant to the exposition of a philosophical position. The roots of this choice come most fully to light in the context of Derrida’s differentiation of his views from those of Mar…[Read more]

The works of Kenneth Burke and Friedrich Nietzsche find common ground in a similar understanding of the hortatory nature of language‐using. This similarity gives rise to a measure of dissonance when weighed against their radically differing conceptions of the negative—Burke employing a “sacrificial,” dialectical negative and Nietzsche a “discri…[Read more]