In this corner,in the purple book cover, Mark Backman. Noted editor, child solitaire, imaginative designer, and, not least, author of the well regarded _Sophistication: Rhetoric and the Rise of Self-Consciousness_(1991). As a young man he was quoted saying unlikely things: 'Rhetoric is essentially an attitude about public expression';
'Rhetoric resides at the crux of the relationship between language and reality'; 'The disposition to be rhetorical has always been controversial because it involves a kind of personal power, the capacity to influence the private thoughts of others through the public use of language'. Stealing from Heraclitus he once wrote: "Change is the only Reality." Less controversial, yet also pointed he wrote: "Any structure well be effective, in the presence of chaos." As a principle of life he was willing to assert: "Control implies consciousness of the self, the scene of enactment, and the other persons in the play."

At one point in his life he climbed into the ring to do battle for the scholarship of Richard McKeon. "McKeon's essays on rhetoric are essential to his intellectual enterprise;" that "McKeon rejected the separation of rhetoric and philosophy;" that "He passed from a rationalistic phase working with universal vocabularies to one based on circumstances and context;" that "McKeon approved of Rorty's distinction between system building philosophy and edifiying philosophy and would place himself as an edifier."

Enter, from that corner, in the aquamarine book cover, David Depew. Exercising in the gym at the University of Iowa, excelling at rhetorical inquiry, and author of books on Darwinism, pragmatism, and the work of Marjorie Grene, Depew goes up against Backman, throwing a one-two punch: All of Backman's statements are misleading, especially the ones he makes about McKeon AND my interpretation reveals the true nature of his work.

For Depew, McKeon's circumstances dictated a confrontation with the pragmatic attitude. However, even under that exigence, McKeon refused to devolve from the claims of the theoretical. Theoria/praxis or praxis/theoria? Merely because someone is stimulated by commonplaces as instruments of discovery does not make one a pragmatist.
Today we are not familiar with the art of invention, an art grounded on the topics. Say someone uses the verbal art of invention in order to adapt to circumstances; might that not shadow forth an architectonic productive art capable of discovery in existence? Further, McKeon's semantic rubrics function as a resouce for such an art. McKeon "drew back" from a full commitment to the practical. The reason for such reluctance is that theoria must maintain itself against the practical. It's a question of integrity. It is only when you confuse theoria with ideological commitment that you think liberation comes through praxis. The circumstances were against him. McKeon held his ground: I suspect he would continue to resist, up to this new "postmodern environment in which we find ourselves today."

The final blow lands squarely on the jaw: "McKeon was insightful enough to see that ours is an age that needs an architectonic rhetorical art, or a universalized rhetoric, or a rhetoric of inquiry."

Judgment rendered: Depew.
MGGreer