Epistemic Rhetoric & Technology

Epistemic Rhetoric & Technology

   Barry Brummet wrote an article called the "Three Meanings of Epistemic Rhetoric" through an SCA Convention on November 1979. Focusing on the three potential meanings of epistemic rhetoric, Brummet explains and defines each one. In terms of what I have learned through Brummet's article, I can acknowledge how relevant the "Three Meanings of Epistemic Rhetoric"  is in technology and in the course of Writing in a Digital Age.

  In this article, Barry Brummet explains that epistemic rhetoric "asserts a relationship between knowledge and discourse, between how people know and how they communicate. The proposition also asserts a relationship between reality, or what there is to know, and discourse". One can define rhetoric as a situated strategic discourse. Rhetoric is historical, goal oriented, and an art of persuasion always having a planned purpose behind it. While epistemic is communication that is tied to how we think. 

  Throughout this generation we can see how relevant the three meanings of epistemic rhetoric are when it comes to our technology and in the course of Writing in a Digital Age. Barry Brummet states that the three meanings of epistemic rhetoric are methodological, sociological, and ontological.

  The first epistemic rhetoric is the methodological sense. The methodological sense leads us to the truth because the truth exists in the world. It's related to the knowledge that the world gives us as humans as we go through life learning different things. The methodological role of rhetoric is how to persuade someone that you are right. It is the assumption that all humans are chained to the "perfect idea of something" and all we see as humans is the shadow of what we really want. Technology today is relevant to the methodological meaning of epistemic rhetoric. This is because the world around us runs through the use of technology. The one single reality or truth in which we live is that we do not go a single day without the use or exposure to technology. Even in the course of Writing in a Digital Age, we use technology to be able to do our homework, classwork or electronically submit our papers.

  The second meaning of epistemic rhetoric is the sociological sense. The sociological meaning is to communicate, converse, and create laws in social situations. This is a material world which is governed by the truth. It becomes a social reality that people decide on laws according to their ideas or beliefs on any subject or matter. The relevancy of technology in our sociological world is at its abundance. Everyday we are creating and using different social networks such as Instagram and Facebook. The course of Writing in a Digital Age even requires us as students to use Twitter during class to tweet messages to each other.

  Last but not least, is the third meaning of epistemic rhetoric which is the ontological sense. The ontological sense is said to be the most important meaning of all. This is because its meaning is that rhetoric creates everything we know and it is our nature of being. The ontological sense states that the only way to understand interaction is through language. It is what provides what we think and know, and defines who we are as meanings. Knowledge is constantly shifting and changing through communication. We can see this in technology today. For example, our text messages and twitter messages are shortened to only 140 characters long. Therefore, we tend to abbreviate words giving meaning to certain letters like LOL, meaning laugh out loud. As for the course of Writing in a Digital Age, we communicate through Twitter. The way we tend to communicate through Twitter is by using hash-tags (#) that will directly link us to our class page.  

  In conclusion, the article by Barry Brummet called "Three Meanings of Epistemic Rhetoric" can be seen as relevant in todays technology. The course of Writing in a Digital age helped prove some examples of the appropriate usage of the methodological, sociological, and ontological meanings of epistemic rhetoric. Acknowledging our advancements in technology and college courses today, makes me wonder what the future has in stores for us.