The Way We Argue Now: A Study in the Cultures of Theory

215 Pages·2005·0.58 MB·English

by  Amanda Anderson

The Way We Argue Now
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The Way We Argue Now
a study in the cultures
of theory
Amanda Anderson
princeton university press
princeton and oxford
Copyright © 2006 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock,
Oxfordshire OX20 1SY
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anderson, Amanda, 1960–
The way we argue now : a study in the cultures of theory / Amanda Anderson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-691-11403-3 (alk. paper)—ISBN-13: 978-0-691-11404-0
(pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-691-11403-X (alk. paper)—ISBN-10: 0-691-11404-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Theory (Philosophy). 2. Reasoning. 3. Discussion. 4. Debates and debating.
I. Title.
B842.A53 2006
140—dc22 2005048814
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
pup.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Allen
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Part I. Critical Practices
Chapter1
Debatable Performances 21
Restaging Contentious Feminisms
Chapter2
The Temptations of Aggrandized Agency 46
Feminist Histories and theHorizon of Modernity
Part II. Living Universalism
Chapter3
Cosmopolitanism, Universalism, and the Divided Legacies
of Modernity 69
Chapter4
Realism, Universalism, and the Science of the Human 93
Part III. Ethos and Argument
Chapter5
Pragmatism and Character 115
Chapter6
Argument and Ethos 134
Chapter7
Beyond Sincerity and Authenticity 161
The Ethos of Proceduralism
Index 189
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Acknowledgments
Many friends and colleagues have read and responded to the
essays contained in this book, or to talks related to them. I wish espe-
cially to thank James Eli Adams, Michael Bérubé, James Buzard,
Sharon Cameron, JerryChristensen, Bill Connolly, Jonathan Culler, Rita
Felski, Frances Ferguson, John Guillory, Webb Keane, George Levine,
Jonathan Loesberg, Janet Lyon, Carine Mardorossian, Walter Michaels,
Andrew Miller, Richard Moran, Jeff Nunokawa, Davide Panagia, Adela
Pinch, Bruce Robbins, Harry Shaw, Michael Szalay, David Thomas,
Irene Tucker, and Joseph Valente. I also want to thank the students in
my two graduate seminars on ethos and argument at Hopkins; they
embraced the topic when it was at its earliest stages of development
and helped me to advance my thinking in crucial ways.
The final portions of the book were drafted during a fellowship year
at the Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture at Rut-
gers University. I thank especially George Levine and Carolyn Williams
for hosting a terrific year of seminars and lectures. I received acute read-
ings of my work-in-progress by the other fellows; I thank Ed Hartmann
in particular for his formal reply to my pieces. At Princeton University
Press, I was fortunate in having excellent editorial guidance, and I want
to thank both Mary Murrell and Hanne Winarsky. I also thank audi-
ences at the following universities and venues: the School for Criticism
and Theory at Cornell University, the English Institute at Harvard Uni-
versity, the University of Michigan, Princeton University, the University
of Chicago, Rutgers University, the University of California-Irvine, and
Northwestern University.
My family continues to provide a base of support that is both deep
and wide. I thank Sara Anderson, Philip and Patricia Anderson, Helen
Anderson, Howard Goodfriend, Warren and Alice Hance, and Chris and
Lindsay Kosnik. I also thank my wonderful children, Jackson and Emily,
for being so vividly and so assuredly themselves. As for my husband,
Allen, to whom this book is dedicated, there is simply no one with
whom I would rather argue, which is to say, live.
Chapter 1 originally appeared as “Debatable Performances: Restaging
Contentious Feminisms,” Social Text 54 (1998): 1–24. Copyright 1998,
Duke University Press. Used by permission of the publisher. Chapter 2