Techne Assignment

• Group Work Assignment: Exploring Techne Across Definitions and its Contemporary Applications


• Objective:
• Techne is earliest definition of rhetoric (see Aristotle's Rhetoric), and the field is still debating what techne means and how it operates in everyday contexts. This assignment asks you to critically analyze varying definitions of techne presented in Kelly Pender's chapter, "What is Techne?", and to identify modern manifestations of these definitions. In twos or threes, you will explore the spectrum of techne's meanings and present real-world examples that align with specific interpretations.


• Group Definitions: Each group will be assigned one of the following definitions of techne, as described in Pender's chapter:
1. Techne as a "How-To" Guide or Handbook
2. Techne as a Rational Ability to Effect a Useful Result
3. Techne as a Means of Inventing New Social Possibilities
4. Techne as a Means of Producing Resources
5. Techne as a Non-Instrumental Mode of Bringing-Forth


• Textual Analysis:
• Carefully read the assigned section from Pender's chapter to understand the assigned definition of techne.
• Discuss how this definition reflects different epistemological (knowledge-related) and axiological (value-related) positions.


• Current Example Identification: As a group, identify a contemporary example that exemplifies your assigned definition of techne. Examples may include:
• A video clip
• A physical object
• An image
• A conceptual system


• Presentation:
• Visual Aid: Provide the identified example during your presentation. For instance, show the video, display the object or image, or describe the system in detail.


• Analysis: Discuss:
• How the example reflects the specific definition of techne.
• How it addresses (or fails to address) the demands of context, precision, or utility.
• How it connects to the broader historical or cultural implications of techne.


• Deliverables
• In-Class Presentation: Each group will give a 7-10-minute presentation to the class, incorporating their example and analysis.
• Summary Document: Submit a typed, 2-page, 12-point font, written summary, in canvas, of your findings, including the group's interpretation of techne and the explanation of the example.


• Evaluation Criteria
• Depth of analysis of the definition of techne.
• Creativity and relevance of the chosen example.
• Quality of connection between the example and the assigned definition.
• Clarity and engagement of the presentation.
• Reflection on contemporary and future implications of techne.

Assignment Prep

1. Techne as a "How-To" Guide or Handbook
• Epistemological Scale: Strict -- Plato and Aristotle cite the absence of theoretical discussion as the primary deficiency.
• Epistemological Scale: Strict -- Socrates argues the rhetorician would need to understand through rigorous analysis why some speeches succeed and some fail.
• Epistemological Scale: Strict -- Quintilian compares the handbook to giving someone a pair of shoes instead of teaching them shoemaking.
• Epistemological Scale: Strict -- Knowledge in handbooks would necessarily be knowable, reliable, transferable, and teachable. According to Pender, only superficial elements of rhetoric fit this low level of epistomology.
• Epistemological Scale: Strict -- Isocrates did not teach the superficial content of handbooks. Instead, Isocrates taught discourse's fitness for the occasion.
• Axiological Scale: Low -- Gadamer argues the reader's prejudices are a barrier between the reader and the handbook.
• Axiological Scale: Low -- According to Gadamer, handbooks decontexualizes the knowledge. Using technical knowledge of the handbook causes the person to lose the context of the knowledge.
• Axiological Scale: Low -- Petraglia argues that improving students writing through technical knowledge causes the students to lose sight of the web of cultural practices, social interactions, power differentials, nad discursive conventions governing the production of text. Experts of the handbook would not understand how members of discursive communities write.
2. Techne as a Rational Ability to Effect a Useful Result
• Epistemological Scale: Medium Strict -- Aristotle defines techne as "a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning."
• Epistemological Scale: Medium Strict -- Techne is different from a knack, where a habit is attained through practice instead of reflection.
• Axiological Scale: High -- Socrates: A knack aims to be pleasurable, but techne aims to be good (useful).
• Epistemological Scale: Medium Strict -- Socrates: A knack is irrational, but techne is rational.
• Epistemological Scale: Medium Strict -- Wild: The aim of techne is the complete permeation of action by plan.
• Epistemological Scale: Less Strict Than Handbook -- While Aristotle says particulars are "limitless and not knowable," he assumes there is something to theorize about, where pursuasive rhetors can be observed, described, taught and applied across different situations.
• Epistemological Scale: Less Strict Than Handbook -- The artist's ability to make universal judgments allows here to take a specific situation into account. (Think doctor and chemotherapy affecting different cancer cells.)
• Epistemological Scale: Less Strict Than Handbook -- Teachable strategies require roughness and imprecision that need to be supplemented by practice and hands-on experience.
3. Techne as a Means of Inventing New Social Possibilities
• Epistemological Scale: Far Less Strict than Handbook and Less Strict than Ability to Produce a Useful Result
• Axiological Scale: Higher than a Useful Result -- A useful result is good, but creating social possibilities can upset dominant power relations.
• Axiological Scale: Productive knowledge cannot be disinterested in the social or political end of the good.
• Epistemological Scale: Not Strict -- Experiential, embodied knowledge is crucial for understanding the kairos of a situation. It cannot be taught through explicit precepts: it must be ingrained in the artist's being and body.
• Epistemological Scale: Not Strict -- There are no ready-made rules for success, no established methods. Yet, the art must make its principles explicit and systemize those principles to make them transferable. Those principles must work in concert with both the demands of a particular situation and the experiential knowledge of a body.
• Axiological Scale: Techne creates opportunities for cultural critique by making tacit social practice explicit.
• Axiological Scale: Technai arises "when agents who have not be socialized into the practice of certain rhetorical situations must learn by art what those who have long been in those situations have done by habit."