Euro St Writing 2

Step 1: Identify a passage.:

– Choose ONE of the four passages quoted below from the readings by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Gottfried Herder, and Charles Peirce. Though you will point to specific sentences in the passage by one of these three writers, your analysis must be in your own words. You should quote from the text, but the quote should not substitute for your own words. You must still summarize in your own words the content of the quote you use.

Passage 1: “However, I feel the reader stopping me at this point to ask how an expression can be figurative before it has a proper meaning, since the figure consists only of a transference of meaning. I agree with that. But, in order to understand what I mean, it is necessary to substitute the idea that the passion presents to us for the word that we transpose. For one does not only transpose words; one also transposes ideas. Otherwise figurative language would signify nothing. I shall reply with an example.
Upon meeting others, a savage man will initially be frightened. Because of his fear he sees the others as bigger and stronger than himself. He calls them giants. After many experiences, he recognizes that these so-called giants are neither bigger nor stronger than he. Their stature does not approach the idea he had initially attached to the word giant. So he invents another name common to them and to him, such as the name man, for example, and leaves giant to the fictitious object that had impressed him during his illusion. That is how the figurative word is born before the literal word, when our gaze is held in passionate fascination; and how it is that the first idea it conveys to us is not that of the truth.” (Rousseau 13)

Passage 2: “Every animal has its sphere to which it belongs from birth, into which it is born, in which it stays throughout its life, and in which it dies; and it is a remarkable fact that the keener the senses of the animals and the more wonderful their artifacts, the narrower is their sphere, the more uniform is their artifact. I have followed this relation and I find everywhere a remarkably observed inverse proportion of the restricted extension of their movements, habitats, food supply, maintenance, copulation, rearing, and social behavior and their drives and artifactive skills. The bee in its hive builds with a wisdom that Egeria could not teach her Numa; but away from these cells and away from its predetermined activity in these cells, the bee is nothing. The spider weaves with the skill of Minerva, but all its skill is woven into this narrow spider space. That is its world. How marvelous is this insect, and how narrow the sphere of its activity.” (Herder 104)

Passage 3: “The unity to which the understanding reduces impressions is the unity of a proposition. This unity consists in the connection of the predicate with the subject; and, therefore, that which is implied in the copula, or the conception of being, is that which completes the work of conceptions of reducing the manifold to unity. The copula (or rather the verb which is copula in one of its senses) means either actually is or would be, as in the two propositions, “There is no griffin,” and “A griffin is a winged quadruped.” The conception of being contains only that junction of predicate to subject wherein these two verbs agree. The conception of being, therefore, plainly has no content” (Peirce 288)

Passage 4: “Quality seems at first sight to be given in the impression. Such results of introspection are untrustworthy. A proposition asserts the applicability of a mediate conception to a more immediate one. Since this is asserted, the more mediate conception is clearly regarded independently of this circumstance, for otherwise the two conceptions would not be distinguished, but one would be thought through the other, without this latter being an object of thought, at all. The mediate conception, then, in order to be asserted to be applicable to the other, must first be considered without regard to this circumstance, and taken immediately. But, taken immediately, it transcends what is given (the more immediate conception), and its applicability to the latter is hypothetical. Take, for example, the proposition, “This stove is black.” Here the conception of this stove is the more immediate, that of black the more mediate, which latter, to be predicated of the former, must be discriminated from it and considered in itself, not as applied to an object, but simply as embodying a quality, blackness. Now this blackness is a pure species or abstraction, and its application to this stove is entirely hypothetical. The same thing is meant by “the stove is black,” as by “there is blackness in the stove.” Embodying blackness is the equivalent of black.” (Peirce 290-291)

-Step 2: Assignment Instructions:

Your summary of argument should be 200-300 words in length. Please type double-spaced with one-inch margins using 12 point font.

Your summary should provide a description of:

-one claim from the text
-one reason supporting the claim
-one piece of evidence that is used to exemplify the reason
-the warrant that links the evidence to the claim.

-Step 4: Grading Methods:

Grading Rubric for Summary of Argument (100%=100 points)

Claim (30 points)
Identify one and only one specific claim from the text.
Summarize the claim in your own words.
While you may quote from the text, this quote cannot substitute for your own summary. If you have a quote without a summary of the quote, then you will not receive credit for this part of the assignment.
Include a citation to a page number in the text where this claim is made.

Reason (30 points)
Describe one and only one specific reason from the text that logically supports the claim.
Provide a citation of the page number from the text where you found this reason.
If you quote from the text, this quote cannot substitute for your own summary of the reason in your own words.
Explain how the reason supports the claim logically.

Evidence (30 points)
Describe one specific piece of evidence from the text that provides an example for the reason. Evidence will be something that someone can point to and verify.
Provide a citation to a page number from the text where this evidence appears.
If you quote from the text, the quote cannot substitute for your own summary of the evidence in your own words.
Explain how the evidence is an example of the reason you provided.

Warrant (10 points)
Describe the methodology by indicating the kind of evidence being used and the way in which the evidence is being interpreted. The warrant should explain how the evidence leads back to the claim and not to a different claim.
The warrant may or may not be explicitly stated in the text.
If it is in the text, then provide a citation to the page number.
If you quote from the text, the quote cannot substitute for your own summary of the warrant in your own words.

-Tips for writing the summary of argument:

-There is a logical relationship between claim and reason. In your summary of argument, you should describe this relationship by explaining how it is that the claim must be true if we know that the reason is true.

-The evidence must be something that we can point to as an example of the reason. Do not summarize the evidence so that it reads like a claim or argument. Rather, describe the specific example that is being used as evidence. Is it a passage from a text? Is it a story? Is it an example of a specific word or sentence structures? Is it a description of an illness or disorder? Is it a description of a specific structure of the brain?

– The warrant describes the kind of evidence that is relevant and the way that we should interpret the evidence. The warrant is a statement of the method that leads us to this particular kind of evidence and the way in which we are analyzing the evidence. Be careful not to restate the claim or the reason in your warrant.