The purpose of this thesis is to determine whether a paradigm shift is occurring or has occurred in technical writing textbooks since 1994. This study will further the work of Jerold J. Jeansonne, who chronicled the paradigm shift in technical writing textbooks from 1900 to 1994. Using product and process orientation guidelines, this thesis will examine several technical writing textbooks produced after 1994. The findings will then be calculated to determine the present status of the paradigm shift. The thesis will also propose that the technical writing paradigm shift mirrors the paradigm shift in academic writing textbooks. To make this connection, the rhetoric of Aristotle will be employed to show that textbooks, whether they are academic or technical, are essentially argumentative. In light of this, particular attention will be given to Aristotle's characteristics of artistic argument: rational, ethical, and emotional appeal.

Everyone can agree that microblogging service Twitter makes a terrible first impression. Many will agree that this impression is an accurate assessment of many microblogging media, especially considering the narcissistic and egotistical bent that so often dominates the genre. Rhetoricians are justifiably skeptical of microblogging, especially of its rhetorical value (or lack thereof). While many rhetorical scholars have contributed to the field of digital rhetoric, the field of microblogging rhetoric is still undefined. This article examines a new kind of rhetoric exhibited by Twitter, attempting to both start the discussion about Twitter rhetoric and enter the ongoing discussion about theories of rhetoric. As Aristotelian proofs of ethos, pathos, and logos provide the foundation for modern understanding of traditional rhetoric, they will also provide the framework for this analysis of Twitter's iteration of "potential" rhetoric.

<p>Abstract</p><p>Chained Thoughts Broken by Chains of Thought</p><p>An Analysis of the Narrative Style Used in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own</p><p>The purpose of this essay is to analyse the narrative style used in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own in order to show in which ways it supports and reinforces the author’s arguments in her quest for a more equal society. One of the most prominent stylistic means applied by Woolf is her ‘train of thought’, linking one reflection to another like wagons in a railway convoy or like loops in a chain (therefore also sometimes referred to as ‘chain of thought’ in dictionaries). By examining how different rhetorical devices are applied within this train or chain of thought and in which ways these strategies are linked to the main elements of persuasion (ethos, pathos and logos) in Aristotelian Rhetoric, I have found that one of Woolf’s central themes - the resentment against confinement and the advocacy of androgyny or mixed-gendered thinking - is mirrored in her style. It reflects the author’s call to resist society’s restrictions by its unrestricted combination of different rhetorical strategies; this mixture of stylistic, partly gender-neutral devices helps her to create a common ground where she can reach and appeal to both genders in a very effective and innovative way, thus enabling her chain of thoughts to break some of our chained thoughts.</p><p>Ellen Johansson</p><p>Engelska C</p>

Several contemporary virtue ethicists have provided systematic presentations of normative virtue ethics. The virtue ethical literature, however, does not contain much information on the meta-ethical roots of virtue theories. The present paper seeks to address this deficiency by examining the neo-Aristotelianism of Rosalind Hursthouse in an effort to ascertain what meta-ethical commitments are most consistent with her theory; these commitments are shown to be cognitivism, objectivism, and (in some form) naturalism. These positions are then put into dialogue with Moore’s seminal metaethical arguments against naturalism and agent-relative value. Ultimately I show that the literature on normative virtue ethics is rich enough to provide powerful responses to Moorean criticisms.

This essay examines the persuasive side of language in a speech given by Senator Barack Obama on Super Tuesday in February 2008. It studies how Senator Obama utilizes language to convince and persuade his audience. This is done from an Aristotelian point of view, meaning that the study focuses foremost on how the senator’s word choices relate to Aristotle’s three means of persuasion, ethos, pathos and logos. Those basic guiding principles are relevant to use since Aristotle’s work on the subject of rhetoric is still today one of the most relevant works in that field. The analysis is basically performed through personal observations guided by previous studies, within the frame of Aristotelian rhetoric. The results show how Senator Obama enforces the three means of persuasion through language and how it can be considered persuasive. The study might add to rhetoric studies from a linguistic perspective since it reaches a better understanding of language used in the field of politics, where rhetoric is a prominent component.

The dissertation is an examination of obligation, which I argue is a mode of rational necessity that is proper to human agency. I begin from G. E. M. Anscombe’s celebrated attack against modern moral philosophy, and then sketch a positive theory of obligation as it figures in morality and in law, drawing upon the work of Aquinas and Aristotle. The first chapter explicates this idea of “practical necessity” and the second chapter shows that Aristotelian ethics, because it is not a theological law conception of ethics, has no place for a peculiarly moral conception of obligation. The third chapter examines Aquinas’s conception of moral law and argues that Aquinas vindicates Anscombe’s negative critique of the “moral ought.” The fourth chapter shows that the application of exceptionless moral norms (i.e. moral absolutes), which is one kind of obligation, requires attention to aspects of social practices. Attention to social practices allows the resolution of controverted problems about specifying intentions and applying the principle of double effect in a way that makes exceptionless moral norms workable. The fifth and final chapter defends the conception of intentional action assumed in the fourth chapter, and demonstrates that the scholastic ‘sub specie boni’ thesis is an integral part of action explanation, as well as Anscombe’s notion of “practical knowledge”. The upshot of the dissertation is an integrated investigation into how the ideas of good and necessity figure in ethics, law, and human action. / text

I examine the relation between the action of producing a change (kinêsis) in something else and the action of exercising one’s nature or craft (energeia). I call for the distinction between kinêsis and energeia by arguing that in Metaphysics IX.1-5 change should be construed as a transformational change that is still characterized in accordance with the categories, whereas in Met. IX.6-9 the action of exercising of one’s nature or craft should be construed as the presence of a state or an action that exhibits one’s nature or craft, which is meant to be a way of characterizing that-which-is (to on) that goes beyond the categories. Instead of the conventional patient-centered account of change, I argue that Phys. III.3 and V.4 suggest a non-patient-centered account of change and that the agent’s acting-upon (poiêsis) should also be construed as a non-self-contained change, just as the patient’s being-acted-upon (pathêsis), and therefore cannot be conflated with exercising one’s nature or craft. I also point out that a genuine Aristotelian event cannot be composed of the agent’s acting-upon and the patient’s being-acted-upon. I argue that Phys. VII.3 suggests a two-way relation between the action of producing a change in something else and the action of exhibiting one’s own nature, based on which I outline a hylomorphic proposal that a genuine Aristotelian event is composed of the action of producing a change in something else as the material part of the event and the action of exhibiting one’s own nature as the formal part of the event. While the former provides the material necessitation force from the bottom up to the occurrence of the event, the latter provides the formal constraint force from the top down to the occurrence of the event. / text

Abstract Chained Thoughts Broken by Chains of Thought An Analysis of the Narrative Style Used in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own The purpose of this essay is to analyse the narrative style used in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own in order to show in which ways it supports and reinforces the author’s arguments in her quest for a more equal society. One of the most prominent stylistic means applied by Woolf is her ‘train of thought’, linking one reflection to another like wagons in a railway convoy or like loops in a chain (therefore also sometimes referred to as ‘chain of thought’ in dictionaries). By examining how different rhetorical devices are applied within this train or chain of thought and in which ways these strategies are linked to the main elements of persuasion (ethos, pathos and logos) in Aristotelian Rhetoric, I have found that one of Woolf’s central themes - the resentment against confinement and the advocacy of androgyny or mixed-gendered thinking - is mirrored in her style. It reflects the author’s call to resist society’s restrictions by its unrestricted combination of different rhetorical strategies; this mixture of stylistic, partly gender-neutral devices helps her to create a common ground where she can reach and appeal to both genders in a very effective and innovative way, thus enabling her chain of thoughts to break some of our chained thoughts. Ellen Johansson Engelska C

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Este ensaio inicia-se com um sucinto painel a respeito de uma pesquisa bibliográfica sobre Medicina Legal que começa com Ambroise Paré em 1532 e chega ao ano de 2008; pesquisa esta que muito nos ajudou no planejamento desta Tese. É preciso que se diga que o conceito de Medicina Legal só aparece em 1621 com Paolo Zacchia (Quaestiones Medico Legales...). Nosso objetivo neste trabalho envolve diferentes aspectos teóricos dessa ciência. O primeiro é o de demonstrar que a Medicina Legal pode ser a ciência de uma classe no sentido da Lógica e que ela não seria, portanto, a exemplo da Medicina Clínica, uma ciência do indivíduo, como diz Gilles Granger em sua obra sobre Epistemologia já tornada célebre. O segundo aspecto teórico seria o de propor a Medicina Legal como uma ciência do freqüente aristotélico (hòs epì tò polú ws epi to polu - termo cunhado pelo helenista Porchat Pereira, enquanto conceito filosófico) graças ao qual situamos nossa ciência entre o acidental e o necessário e universal do pensamento lógico-matemático. Em terceiro lugar discorreremos sobre o fato de que os laudos médico-legais estão normalmente restritos a constatação empírica e, então, iremos demonstrar a também indispensável consideração das condições a priori da possibilidade de se estabelecer o visum et repertum, ou seja, a consideração do papel do encéfalo na leitura da experiência possível ao ser humano, numa linguagem atual. No que diz respeito à prática, realizamos uma pesquisa na qual analisamos 996 laudos médico-legais, no Brasil, cujos problemas nos remeteram à questão do Método. Sobre o Método, consideramos as teorias de Aristóteles, Descartes, Kant, Popper, Piaget e Granger, deixando de lado os grandes empiristas como Francis Bacon, David Hume, Stuart Mill, na medida em que suas teorias, devido às crenças embutidas no próprio Empirismo, não há lugar para o cérebro como condição primeira de qualquer tipo de leitura da experiência no mundo sensível. Ora, muitos biólogos, inclusive no Brasil, a partir do Prêmio Nobel em Fisiologia ou Medicina, Konrad Lorenz, consideram que o a priori kantiano pode ser interpretado hoje, como o aspecto endógeno, orgânico, da possibilidade humana de conhecer o mundo (o encéfalo) necessário a toda e qualquer leitura da experiência vivida, sobretudo quando houver a necessidade de explicá-la e reportá-la a terceiros. No caso da Medicina Legal, reportá-la à Justiça, com muitíssimas implicações psico-sociais. Nós proporemos então, à Medicina Legal, um Método Dialético, procurando demonstrar suas vantagens teóricas e práticas. / This essay begins with an overview of a bibliographic research on Forensic Medicine, from its early onset with Ambroise Paré, in 1532, up to the present. This research played an important role on the planning of this thesis (it is important to emphasize that the proper concept of Forensic Medicine, however, appears only in 1621 with Paolo Zacchia,-Quaestiones-Medico-Legales...). Our purpose in this work includes many theoretical aspects of this science, first of all, to show that Forensic Medicine should be considered a science of a class in the sense of Logic, instead of, as in Clinical Medicine, \"a science of the individual\", as stated by Gilles Granger in his already classical work on epistemology. The second theoretical objective will be to propose Forensic Medicine as a science of the \"Aristotelian frequent (hòs epì tò polú term coined by the Hellenist Porchat Pereira as a philosophical concept), through which such science should find its place between the realm of the mere accidental, and that of the necessary and universal, proper to the logic-mathematical reasoning. Thirdly, we also address the problem that the forensic reports are usually limited to empirical observations, and, then, we will also demonstrate the necessity to take into account a priori conditions of the possibility of the making of Visum et repertum, that means, we aim to consider the role of the brain in the framing of the human beings accessible experience, through a contemporary approach. On the empirical side, we conducted an extensive research, analyzing 996 Brazilian forensic reports, whose problems led us to questioning the generally used method. On the method, we discussed the theories of Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Popper, Piaget and Granger, leaving aside the great empiricists such as Francis Bacon, David Hume, Stuart Mill, as in their theories, due to the embedded beliefs of empiricism, there is no room for the brain as the first condition of the possibility of any kind of sensory experience of the world. However, many biologists worldwide (Brazil included), since the work of Konrad Lorenz (Nobel Prize, Physiology or Medicine, 1973) has begun to circulate amid the scientific community, moved to consider that the Kantian a priori can be interpreted as the endogenous aspect (organic) of the human ability to apprehend the world, necessary to any construction of actual experience, especially when there is an intent to explain and report it to others. In the case of Forensic Medicine, it means reporting the findings to the Judicial System, which entails many psycho-social effects. Finally, we propose to Forensic Medicine a dialectical method, aiming to demonstrate its theoretical and practical advantages.