Epistemic Rhetoric

It's really complicated to describe and understand what "epistemic rhetoric" means. In the article, "Three Meanings of Epistemic Rhetoric," by Barry Brummett," the author describes epistemic rhetoric in three different ways: methodological, socialogical, and ontological. Honestly, I agree with all this forms of epistemic rhetoric are correct in their own way, but the one that I believe is the most important and truth would be Methodological.

First, I'm going to start by describing socialogical, and why I don't believe that this is as important or correct. In the sociological way, it describes epistemic rhetoric as being more fact and opinion. Brummett wrote, "social reality is thus plural and relative; there are many truths on social issues, and each of them may be true for the groups that espose them" (3). This is saying that the truth may be different in every society or group. Although this may be true, I don't believe that it should be this way. For example, it is illegal to kill someone in the United States, but what if it was completely right to do this somewhere else? I don't understand why the mentality and laws would be different. If it's the same action (or perhaps the same object), then I believe that right or wrong should be the same for everyone, regardless of what group they're part of.

Now I'm going to talk about the ontological way. As Brummett describes it, this "discourse creates realities rather than truths about realities...People have no way of knowing whether such reality exists or not" One may create its own reality, but is it the real reality, or is it just a fake reality? For example, many centuries ago, people thought that the Earth was flat, until it was proven that it was actually round. These people thought a reality that wasn't truth, and that's what the ontological way means. Although I believe that how this way explains it is correct, I don't agree that things should be this way.

Let me explain myself more, I believe that there should only be one reality and only one truth. Brummett describes this as the methodological way. This style of epistemic rhetoric leads people to realized the truth about an obective and unitary reality. For example, a truth would be that the earth revolves around the sun. There is only one reality and one truth. There is no such thing as the sun revolving around the earth, or the sun revolving around the moon. If there are more than two realities, then i believe that one of then is true and the other one is not. Another example would be the color black. If it's black, there cannot be a possibility that it's also blue. Although blue may look a lot like the color black, it's still not black. Even if the names are not the same, There is only one black. There is no in between, there is just one correct answer (or in this case, black). My point here is that there is only one truth.

Brummett explains the meaning of epistemic rhetoric in three different ways: methadological, sociological, and ontological. Although I agree that all these ways do exist, I believe that the most important one and the one that should only exist should be methadological. This is because there is only one reality, which is the one we're living in right now. There is no alternative reality or truth, there is only one.