Doing What Comes Naturally

Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary & Legal Studies

By: Stanley Fish

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Paperback | 18 April 2023

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In literary theory, the philosophy of law, and the sociology of knowledge, no issue has been more central to current debate than the status of our interpretations. Do they rest on a ground of rationality or are they subjective impositions of a merely personal point of view? In Doing What Comes Naturally, Stanley Fish refuses the dilemma posed by this question and argues that while we can never separate our judgments from the contexts in which they are made, those judgments are nevertheless authoritative and even, in the only way that matters, objective. He thus rejects both the demand for an ahistorical foundation, and the conclusion that in the absence of such a foundation we reside in an indeterminate world. In a succession of provocative and wide-ranging chapters, Fish explores the implications of his position for our understanding of legal, literary, and psychoanalytic interpretation, the nature of professional and institutional culture, and the place of reason in a world that is rhetorical through and through.

Industry Reviews

"All of Stanley Fish's writing is distinguished by importance of topic, vividness in presentation, and accessibility to the general reader. This welcome collection of his recent essays has all these attributes. There is no better introduction to a host of important contemporary controversies concerning interpretation in both literature and law. Even those most in disagreement with some of his particular arguments will welcome the brio with which they are expressed."--Sanford Levinson

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Non-Fiction Literature, Poetry & Plays History & Criticism of Literature Literary Theory Reference, Information & Interdisciplinary Subjects Encyclopaedias & Reference Works

Preface	p. ix
Introduction: Going Down The Anti-Formalist Road	p. 1
Meaning and Constraint	p. 35
with the Compliments of the Author Reflections On Austin and Derrida	p. 37
Why No One's Afraid of Wolfgang Iser	p. 68
Working on the Chain Gang Interpretation in Law and Literature	p. 87
Wrong Again	p. 103
Fish V. Fiss	p. 120
Change	p. 141
Professionalism	p. 161
No Bias, No Merit The Case Against Blind Submission	p. 163
Short People Got No Reason to Live: Reading Irony	p. 180
Profession Despise Thyself Fear and Self-Loathing in Literary Studies	p. 197
Anti-Professionalism	p. 215
Transmuting the Lump Paradise Lost, 1942-1979	p. 247
Don't Know Much About The Middle Ages: Posner On Law and Literature	p. 294
Consequences	p. 313
Consequences	p. 315
Anti-Foundationalism Theory Hope, And The Teaching of Composition	p. 342
Still Wrong. After All These Years	p. 356
Dennis Martinez and the Uses of Theory	p. 372
Unger and Milton	p. 399
Critical Self-Consciousness Or Can We Know What We'Re Doing?	p. 436
Rhetoric	p. 469
Rhetoric	p. 471
Force	p. 503
Withholding the Missing Portion Psychoanalysis and Rhetoric	p. 525
Notes	p. 555
Index	p. 595
About the Author	p. 614
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Doing What Comes Naturally

Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary & Legal Studies

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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