Sprouting the Line

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Sprouting the Line

As a scholar in philosophy himself, Kolb reflects on the process of writing philosophy and suggests that “the real structure of philosophical work is not simply argumentative,” but that “argument and fluidity are always linked” (Kolb 330-31). In the traditional codex, the philosopher typically cuts away the excess that surrounds and gives rise to the argument. But this extraction of the line from the fluid discourse that surrounds it, while seen as necessary and proper, is still accompanied by an ambivalence on the part of the writer who recognizes the relevance and importance of these supplements: “writing philosophy, one feels a constant tension between the desire to reach out into the surrounding discourse that opens a place for the line, and the reverse desire for compactness and linearity” (Kolb 330).
So, if we accept that “philosophy’s line finds itself constantly surrounded by supplements which it both desires and rejects” we begin to see how hypertext can offer philosophy something more than mere informational convenience; it can allow philosophy to be written more complexly, stripped of the false pretense of a clearly bounded linear progression to one ultimate logically proven Truth (Kolb 329). As Kolb says, “the argumentative line is surrounded by a fluid discourse in which there are no fixed primacies and no firm meta-levels, because in that discourse such things get established” (Kolb 331). “Hypertext” Kolb observes, “seems to be a medium in which this fluid discourse could flourish,” giving to philosophy a host of new discursive paths, and allowing philosophy to be done in ways both more profitable and unimaginable in traditional print (Kolb 331).
Yet to reap the potential benefits of hypertext for philosophical discourse, it is important for scholars in philosophy to realize that “hypertext is a technology, not a literary genre” (Kolb:Scholarly). That is, there is no one way that hypertext must be used. In scholarly writing, for instance, Kolb insists that intermediate forms must be developed and applied that “involve more unity than theories of literary hypertext might recommend” (Kolb:Scholarly). For philosophical writing, or any scholarly writing for that matter, to be written in hypertext, scholars must apply appropriate intermediate forms, which will provide the structure necessary for assertions to be made. As Kolb points out, “We need a new nonargumentative form for a set of links, above the level of the individual lexia and short of the entire hypertext network,” because “the model that dominates hypertext’s mechanism is that of independent bits of information linked to one another. Yet, the fluid discourse that shows that philosophy is not all linear argument also demands more kinds of structure than arbitrarily multiplied links” (Kolb 333).
In philosophy, these intermediate structures will allow writers to maintain the strength of their arguments, while at the same time showing the “fluid discourse” that the arguments emerges from, or as Kolb says, “[intermediate forms allow] essences, identities, boundaries (and argumentative lines and definite claims) while showing how the claimed essences or unities break their own closure. They function, but the function as effects in a space they cannot dominate” (Kolb 334). Kolb notes that “in our (post)modern world we are gradually trying to create social and political forms that have neither atomic indivisible units nor totalizing structures if there is to be philosophical writing in hypertext, it needs such forms” (Kolb 337).
In the print version of his argument, this is where Kolb stops–at the insistence that philosophy can benefit from being done in hypertext, but that for these benefits to be possible, “we need forms of hypertext writing that are neither standard linear hierarchical unities nor the cloying shocks of simple juxtaposition” (Kolb 339). In the hypertext version of Socrates in the Labyrinth, however, he not only makes this claim but also goes into greater detail about what he means by these forms, and provides graphical examples of them. Even more important than this, which he could have done in his print essay were it not for the restrictions of length placed upon him as a contributor to a collection of essays, as well as a restriction, perhaps, on the number of figures and diagrams the publisher would allow, is that he not only provides examples of possible intermediate forms in his work, but as Charles Ess states in a review of the work, “[he] skillfully exploits the various rhetorical and argumentative maneuvers made possible by hypertext, precisely in service to and as an integral part of the argument he seeks to develop” (Ess). Or as the abstract available online at Eastgate Systems (where you can buy Kolb’s hypertext) puts it, “Socrates in the Labyrinth embodies several hypertext structures showing possibilities for writing and thought in the new medium”3F. In this regard, it could be said that Kolb does in the hypertext version of Socrates in the Labyrinth what Shelley Jackson accomplished in her hypertext fiction Patchwork Girl: he incorporated the hypertext form into his argument, just as Jackson incorporated it into her fiction, thereby proving his point that philosophical discourse can be enriched through this new and powerful medium.

Works Cited:

Ess, Charles. Review of Socrates in the Labyrinth. http://www.eastgate.com/reviews/Ess.html

Kolb, David. 1994a. “Socrates in the Labyrinth” in George Landow (ed.) Hyper/Text/Theory. Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins UP, pp 323-344.

Kolb, David. 1994b. Socrates in the Labyrinth: hypertext, argument, philosophy. Hypertext, available on diskette. Watertown MA: Eastgate Systems.

Kolb, David. 1997. “Scholarly Hypertext: Self-Represented Complexity”, in Proceedings: Hypertext 97. The eighth ACM conference on Hypertext. Southampton, UK: ACM, pp 29-37. http://www.bates.edu/~dkolb/essays.html

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3. The hypertext version of Socrates in the Labyrinth also contains four auxiliary essays – “The Habermas Pyamid,” “Earth Orbit,” “Cleavings,” and “Aristotle Argument,” each of which is modeled on a certain experimental intermediate form that Kolb suggests could be beneficial, depending on one’s purpose.

AuthorSean Fenty
2018-08-21T17:23:39+00:00 March 1st, 2002|Categories: Essays, Literature, Blesok no. 25|0 Comments