eng 319

Summary of "Foundationalism and Anti-Foundationalism"

Kayla Horner

Summarize Bizzell chapter

WC: 300

Summary of “Foundationalism and Anti-Foundationalism”

This chapter in Patricia Bizzell’s text Academic Discourse and Critical Consciousness is basically an argument for rhetoric, or the ability to use language effectively, whether that be through academic discourse or through another kind of discourse. She does this through an examination of Anti-Foundationalism (favored by her) in relation to Foundationalism in what it offers and the contexts in which it fails. Foundationalism, essentially, argues for an “absolute standard of truth” transcendent of personal context. This can be analyzed many ways depending on the definition of “truth” but I think the argument throughout the academic community in its entirety is that of the rules of structuring, voice, conventions, etc. used in academic writing and discourse. Anti-Foundationalism, in contrast, asserts that it is impossible to fully escape the influence of culture, society, history etc. and therefore this “truth” to be obtained by anyone who does escape, does not actually exist. The chapter further explored how Anti-Foundationalism attempts to dismantle every aspect of Foundationalism in its approaches to teaching writing and inviting students into academic discourse while allowing them their own discourses by almost inviting them to bring such outside discourse into the academic community. This happens by two ways: the “literacy theory,” that becoming literate, in the academically accepted sense of the word, will somehow transform an individual in how they think and act and view the social context of writing, and the “writing-across-the curriculum” theory that suggests methods of building up individual discourses, and their concept of that discourse will build up a way of analyzing all discourse—including academic. Bizzell also explores how these two “Anit-Foundationalist” focuses on discourse fail, primarily because they focus on the theory or dream that by doing either of these ways of learning to write and communicate they will magically receive the knowledge necessary to participate in the academic community...a dream that is in itself Foundationalist; meaning Foundationalism cannot truly be destroyed. They also fail because discourse outside of academic writing is not widely accepted and the writers of such personal discourse will not learn to succeed in academia, will drop out of the academic community, and will therefore have no means of rising from the social statuses that constrain them. She ends the chapter by suggesting that rather than try to break free of Foundationalism, we should, as teachers, embrace the pluralism in writing, teach academic writing in order to offer students initiation into academic discourse and community and to “embrace rhetoric” which will enable us to further explore the questions posed throughout the chapter.