Berthoff, Ann E., and W. Ross Winterowd. “A Comment On ‘The Purification Of Literature And Rhetoric’.” College English 50.1 (1988): 95-96. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 9 June 2015.
IN this biting response to Winterowd’s article (CE March 1987) in which he (apparently) identifies Berthoff’s Forming/Thinking/Writing “as an exemplar of ‘vitalism’” (95), Berthoff explains in detail how wrong he is. “To assert that vitalism goes back to Cassirer is a philosophically illiterate claim,” writes Berthoff in response to Witerowd’s identifying Cassirer and Langer, large sources of Berthoff’s philosophy, as “vitalists.” “As for Ann E. Berthoff: I am not now nor have I ever been a Vitalist.” It’s a charge she finds so offensive she practically devolves into name-calling: “Ross Winterowd is a diligent reader of prefaces and in this instance he has actually reached page 46…” (45).
She characterizes Winterowd’s (mis)understanding of vitalism a being a result of a faulty taxonomy which pitches on one side of a continuum notions of the “ ‘creative’ or non-algorithmic, personal, individualistic- and whatever else goes to make up a sterling example of what Vygotsky meant by pseudo-concept” (95), essentially ascribing to vitalism an insubstantiality which apparently Berthoff means to thoroughly reject. Or perhaps she’s rejecting merely the label. Or both.
Berthoff easily counters the claims she picks out of Winterowd’s article (which I should read soon, I think), and fortifies her identity by connecting her work with Casirer and Richards and some of their specific ideas.
If this “comment” is seen as “conservative” I think so only because she seems devout really to the philosophical path she’s chosen. She appears hardened to notions that might challenge the character of that path or suggest other interpretations of it. I’m still unclear as to why she is seen as “conservative.”
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