Barthes, Affect, Argumentation

Camera Lucida: The Non-syllogistic Argument and the Affective Mode of Theorizing

Introduction:

To theorize is to make an argument. To produce a theory, one must argue for something. In scholarly writings, behind “I argue” is where one is expected to find the “thesis.” Behind the directive tone of the word “argue,” what the argument entails is also a set of reasoning that leads to a conclusion for the purpose of persuasion. From setting a premise to supporting it with examples, traditional theoretical texts follow the logical (if not syllogistic) rhetorical rule implemented by the Sophists. Three major methods of reasoning in contemporary philosophy – deductive, inductive, and abductive – are direct extensions of syllogistic reasoning. “Rhetoric is episteme.”[1] The syllogistic argument is where knowledge is produced.

Though the idea has been through many iterations since Aristotle, syllogism, or the extension of syllogism that is formal reasoning, still carries particular significance in contemporary knowledge production. One aims to produce theory in the pursuit of “truth” through persuasive arguments with premises and proof along with a cohesive logic that delivers a “well-argued thesis.” The field of Philosophy has evolved itself with an analytical strand, in comparison to continental, which privileges logic and reasoning. However, the emphasis on formal logic ignores many other possibilities and the nature of what knowledge entails; affect, in particular, is neglected as a given.

The alternative to argumentative theoretical works has been experimentally engaged in the contemporary landscape. I Love Dick (1997) by Chris Kraus, Testo Junkie (2013) by Paul B. Preciado, The Argonaut (2015), and Bluet (2009) by Maggie Nelson are a few examples in the genre of autotheory. However, looking further back into the history of literary theorists, Helene Cixous and Roland Barthes could also be considered theorists who engage in alternative modes of theorizing. Both theorists tend to take on the positions of scholar and littérateur. Most of their works are infused with affect, flare, personality, and literary nuance. In looking specifically at Barthes' work, Camera Lucida is the text that truly harnessed the personal and magnified this alternative approach to theory.

In this paper, I argue (italicized to be self-aware) that Camera Lucida (1978) by Roland Barthes is a theoretical text that doesn’t follow the traditional mode of syllogistic argumentative writing; the affect-infused prose directly poses tension to the scientific impulse in theorizing; and through the underlying tension, language becomes a mode of conducting research, arriving at theory, instead of a tool of communication; at the site of the reading, the language that integrates affect also provokes affect in reading; as a result, not only is sense conveyed, it is also experienced, thus producing an affective mode of learning. With the study of Camera Lucida, what I aim to answer are also the questions of what does it mean for an argument to be illogical? What does it mean for an argument to be convoluted? What does it mean to produce knowledge and theory without delivering an argumentative thesis? What does it mean when grief and pain are entangled with the pursuit of “scientific ontology?” And the extension of these questions is: what does it mean to practice research without being argumentative?

Through a close look at the field of argumentation as a field and an analysis of The Art of Rhetoric, I aim to articulate the contemporary stake of syllogism; and taking the study of syllogism and deconstructing it in the close reading of Camera Lucida, with the aid of other scholars like Kathrin Busch, Marcel Hénaff, and Robert Allen, the paper argues for the affective mode of persuasion yielded by the non-syllogistic writing in Camera Lucida.

Argument, Syllogism, Rhetoric, and Truth:

“Argument” is a commonly used word, unlike the word “syllogism.” For its frequency in scholarly writing and contemporary speech, it is unsurprising that argumentation has its own field of study. The field is relatively young. Developed in late nineteenth-century forensics, the field started with a pedagogical purposed and slowly progressed into a field with interdisciplinary investigations.[2] The definition of the term "argument" lacks consensus. Within the field, some scholar privileges the pragmatism delivered by argumentation, while others value the process of reasoning that exists in the act of making an argument. In Argumentation: The Art of Persuasion (2020), an introductory text to the field of argumentation, Nickerson presents various perspectives from different scholars. For example, Kristiane Zappel considers the idea of argumentation from pragmatic terms, placing it ”between the term of consensus and controversy;”[3]Jos Hornikx distinguishes three meanings of the word argumentation which include “argument as reason,” “argument as sequences of reason and claim,” and “argument as social exchange;”[4] Deanna Kuhn studies the term by separating it into its two categories of “rhetorical argument” and “dialogical argument,” stating that the “rhetorical argument” aims to demonstrate the truth or falsity, while the “dialogical argument” functions within dialogs with opposing views.[5]Regardless of the various perfectives in studying the term, at the core of all these varies definitions is the argument as a mechanism to reach of a conclusion through sufficient reason and evidential support.[6]

Most of the literature in the field of argumentation traces the root of the concept of the Sophists and their search for the “natural truth.” In The Handbook of Argumentation Theory, another introductory text to the field published in 1987, Eemeran et al. suggest that the development of the syllogistic argument roots in the practice of democracy and the impulse in unveiling the “truth of nature.” Before the fifth and sixth century, in Greece, natural phenomena were considered divine orders that should not be studied. It is not until the years after that the mythical belief in nature began to dissolve. Attempts were made in theorizing natural phenomena and different views/arguments were presented. With that, the question of “what is a good opinion/argument” arises; and the Sophists were among the people who aimed to both study and teach the art of making a persuasive argument. With the democratic structure of Greece, the progression of argument was encouraged. The support for public gatherings helped the theorization of arguments to flourish.[7] The theories that were most influential around argumentation are the theories presented by Aristotle. Aristotle distinguishes three types of argument – the demonstrative, the dialogical, and the rhetorical.[8]The demonstrative argument aims to illustrate apodictic facts. The dialogical argument aims to settle debates. The rhetorical argument aims to persuade through speech. Within all these types of arguments, syllogism, or formal reasoning, is the most crucial factor. For Aristotle, “truth” has a natural tendency to triumph over its opposite, in that "Truth" will have a natural tendency to prevail itself in the most persuasive argument.[9] In other words, within Aristotle’s thinking, “truth” has a certain set form, in which syllogistic arguments, or formal reasoning, help with its unveiling. In a sense, “Truth” for Aristotle always pertains to the “Scientific” in that it is stable and set – the ontology of things is to be discovered rather than produced. The point will be specifically interesting to consider in the context of Camera Lucida when Barthes rejects the arrival of theory through “scientific methods,” stubbornly opting for affect in effort of reaching “ontology.”

As mentioned above, within each of the topologies, syllogism is the central element for the argument to be persuasive; and it has had an especially spongy afterlife in philosophy and knowledge production since its conception. Developed in Prior Analytics, syllogism entails a set of reasoning that can be deductive or inductive, going from premises to a particular conclusion, or going from particulars to a universal conclusion. At the core of syllogism is formal logic. While Nickerson describes the syllogistic argument as one extreme form of argumentation,[10] Marco Sgarbi and Matteo Cosci in the introduction of The Aftermath of Syllogism (2018) sketch out the different ways in which the Sophist syllogism has developed and involved in philosophy in arguing for its contemporary presence. In the book, Sgarbi and Cosci have curated a volume of paper illustrating the different form syllogism has taken from Avicenna’s thinking to Hegal’s thinking. While some philosophers have posed critique to syllogism and others have developed syllogism in their thinking. It is undeniable that “scientific syllogism became the logical key-structure of demonstrative knowledge; its preeminence lasted and flourished with neither interruption nor competitors for centuries.”[11] What is said here is also that the idea of knowledge is still very much tied with formal logic and reason. Within contemporary discourse, especially in the context of speech and writing, literature on “argumentation” is inseparable from the study of “rhetoric” and “syllogism;” if arguments if how we produce knowledge, syllogism, or formal reasoning, still takes a significant part in modern and contemporary knowledge production.

If the purpose of this paper is to study the form of knowledge production of the written text, the rhetorical argument shall be of specific interest; as the direction of communication of a written text is one-directional, similar to the communication style of the speech act, it warrants a closer look at The Art of Rhetoric. With the goal of persuading, in the book, Aristotle considers rhetoric to be a universally applicable art in persuasion no matter the discipline.[12] An enthymeme is an argument with incomprehensive premises. Making the argument in the form of a monologue, to convince the audience, the rhetorician is expected to use sufficient proof/examples in the delivery of the enthymeme.[13]In the speech’s act, pathos – the emotive appeal of the rhetorician – and ethos ­– the character of the rhetorician – are two key components.[14] Therefore, to convince/to make an argument/to “unveil” sufficient knowledge, the speaker is expected to use sufficient syllogism and proof in the enthymeme, and deliver it with pathos and ethos.

It is interesting to translate these ideas into the studies of the written text. Taking away the speech act, what slipped with it are pathos and ethos. If the author/speaker carries ethos not only in their demeanor but also status, a fraction of the ethos can be deduced into the written text in the stability of authorial authority. However, if pathos mainly refers to the emotive and affective element in the speech performance, its transcription into text sufficiently subtracts pathos from its body. What it means, in this case, is that only sense and content are what constitute the argument of a written text; sense and content, detached from affect, are the mechanism used in knowledge production; and the persuasion of “truth”/the arrival at theory is only happening at a level of the rational instead of the emotive. However, with a closer look at Camera Lucida, I argue that the non-syllogistic mode of theorizing persuades beyond sense into the affective, challenging sense and content, thus generating a different mode of theorizing and learning.

Alternative theorizing: Camera Lucida – Affect in Theory:

Camera Lucida is an intricate text. On the back cover of the 2010 publication by Hill and Wang, the editor deems the text to be “one of the most important books on the subject [of photography], along with Susan Sontag’s On Photography.”[15] The text is sufficiently effective in theorizing the medium of photography with its two seductive concepts of studium and punctum; yet two things are worth noting in terms of the background of this text: one, as mostly a cultural and literary theorist, Barthes is not particularly specified in photography, and two, the style of the text also deviates from most of Barthes’ early works that follows a systematic approach. In the book, literary language and personal sentiments are spread throughout. Though the autobiographical tilt, as described by Geoff Dyer in the forward of the same publication, is prevalent in Barthes’ later writing, Camera Lucida explicitly states and deviates itself from the sociological and semiotic systems.[16] Written in 1978, one year after his mother’s death and two years before his own passing, Camera Lucida is also Barthes last text. The text is indeed dense, complex, and prosaic, progressing back and forth between concepts, textured with grief and mourning. But despite these “untraditional approaches,” the text is commendably significant in theorizing the medium of the photograph. In fact, it can be argued that it is because of these “untraditional approaches” that makes the text convincing in its own form. In other words, following a non-syllogistic structure, integrating the words with affect, the theory produced in Camera Lucida is “persuasive” in through linguistic abstraction and emotion. Deviating from the mechanism of a “tight” formal reasoning, what yields are the representation of the fluidity of thoughts, language as a method, and affect in the mode of producing and learning; using affect to produce theory, theorizing to process personal sentiments, the interlacing relationship between theory and affect communicates knowledge in ways that rise beyond sense and content.

Punctum, studium, air, and “that-has-been” are just a few key contributions to the medium of photography by Barthes in Camera Lucida. Part one of the text starts with an attempt to determine the ontology of photography. With potent language, Barthes writes that he is “not sure that Photography existed.”[17] For Barthes, the referent of photography – the object that the photograph depicts – is too immediate; and such immediacy distracts him from seeing the essence of “Photography.” With a desire of finding the “genius” without “science” or “Logic,”[18] Barthes decided to take an affect-infused phenomenological approach to study the particular photographs that speak to him. In the process of doing so, Barthes coins the term studium to be the cultural interpretation of referent in the photograph, and punctum to be the forceful unnamable element of a photograph that punctuates and wounds. In the text, punctm is re-iterated and re-defined; there is no specific place in the text where punctum is provided with a concise definition. At the same time, at the end of part one, Barthes reaches an impasse stating that what was generalized with this approach is only his desire rather than the ontology of Photography. With that, a “deeper descend” is called for.[19]

Part two of the text progresses into the sorting of Barthes’ personal photographs, and in particular, the photographs of his mother. Holding on to the notion that he “recognizes” her in certain pictures while not “finding her,” Barthes chooses one particular photograph in which he does “find” her which is the Winter Garden photo to continue his theorizing. Leaning on the personal and emotive, interlacing feelings with theoretical thoughts, Barthes identifies further concepts including the inherent photographic certainty, the “unanalyzable” notion of air of a photographed subject that enabled the “finding” of his mother, and the noeme of Photograph which is “that-has been,” leaving open the hope to retain Photograph’s madness, opposing its generalization and banalization.[20]

Rejecting “Logic” explicitly, the thought process (or the type of “reasoning” that is “irrational” and rejects “Logic”) in Camera Lucida is non-syllogistic in nature. If thinking about the syllogism of an enthymeme that is deductive – going from premise to conclusion, Barthes' direction of going from the particular to the universal is at best inductive. Discarding the general and departing from the study of individual photographs, Barthes borrows the phenomenological approach of localizing the act of theorizing within the intersubjective. However, at the same time, the text also unravels inductive reasoning with its prosaic nature and stubborn affective persistency. “Affect was what I didn’t want to reduce;”[21] “I stopped, keeping with me, like a treasure, my desire or grief; the anticipated essence of Photograph could not, in my mind, bee separated from the “pathos” of which, from the first glance, it consists,”[22] writes Barthes when describing his approach. Beyond the approach, the prosaic style of writing further rejects the syllogistic logic. Each of the chapters follows a number. The writing reads similarly to a stream of consciousness, progressing from one fragmented thought to another, traversing from introspective to extrospective, building one idea while returning to another. Therefore, the direction of theorizing is neither up nor down; instead, it is back and forth, in and out, yes and no all at once. In a way, the formal framework/structure of the text is inherently unstable. The form destabilizes syllogism.

However, without syllogism, this struggle of attempting to arrive at “ontology” through affect rather than “Logic” poses a tensioned dilemma, making the theory “impossible;” yet it is the impossibility that re-attaches theory with affect. If ontology/knowledge is the destination led by rhetorical arguments, Barthes’ intention in theorizing the “essence” of photography through an affect-infused phenomenological approach would appear to be an effort in vain. “Instead of following the path of a formal ontology (of a Logic), I stopped, keeping with me, like a treasure, my desire or my grief”[23] is how Barthes introduces such dilemmic approach. In Roland Barthes (2003) Graham Allen describes Camera Lucida as an “impossible text.”[24] Quoting from Nancy Shawcross, Allens suggests that the “writing in Camera Lucida‘simultaneously confirms and confutes the sense that the essay is universal but also singular.’”[25] Indeed, Barthes reaches an impasse at the end of Part one; yet holding on to affect, stubbornly persisting that ontology can be reached through affect, in part two, Barthes strenuously progresses into the depth of grief and theory. “The theory presented in part two… is self-consciously presented as impossible.”[26] Referencing “The Death of Roland Barthes” by Derrida, Allen indicates that the struggle for Barthes lies in the inevitability of turning his mother into the symbolism of the Mother.[27]“How can Barthes, that is to say, write about his mother without his reader generalizing his comments… How can Barthes write about his own mother without the referent of his writing turning, for his readers, into an archetype of every mother.”[28] This laborious affective struggle is overt in the text. “In the Mother, there was a radiant, irreducible core: my mother.”[29] For Barthes, the “truth” that his mother which concludes her kindness, her morality, and her other previous tactile traits are out-of-play in all other photographs except in the Winter Garden Photograph.[30] “The Winter Garden Photograph was indeed essential, it achieved for me, utopically, the impossible science of the unique being.”[31] The irreconcilability of the subjective/personal particular and the universal “Scientific” here is resolved in the Winter Garden Photograph. Through the “illogical” reasoning and unresolvable tension that is resolved in the Winter Garden Photograph, what Barthes does conceptually achieve is to re-attach affect to the idea of theory; the inseparability of ontology/knowledge/episteme/theory and affect is demonstrated through the stubborn emotional persistence and the self-conscious impossibility.

Reattaching affect through impossibility and irreconcilable tension, what generates are also concepts that can be only generated with the non-syllogistic approach; in other words, punctum can be seen as a theory that can is ungeneralizable by “Logic,” only by affect. In part one of the text, there is never a place where punctum is presented with a concrete definition. Instead, the concept was iterated and re-iterated. “[Punctum is the element that] will break (or punctuate) the stadium.”[32] “A photograph's punctum is that accident which pricks me.”[33] “[Punctum entails] a certain shock.”[34] “In order to perceive the punctum, no analysis would be of any use to me.”[35] “The punctum has, more or less potentially, a power of expansion.”[36] “While remaining a ‘detail,’ it fills the whole picture.”[37] “The reading of the punctum is at once brief and active.”[38] “The Studium is ultimately always coded, the punctum is not.” “What I can name cannot really prick me.”[39] “The punctum should be revealed only after the fact.”[40] “[Punctum is] an addition”[41] Punctum creates a “blind field.”[42] These are just a few of the examples of how punctum is described, and it is through these narrations and re-narrations that the concept is built, revealed, and communicated. In “The Anecdotal: Truth in Detail,” Marcel Hénaff argues (un-italicized because Hénaff did argue. Whereas in this essay I am trying to decide the stake of arguing) for the revelatory power of anecdotes. In interpreting Proust, Hénaff describes that the anecdotes in In Search of Lost Time generate small epiphanies, and “each of these epiphanies generates a kind of shift in search;”[43] and “it is through these apparent trivial paths that seem to lead nowhere that the narrator realizes he is progressing towards truth.”[44] While the reiterations of punctum are not strictly anecdotal, the idea of progressing toward truth through trivial path does translate. Scattered spread through part one of the text, each seemingly trivial, the affective reflections of punctum lead to a truth that is personal but general.

If the above is to argue for the use of affective ground in building theory, in reverse, in Camera Lucida, theory can also be seen as a mechanism in processing the sentimental. On many occasions, art can be seen as a mechanism for processing emotions. Within the literary realm, some resolve distress through poetry while others mourn in a diaristic format. In the case of Camera Lucida, Barthes employs theories in processing his grief. In “Phantasmagorical Research: How Theory becomes Art in the work of Roland Barthes,” Kathrin Busch primarily argues for the artistic nature of theory in Barthes’ work. In the essay, Busch argues that Barthes later writing operates in the “indecision between the essay and the novel” and the interim of theorist and littérateur.[45] Using affect and exploring the potential of writing, theories in Barthes work becomes art, possessing the “hidden dynamic” of thinking.[46] The idea of theory as art is especially interesting to think about in the context of Camera Lucida. In some sense, the act of theorizing serves as a form of art in processing Barthes’ grief. To find the affective ontology of Photography is to resolve Barthes’ sorrow and confusion in regard to the death of his mother; the refusal to accept the “referential” nature of Photography is the manifestation of the refusal of accepting his mothering “non-existence.” To hold on to grief “like a treasure”[47] is to hold on to the reluctance to let go. To be unsatisfied by the theory generated by the end of part one is to have not found peace regarding his mother’s death. A “deeper descend” into theory is to provide a path to descend deeper into dissolving his grief. Through the act of writing, the book reaches a comfortable end emotionally and theoretically. The idea of “madness” provides Barthes with a safe conceptual environment to settle his emotions around his mother’s non/existence. The choice to choose between the “civilized code” and the “intractable reality”[48] (or the option to choose “intractable reality” over the “civilized code”) allows Barthes to safely mourn in a space framed by theory; and the intensity of his grief seems to be eased by theory. With that, in Camera Lucida, theory becomes art, writing becomes a method. The text further confirms the reflexive relationship between theory and art; concept, emotion, and affect are inseparable elements in the production of knowledge.

In the process of doing so, not only does writing/language become a tool/method in arriving at theories, but it also generates theories that are affective in nature. In “Phantasmological Research: How Theory Becomes Art in the Work of Roland Barthes,” Busch also phrases such theories as “affectivity of thought.”[49] “Everything begins with pathos,”[50]writes Busch. “The anticipated essence of the Photograph could not, in my mind, be separated from the “pathos” of which, from the first glance, it consists…I see, I feel, hence I notice, I observe, and I think”[51] how Barthes describes his process in Camera Lucida. (It is also interesting to note in the case of Camera Lucida, “it is death [of Barthes’ mother] that got me [Barthes] interested in photography.”[52] Camera Lucida would not be a text if it is not for pathos.) In Barthes’ writing, Busch argues that “affect, not concepts, comprise the guideline for thought.”[53] With such guideline. Barthes is able to conduct emotive research, “sublimating reason through affect.”[54] In other words, the theories then generated connotes the excess beyond the rational. Detached from the communicative imperative, becoming a tool, language in the text communicates in excess of sense. With that, “Truth,” in a sense, shifts from the “sensical” to the affective; the lower-cased “truth” is no longer the apodictic one that is uncovered by syllogism, but the sensible one that is explored by affect.

The idea also speaks back to some of Barthes’ earlier theories. In Roland Barthes, Allen considers Camera Lucida to be a text that continues Barthes’ idea of “neutral writing.”[55] Barthes believes that the impulse to theorize stems from the oscillation between the Doxa and the paradox – popular opinion and its contrary.[56] Recognizing such pattern, Barthes aims to find the “third term” outside of the opposition of Doxa and paradox, in which he calls “the neutral.”[57]While “the neutral” does not resolve the conflict between Doxa and paradox, it provides paradigm outside of it.[58] In a sense, Doxa can be seen as the argument, and paradox can be seen as the counter-argument. By seeking “the neutral,” Barthes purposefully searches for the practice of theory outside of the argumentative; and as a continuation of “neutral writing,” Camera Lucida places itself outside of the argumentative.

What the “neutral writing” also points to is the destabilization of meaning in language. In Roland Barthes, Allen suggests that Barthes’ writing during the 1970s “increasingly resists the tendency in language to revert to the signified (stable meaning) and thus to undermine or simply absorb writing (language on the level of the signifier).”[59] In other words, Barthes writing during that time intentionally challenges the “Scientific” notion of language, experimenting with the instability of meaning through stylistic decisions. Words are indeed poignantly specific in Camera Lucida. In many places, they are expansive, stylistic, and nuanced, “connoting” more than they “denote.” In noting Photograph’s immediacy to its referent, Barthes writes “deprived of a principle of marking, photographs are signs which don’t take, which turn, as milk does. Whatever it grants to vision and whatever its manner, a photograph is always invisible: it is not it that we see.”[60] Here, “take” and “turn” carry notions beyond their simple verb action, especially when “turn” is elaborated with the metaphor of the milk. As quick, subtle, and transitory as the phrase “as milk does” appear in the sentence, the stylistic metaphor that seems odd in a scholarly context adds a dimension of tensioned reluctance. The “turn” of milk is unwilling, unpalatable, quick, and result in a sourness. It transforms from healthy to unhealthy. Using this metaphor, the passage connotes Barthes’ unwillingness in accepting the referential “turn.” For Barthes, the result of the Photography’s “referential” turn is like the result of milk, unpalatable, quick, and there is nothing that can be done. The metaphor is also humorous. It is unexpected and abrupt. It punctuates a break, easing the density of theory and the heaviness of grief. And all these sentiments are condensed in the three words “as milk does;” and these three words directly point to the instability of the word “turn.” Above is just one way of interpreting the passage. Yet all this is to support my claim/argument, that is, while clearly stating Photography’s tendency of deflecting its reading onto the referent, concealing itself, these stylistic decisions add expandable associations beyond the content which are open to interpretation. The description here traps and haunts “sense,” while making sense. The writing communicates the theoretical thought, but the stylistic choices endow the thought with an excess, allowing it to ruminate and be felt. The writing harnesses the instability of the signified of words, pushing theory “into a bodily realm, a hedonic pleasure of the text.”[61] This type of writing turns (perhaps like a revolving door) sense and content into an experience.

Transforming sense into experience, what the text also altered is the state of knowledge reception. With the reflexive elements of art, theory, affect, concept, emotion, and sense, the non-syllogistic writing also generates an affective mode of reception at the site of reading; and such affective reception is fundamentally different from the reception of a “sensical” argument but persuasive/infectious/affectious in its own form. If syllogism convinces by logic, requiring the act of thinking following along with its deductive/inductive structure, the affective writing calls for a following with feeling – an emotive and empathetic understanding of the text. In other words, the non-syllogistic style requires additional labor and affective investment from the readers. Whereas the reader would most likely find the “thesis” follows the phrase “I argue” in a traditional syllogistic text, having their labor of the reading eased, the sporadic theorization of punctum requires them to constantly and actively re-construct information for themselves. The reiterative writing requires the reader to go back and forth in thinking, demanding additional effort in comprehension. Whereas formal Logic imprints a deducted/deductive conclusion, affect leads to an apprehension that is expansive and empathetic. Camera Lucida would not be able to be understood if it is not for empathy and affect in reading. “I suffer, motionless. Cruel, sterile deficiency: I cannot transform my grief, I cannot let my gaze drift.”[62] It is the novelistic/stylistic wording like this that invites emotional investments from the audience. Paired with the theory that these thoughts lead to, the audience empathetically understands the impulse behind the theory, and the concept of the theory is not studied but experienced. In other words, the apprehension of the affective non-syllogistic text is not only active but invested. The message is not only learned but felt. In this sense, it is also quite fitting in thinking about Barthes’ most influential “argument” that the site of writing happens at reading. The affective investment at the site of reading is what “reveals,” deepens, or makes expansive the concepts. It is the reading that enables the affective mode of knowledge; but it is the affective writing that invites such affective reading.

Conclusion and Extension:

Destabilizing the notion of apodictic truth through affective writing, making a non-syllogistic argument, Cameral Lucida shifts the logical and natural attachment to knowledge into a personal, empathetic, and palpable one; employing the instability of meaning and language, demanding affective reading, theories are sentimentally and artistically generated.

Camera Lucida, in some regards, can also be seen as a work of autotheory – a contemporary genre that blends theories and autobiographical writing. Therefore, the rhetorical study that I have conducted in this essay could also be applied to the study of the contemporary works mentioned in the introduction. In the context of Cixous, Nelson, and Kraus, the non-syllogistic element carries particular weight as these writers practice in the feminist tradition, and the idea of argument has been especially critiqued by feminist scholars. As the idea of reason and argumentation is deeply gendered, the employment of a non-syllogistic interpretation that challenges the root of the gendered western intellectual history could provide another key perspective in feminist studies. However, at the same time, nuanced differences exist within these works. The Argonaut is mainly autobiographical. Bluet takes on a poetic form. Kraus articulates theories through the genre of the novel. Cixous operates in a scholarly/institutional context. Some of these works are still more “argumentative” than others – some possess a stronger thesis/centralized topic than others. With that, the study of syllogism could also situate itself in the respected genres. If thinking generally with the feminist philosophy of finding fissures, holding on to kinship, and, looking into the space in between, and leaving room for openness, the affect that is included and induced in these non-syllogistic theoretical writing, that fills the gaps of syllogism, might be what produces such openness. The study of non-syllogistic writing would also be interesting thinking in relation to other feminist literary theories. The discursive Écriture Féminine emphasized by Cixous could find its intersection with the study of syllogism and argumentation. Although not operating in the landscape of feminist philosophy, Ursula Le Guin's idea of the un-heroic mode of storytelling in “Carrier bag theory of Fiction” (1986) could also provide insight in relation to non-argumentation writing and storytelling. The angle might also be productive thinking against the sophist canon of the poetics and the tragic heroes, presenting the alternative to the “heroic” act of syllogistic argumentation and persuasion.

At the same time, looking at the structure of this essay self-reflectively, the paper takes on a syllogistic form. I have set up my argument along with the premises of “the field of argumentation,” “the study of The Art of Rhetoric,” “context around Camera Lucida,” and “previous research in regards to affect on Camera Lucida.” Within these premises, I have chosen specific passages to use as “proof” is solidifying my argument. The reasoning in this paper is also somewhat formal, if not deductive. Some of the sentence structures that I tend to employ in my scholarly writing take the form of “if [premise and proof], then [conclusion].” (In fact, to prevent the paper from appearing self-contradictory, I have also intentionally refrained myself from using the transitory phrases such as “with this logic” or “as a result.”) These sentence structures are syllogistic in nature. With that said, I hope not to deny the functionality of the syllogistic argument. The structured argument communicates sense and logic; it clearly sketches out my thoughts systematically and effectively. But in the non-syllogistic argument, an alternative mode of thinking and reception is conveyed – the reception with feelings and affect, the text is felt rather than read.

If I were to reflect on Camera Lucida with affect and personal sentiments, I read the second half of the text with a lump in my throat; and it is rare that a theoretical text does that. I read with affect. I read with resonance and relatability. With my affective investment, I grasp the tangibility, the grief, the wound, in looking at an image of a specter portrayed in the unmediated medium; through the grief and the underlying pain that is implicit in the idea of the punctum, I am convinced, or that I am made to feel, the medium of photography, carries the unescapable immediacy of “that has been;” and the tactile spirit the “that has been,” which Barthes calls air, is what punctuates and punctures. In this sense, I am also made to feel the core of what makes the photo the “tyrant of images.” The lack of agency under the tyrant, the imposition of its immediate rule, and the inescapability of its painful dominance were all intuitively packed in my reading of the particular passage. “The Photograph crushes all other images by its tyranny.”[63] The sentence was chilling to read.

What hopefully was illustrated and conveyed in the last paragraph is the personal mode of writing induces a different mode of conveying messages; speaking about the same thesis, the personal mode of writing in the last paragraph hopefully enriches my thesis with affect.

The idea of making a non-argumentative could also be extended to an educational setting. Though educators have increasingly engaged in creative formats to replace traditional academic written essays, the most accepted and suggested formats still mostly include video essays, podcasts, and presentations, in which the act of “making an argument” remains central. As an extension of this paper, the productivity of non-argumentative assignments can also be experimentally explored. Given the non-syllogistic arguments’ aesthetic ability to reject the “air” of science that is naturalized in the concept of knowledge, the study of alternative modes could be especially fruitful in the field of art and humanities.

Personally, I love to “argue,” I thoroughly enjoy the mental process of crafting a systematic, clear-structured, and logically-sound argument; therefore, while seeing the merit in making a cohesive argument, what I do hope to express/argue is that the alternative mode of theorizing does provide an affective realm of thinking and learning that is traditionally neglected in the making of an argument; and the further study of the alternative modes could have immense value.

[1] J. Robert Cox and Charles Arthur Willard, Advances in Argumentation Theory and Research (Carbondale: Published for the American Forensic Association by Southern Illinois University Press, 1982), xli. [2] Ibid, xiii. [3] Raymond S. Nickerson, Argumentation: The Art of Persuasion (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 4, doi:10.1017/9781108892032. [4] Ibid. [5] Ibid. [6] Ibid, 2. [7] Frans H. Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst, and Tjark Kruiger, Handbook of Argumentation Theory: A Critical Survey of Classical Backgrounds and Modern Studies (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 1987), 55-57. [8] Ibid, 58. [9] Cox and Willard, Advances in Argumentation Theory and Research, xix. [10] Nickerson, Argumentation: The Art of Persuasion, 6. [11] Marco Sgarbi and Matteo Cosci, “The Aftermath of Syllogism: Aristotelian Logical Argument from Avicenna to Hegel,” in The Aftermath of Syllogism: Aristotelian Logical Argument from Avicenna to Hegel (London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 2. [12] Aristotle and Robert C. Bartlett, Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2019), 5. [13] Ibid, 6. [14] Ibid, 11-12. [15] Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), back cover. [16] Ibid, xiii. [17] Ibid, 3. [18] Ibid, 21. [19] Ibid, 60. [20] Ibid, 119. [21] Ibid, 21. [22] Ibid. [23] Ibid. [24] Graham Allen, Roland Barthes (London: Routledge, 2003), 125. [25] Ibid, 126. [26] Ibid, 128. [27] Ibid. [28] Ibid, 128-129. [29] Barthes, Camera Lucida, 75. [30] Ibid, 69. [31] Ibid, 71. [32] Ibid, 26. [33] Ibid, 27. [34] Ibid, 41. [35] Ibid, 42. [36] Ibid, 45. [37] Ibid. [38] Ibid, 49. [39] Ibid, 51. [40] Ibid, 53. [41] Ibid, 55. [42] Ibid, 57. [43] Marcel Hénaff and Jean-Louis Morhange, “The Anecdotal: Truth in Detail,” SubStance 38, no. 1 (2009): p. 99, https://doi.org/10.1353/sub.0.0037. [44] Ibid, 100. [45] Kathrin Busch, “Phantasmagorical Research: How Theory Becomes Art in the Work of Roland Barthes,” in Artistic Research and Literature(Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2019), 185. [46] Ibid. [47] Barthes, Camera Lucida, 21. [48] Ibid, 119. [49] Busch, “Phantasmagorical Research: How Theory Becomes Art in the Work of Roland Barthes,” 187. [50] Ibid. [51] Barthes, Camera Lucida, 21. [52] Ibid, xi. [53] Busch, “Phantasmagorical Research: How Theory Becomes Art in the Work of Roland Barthes,” 188. [54] Ibid. [55] Allen, Roland Barthes, 125. [56] Ibid, 96. [57] Ibid. [58] Ibid. [59] Ibid, 95. [60] Barthes, Camera Lucida, 6 [61] Allen, Roland Barthes, 113. [62] Barthes, Camera Lucida, 90. [63] Barthes, Camera Lucida, 118.

Bibliography

Allen, Graham. Roland Barthes. London: Routledge, 2003.

Aristotle, and Robert C. Bartlett. Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2019.

Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang, 2010.

Caduff, Corina, Wälchli Tan, and Kathrin Busch. “Phantasmagorical Research: How Theory Becomes Art in the Work of Roland Barthes.” Essay. In Artistic Research and Literature. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2019.

Eemeren, Frans H., Rob Grootendorst, and Tjark Kruiger. Handbook of Argumentation Theory: A Critical Survey of Classical Backgrounds and Modern Studies. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 1987.

Hénaff, Marcel, and Jean-Louis Morhange. “The Anecdotal: Truth in Detail.” SubStance 38, no. 1 (2009): 97–111. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40492984.

Nickerson, Raymond S. Argumentation: The Art of Persuasion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. doi:10.1017/9781108892032.

Sgarbi, Marco, and Matteo Cosci. “Introduction.” Introduction. In The Aftermath of Syllogism: Aristotelian Logical Argument from Avicenna to Hegel. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

Willard, Charles Arthur, and J. Robert Cox. Advances in Argumentation Theory and Research. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982.