Related to your first couple of epigraphs: "The exposure of fallacious ethical arguments is, however, a task which it seems to be necessary to perform anew in every age. It is something like housekeeping, or lawnmowing, or shaving." (A.N. Prior in Logic and the Basis of Ethics.")
It's interesting, the point you make at the end about the epigraph's contradictory functions of inflating the writer's authority while simultaneously deflating it. Maybe it's just because I've been following some of the social epistemology stuff, but reading this I was thinking how epigraphs are not only aesthetic devices but a kind of social practice that appeals to expert testimony (but usually reaching back in time rather than citing current experts). Another weird thing is that internally, they are more or less indistinguishable from aphorisms - yet in being affixed to a particular text as the entry point, the aphorism's vaguely universal quality gets replaced by a vague, but pointed, nod to the specifics of what is to follow.
i recently finished my dissertation on humor, and i used a richard jeni quote about college being "Amway with a football team" as the epigraph. im now thinking the quote functioned to deflate the authority/seriousness of the work from *outside* of it. love this piece!
Related to your first couple of epigraphs: "The exposure of fallacious ethical arguments is, however, a task which it seems to be necessary to perform anew in every age. It is something like housekeeping, or lawnmowing, or shaving." (A.N. Prior in Logic and the Basis of Ethics.")
It's interesting, the point you make at the end about the epigraph's contradictory functions of inflating the writer's authority while simultaneously deflating it. Maybe it's just because I've been following some of the social epistemology stuff, but reading this I was thinking how epigraphs are not only aesthetic devices but a kind of social practice that appeals to expert testimony (but usually reaching back in time rather than citing current experts). Another weird thing is that internally, they are more or less indistinguishable from aphorisms - yet in being affixed to a particular text as the entry point, the aphorism's vaguely universal quality gets replaced by a vague, but pointed, nod to the specifics of what is to follow.
i recently finished my dissertation on humor, and i used a richard jeni quote about college being "Amway with a football team" as the epigraph. im now thinking the quote functioned to deflate the authority/seriousness of the work from *outside* of it. love this piece!
Congratulations on the dissertation! Love the topic (obviously). Is it available to read?