On 4/10/02 1:34:00 PM, Eileen Thompson wrote:
>In our class discussion today,
>we explored how Tompkins's
>first two segments of her
>essay
>"worked" rhetorically (in
>other words, how they worked
>to develop her argument). I
>want you
>to reread the conclusion,
>paying particular attention to
>the last two paragraphs, to
>discuss
>how you are understanding what
>conclusions she comes to. How
>does she wriggle her way out
>of her epistemological and
>moral quandaries?

It is almost totally obvious that Tompkins did not walk away from her essay with the information that she wanted, but she did manage to prove a few good points about truth in general. She managed to escape from the moral and epistomological corner she backed herself into by asserting that her research was in no way a portrayal of what is true, but only her piecing together of various sources with different levels of credibility. Of course, she also uses her own personal discretion of which sources are saved and which are discarded, and also acknowledges it.
I was never aware until this class that this is actually what "researching" is - trying to divine the truth from various sources, some more credible than others, all the while trying to remain objective but still unconsciously putting your own spin on things. And once that is realized, you are faced with an even greater dilemma. As Tompkins puts it, "The moral problem that confronts me now is not that I can never have any facts to go on, but that the work I do is not directed toward solving the kinds of problems that studying the history of the European-Indian relations has awakened me to."