Response to Tulis

Extract

It is a bit difficult for me to figure out the main theme of Tulis' often inconsistent commentary. For example, he ends his essay with the claim that my insights are “epistemologically equivalent” to those of whom I “seek to supersede.” Apart from gratuitously attributing to me an intention to “supersede” Main and Storing, two scholars for whom I have the deepest respect and whom I wish to correct only in one particular, my insights cannot, on Tulis' own grounds, possibly be “epistemologically equivalent” to theirs. Much of his essay is devoted to criticizing my method as an unnecessary and undesirable departure from the traditional method of rhetorical analysis by literary criticism. So, by his account, my method cannot be “epistemologically equivalent” to theirs. I suppose he meant to write “substantively equivalent.” Whatever his intent, this illustrates my difficulty with interpretation.