Links to rhetorical tools:

Here are links to the rhetorical tools used in this class:

Schemes & Tropes -- Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca -- Fallacies -- Burke -- Rhetorical Toolbox -- Conspiracy Rhetorics

Sunday, February 22, 2015


Facts/Truths
“Jacob’s occupation was noted as that of a butcher and the cause of his illness was mania”-Agreed upon reality
Presumptions
“Jacob finally died at the asylum from General Paralysis of the Insane brought on by the serious sexually transmitted disease syphilis, therefore indicating a possibility of liaisons with the Adelgate/Whitechapel prostitutes.”
Presumptions
“Jacob may have very well blamed prostitutes for the cause of his illness together with the impending failure of his once successful family butchering business, and he may have also believed, or assumed, that his children were now syphillic.”
Presumptions
“The opposite sides of Middlesex Street were divided by the boundaries of both the City of London and Metropolitan police jurisdictions and nestling within the City boundaries resided Jacob Levy, and moreover, some 100 metres away to the east and over in the Met's jurisdiction was located Goulston Street - and it was here that the Ripper, when on flight from Mitre Square, had discarded a cut away portion of Catharine Eddowes apron inside a doorway entrance to some tenement buildings. Now this may have been purposely contrived by Jacob in an attempt to deceive the authorities into assuming the direction as to which the Ripper was heading, seemingly deeper into the Met's jurisdiction, so therefore Jacob may very well have rapidly backtracked after employing this false trail the mere 100 metres across the border and into the City's jurisdiction, and the safety of his home, for he may very well have suspected that Joseph Hyam Levy had only minutes earlier recognised him in the company of a woman believed to be Catharine Eddowes loitering inside the covered entrance to Church Passage.”
Coexistence-Intentions
“…his wife had complained that he almost ruined her business: ‘he also feels that if he is not restrained he will do some violence to someone; he complains about hearing strange noises; cries for no reason; feels compelled to do acts that his conscience cannot stand; and has a conscience of feeling exaltation… he does not sleep at night and wanders aimlessly for hours.”- These various acts reveal a unified essence of Jacob Levy’s character and intentions, and he could be the type of person that could be Jack the Ripper.
Double Heirarchy
“Interestingly, three days prior to Catharine's death she had returned from a hop-picking excursion in Kent claiming her belief as to the identity of the Whitechapel murderer and was constantly seen in the Aidgate vicinity within the last hours of her life, in such a vicinity to where the diseased and insane Jewish butcher Jacob Levy lived and worked, and the year 1891 coinciding with Jacob's death saw the official police files on the case finally and inexplicably close.”-Catherine may have known that Jacob was the Ripper and because of this knowledge, Jacob killed her.

 

3 comments:

  1. It's my opinion, based on your analyses posted on blogger, that the author makes a pretty firm argument for Jacob Levy being the Ripper. If you're going to argue against this, I think the best way to do it would be to drive home the fact that Levy was never actually convicted. That is, it would be beneficial for you to explain in your thesis or an extension of it that the authorities of the time weren't able to use the information you have here to convict Levy. This would make a good base for you to argue things like presumption and hasty generalization/unrepresentative sample off of.

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  2. This is a sticky situation because this is actually argued decently. I'd pull apart the small flaws and make them a big deal.

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  3. You don't have to prove the author wrong. You just need to figure out what the author achieved by making these arguments. Also why he chose these particular arguments to make.

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