Purpose-Purposing

//Purpose// has a deep past, having been brought into philosophy by none other than Socrates himself. Socrates defined //purpose// as value by asking why we would we want to develop knowledge (Langer). He was not negating his contemporaries’ elemental studies; instead, he added //purpose// to them. Interestingly, even as people embraced his question of //purpose//, they did not focus on defining it as a concept separate from the questioning tool it afforded them. I.A. Richards expanded the term to //purposing// and defined it as both a tool of creation and a tool of reflection through his deceptively simple question, “If we put it this way, what difference would it make?” (Berthoff 281). //Purposing// is the belief that humans create with goals in mind and should judge why each particular creative aim matters. Kenneth Burke included //purpose// in his pentad of motive: scene, act, agent, agency, and //purpose// (Burke). He added the community/social dimension to //purpose// by explaining that motive resides both within the actor (act, agent) as well as within the community (agency, scene). Burke used //purpose// to introduce this duality of motive.
 * Definition of Purpose/Purposing:**

Ultimately, purpose is value, that is **what is gained**, and motive, that is **what is intended**. Purpose lies in the questioner/creator/actor as well as in that which is questioned/created/acted. Thus, within //purpose// lies a dialectic of author (could be creator, actor, etc) and reader (or consumer, viewer, etc) in which the dominance of one over the other is shifting constantly from the moment of creation to the final consumption. See competing definitions below for more on this.

// Findability // is one way //purpose// is defined for the Internet. //Findability// is the intent to be located and how something is set up to maximize this intent (Morville). That is, the common //purpose// of Internet sites is to be found by a user or else why do the sites exist? Sites need to be created with this //purpose// in mind; one way to do this is to use Richards's //purposing// question, "It we put it [the words on our website] this way, what difference [in whether and how users find us] would it make?" (Note: //Findability// can be applied to non-digital things as well. A grocery store for example must consider //findability// in its choice of location and signage. Why would the store exist if it did not want to be found?)
 * Use of Purpose/Purposing: Findability**

//Purpose// is not a contested concept in the literature we have read. The scholars have built onto prior definitions rather than contest them. However, I do think more work should be done with the roles of author and audience and how these shape //purpose// in individual and therefore sometimes unaligned ways. Louise Phelps develops this idea in two ways (Phelps). First is the issue that a writer sets a //purpose// for the reader, but knowing if that //purpose// is ever achieved is problematic because it depends on the writer interacting with the reader. Second is the issue that the reader brings her own //purpose// to the reading that more than likely is not the same //purpose// as the writer.
 * Competing Definitions of Purpose/Purposing:**

Motive is used in everyday speech as a definition of purpose. As an academic concept, it is seen most in Burke's pentad as the concept which purpose helps to define. See Burke's //Grammar of Motives// for a full discussion of this use. Another good source for motive is Carolyn Miller's "Genre as Social Action" in which she discusses in depth her concept of motive based on Burke's pentad.
 * Related Concept: Motive**

Bakhtin, M.M. "Discourse in a Novel." //The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin//. Ed. Michael Holquist. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1981. 269-285, 291-294. Print.
 * Sources:**

Burke, Kenneth. //A Grammar of Motives//. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1945. Print.

Langer, Susanne Katherina Knauth. //Philosophy in a New Key: a Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art//. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1957. 3-10. Print.

Miller, Carolyn R. "Genre as Social Action." Quarterly Journal of Speech 70.2 (1984): 151-67. Print.

Morville, Peter. //Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become//. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2005. Print.

Phelps, Louise W. "Acts, Texts, and the Teaching Context: Their Relations within a Dramatistic Philosophy of Composition." Diss. Case Western Reserve University, 1979. Print.

Richards, I. A. //Richards on Rhetoric: I.A. Richards, Selected Essays (1929-1974)//. Ed. Ann E. Berthoff. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. Print.

Zebroski, James Thomas. "A Vygotsian Theory of Writing." //Thinking through Theory: Vygotskian Perspectives on the Teaching of Writing//. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1994. 154-78. Print.