Jamie Lynn McCartney
Death and Furniture:
the rhetoric, politics and theology of bottom line arguments against relativism
Edwards, Ashmore, and Potter
Why Question: Why do people accept the realist position, while disregarding the relativist
position, when they have similar presuppositions (about the construction of reality)? Or….Why
do we accept objective truths? (39)
Motivational Mechanism: People are motivated to express rhetoric. Rhetoric enables us to
engage in consensus or disputation about objects (39). Types of rhetorical practices (41):
 Realist (objectivist): asserts things that are not, or could not be in doubt (i.e., Death and
Furniture) (42); posit a bedrock of reality; a bottom line (26)
 Relativist (social constructionist): Insists that there is always, or can always be an argument
(42); talk about the social construction of reality, truth, cognition, scientific knowledge,
technical capacity, social structure and so on (26)
A convincing plea towards an intellectual position involves the use of rhetoric, politics, and
theology (42).
‘Death’ and ‘Furniture’ are emblems for two very common objections to relativism. (26)
“They operate as icons of transcendent truth beyond (de)construction.” (32)
 Death (misery, genocide, poverty, power) is the reality that should not be denied. (26)
 Furniture (tables, rocks, stones, etc.) is the reality that cannot be denied. (26)
 “The appeal of these things is that they are external to the talk, available to show that it is just
talk, that there is another world beyond, that there are limits to the flexibility of descriptions.”
(26)
 “The Furniture argument invokes the objective world as given, as distinct from processes of
representation; as directly apprehended, independent of any particular description.” (26)
*The Realist Dilemma: “The very act of producing a non-represented, unconstructable external
world is inevitably representational, threatening, as soon as it is produced, to turn around upon
and counter the very position it is meant to demonstrate.” (27)
*The Relativist Dilemma: “While realists shoot themselves in the foot as soon as they
represent, relativists do so as soon as they argue. To argue for something is to care, to be
positioned, which is immediately non-relativist.” (39)
Arguments:
 “Reality takes on an intrinsically human dimension, and the most that can be claimed for it is
an ‘experiential realism’.” (29)
 Realistic rhetoric works by deploying semantic prototypes to represent an idealized and
realistic general knowledge and by having these representations masquerade as what
everyone would have to agree to say about a specific event. (31)
 Intentional states logically precede the real status of objects. (30)
 Realism relies on the audience’s cooperation in commonsensically ignoring how it is done.
(29)
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“It is a kind of trickery when writers introduce reality in the form of specific descriptions of
it, and then kick away the textual ladder and ask us to consider the thus-described reality as
out-there.” (31)
Realism is a demonstration not so much of out-there reality, but rather of the workings of
consensual common sense. (30)
Scientists deploy empiricism and sociologists do the same if they are apathetic to reflexivity.
(31)
 Authors call to scientific and academic community to start questioning assumptions and
rhetoric; to “use the tools of relativist-constructivist”. (34, 35, 37) “Relativism is the
quintessentially academic position, where all truths are to be established.”
Definitions:
Rhetoric- discourse about reality construction or objectification
Politics- justification of credibility
Theology- mindset; either conservative or pluralistic
p. 30
p.37
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p.40, 31
Reality
(41)
Realist
Relativist
-Frozen in motion, because as soon as they move,
they represent. (34)
-“Reality is given, perceived, out-there and
constraining.” (34)
-Reality can serve as rhetoric for inaction (34)
-Place issues outside of the realm of argument;
rhetoric of no rhetoric (35)
-Realists compared to religious conservatives (40)
-A device is needed for introducing reality (37)
-Procedures are displaced from their effects (e.g.,
science and magic) (38)
-Deny the subsumed process while relying directly
on it (42)
-Everything has to be represented and interpreted. (32)
-Refusal to recognize any uninterpreted reality (34)
-Choose to talk in dispassionate ways rather than taking
a stand (34)
-Rhetoric for accountable social action; “the good life”
(34)
-There is no reality-producing act, that cannot be
examined for how it is produced, that does not rely
on Method, that cannot be deconstructed, that does
not attend rhetorically to an otherwise possible
truth.” (39)
-All truths are claims (39)
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