Chapter 2 Making Sense: Stein’s Radical Epistemology

Abstract

This chapter compares two texts that reveal Stein’s model of explanation. Voris treats the lecture “Composition As Explanation” (1926) as a cautionary text for critics because, in place of the equivalence of terms her title suggests, the lecture reproduces conventions of explanation including analogy and example. By contrast, “An Elucidation” (1923) expresses Stein’s findings in landscape writing and expresses her radical epistemology. Voris demonstrates that Stein is making sense of explanation itself and offers critics an innovative model. Her alternative is a dynamic compositional event that results when language is not limited to the logic of predication. A curious time sense emerges, combining the contradictory depictions of this period: landscape as duration and as ceaseless flux. Consistent with the radical empiricism of William James and Gilles Deleuze, Stein’s radical epistemology is a useful framework for interpretation.