Page 17 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 17
t a Few Words (Before the Preface) 17
Igor Ž. Žagar
The Ass and His Shadow
A Traveler hired an Ass to convey him to a distant place. The day being intensely hot,
and the sun shining in its strength, the Traveler stopped to rest, and sought shelter
from the heat under the Shadow of the Ass. As this afforded only protection for one,
and as the Traveler and the owner of the Ass both claimed it, a violent dispute arose be-
tween them as to which of them had the right to the Shadow. The owner maintained
that he had let the Ass only, and not his Shadow. The Traveler asserted that he had,
with the hire of the Ass, hired his Shadow also. The quarrel proceeded from words to
blows, and while the men fought, the Ass galloped off.
“In quarreling about the shadow we often lose the substance”.
Aesop’s fable
This book was initially intended as a joint publication of Digital
Library (Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia)
and Windsor Studies in Argumentation (University of Windsor,
Windsor, Canada). At that time, in April 2012, Educational Research
Institute’s Digital Library has published 28 e-books (around 70.000
pages; available at www.pidigitallibrary.si),1 while Windsor Studies in
Argumentation only existed in the form of a name. It soon became evi-
dent that we have very different ideas about how the book should look
like; therefore, we (Digital Library) decided to produce our own version
1 It was interesting to observe that as soon as we made this collaboration (more or less) public, most
of the colleagues commenting on this collaboration spontaneously assumed that Canadian side
would be the main publishers, while Slovenians would somehow just “mirror” the Canadian work. It
is really sad to observe that neo-colonial ideology is still so strongly rooted in western Academia ...
Igor Ž. Žagar
The Ass and His Shadow
A Traveler hired an Ass to convey him to a distant place. The day being intensely hot,
and the sun shining in its strength, the Traveler stopped to rest, and sought shelter
from the heat under the Shadow of the Ass. As this afforded only protection for one,
and as the Traveler and the owner of the Ass both claimed it, a violent dispute arose be-
tween them as to which of them had the right to the Shadow. The owner maintained
that he had let the Ass only, and not his Shadow. The Traveler asserted that he had,
with the hire of the Ass, hired his Shadow also. The quarrel proceeded from words to
blows, and while the men fought, the Ass galloped off.
“In quarreling about the shadow we often lose the substance”.
Aesop’s fable
This book was initially intended as a joint publication of Digital
Library (Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia)
and Windsor Studies in Argumentation (University of Windsor,
Windsor, Canada). At that time, in April 2012, Educational Research
Institute’s Digital Library has published 28 e-books (around 70.000
pages; available at www.pidigitallibrary.si),1 while Windsor Studies in
Argumentation only existed in the form of a name. It soon became evi-
dent that we have very different ideas about how the book should look
like; therefore, we (Digital Library) decided to produce our own version
1 It was interesting to observe that as soon as we made this collaboration (more or less) public, most
of the colleagues commenting on this collaboration spontaneously assumed that Canadian side
would be the main publishers, while Slovenians would somehow just “mirror” the Canadian work. It
is really sad to observe that neo-colonial ideology is still so strongly rooted in western Academia ...
