SOURCE: “Serious or Rhetorical?,” in Essays in Criticism, Vol. XL, No. 4, October, 1990, pp. 339-47.

In the following review of Doing What Comes Naturally, Fowler finds shortcomings in Fish's theoretical positions and specious arguments, but commends his ability to skillfully dissect the inadequacies of vying critical stances.

Stanley Fish seems always ahead of the game. Over more decades than seems possible for anyone to stay with it, he has kept up a brilliant cascade of fluent criticism, always au fait, always state of the art, always extending the operations of a school beginning to be fashionable, always knowing pointed questions to put it to. This might be a way of calling him a superlative trimmer, shrewd at seeing through to the limitations of current criticism, and gauging when to move on. Or, it could imply that he simply likes to triumph in debate, to exercise forensic skills in exposing...