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Rhetoric of Science - Wikipedia PDF
Rhetoric of Science - Wikipedia PDF
Rhetoric of Science - Wikipedia PDF
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Rhetoric of science
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rhetoric of science is a body of scholarly literature exploring the notion that the
practice of science is a rhetorical activity. It emerged from a number of disciplines
during the late twentieth century, including the disciplines of sociology, history,
and philosophy of science, but it is practiced most fully by rhetoricians in
departments of English, speech, and communication.
Rhetoric is best known as a discipline that studies the means and ends of
persuasion. Science, meanwhile, is typically seen as the discovery and recording
of knowledge about the natural world. A key contention of rhetoric of science is
that the practice of science is, to varying degrees, persuasive. The study of
science from this viewpoint variously examines modes of inquiry, logic,
argumentation, the ethos of scientific practitioners, the structures of scientific
publications, and the character of scientific discourse and debates.
For instance, scientists must convince their community of scientists that their
research is based on sound scientific method. From a rhetorical point of view,
scientific method involves problem-solution topoi (the materials of discourse) that
demonstrate observational and experimental competence (arrangement or order
of discourse or method), and as a means of persuasion, offer explanatory and
predictive power (Prelli 185-193). Experimental competence is itself a persuasive
topos (Prelli 186). Rhetoric of science is a practice of suasion that is an outgrowth
of some of the canons of rhetoric.
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Contents
1 History
2 Developments and trends
2.1 Epistemic rhetoric
2.2 Argument fields
2.3 Incommensurability
2.4 Ethos
2.5 Rhetoric and language-games
2.6 Rhetorical figures in science
2.7 Critique of rhetoric of science
2.7.1 Globalization of rhetoric
2.7.2 Radical Rhetoric of Science
2.8 Prospects
3 See also
4 Works cited
5 Other readings
History
Since 1970, rhetoric of science, as a field involving rhetoricians, flourished. This
flourishing of scholarly activity contributed to a shift in the image of science that
was taking place (Harris "Intro," Landmark xv). A conservative approach to
rhetoric of science involves treating texts as communications designed to
persuade members of scientific communities. This approach concerns scientific
claims that are already considered true as a result of the scientific process rather
than the rhetorical process. A more radical approach, on the other hand, would
treat these same texts as if the science held within them is also an object of
rhetorical scrutiny (Gross "Rhetoric of Science," Encyclopedia 622-623). Among
those in the conservative camp, who view science texts as vehicles of
communication, are Charles Bazerman, John Angus Campbell, Greg Myers, Jean
Dietz Moss, Lawrence Prelli, Carolyn Miller and Jeanne Fahnestock. Bazerman's
close readings of works by Newton and Compton as well as his analysis of the
reading habits of physicists and others led to a greater understanding of the
successes and failures of communication (Gross "Rhetoric of Science,"
Encyclopedia 623-624). For a depiction of the views of the more radical camp, see
the section titled "Critique of Rhetoric of Science."
The history of the rhetoric of science effectively begins with Thomas Kuhn's
seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). He examines first
normal science, that is, a practice which he saw as routine, patterned and
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The work of Thomas Kuhn was extended by Richard Rorty (1979, 1989), and this
work was to prove fruitful in defining the means and ends of rhetoric in scientific
discourse (Jasinski "Intro" xvi). Rorty, who coined the phrase "rhetorical turn,"
was also interested in assessing periods of scientific stability and instability.
Another component of the shift in science that took place in the past centres on
the claim that there is no single scientific method, but rather a plurality of
methods, approaches or styles (Harris "Intro," Landmark xvi). Paul Feyerabend in
Against Method (1975) contends that science has found no "method that turns
ideologically contaminated ideas into true and useful theories," in other words; no
special method exists that can guarantee the success of science (302).
As evidenced in the early theory papers after Kuhn's seminal work, the idea that
rhetoric is crucial to science came to the fore. Quarterly journals in speech and
rhetoric saw a flourishing of discussion on topics such as inquiry, logic, argument
fields, ethos of scientific practitioners, argumentation, scientific text, and the
character of scientific discourse and debates. Philip Wander (1976) observed, for
instance, the phenomenal penetration of science (public science) in modern life.
He labelled the obligation of rhetoricians to investigate science's discourse ' "The
Rhetoric of Science" (Harris "Knowing" 164).
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prediction and control offers new comprehensive ways to see the function of
rhetoric of science (Gross "The Origin" 91-92). Epistemic rhetoric of science, in a
broader context, confronts issues pertaining to truth, relativism, and knowledge.
In an article titled "On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic" (1967), Robert Scott offers
"that truth can arise only from cooperative critical inquiry" (Harris "Knowing"
164). Scott's probe of the issues of belief, knowledge and argumentation
substantiates that rhetoric is epistemic. This train of thought goes back to Gorgias
who noted that truth is a product of discourse, not a substance added to it (Harris
"Knowing" 164).
Argument fields
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By the 1980s, Stephen Toulmin's work on argument fields published in his book
titled The Uses of Argument (1958) came to prominence through rhetorical
societies such as the Speech Communication Association which adopted a
sociological view of science. Toulmin's main contribution is his notion of argument
fields that saw a reinvention of the rhetorical concept topoi (topics) (Harris
"Intro" Landmark xxi).
Toulmin showed in Human Understanding that the arguments that would support
claims as different as the Copernican revolution and the Ptolemaic revolution
would not require mediation. On the strength of argument, men of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries converted to Copernican astronomy (Gross "The
Rhetoric" 214).
Incommensurability
The rhetorical challenge today is to find discourse that crosses disciplines without
sacrificing the specifics of each discipline. The aim is to render description of
these disciplines intact – that is to say, the goal of finding language that would
make various scientific fields "commensurable" (Baake 29). In contrast,
incommensurability is a situation where two scientific programs are
fundamentally at odds. Two important voices who applied incommensurability to
historical and philosophical notions of science in the 1960s are Thomas Kuhn and
Paul Feyerabend. Various strands grew out of this idea that bear on issues of
communication and invention. These strands are explicated in Randy Allen
Harris's four-part taxonomy that in turn foregrounds his viewpoint that
"incommensurability is best understood not as a relation between systems, but as
a matter of rhetorical invention and hermeneutics" (Harris "Incommensurability"
1).
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Kuhn's work was influential for rhetoricians, sociologists, and historians (and, in a
more muted way, philosophers) for the development of a rhetorical perspective.
His view on perception, concept acquisition and language suggest, according to
Paul Hoyningen-Huene's analysis of Kuhn's philosophy, a cognitive perspective
(Nickles 183).
Ethos
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and thus insight into public science policy. One of the domains of rhetoric is civic
life. Rhetorical criticism of science offers much in the investigation of scientific
matters that impinge directly upon public opinion and policy-making decisions
(Harris "Intro," Landmark xxxiii).
Rhetoric can also be defined as the strategic use of language: each scientist tries
to make those statements that - given the statements made by their colleagues,
and the ones the former expects they will do in the future (e.g., accepting or
rejecting the claims made by the former) - maximise the chances of the former's
attaining the goals he or she has. So, game theory can be applied to study the
choice of the claims one scientist makes. Zamora Bonilla (2006) argues that, when
rhetoric is understood this way, it can be discussed whether the way scientists
interact - e.g., through certain scientific institutions like peer review - leads them
to make their claims in an efficient or an inefficient way, i.e., whether the
'rhetorical games' are more analogous to 'invisible hand' processes, or to
'prisoner's dilemma' games. If the former is the case, then we can assert that
scientific 'conversation' is organised in such a way that the strategic use of
language by scientists leads them to reach cognitive progress, and if the opposite
is the case, then this would be an argument to reform scientific institutions.
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An example of antimetabole:
Globalization of rhetoric
A recent critique about the rhetoric of science literature asks not if science is
understood properly, but rather if rhetoric is understood properly. This dissension
centres around the reading of scientific texts rhetorically; it is a quarrel about
how rhetorical theory is seen as a global hermeneutic (Gross "Intro" Rhetorical
1-13).
Dilip Gaonkar in "The Idea of Rhetoric in the Rhetoric of Science" looks at how
critics argue about rhetoric, and he unfolds the global ambitions of rhetorical
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theory as a general hermeneutic (a master key to all texts), with the rhetoric of
science as a perfect site of analysis - a hard and fast case.
In his analysis of this 'case', Gaonkar looks at rhetoric's essential character first in
traditional sense (Aristotilean and Ciceronian). Then he looked at the practice of
rhetoric and the model of persuasive speech from the point of agency (productive
orientation) or who controls the speech (means of communication). The rhetorical
tradition is one of practice, while the theory evinces practice and teaching (Gross
"Intro" Rhetorical 6-11). Gaonkar asserts that rhetoric seen as a tradition
(Aristotilean and Ciceronia), and from the point of view of interpretation (not
production or agency), rhetorical theory is "thin." He argues that rhetoric appears
as a thinly veiled language of criticism in such a way that it is applicable to almost
any discourse (Gaonkar 33, 69).
The radical approach to rhetoric of science looks at the rhetorical process itself,
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The question as to the adequacy of rhetoric in its encounter with scientific texts
(natural sciences) is problematic on two fronts. The first concerns traditional
rhetoric and its capacity as a tool to analyze scientific texts. Secondly, the answer
to the question relies on an attack of the epistomological presuppositions of a
classical rhetoric of science. For this reason, the radical critique is a call for the
renewal of rhetorical theory (Gross "Rhetoric of Science," Encyclopedia 626-627).
Prospects
For rhetoric of science to grow, "it must seek consistent and revealing accounts of
why science is rhetorical" (Harris "Knowing" 181). A path is thus open for future
research.
See also
Argumentation
Contingency
Epistemology
Falsifiability
Truth
Works cited
Baake, Ken. Metaphor and Knowledge: The Challenges of Writing Science.
Albany: The State University of New York Press, 2003.
Barker, Peter, Xiang Chen and Hanne Andersen. "Kuhn on Concepts and
Categorization." In Thomas Kuhn. Ed. Thomas Nickles. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 2003.
Bazerman, Charles and René Agustin De los Santos. "Measuring
Incommensurability: Are toxicology and ecotoxicology blind to what the
other sees?" 9 January 2006. [1] (http://www.education.ucsb.edu/~bazerman
/30.toxicology.doc).
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Other readings
Bazerman, Charles. Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of
the Experimental Article in Science. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1988. "Reporting the Experiment: The Changing Account of Scientific Doings
in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1665-1800" by Charles
Bazerman in Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science is found in chapter 3
of that text.
Campbell, John Angus. "Scientific Revolution and the Grammar of Culture:
The Case of Darwin's Origin." Quarterly Journal of Speech 72
(1986):351-376.
Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar. "Rhetoric and Its Double: Reflections on the
Rhetorical Turn in the Human Sciences." In The Rhetorical Turn: Invention
and Persuasion in the Conduct of Inquiry. Ed. Herbert W. Simons. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Halloran, S. Michael and Annette Norris Bradford. "Figures of Speech in the
Rhetoric of Science and Technology." Essays on Classical Rhetoric and
Modern Discourse. Ed. Robert J. Connors et al. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1984.
Harris, Randy Allen. Ed. Rhetoric and Incommensurability. West Lafayette:
Parlor Press, 2005.
Latour, Bruno and Steve Woolgar. Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of
Scientific Facts. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979.
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