Rhetoric of science is a body of scholarly literature exploring the notion that the practice of science is a rhetorical activity. It emerged after a number of similarly oriented topics of research and discussion during the late 20th century, including the sociology of scientific knowledge, history of science, and philosophy of science, but it is practiced most typically by rhetoricians in academic departments of English, speech, and communication.
Overview Rhetoric is best known as a discipline that studies the means and ends (i.e., methods and goals) of persuasion. Science, meanwhile, is typically considered to be the discovery and recording of knowledge about nature. A major contention of the rhetoric of science is that the practice of science itself is, to varying degrees, persuasive. The study of science from the viewpoint of rhetoric 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. In terms of rhetoric, the 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. Experimental competence is itself a persuasive topos. Rhetoric of science is a practice of suasion that is an outgrowth of some of the canons of rhetoric.
History Since its flourishing during the 1970s, rhetoric of science has contributed to a shift of opinions concerning science to include the claim that there is not any single scientific method, but rather a plurality of methods or styles. The rhetoric of science has included various sub-topics, as indicated by these examples. John Angus Campbell has studied the works of Charles Darwin with the intention of showing Darwin's rhetorical manipulations and strategic use of the social beliefs of his time. Carolyn Miller has emphasized genres within technology and the influence of technology on genre change. Jeanne Fahnestock has identified the use of classical rhetoric in scientific reasoning and argument. Greg Myers has studied how scientific publications, grants, and other scientific texts are the result of social processes and the pragmatics of politeness in scientific discussions. Charles Bazerman's examination of the evolution of the varieties of writing characterized as experimental report through the first century and a half of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the formation of social roles and norms concerning the publication of this journal, the Physical Review since its founding in 1893, and the evolution of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, along with scrutiny of works by Newton and Compton, and an analysis of the reading habits of physicists indicate the many social, organizational, ideological, political, theoretical, methodological, evidentiary, intertextual and intellectual factors that have influenced the character of writing and rhetoric. Bazerman's work has built upon these studies to consider the way knowledge is methodically produced and communicatively circulated in various activity systems. His work follows the lead of Ludwik Fleck on Thought Collectives and thought styles, structuration theory and phenomenology. Other rhetoricians consider the rhetoric of science effectively beginning with Thomas Kuhn'sThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn first examines "normal" science, that is, practices which he considered routine, patterned and accessible with a specific method of problem-solving. Normal science advances by building on past knowledge, through the accretion of further discoveries in a knowledge base. Kuhn then contrasts normal science with "revolutionary" science (new science marked by a paradigm shift in thought). When Kuhn began to teach Harvard undergraduates historical texts such as Aristotle's writings on motion, he examined case studies, and sought first to understand Aristotle in his own time, and then to locate his problems and solutions within a wider context of contemporary thought and actions. That is to say, Kuhn sought first to understand the traditions and established practices of science. In this instance, Michael Polanyi's influence on Kuhn becomes apparent; that is, his acknowledgement of the importance of inherited practices and rejection of absolute objectivity. Observing the changes in scientific thought and practices, Kuhn concluded that revolutionary changes happen through the defining notion of rhetoric: persuasion. The critical work of Herbert W. Simons – "Are Scientists Rhetors in Disguise?" in Rhetoric in Transition (1980) – and subsequent works show that Kuhn's Structure is fully rhetorical. 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 invented the phrase "rhetorical turn", was also interested in assessing periods of scientific stability and instability. Another component of the shift in science that occurred during the past concerns the claim that there is no single scientific method, but rather a plurality of methods or styles. 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 by the early theory papers after Kuhn's seminal work, the idea that rhetoric is crucial to science became much discussed. Quarterly journals in speech and rhetoric included much discussion of 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). As rhetoric of science began to flourish, discussion began of a number of topics, including:
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