The rhetorical turn : invention and persuasion in the conduct of inquiry / edited by Herbert W. Simons.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Simons, Herbert W., 1935-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Invention (Rhetoric).

Persuasion (Rhetoric).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 388 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

We have only recently started to challenge the notion that "serious" inquiry can be free of rhetoric, that it can rely exclusively on "hard" fact and "cold" logic in support of its claims. Increasingly, scholars are shifting their attention from methods of proof to the heuristic methods of debate and discussion-the art of rhetoric-to examine how scholarly discourse is shaped by tropes and figures, by the naming and framing of issues, and by the need to adapt arguments to ends, audiences, and circumstances. Herbert W. Simons and the contributors to this important collection of essays provide impressive evidence that the new movement referred to as the rhetorical turn offers a rigorous way to look within and across the disciplines. The Rhetorical Turn moves from biology to politics via excursions into the rhetorics of psychoanalysis, decision science, and conversational analysis. Topics explored include how rhetorical invention guides scientific invention, how rhetoric assists political judgment, and how it integrates varying approaches to meta-theory. Concluding with four philosophical essays, this volume of case studies demonstrates how the inventive and persuasive dimensions of scholarly discourse point the way to forms of argument appropriate to our postmodern age.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

1. Bio-Rhetorics: Moralizing the Life Sciences

2. Scientific Discovery and Rhetorical Invention: The Path to Darwin's Origin

3. The Origin of Species: Evolutionary Taxonomy as an Example of the Rhetoric of Science

4. Psychoanalysis: Science or Rhetoric?

5. Discursive Constraints on the Acceptance and Rejection of Knowledge Claims: The Conversation about Conversation

6. The Rhetoric of Decision Science, or Herbert A. Simon Says

7. Arguing over Incommensurable Values: The Case of Machiavelli

8. Narrative Figures and Subtle Persuasions: The Rhetoric of the MOVE Report

9. The Rhetoric of the Commons: Forum Discourse in Politics and Society

10. Political Foundations for the Rhetoric of Inquiry

11. The Checkmate of Rhetoric (But Can Our Reasons Become Causes?)

12. Reconciling Realism and Relativism

13. Symbolic Realism and the Dualism of the Human Sciences: A Rhetorical Reformulation of the Debate between Positivism and Romanticism

14. Rhetoric and Its Double: Reflections on the Rhetorical Turn in the Human Sciences

CONTRIBUTORS

AUTHOR INDEX

SUBJECT INDEX

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Description based upon print version of record.

ISBN:

9786613054906

9781283054904

1283054906

9780226759036

0226759032

OCLC:

709606207