Gareth Williams
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199731589
- eISBN:
- 9780199933112
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199731589.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
This chapter turns to Seneca's study of hail and snow in what survives of Book 4b. Seneca reviews various theories of hail: in analysing each of those theories, this chapter explores the different ...
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This chapter turns to Seneca's study of hail and snow in what survives of Book 4b. Seneca reviews various theories of hail: in analysing each of those theories, this chapter explores the different modes of scientific argumentation that Seneca deploys to explain the ‘true’ nature of the given phenomenon. Perhaps more important than the plausibility of any given argument here is his testing of the nature of argument itself, as if Seneca here engages in a stocktaking exercise by which the rhetoric of argument is put under the microscope. After this testing exercise, by which Seneca burnishes his own credentials as a careful, highly self-critical researcher, this chapter argues that, late in the book, he offers a model demonstration of the rhetoric of argument in exemplary, persuasive action.Less
This chapter turns to Seneca's study of hail and snow in what survives of Book 4b. Seneca reviews various theories of hail: in analysing each of those theories, this chapter explores the different modes of scientific argumentation that Seneca deploys to explain the ‘true’ nature of the given phenomenon. Perhaps more important than the plausibility of any given argument here is his testing of the nature of argument itself, as if Seneca here engages in a stocktaking exercise by which the rhetoric of argument is put under the microscope. After this testing exercise, by which Seneca burnishes his own credentials as a careful, highly self-critical researcher, this chapter argues that, late in the book, he offers a model demonstration of the rhetoric of argument in exemplary, persuasive action.
S. Scott Graham
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226264059
- eISBN:
- 9780226264196
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226264196.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The introduction to the Politics of Pain traces the recent history of simultaneous efforts in pain science as well as rhetoric of science and science and technology studies to develop new integrated ...
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The introduction to the Politics of Pain traces the recent history of simultaneous efforts in pain science as well as rhetoric of science and science and technology studies to develop new integrated non-dualist approaches to inquiry and practice. Specifically, this section introduces readers to the calls for a biopsychosocial approach to pain medicine and a nonmodern or new materialist approach to rhetoric of science and science and technology studies. In so doing, the introduction argues that the time is right for renewed inquiry into pain from a hybrid rhetorical-ontological perspective. Such an approach offers great potential for reciprocal engagement between the differing areas’ overlapping calls for new foundations for inquiry and practice.Less
The introduction to the Politics of Pain traces the recent history of simultaneous efforts in pain science as well as rhetoric of science and science and technology studies to develop new integrated non-dualist approaches to inquiry and practice. Specifically, this section introduces readers to the calls for a biopsychosocial approach to pain medicine and a nonmodern or new materialist approach to rhetoric of science and science and technology studies. In so doing, the introduction argues that the time is right for renewed inquiry into pain from a hybrid rhetorical-ontological perspective. Such an approach offers great potential for reciprocal engagement between the differing areas’ overlapping calls for new foundations for inquiry and practice.
William Rehg
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262182713
- eISBN:
- 9780262255318
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262182713.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter explores three “rhetorics of science” that attempted to ”bridge Kuhn’s Gap” with analysis of persuasion and to accommodate the logical and social-institutional perspectives. These ...
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This chapter explores three “rhetorics of science” that attempted to ”bridge Kuhn’s Gap” with analysis of persuasion and to accommodate the logical and social-institutional perspectives. These accounts of science include Marcello Pera’s abstract normative dialectics, Lawrence Prelli’s communitarian rhetoric, and Bruno Latour’s antinormative rhetoric of science. The chapter emphasizes that conceptions of cogency are rejected in terms of the intrinsic or process-independent merits of arguments in all of these models. It further emphasizes that Latour’s Machiavellian model gives natural phenomena a constitutive role in persuasive argumentation and at the same time addresses the broader social process of science as it occurs in a context populated by a range of social actors, groups, and institutions.Less
This chapter explores three “rhetorics of science” that attempted to ”bridge Kuhn’s Gap” with analysis of persuasion and to accommodate the logical and social-institutional perspectives. These accounts of science include Marcello Pera’s abstract normative dialectics, Lawrence Prelli’s communitarian rhetoric, and Bruno Latour’s antinormative rhetoric of science. The chapter emphasizes that conceptions of cogency are rejected in terms of the intrinsic or process-independent merits of arguments in all of these models. It further emphasizes that Latour’s Machiavellian model gives natural phenomena a constitutive role in persuasive argumentation and at the same time addresses the broader social process of science as it occurs in a context populated by a range of social actors, groups, and institutions.
S. Scott Graham
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226264059
- eISBN:
- 9780226264196
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226264196.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The Politics of Pain documents the author’s exploration of simultaneous efforts by interdisciplinary pain specialists and scholars of science and technology studies to transcend the limits of ...
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The Politics of Pain documents the author’s exploration of simultaneous efforts by interdisciplinary pain specialists and scholars of science and technology studies to transcend the limits of modernist and postmodernist dualisms. The book offers a hybrid rhetorical-ontological analysis of interdisciplinary debates in pain medicine and pain-related American pharmaceuticals policy. In so doing, the book reflects on the synergies between pain specialists’ attempts to found a new hybrid body-mind unified approach to pain science and practice and science and technology studies’ efforts to develop a nonmondern/ new materialist foundations for inquiry. Integrating insights from ontologically-oriented rhetorical studies and new materialist science and technology studies, The Politics of Pain provides a detailed analysis of the material and discursive instantiations and effects of cross-ontological calibration in pain science and medicine. This analysis traces the calibrating activates of a local interdisciplinary pain management organization, the history of neuroimaging technologies and their role in legitimizing marginalized pain disorders, as well as deliberations over cross-ontological conflicts at the Food and Drug Administration.Less
The Politics of Pain documents the author’s exploration of simultaneous efforts by interdisciplinary pain specialists and scholars of science and technology studies to transcend the limits of modernist and postmodernist dualisms. The book offers a hybrid rhetorical-ontological analysis of interdisciplinary debates in pain medicine and pain-related American pharmaceuticals policy. In so doing, the book reflects on the synergies between pain specialists’ attempts to found a new hybrid body-mind unified approach to pain science and practice and science and technology studies’ efforts to develop a nonmondern/ new materialist foundations for inquiry. Integrating insights from ontologically-oriented rhetorical studies and new materialist science and technology studies, The Politics of Pain provides a detailed analysis of the material and discursive instantiations and effects of cross-ontological calibration in pain science and medicine. This analysis traces the calibrating activates of a local interdisciplinary pain management organization, the history of neuroimaging technologies and their role in legitimizing marginalized pain disorders, as well as deliberations over cross-ontological conflicts at the Food and Drug Administration.
Colleen Derkatch
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226345840
- eISBN:
- 9780226345987
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226345987.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter focuses on scientific method as the key rhetorical topos, or topic, within evidence-based medicine that furnishes lines of argument that researchers adopt to align complementary and ...
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This chapter focuses on scientific method as the key rhetorical topos, or topic, within evidence-based medicine that furnishes lines of argument that researchers adopt to align complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) with scientific boundaries. At the core of debates about CAM is an epistemological debate about how research on CAM ought to be conducted, interpreted, and incorporated into practice because biomedicine’s “gold standard” methodology, the randomized controlled trial (RCT), does not easily accommodate interventions such as acupuncture. The chapter examines how CAM practices fit awkwardly within the RCT format and, turning to studies of experimental articles in rhetoric of science, rhetoric of medicine, and genre theory, investigates how the experimental genre is mobilized in the specific case of biomedical CAM research. It then isolates the concept of efficacy—whether or not a health intervention “works”—as a central organizing principle of biomedical research on CAM. The chapter shows that efficacy can be invoked strategically to draw epistemic and professional boundaries. As this chapter argues, the problem of method in biomedical CAM research is largely a problem of persuasion: the ways that researchers design their studies and report their findings determine which health interventions belong in biomedicine and which do not.Less
This chapter focuses on scientific method as the key rhetorical topos, or topic, within evidence-based medicine that furnishes lines of argument that researchers adopt to align complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) with scientific boundaries. At the core of debates about CAM is an epistemological debate about how research on CAM ought to be conducted, interpreted, and incorporated into practice because biomedicine’s “gold standard” methodology, the randomized controlled trial (RCT), does not easily accommodate interventions such as acupuncture. The chapter examines how CAM practices fit awkwardly within the RCT format and, turning to studies of experimental articles in rhetoric of science, rhetoric of medicine, and genre theory, investigates how the experimental genre is mobilized in the specific case of biomedical CAM research. It then isolates the concept of efficacy—whether or not a health intervention “works”—as a central organizing principle of biomedical research on CAM. The chapter shows that efficacy can be invoked strategically to draw epistemic and professional boundaries. As this chapter argues, the problem of method in biomedical CAM research is largely a problem of persuasion: the ways that researchers design their studies and report their findings determine which health interventions belong in biomedicine and which do not.
Claire Preston
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198704805
- eISBN:
- 9780191780134
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198704805.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, Prose (inc. letters, diaries)
The writing of science in the period 1580–1700 is artfully, diffidently, carelessly, boldly, and self-consciously literary. The Poetics of Scientific Investigation considers the literary textures of ...
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The writing of science in the period 1580–1700 is artfully, diffidently, carelessly, boldly, and self-consciously literary. The Poetics of Scientific Investigation considers the literary textures of early-modern science writing—its rhetorical figures, neologisms, generic adaptations. The experimental and social practices of science are examined through literary representations of the laboratory, of collaborative retirement, of utopian and georgic scientific schemes, of virtual, epistolary conversation, and of an imagined paradise of investigative fellowship and learning. The rhetorical, generic, and formal qualities of scientific writing are also the intellectual processes of early-modern science itself. How science was to be written piqued natural philosophers, who were searching for apt conventions of scientific language and report. Non-scientific writers—admirers and critics of natural philosophy—were enthralled by its developments, which deployed ideas and images from astronomy, optics, chemistry, biology, and medical practices. New or hybrid literary forms in the rhetoric of science emerged, which often collapsed the distinction between factual and imaginative, between the rhetorically ornate and the plain; because early-modern science and scientific expression are frequently indistinguishable, science and literature are mutually involved. Available generic traditions (elegy, epic, panegyric, epyllion, satire, dialogue, among others) became natural philosophy’s literary framework; new literary forms (the experimental report, the journal article) emerged to support and extend it; and existing, evolving literary forms (the letter, the essay) were reshaped to meet its needs by experimentalists, virtuosos, poets, and correspondents such as Boyle, Evelyn, Browne, Abraham Cowley, and Henry Oldenburg, all citizens of the scientific republic of letters.Less
The writing of science in the period 1580–1700 is artfully, diffidently, carelessly, boldly, and self-consciously literary. The Poetics of Scientific Investigation considers the literary textures of early-modern science writing—its rhetorical figures, neologisms, generic adaptations. The experimental and social practices of science are examined through literary representations of the laboratory, of collaborative retirement, of utopian and georgic scientific schemes, of virtual, epistolary conversation, and of an imagined paradise of investigative fellowship and learning. The rhetorical, generic, and formal qualities of scientific writing are also the intellectual processes of early-modern science itself. How science was to be written piqued natural philosophers, who were searching for apt conventions of scientific language and report. Non-scientific writers—admirers and critics of natural philosophy—were enthralled by its developments, which deployed ideas and images from astronomy, optics, chemistry, biology, and medical practices. New or hybrid literary forms in the rhetoric of science emerged, which often collapsed the distinction between factual and imaginative, between the rhetorically ornate and the plain; because early-modern science and scientific expression are frequently indistinguishable, science and literature are mutually involved. Available generic traditions (elegy, epic, panegyric, epyllion, satire, dialogue, among others) became natural philosophy’s literary framework; new literary forms (the experimental report, the journal article) emerged to support and extend it; and existing, evolving literary forms (the letter, the essay) were reshaped to meet its needs by experimentalists, virtuosos, poets, and correspondents such as Boyle, Evelyn, Browne, Abraham Cowley, and Henry Oldenburg, all citizens of the scientific republic of letters.
Colleen Derkatch
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226345840
- eISBN:
- 9780226345987
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226345987.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This book investigates scientific studies of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as episodes of scientific boundary work that shift, and then seek to fix, the boundaries between what counts ...
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This book investigates scientific studies of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as episodes of scientific boundary work that shift, and then seek to fix, the boundaries between what counts as proper medical science and what does not. Drawing on scholarship in rhetoric of science and medicine and science and technology studies, it shows how biomedicine itself responds to challenges both to its borders and its social and epistemic authority. Set against the backdrop of evidence-based medicine, it examines the rhetorical constituents of biomedical boundary work by analyzing a set of CAM-themed issues of the journals of the American Medical Association from 1998 and related textual artifacts. To answer the key question, “How does the notion of evidence determine the boundaries of biomedicine, from expert to public contexts?” the book examines the theme issues and related medical and public discourse to illuminate how members of a culturally dominant profession evaluate medical therapies in the face of disciplinary unrest, both within and beyond the borders of their profession. The chapters move from contexts internal to medicine to those external, mapping, sequentially, the historical-professional, epistemological, clinical, and popular dimensions of biomedical boundary work. The book provides a more nuanced, stratified account of the rhetorical negotiation of medical and scientific boundaries. Its main claim is that, despite the willingness of many medical researchers and practitioners to elide distinctions between mainstream and alternative medicine, this research on CAM, and its related activities (publication, clinical practice), ultimately strengthen those distinctions and expand science’s authority in medicine.Less
This book investigates scientific studies of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as episodes of scientific boundary work that shift, and then seek to fix, the boundaries between what counts as proper medical science and what does not. Drawing on scholarship in rhetoric of science and medicine and science and technology studies, it shows how biomedicine itself responds to challenges both to its borders and its social and epistemic authority. Set against the backdrop of evidence-based medicine, it examines the rhetorical constituents of biomedical boundary work by analyzing a set of CAM-themed issues of the journals of the American Medical Association from 1998 and related textual artifacts. To answer the key question, “How does the notion of evidence determine the boundaries of biomedicine, from expert to public contexts?” the book examines the theme issues and related medical and public discourse to illuminate how members of a culturally dominant profession evaluate medical therapies in the face of disciplinary unrest, both within and beyond the borders of their profession. The chapters move from contexts internal to medicine to those external, mapping, sequentially, the historical-professional, epistemological, clinical, and popular dimensions of biomedical boundary work. The book provides a more nuanced, stratified account of the rhetorical negotiation of medical and scientific boundaries. Its main claim is that, despite the willingness of many medical researchers and practitioners to elide distinctions between mainstream and alternative medicine, this research on CAM, and its related activities (publication, clinical practice), ultimately strengthen those distinctions and expand science’s authority in medicine.
S. Scott Graham
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226264059
- eISBN:
- 9780226264196
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226264196.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The conclusion to The Politics of Pain closes with a reflection on the many overlaps among new materialist, nonmodern, and biopsycosocial approaches to rhetorical studies, science and technology ...
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The conclusion to The Politics of Pain closes with a reflection on the many overlaps among new materialist, nonmodern, and biopsycosocial approaches to rhetorical studies, science and technology studies, and pain medicine. In so doing, the conclusion argues for an end to the cycle of hypercorrections as disciplines oscillate from realist modernist positions to anti-realest postmodern theories. Additionally, the conclusion revisits the different modes of calibration, authorizing resources, and discursive instantiations explored in the book. This calibration suite is presented as a useful resource for future inquiry. And, finally, the conclusion closes with suggestions for future horizons of inquiry within a fully rhetorical-ontological idiom.Less
The conclusion to The Politics of Pain closes with a reflection on the many overlaps among new materialist, nonmodern, and biopsycosocial approaches to rhetorical studies, science and technology studies, and pain medicine. In so doing, the conclusion argues for an end to the cycle of hypercorrections as disciplines oscillate from realist modernist positions to anti-realest postmodern theories. Additionally, the conclusion revisits the different modes of calibration, authorizing resources, and discursive instantiations explored in the book. This calibration suite is presented as a useful resource for future inquiry. And, finally, the conclusion closes with suggestions for future horizons of inquiry within a fully rhetorical-ontological idiom.
Alistair Sponsel
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226523118
- eISBN:
- 9780226523255
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226523255.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter analyzes the content and strategy of Darwin’s 1842 book, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. It was not the grand synthetic geological treatise he had originally envisioned ...
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This chapter analyzes the content and strategy of Darwin’s 1842 book, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. It was not the grand synthetic geological treatise he had originally envisioned writing, but it contained an elegant theory of reef formation supported by analysis of the structure and possible origin of every documented coral reef in the world. The first four chapters were ostensibly descriptive, but Darwin classified reefs into types that corresponded to developmental stages characterizing his theory, which emerged in chapter 5. The book concluded with extended discussion of the global distribution of different types of reefs, as illustrated and systematized on a fold-out thematic map (the only one of its sort Darwin ever published). Published reviews of the book emphasized (whether favorably or not) the ambitious scope of Darwin’s generalizing about reefs; he responded to some criticisms by heavily revising the chapter on coral reefs in a second (1845) edition of his Journal of Researches. Years hence he offered inconsistent and sometimes contradictory recollections about what he had accomplished with the book, reminding critics of his caution but privately reveling in the accuracy of his speculations when supporting evidence emerged from work by J.B. Jukes and J.D. Dana.Less
This chapter analyzes the content and strategy of Darwin’s 1842 book, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. It was not the grand synthetic geological treatise he had originally envisioned writing, but it contained an elegant theory of reef formation supported by analysis of the structure and possible origin of every documented coral reef in the world. The first four chapters were ostensibly descriptive, but Darwin classified reefs into types that corresponded to developmental stages characterizing his theory, which emerged in chapter 5. The book concluded with extended discussion of the global distribution of different types of reefs, as illustrated and systematized on a fold-out thematic map (the only one of its sort Darwin ever published). Published reviews of the book emphasized (whether favorably or not) the ambitious scope of Darwin’s generalizing about reefs; he responded to some criticisms by heavily revising the chapter on coral reefs in a second (1845) edition of his Journal of Researches. Years hence he offered inconsistent and sometimes contradictory recollections about what he had accomplished with the book, reminding critics of his caution but privately reveling in the accuracy of his speculations when supporting evidence emerged from work by J.B. Jukes and J.D. Dana.
