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IH( RH(lORI[RlIURn I E iii ~HfIO~IC~l . I INVENTION • , AND 8 PERSUASION IN THE CONDUCT OF INQUIRY Edited by Herbert W. Simons The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London Herbert W. Simons is professor of rhetoric and communication at Temple Uni versity. He is the author of Persuasion: Understanding, Practice, and Analysis and the editor of numerous books, including Rhetoric in the Human Sciences and The Legacy of Kenneth Burke. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 1990 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 1990 Printed in the United States of America 99 98 97 96 95 94 93 92 91 90 54321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Rhetorical turn : invention and persuasion in the conduct of inquiry / edited by Herbert W. Simons. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-226-75901-6 (cloth). - ISBN 0-226-75902-4 (paper) 1. Invention (Rhetoric) 2. Persuasion (Rhetoric) I. Simons, Herbert w., 1935- PH221. R48 1990 89-48007 808-dc20 CIP @ The paper used in thus publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. CONTENTS Preface vu Introduction The Rhetoric of Inquiry as an Intellectual Movement / Herbert W. Simons 1 PART ONE Rhetorics of Science 1. Bio-Rhetorics: Moralizing the Life Sciences / John Lyne 35 2. Scientific Discovery and Rhetorical Invention: The Path to Darwin's Origin / John Angus Campbell 58 3. The Origin of Species: Evolutionary Taxonomy as an Example of the Rhetoric of Science / Alan C. Cross 91 4. Psychoanalysis: Science or Rhetoric? / Tullio Maranhao 116 5. Discursive Constraints on the Acceptance and Rejection of Knowledge Claims: The Conversation about Conversation / Robert E. Sanders 145 6. The Rhetoric of Decision Science, or Herbert A. Simon Says / Carolyn R. Miller 162 v CONTENTS PART TWO The Politics of Rhetoric and the Rhetoric of Politics 7. Arguing over Incommensurable Values: The Case of Machiavelli / Eugene Garver 187 8. Narrative Figures and Subtle Persuasions: The Rhetoric of the MOVE Report / Susan Wells 208 9. The Rhetoric of the Commons: Forum Discourse in Politics and Society / Manfred Stanley 238 10. Political Foundations for the Rhetoric of Inquiry / John S. Nelson 258 PART THREE Philosophical Probes and Reflections 11. The Checkmate of Rhetoric (But Can Our Reasons Become Causes?) / Kenneth J. Gergen 293 12. Reconciling Realism and Relativism / Joseph Margolis 308 13. Symbolic Realism and the Dualism of the Human Sciences: A Rhetorical Reformulation of the Debate between Positivism and Romanticism / Richard Harvey Brown 320 14. Rhetoric and Its Double: Reflections on the Rhetorical Turn in the Human Sciences / Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar 341 Contributors 367 Index 369 vi PREFACE At the 1984 Iowa Symposium on The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences, Richard Rorty observed that recent movements to reconceive inquiry in the human sciences seem to have been marked by "turns." "First the 'linguistic turn,' then the 'interpretive turn,' and now the 'rhetorical turn.' " Rorty is among those whose critiques of objectivist credos have inspired the new movement. Initially conceived by the ancient Greeks as an art of persuasion by which ordinary citizens could exercise their re sponsibilities in civic affairs, rhetorical theory is increasingly being brought to bear upon expert and scholarly discourses. What John Nelson dubbed the rhetoric of inquiry provides a disciplined way to address issues within and across the disciplines, ranging in this volume from evolutionary biol ogy to conversation analysis, and from Machiavelli to MOVE. A common denominator of these issues is that they resist resolution by formal proofs. But this does not mean that they cannot be addressed wisely and articu lately. Indeed, many contributors to this volume advance the position that the discipline of rhetoric can provide the tools, not just for deconstructions of objectivist pretensions, but also for much-needed, much sought-after reconstructions of inquiry in the wake of those debunkings. They do so, not simply by affirming in unison the wonders of rhetoric, but, rather, by getting down to cases and addressing specific issues. The 1986 Temple University conference on the rhetoric of the human sciences from which this book was derived was billed as a sequel to the Iowa Symposium but with a focus on specific cases. The Rhetorical Turn is the second of two edited volumes to have come out of that conference. The other col lection, Rhetoric in the Human Sciences, was published by Sage (Lon don) in 1989. In the introduction to this book I attempt to place the essays that follow in the context of recent scholarship, and I also propose a reconstructive rhetoric of my own. The Rhetorical Turn then takes a number of turns of its own. It moves from biology to politics via brief excursions into the vii PREFACE rhetorics of psychoanalysis, decision science, and conversation analysis. It concludes with four philosophical explorations of the problems as well as the potential of the new rhetoric. A distinctive emphasis of the book is on the role played by rhetorical invention in the conduct of inquiry. The ancient Greeks and Romans understood that on any issue to be debated in the law tribunal or deliber ative assembly, there was a finite range of possible strategems of argument that could be called upon to support one's case. What Lyne here calls the "art of the sayable" is shown by the contributors to be very much in use by scientists and other scholars in their personal deliberations, and also in processes of communal inquiry and advocacy. Of particular interest to Lyne is the use made of inventional techniques in the construction of "bio-rhetorics," strategies for making the discourses of biology mesh with the discourses of social, political, or moral life. Inventional strategies are also at the heart of Campbell's investigation of Darwin's thinking pro cesses, as reflected in the notebooks Darwin prepared following his expe ditions on the Beagle. Campbell argues that Darwin's notebooks anticipate his mature rhetorical art; it was by means of his facility with imagistic language and informal logic that Darwin was able to embark so success fully on his "second voyage of discovery," the creation of a factually correct and rhetorically credible theory of evolution. The next two essays explore relationships between rhetoric and the demarcation criteria of a science. Gross shows how rational reconstruc tions of evidence for the existence of new evolutionary species can be recast and reinterpreted in exclusively rhetorical terms. He resists concluding, however, that the branch of evolutionary biology aimed at discovering new species is any the less a science. Maranhao likewise asks whether, if psy choanalysis is a rhetoric, it must be a failed science. He does so in part as a way of undermining the distinction itself. By Maranhao's reading, psy choanalysis spearheads the development of science: "It dilutes the differ ences between invention/discovery and explanation/interpretation, making indirect persuasion the instrument of treatment, of inquiry, and of schol arly demonstration." In his essay on rhetoric's role in the making of a science, Sanders distinguishes between weak and strong versions of a rhetoric of science. The weak version, which he endorses, is that rhetoric-here conceived of as persuasion-plays an important role in debates between rival schools about the adjudication of rival claims. The strong version, which he re jects, is that rhetorical practices can be a primary source of knowledge claims. The case that he takes up is that of conversation analysis, an area viii PREFACE of study, suggests Sanders, that has managed to accumulate findings while remaining divided about how to make sense of them. The question of rhetoric's relationship to science is raised yet again in Miller's essay on decision science. This she characterizes as an antirhe torical rhetoric "that ignores the best capacities of human beings-to rea son with and learn from each other; it encourages our submission to technical, knowledge-based solutions for what are social, value-based problems." What can rhetorical theory teach us about how to adjudicate among competing values, or prescriptions, or knowledge claims? This, I believe, is a pivotal question for the new rhetoric of inquiry movement, and it is probably the central question of this book. Here rhetoric's 2,500 years of experience at assisting in deliberations over civic matters may be of some help to the working scholar. In what Stanley calls the "convergence" of thinking about politics and social science, the new wave of theorizing about the rhetoric of scholarly inquiry might also suggest new ways of addressing old issues in the public sphere. The middle section of this book explores these possibilities. Garver takes counsel from Machiavelli on how to deliberate in the face of plural ultimate values. While Garver's (and Machiavelli's) focus is on politics, his treatment bears generally on the human sciences. Susan Wells's essay is at one level a conventional rhetorical analysis of the report of an investigating committee. It seeks to discern the meanings, methods, and motives of its authors from a close reading of the report. At that level the essay has some very interesting things to say about the relationship between invention and arrangement in the construction of the report's narrative. But the report is of a series of actions and events and consequences so extraordinary as to defy conventional treatment by the authors and ultimately by Wells herself. Hence Wells is led to further consideration of the report in Habermasian terms, and also as a kind of postmodern document, a pleasurable, albeit nightmarish, fiction, best understood from a poststructuralist literary perspective. As the utility of rhetorical perspectives and methods is demonstrated through scholarship, one begins to consider the enormous implications for pedagogical reform. Ought there to be greater attention in colleges and universities to techniques of informal argumentation, modes of expression, forms of appeal? How can scholars be trained to become more discerning critics of their own and others' rhetoric? Should ordinary citizens be en ergized to participate in discussions, not just of the immediate issues that ix