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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
