SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE, SOCIOLOGICALT HEORY, AND THE STRUCTURE OF RHETORIC by James H. Collier Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in Science and Technology Studies APPROVED: Y— Joseph C. Pitt, Chair Aone ble EtaaT hone, Steve Fuller Elisworth Fuhrman April, 1993 Blacksburg, VA LD S635 VE5S , DaQa cose} aM’~ Scientific Discourse, Sociological Theory, and the Structure of Rhetoric James H. Collier Graduate Program in Science and Technology Studies Chair: Joseph C. Pitt (ABSTRACT) This thesis examines the rhetorical, analytical and critical efficacy of reflexivity and sociological theory as means for reconciling the normative and descriptive functions of the rhetoric of science. In attempting to define a separate research domain within Science Studies, rhetoric of science has borrowed Strong Program and constructivist principles and descriptions of scientific practice from the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) as a basis for analyzing scientific discourse. While epistemological claims in the social sciences have been considered inherently self-referential and subject to reflexive analysis and critique, rhetoricians have generally taken these claims on face value and applied them to a treatment of scientific practice. Accordingly, rhetoricians have maintained a natural ontological attitude to sociological theories and descriptions supporting an understanding of scientific discourse as implicitly rhetorical. Recently, however, the concept of "rhetoric" in rhetoric of science has come under scrutiny. This thesis will connect arguments involving the relation of the "irreducibly social" nature of science, to a concept of scientific discourse as rhetorical "without remainder,” to the philosophical commitments of reflexive analysis. Stipulations as to the universal presence and influence of social and rhetorical forces in science substitute, I argue, for a conception of the scientific rhetor as a social type. Although I do not mystify either scientific discourse or practice, I wish to provide grounds for determining whether, given claims about the nature and relation of scientific discourse and practice, rhetorical analyses can be considered either trivial or substantive, descriptive or normative, or even rhetorical or social. Acknowledgments Great patience has been exhibited by both the members of my thesis committee and the Steering Committee during the months of fitful production of this thesis. Initially, I thank Professor Robert Paterson and Professor Richard Burian for providing an institutional setting both diverse and flexible enough to lend the inspiration and time needed to complete this work. To the members of my committee I thank: Professor Skip Fuhrman for lending context to my sociological passions, for unflagging personal support, and for his matter-of-fact way of getting to what matters in an intellectual debate; Professor Steve Fuller for unmatched skill and help in weaving together divergent perspectives on science into whole cloth, for needed transfers of energy, for being a true believer in STS, and for providing me with numerous, extraordinary opportunities; and Professor Joseph Pitt for demonstrating an analytic philosopher's irony in having unremitting faith that the seeds he planted twelve-odd years ago would, evidence to the contrary, finally show growth. Many of the ideas in this thesis were either directly or indirectly entertained in several courses I have taken at the Center. I thank Professor Marjorie Grene for her interest, support and insistence on clarity despite my muddle-headed pursuits, and the participants in her course on J.J. Gibson’ psychology of perception; Professor Henry Bauer for his insightful interchange in his course on scientific method; and Professor Gary Downey for his truly helpful comments on a draft of Chapter 2, and the members of his postmodernism course. I take this thesis as the first payment on a debt I owe to students and colleagues in the English department, colleagues at Price House, friends and family. Specifically, I thank the students in my English 3764 classes at Tech from 1989-91 for constantly challenging me to refine my ideas about the relation between theory and practice in IV scientific communication. As well, I thank the English department for the opportunity to interact and learn from some of the best instructors at this, or any, university. To my student colleagues past and present in Price House who help me to go on through their scholarly example and personal concern; I thank Bill Lynch, Sujatha Raman, Ranjan Chaudhuri, Garrit Curfs, Teresa Castelio and Nancy Mannikko. To my friends in Washington and Richmond who hold the safety net, I will always support their changes as they have mine. I celebrate my companions in Blacksburg - Mary, John, Jane, Gary, Grace, Phred, Diane, Chris ~ for their humor, individual counsel, deep friendship and commitment to being there. Special thanks to "my friend and co-author" Dave Toomey - I look forward to the 21st century. To my parents, especially my mother, and family who exasperatedly ask when it will all be over, but who never waver in sponsoring the journey. Finally, to Elena wherever she may roam. Table of Contents Abstract li Acknowledgments iv Chapter One Approaching Scientific Communication: On the Culture of Rhetoric and the Practice of Composition 1, INTRODUCTION 1.1 Ideology and Governance 1.2 Crisis and Reform 1.3 Interdisctplinary Intervention 12 2. THE PLACE OF COMPOSITION 14 2.1 Developments in Composition and Rhetoric 15 3. THE RHETORICAL TURN 17 3.1 Kenneth Burke's Dramatism 20 3.2 Toward a Theory of Discourse 4, CONTEMPORARY COMPOSITION THEORY 27 5. THE RHETORIC OF SCIENCE 31 5.1 Epistemic Rhetoric 35 5.1.1 Assessing Epistemic Rhetoric 40 5.2 How Scientific Rhetoric is Composed 41 6. CONCLUSION Chapter Two Reflections on Reflexive Wrighting: The Reflexive Thesis: Wrighting Sociology of Scientific Knowledge 47 1. INTRODUCTION 47 1.1 The Argument 51 2. BEGIN THE BEGIN 55 2.1 Contextualizing Reflexivity 61 vi Vil 3. ETHOS AND IRONY 3.1 Scientism and Revolution 3.2 Balancing Irony 79 4, CRISIS AND POLITICS 81 5. CONCLUSION 88 Chapter Three Reflexively Rendering Rhetoric: On Appropriating Social Categories in the Rhetoric of Science 94 1, INTRODUCTION 94 1.1 The Argument 101 2. PHILOSOPHICAL EXPLANATIONS AND THE RHETORIC OF SCIENCE 107 2.1 Implicit and Explicit Rhetoric 108 2.2 Three Rhetorical Tales 113 2.2.1 Invention and Cognition, Sociology and Rhetoric 116 2.2.2 Neo-Aristotelianism and Social Construction 123 2.2.3 The Practical and the Eclectic 127 3. PORTRAIT OF A SCIENTIFIC RHETOR 131 4, CONCLUSION AND THESIS PERSPECTIVES 139 References 143 Vita 156 Chapter One Approaching Scientific Communication: On the Culture of Rhetoric and the Practice of Composition 1. INTRODUCTION Arising out of the anarchy characterizing the study and teaching of English composition and rhetoric in the 1960s and early 1970s! were a number of theories recasting the static components of discourse as part of a continuous, recursive process of knowing and communicating. Composition theorists applied the lessons learned from philosophical, sociological, psychological and literary challenges to traditional frameworks of linguistic meaning and reference to the teaching of writing and textual criticism.3 Moreover, causal theories of reference, in conjunction with the revolution in cognitive science, opened the way for constructivist theorists, in composition and rhetoric as well as philosophy and sociology, to focus on the constitutive function of discursive practices of individuals and communities.4 1 James Kinneavy, A Theory of Discourse (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1971). 2 See, for example, James Britton, Language and Learning (London: Penguin Books, 1970); James Moffett, Teaching the Universe of Discourse (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968); Richard E. Young, Alton L. Becker, and Kenneth L. Pike, Khetoric: Discovery and Change (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1970); Frank J. D'Angelo, Process in Thought and Composition (Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1975); Janet Emig, The Composing Process of Twelfth Graders (Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, NCTE Research Report No. 13, 1971); Linda Flower and John Hays, "Problem-Solving Strategies and the Writing Process, " College English, 39 (December, 1977) 449-61. For a concise overview see David Foster, A Primer for Writing Teachers (Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook, 1983). 3 Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast, 4th ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979); Saul Kripke, "Identity and Necessity,” Naming, Necessity and Natural Kinds Stephen P. Swartz (ed.) (Ithaca, NJ: Cornell University Press, 1977); Noam Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1965); and Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Soctal Construction of Reality (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966). 4 Nelson Goodman in Of Mind and Other Matters (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984) and Ways of Worldmaking (Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1978) Sociologists of science, following the lead of David Bloor (1976),5 began to treat science as a socially embedded phenomenon and scientific knowledge as product of social negotiation. Other researchers began to turn inward; becoming interested in how communication could be embodied and legitimated within the boundaries of academic disciplines.©