INFORMAL LOGIC XV.l, Winter 1993

Book Review

Persuading Science edited by Marcello Pera and William Shea

STEVE FULLER University of Pittsburgh

Pera, Marcello and Shea, William, eds. especially as understood by Bas van e1991). Persuading Science: The Art of Fraassen, who argues that the explanatory Scientific Rhetoric. Canton,MA: Science virtues that realists take to be emblematic History Publications, USA. Pp. xi + 212. of scientific theories are really "pragmatic" ISBN 0-88135-071-0. in that the adequacy of an explanation de­ pends on the interests of the person request­ ing an explanation. There are no better or In June 1990, Marcello Pera gathered worse scientific explanations per se. Fearing together in Naples several distinguished that van Fraassen might demote the status of historians and philosophers of science to explanations in science, McMullin responds discuss how rhetoric may bridge two polar by observing that those so-called pragmat­ images of scientific reasoning: the positivist ic indicators of good explanations-such picture of universal methodological stand­ as coherence and fecundity-often presage ards and the historicist picture of relativ­ genuine epistemic improvements in scien­ ized standards of inquiry. For most of the tific theories. McMullin thinks he is doing people invited, this was the first time they rhetoric a favor by showing that it has had explicitly considered the role of rheto­ latent epistemic tendencies. ric in science. Some turn out to be more re­ McMullin's understanding of the role of ceptive to the role of rhetoric than others, rhetoric in science is typical of philoso­ though no one really embraces a "strong phers who view it as synonymous with thesis" about the rhetoricity of science. pragmatics. The telltale sign is that rhetoric In fact, Dudley Shapere ends up arguing is imagined to be something that lies be­ that progress in a science can be measured yond the core scientific reasoning process, by the extent to which the science has which is taken to be a formal(izable) lan­ developed a self-contained discourse guage. Whether our cue is from Camap or which procedurally rules out rhetorical Chomsky, language is seen as consisting of factors from influencing the arguments! a mapping function from one syntax to an­ For the informal logician or the analytic other (i.e. its semantics), which is then em­ argumentation theorist, the main question bedded in a speech context, which, in turn, to ask about the nature of rhetoric is how it determines how the language is used in differs from what linguists call pragmatics, particular situations. 1 After Quine, this namely, the study of those features of a picture has acquired special significance speech situation that determine the meaning for science, as it is now realized that no da­ of an utterance. Clearly, for someone like tum bears decisively on the fate of a scien­ Ernan McMullin, there is no difference at tific theory-a pragmatics is needed to all. His idea of the "rhetoric of science" is negotiate the exact relevance of the one to the pragmatics of theoretical discourse, the other.2 66 Steve Fuller

While a rhetorician would have no In examining Darwin's rhetoric, Kitcher trouble recognizing this pragmatic resolu­ shares a curious obsession with several of tion of the "underdetermination" problem the authors in this volume-especially as a species of casuistry,3 she would Gerald Holton (on Bohr's and Einstein's nevertheless find the philosopher's priori­ rhetoric)-in wanting to show that scien­ ties strangely misplaced: Why focus so tific authors use rhetoric to persuade them­ much on articulating and formalizing theo­ selves about the truth of their theses before ries in the first place, when all the argu­ they try to persuade others. The obvious ments are over which theory applies in rhetorical force of appealing to such al­ particular cases? The source of the rhetori­ leged episodes of self-persuasion is to cian's puzzlement is already suggested by show that the scientifIc author is a sincere the very expression "underdetermination," inquirer, not a mere practitioner in that which implies that methodology can get "glib and oily art" which often passes for the scientist some of the way to testing a rhetoric. Yet, purity of motives notwith­ theory, but then, after a point, something standing, I doubt that scientists do-or more contextual needs to take over to fully should-only publish what they sincerely determine the relevance of data to theories. believe. Rather, they publish arguments Yet, in fact, relatively little scientific­ that they are willing and able to defend be­ though much philosophical-effort is fore an audience, anticipating many of the spent on formal theory development, considerations that such an audience and usually that effort is made independ­ would raise in response. Let us not forget ently of any specific tests. Indeed, one the Popperian point that a commitment to finds in science what one finds in other arguing a position is not equivalent to a spheres of casuistic reasoning, namely, declaration of faith. There is, after all, an flexibly interpretable theories that can be important rhetorical difference between adapted to an audience as the situation science and religion that turns on the dis­ demands.4 tinction between suspended disbelief and The rhetorician, then, does not suppose outright belief. that the targets of argumentation are the An important consequence of Kitcher's theories themselves, but rather that theo­ fixation on Darwin's sincerity is that his ries function as tokens that are variously paper gives the impression that everyone mobilized in debates which may consist al­ who read and argued with Darwin were most entirely of scientists but which have preeminently concerned with determining implications that extend beyond the fate of the "origin of species." In this context, this or that research program. Such an in­ Kitcher presents the successive editions of version of the status of theories from tar­ Origin as Darwin's follow-up attempts to gets to tokens is characteristic of a strongly get his points across more clearly to his rhetorical approach to scientific argument, multiple audiences and to correct earlier one which sees rhetoric not as an accretion errors. While this may have been Darwin's on logic and methodology but as some­ strategy, it does not follow that he was read thing from which logic and methodology that way by those audiences, most of are abstracted. 5 While nobody in the vol­ whom were not intrinsically interested in ume grants such a strong role to rhetoric, our animal origins but in what implications sometimes the price that is paid is a particular accounts might have for their warped sense of the history of science. To own interests. Failure to heed this point elaborate on this point, I will focus on renders mysterious the obvious misfirings Philip Kitcher's paper, which philosophers and misunderstandings that delayed the ac­ should find the most interesting one in the ceptance of Darwinism. It also invites spu­ entire volume. rious questions such as "Were Darwin's Review of Pera and Shea 67 interlocutors so biased that they failed to fate of a proposition, and this typically re­ see what he was saying?" A rhetorician quires knowledge of people and events would conjecture that the interlocutors outside the context where the argument were really using, not addressing, takes place. Scientists, no less than philos­ Darwin's arguments, probably in order to ophers, can argue about things endlessly, score points with some powerful audienc­ but usually in science the arguments be­ es. In order to approximate Kitcher's ideal come implicated in events outside the speech situation, these audiences would speech situation that force closure.6 The themselves have had to express an interest distinctiveness of the rhetoric of science in having Darwin and his interlocutors will come from such a study of kairos. address each other directly. Since it is still radical for philosophers Even rhetoric's biggest avowed de­ even to invoke "rhetoric" non-pejoratively, fender in the volume, the convener and ed­ my review of this brave book should not itor Pera, fails to take to heart rhetoric's end on a negative note. In particular, inversion of the status of theoretical dis­ Kitcher's view that rhetoric focuses the at­ course. Strictly speaking, Pera's "rhetoric" tention of cognitively limited but interest­ is a theory of dialectics that enlarges on the ed reasoners is very worthy of further project of dialogical logic associated with elaboration. In addition, about half the vol­ Paul Lorenzen and Nicholas Rescher. As ume is devoted to provocative studies of such, it is limited to arguments about the changes in scientific rhetoric during the merits of propositions that reflect the be­ seventeenth century. Taken together these liefs of the parties to the dialogue. To his papers-authored by Peter Machamer, credit, Pera realizes that his approach Richard Westfall, Paolo Rossi, Maurizio leaves the termination of arguments myste­ Mamiani, and the editor Shea-attempt to rious. The mystery is dissolved, however, explain how scientists moved from what once dialectics is seen as only a partial rep­ Machamer calls a "Neo-protagorean" resentation of rhetoric, one that is suitable rhetoric early in the century (Galileo and. for teaching how to make moves in an ar­ Descartes) to a depersonalized anti­ gument, but one that, at the same time, rhetoric at the end of the century (Newton). fails to offer guidance on when an argu­ Westfall's explanation is perhaps the best, ment should begin or end. The timing of namely, that the Neo-protagoreans were arguments, what the Greeks called kairos, conjuring a modem scientific audience depends on knowing what is at stake in a into being, whereas Newton could simply particular dialectical encounter beyond the take that audience for granted.

Notes

1 In the very first paper in the volume-a paper epistemic entity to a target audience. The epis­ that is otherwise devoted to Darwin's temic entity itself-in this case, the target au­ rhetoric-Philip Kitcher tips his hand in this dience. The epistemic entity itself-in this direction by taking as his paradigm case of the case, the proof-is typically established by role of rhetoric in scientific reasoning to be the non-rhetorical means, such as deductive logic difference in how a geometric proof needs to as interpreted through the semantics of geome­ be presented to a student vis-a-vis an expert in try. Although Kitcher liberalizes his view a bit order to be understood. Since the student is un­ when he discusses Darwin's heuristic use of familiar with the canonical formulation of the rhetoric, he does not countenance anything proof, steps must be provided that the expert near a rhetorically robust view of mathemati­ would regard as logically trivial. Rhetoric, cal reasoning--one associated with the "intui­ then, involves fine-tuning the expression of an tionists" and "strict finitists"-which makes 68 Steve Fuller

the intelligibility of a chain of reasoning to a as an empirical gateway to semantics (a la "natural consciousness" a big part of what Searle), but as a sensitizing device to discover­ constitutes that reasoning as a "proof." This ing the different types of human actions. These "natural consciousness" functions much as the pragmaticians often see themselves as recover­ "reasonable man [sic]" does in Anglo-American ing the "rhetorical" dimension of language. law-someome who is not a complete mathe­ See Geoffrey Leech, Principles of Pragmatics matical illiterate but who has retained enough (London: Longmans, 1983). commonsense not to be overly impressed by the ex cathedra pronouncements of expert 3 The best philosophical history of this topic is mathematicians and their non-natural num­ Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, The bers. Such a sensibility would perhaps be most Abuse of Casuistry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). familiar to readers from the later Wittgenstein's

Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. I This insight would be most familiar as charac­ teristic of the recent "constructivist" turn in the 2 In response to a query by Jonathan Adler, I should say something about three senses of sociology of science. A good introduction "pragmatics" that are suggested by my discus­ is Steve Woolgar, Science: The Very Idea sion. The first is the branch of linguistics de­ (London: Tavistock Books, 1988).

voted to the study of situated speech (and 5 This inversion is most clearly stated in Alan writing). The second is the philosophical tenet Gross, The Rhetoric of Science (Cambridge (associated with followers of Quine and MA: Harvard University Press, 1990). It is Goodman) that science's most salient epistem­ worth noting the affinities this view has ic activities cannot be reduced to formal logi­ with idealist and pragmatist approaches to cal procedures but always require the logic. For a historical overview, see John introduction of certain "pragmatic" virtues. Passmore, A Hundred Years of Philosophy, The third is the philosophical school of prag­ 2nd edn. (Harmondsworth UK: Penguin, matism, especially its commitment to "action" 1966), pp. 156-173. or "practice" as an ontological primitive. While these three senses are analytically dis­ 6 The complaint that dialectics provides an im­ tinct, they are also historically intertwined. A poverished theory of rhetoric goes back to relevant point of convergence is the person Renaissance criticisms of the Scholastics. For most responsible for canonizing the syntax, a recent expression, see Brian Vickers, In semantics, pragmatics distinction, Charles Defense of Rhetoric (Oxford: Oxford University Morris, whose work with Camap in the Unity Press, 1988), pp. 214-253. I stress the impor­ of Science movement in Chicago first brought tancc of kairos to the rhetoric of science in together pragmatist and positivist concerns Steve Fuller, Philosophy, Rhetoric & the End with language. The merger was greatly eased of Knowledge (Madison: University of by Morris's assimilation of "practices" to the Wisconsin Press, 1993). The article that epito­ behavioral units that by the 1930s had become mizes for me the importance of timing to the standard in field linguistics. The precedent for termination of scientific debates is Paul Form­ this turn to behaviorism can be found in an, "Weimar Culture, Causality. and Quantum Morris's teacher, G.B. Mead, and its ultimate Theory," in R. MacCormmach (ed.), Historical descendant was Quine's radical translation ep­ Studies in the Physical Sciences (Philadelphia: isode in Word and Object. One of the costs of University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971). Morris's move, however, has been the tenden­ cy to see language as relatively autonomous from the rest of human action, contrary to the STEVE FULLER original spirit of pragmatism. Some linguists DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION who specialize in pragmatics have tried to re­ 1117 CATHEDRAL OF LEARNING sist this tendency to reify language by reviving UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH J.L Austin's original idea of speech acts, not PITTSBURGH, PA 15260 0