Brian Vickers: Analogy versus Identity
The occult view is exceptional, the science is the rational view
Vickers enlists Aristotle, Plato, Locke against occultism toward scientific uses of language. words are arbitrary, their meanings can be assigned; its meme rather than physical; no relationship between physical and the words they reference. He cites Cassire that language has a sensuous form to it and intellectual content. He is against the Neoplatonists--the ones, who in several traditions believe that language is not arbitrary; that it embodies physical reality. So to them language is reality.
He references Jewish mysticism in which the role of language is creative. Vickers represents a Bacon-like view of language, siding with the notion that language is separate from reality and needs to reference it clearly in order to fulfill the Royal Society's mission. He is pre-Khun; without scientific knowledge as a social construction. There is the scientific and occult mentality. The scientific totally separate language and reality and the occult is the opposite.
Metaphor is a mental gap, he thinks, that ought to be banished once truth is observed. It is a deviation of language-- from the lingusitic norm of signifier and signfied, creating nuances that do not exist (116).
Metaphors are not epistemic; they are not constitutive;
pg. 109 Metaphor versus proof. Vickers argues that language cannot incarnate the essence of things...he rejects the idea and reiterates that Paltonic-Aristotelian concept of notions intermediate between words and things. Vickers position does not align with the Jewish mystical tradition, in which view words don't incarate things; they are things. sounds are physical reality.
He takes the mimesis view that sound mimics physical things and so are a forgery. Imitation, analogy. The Jewish see language as ontology
Vickers is an empiricist. He advocates objectivity for language to distance itself from its referent in order to be true (97).
He is dismissive of the biblical concept of the word becoming flesh, of bringing things into being
The truth is language does bring things into being
Rhetoric as the advocacy of realities--the different realities and the various levels.
The idea of steps and links in Kabbalah is Neoplatonic. The way of thinking of things to connect the divine with the physical or connecting the language with the referent is Neoplatonic.
The Tree of Life
Kabbala of Isaac Luria
Worlds within worlds; the idea that reality was multi-layered. Plato wasn't positing language or God in the phycial world. The different worlds--action, formation, creation, and emanation.
God inhabits infinity so how does he create the phyical world? Through Tzimtzum also known as the contraction. something went wrong in the process of creation hence the Hisdic Jews make it their mission to restore that which was lost...restoring sparks to the vessle.
pg.32 The Hebrwe Letters is the substance of the Jewish rhetoric
Mathematics and Kabbalah
The Torah was writteb before God spoke? The written/oral Torah?
Infinity is nothingness
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
How the gene got its Groove
Shea argues that the gene is a figure. History comes from the gene, not just in inherited characteristic but its power to shake and generate history; Shea de-historices the gene, though she believes that genes are rhetorical figures. She looks at the way the gene functions in text rather than in human beings.
pg.68 "Fahnestock, genes are not rhetorical figures;"
Gene--Genesis: the beginning...clever
Science is all about language...the relationship between rhetoric and reality.
pg.68 "Fahnestock, genes are not rhetorical figures;"
Gene--Genesis: the beginning...clever
Science is all about language...the relationship between rhetoric and reality.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Metaphors in Science
Metaphors we live by: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Chicago: Univ of Chicago Press., 1980.
A Review
All of us speak in metaphors whether we realize it or not. In fact we live by metaphors, which have the ability to not only make our thoughts more vivid and interesting but also structure our perceptions and understanding. Metaphors set up the expectations that determine what life will be for us in the future.
The power of language and metaphor to shape perception, thought an action. The politically correct debate has to do with the metaphorical properties and connotations that arise with some of these terms: secretary, janitor, etc for those who control metaphor control thought and action.
Metaphors bridge spatial gaps, e.g. Love is a red rose. There is a Burkean sense of identification that says the attributes (physical, symbolic, aesthetic) that belong to a red rose are being transferred over to the sense of love. Other examples include time as a commodity, argument as war.
Rhetoric is the advocacy of realities
Metaphor and Theory Change, Richard Boyd
Metaphors are essential to meaning making in science as in every discipline. Boyd takes a linguistic structuralist approach that metaphor is apriori to the meanings that we attach to metaphor....something embedded in thinking and in nature....a phenomenon that is not a social construct but constitutive Metaphors lead out to empirical reality; the joints of the world, the causal principles in the world. Metaphors are essential as they provide epistemic access to the world.
Richard Boyd wants to apply Black's interaction view of metaphor to what he calls `theory-constitutive metaphors' within the realm of science. Black argues that when we use metaphors what we are really doing is applying a sort of filter that describes the process of theory construction in scientific practice.
357: the role of metaphor there exist an important class of metaphors that play a role in the articulation of theories by mature sciences...a catachresis . Metaphors lead science out to reality. They show scientists where the joints of the world are.
Think about technology: blue tooth, chip, facebook,
And their concomitant sets of associated commonplaces, we are able to disambiguate terms which may definitionaly have appeared co-extensive or co-occurring. Thus, metaphors aren't simply exterior to the `real' work of science; they aren't what get us on the road to science. Rather than simply setting us on the right path metaphor as heuristic they help us cut that path when our other, more definitional, tools are of no use due to their theory constitutive aspect.
Boyd notes that, "the use of theory-constitutive metaphors encourages the discovery of new features of the primary and secondary subjects, and new understanding of theoretically relevant respects of similarity, or analogy, between them" (489). Metaphors in scientific contexts do not lose their potency, becoming tired and trite. Rather, their value goes up the more they are used in science. "Theory constitutive metaphors...become, when they are successful, the property of the entire scientific community , and variations on them are explored by other scientific authors without their interactive quality being lost" (Boyd 487). So, Boyd argues, rather than simply providing a sort of one-time insight that becomes obvious after use scientific metaphors provide us with heuristics.
A metaphors as theory constitutive is a heuristic metaphor...
Boyd talks about what he thinks metaphors can do in relation to linguistic theory and reference fixing that they are nominal--agreed upon conceptually without a direct relationship to the object being depicted. Standard notion of science that definitions are nominal...Also, that you can affix a word to an object and have a basic conception of..reality, ostention. But Boyd is an empiricist, a logical positivist who says metaphor leads to reference fixing. Pg 366 reference are "fixing ostentially rather than by verbal definitions..." Metaphor makes definitions explicit due to linguistic usage caused by yet an undiscovered structure i.e. we name things before we know where they are; we use placeholders till we find the content...so metaphors leads to undiscovered causal patterns.
Boyd is an empiricist who believes in objectivity; hence metaphors too can lead to paradigms as they can be epistemic, constitute theory
Metaphors in Science, Thomas Kuhn
Kuhn disagrees with the fundamental notion (p.418) that language is fixed outside the paradigm. For Kuhn, you are always inside the paradigm; the metaphor is another paradigmatic view. about ontology, about the world's real joint...there is no historical evidence that metaphors lead outside the paradigm. The joints of the world are unknowable, he says. Boyd thinks science is located in the language.
Rhetorical Figures in Science, Jeanne Fahnestock
Rhetoric is science is invisible, then visible...ploche is random repetition, which is formulated and disguised and hard to pick up on in scientific writing. Creating an argumentative virtue. Ploche manifests itself in the works of Darwin, etc. Pg 162 Ploche enforces the stability of the reference--where the argumentative power lies. These figures can be visualized in scientific language (p166) which demonstrate consistency.
Differentiation between ploche and polyptoton, (168) derivational changes the way a word is derived from one form to another, depending on a consistent core meaning. Polyptoton serves in nomenclature as in chemistry, biology, etc, preparing the way for acceptable lines of research
Syle and the notion of presence; style gives concepts and ideas presence. This calls for repetition of terms, parallel structure; to disassociate, you create different terminologies. Antithesis brings in opposition in the content, if that should be your purpose. aesthetics makes reality visibile? Style can invoke the unseen
Rhetorical figures epitomize argument? style contains the argument repetition epitomizes the argument...
Parellisms communicate equality; I came, I saw, I conquered...all the acts are carry the same weight, to say nothing of the rhythm. We vaue Platonic ideals but teach Isocratic concepts where language is consquential.
Asyndeton can communicate hysteria...people use figures serendipitously when they are upset.
Alliteration
A Review
All of us speak in metaphors whether we realize it or not. In fact we live by metaphors, which have the ability to not only make our thoughts more vivid and interesting but also structure our perceptions and understanding. Metaphors set up the expectations that determine what life will be for us in the future.
The power of language and metaphor to shape perception, thought an action. The politically correct debate has to do with the metaphorical properties and connotations that arise with some of these terms: secretary, janitor, etc for those who control metaphor control thought and action.
Metaphors bridge spatial gaps, e.g. Love is a red rose. There is a Burkean sense of identification that says the attributes (physical, symbolic, aesthetic) that belong to a red rose are being transferred over to the sense of love. Other examples include time as a commodity, argument as war.
Rhetoric is the advocacy of realities
Metaphor and Theory Change, Richard Boyd
Metaphors are essential to meaning making in science as in every discipline. Boyd takes a linguistic structuralist approach that metaphor is apriori to the meanings that we attach to metaphor....something embedded in thinking and in nature....a phenomenon that is not a social construct but constitutive Metaphors lead out to empirical reality; the joints of the world, the causal principles in the world. Metaphors are essential as they provide epistemic access to the world.
Richard Boyd wants to apply Black's interaction view of metaphor to what he calls `theory-constitutive metaphors' within the realm of science. Black argues that when we use metaphors what we are really doing is applying a sort of filter that describes the process of theory construction in scientific practice.
357: the role of metaphor there exist an important class of metaphors that play a role in the articulation of theories by mature sciences...a catachresis . Metaphors lead science out to reality. They show scientists where the joints of the world are.
Think about technology: blue tooth, chip, facebook,
And their concomitant sets of associated commonplaces, we are able to disambiguate terms which may definitionaly have appeared co-extensive or co-occurring. Thus, metaphors aren't simply exterior to the `real' work of science; they aren't what get us on the road to science. Rather than simply setting us on the right path metaphor as heuristic they help us cut that path when our other, more definitional, tools are of no use due to their theory constitutive aspect.
Boyd notes that, "the use of theory-constitutive metaphors encourages the discovery of new features of the primary and secondary subjects, and new understanding of theoretically relevant respects of similarity, or analogy, between them" (489). Metaphors in scientific contexts do not lose their potency, becoming tired and trite. Rather, their value goes up the more they are used in science. "Theory constitutive metaphors...become, when they are successful, the property of the entire scientific community , and variations on them are explored by other scientific authors without their interactive quality being lost" (Boyd 487). So, Boyd argues, rather than simply providing a sort of one-time insight that becomes obvious after use scientific metaphors provide us with heuristics.
A metaphors as theory constitutive is a heuristic metaphor...
Boyd talks about what he thinks metaphors can do in relation to linguistic theory and reference fixing that they are nominal--agreed upon conceptually without a direct relationship to the object being depicted. Standard notion of science that definitions are nominal...Also, that you can affix a word to an object and have a basic conception of..reality, ostention. But Boyd is an empiricist, a logical positivist who says metaphor leads to reference fixing. Pg 366 reference are "fixing ostentially rather than by verbal definitions..." Metaphor makes definitions explicit due to linguistic usage caused by yet an undiscovered structure i.e. we name things before we know where they are; we use placeholders till we find the content...so metaphors leads to undiscovered causal patterns.
Boyd is an empiricist who believes in objectivity; hence metaphors too can lead to paradigms as they can be epistemic, constitute theory
Metaphors in Science, Thomas Kuhn
Kuhn disagrees with the fundamental notion (p.418) that language is fixed outside the paradigm. For Kuhn, you are always inside the paradigm; the metaphor is another paradigmatic view. about ontology, about the world's real joint...there is no historical evidence that metaphors lead outside the paradigm. The joints of the world are unknowable, he says. Boyd thinks science is located in the language.
Rhetorical Figures in Science, Jeanne Fahnestock
Rhetoric is science is invisible, then visible...ploche is random repetition, which is formulated and disguised and hard to pick up on in scientific writing. Creating an argumentative virtue. Ploche manifests itself in the works of Darwin, etc. Pg 162 Ploche enforces the stability of the reference--where the argumentative power lies. These figures can be visualized in scientific language (p166) which demonstrate consistency.
Differentiation between ploche and polyptoton, (168) derivational changes the way a word is derived from one form to another, depending on a consistent core meaning. Polyptoton serves in nomenclature as in chemistry, biology, etc, preparing the way for acceptable lines of research
Syle and the notion of presence; style gives concepts and ideas presence. This calls for repetition of terms, parallel structure; to disassociate, you create different terminologies. Antithesis brings in opposition in the content, if that should be your purpose. aesthetics makes reality visibile? Style can invoke the unseen
Rhetorical figures epitomize argument? style contains the argument repetition epitomizes the argument...
Parellisms communicate equality; I came, I saw, I conquered...all the acts are carry the same weight, to say nothing of the rhythm. We vaue Platonic ideals but teach Isocratic concepts where language is consquential.
Asyndeton can communicate hysteria...people use figures serendipitously when they are upset.
Alliteration
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Oct 21
Aristotle uses Plato's notion of dialectic to understand emotions and how they could be incited to move an orator one way or another.
Aristotle's attempt as opposed to Plato's "mathematics" to apply similarity to changing objects. Socrates not interested in mathematics but rather to see from observations coming up with proper definitions. Aristotle's Principles that govern conduct----functional matter theory: genus vs differentiae --definitions are really arguments and they are based on induction and ultimately comparison. On emotions, Aristotle indicates that emotions proceed by induction followed by deduction...
Aristotle a veteran taxonomer so his is the first rational treatment of emotion. Compared to Darwin, Aristotle's approach is different as it reflects the difference between classical scinence and Newtonian science. Gillispies observes that Aristotle perceived from experience
Induction presumes hypothesis, which is an irony of induction. The truth is we always frame things even when we presume to be professional.
How useful is Darwin as a rhetorician?
pg. 261 about why someone who is guilty avoids looking at the accuser...Darwin uses rhetoric to inscribe nature
Darwin succeeds in creating waves with his Origin because he uses every form of evidence at his disposal: he observes, argues, compares, infers and describes the results of experiments he has read about, or in many cases, personally conducted. He expounds natural selection along with ideas such as sexual selection that males in many species are burdened with showy ornaments like enormous tails because the females of their species have, by repeatedly picking the showiest males as their mates, caused them to evolve them that way (NYTimes).
Newtonian Darwin
Aristotle's attempt as opposed to Plato's "mathematics" to apply similarity to changing objects. Socrates not interested in mathematics but rather to see from observations coming up with proper definitions. Aristotle's Principles that govern conduct----functional matter theory: genus vs differentiae --definitions are really arguments and they are based on induction and ultimately comparison. On emotions, Aristotle indicates that emotions proceed by induction followed by deduction...
Aristotle a veteran taxonomer so his is the first rational treatment of emotion. Compared to Darwin, Aristotle's approach is different as it reflects the difference between classical scinence and Newtonian science. Gillispies observes that Aristotle perceived from experience
Induction presumes hypothesis, which is an irony of induction. The truth is we always frame things even when we presume to be professional.
How useful is Darwin as a rhetorician?
pg. 261 about why someone who is guilty avoids looking at the accuser...Darwin uses rhetoric to inscribe nature
Darwin succeeds in creating waves with his Origin because he uses every form of evidence at his disposal: he observes, argues, compares, infers and describes the results of experiments he has read about, or in many cases, personally conducted. He expounds natural selection along with ideas such as sexual selection that males in many species are burdened with showy ornaments like enormous tails because the females of their species have, by repeatedly picking the showiest males as their mates, caused them to evolve them that way (NYTimes).
Newtonian Darwin
Friday, October 17, 2008
The Epistemic Music of Rhetoric: Toward the Temporal Dimension of Affect in Reader Response and Writing
Predicated on Steven Katz belief that music is all around us. It is in the rhythm and tones of the texts we read, write, and see everyday. How can we be aurally sensitive so we can gain knowledge that the experience of the music we hear conveys? Sophism and orality. Rhetoric focuses particularly on the use of language in specific texts; on the form as much as the content of an utterance. It is not only a method for training effective communicators (rhetors); Katz examines rhetoric as a method for understanding on a theoretical as well as a practical level how humans use language (as in the language of music) to alter or shape our understanding of reality.
Visual, and logocentric? Isn't that a contradiction?
Also we rely on visually-based metaphors to shape our knowledge. So we need a set of metaphors based on aural and temporal experience as championed by the ancients sophists, Isocrates, and Cicero--early sophists as intellectuals in an oral culture as they believed in the ability of language to constitute and communicate knowledge
Plato is seen as a transitional figure to a more literate culture
Gorgias linked language with thought
Isocrates--a sophist; put writing in the service of orality through use of a style attuned to aural effects
Uses a classical rhetorical approach and an aural approach to critique Reader Response Criticism. So it is the philosophy of language, and music theory. Simultaneously, he assesses the scientific empiricism and technological rationalism that control the parameters of reading and writing theory, research, and pedagogy. In doing so, Katz examines the possibility and desirability of teaching reading and writing as "rhetorical music" to supplement the formalistic, logocentric imperatives that underlie current methods of reading and writing instruction. This book will interest not only theorists and teachers in rhetoric, composition, and literature but also scholars and teachers of oral interpretation, literature and science, a
It is said that Isocrates admitted to a lack of the vigor for public performance; how was he able to excel in orality and aural
Cicero capitalized in the Roman conception of the orator and oratory--to him style is epistemic
Eloquence is seen in the uniting of philosophy and rhetoric? form and content together conveys full knowledge -- both rational (via content) and affective (via style). Cicero in his De Oratore excels in the sophistic tradition of equating language with thought and experience while considering sensory perception of the world imprecise.
Chapter 2 documents a parallel development in literary criticism and science
Chapter 3 turns back to classical rhetoric to find precedents and models for dealing with affective response
Chapter 4 shifts to the theory and study of language as a musical experience
The postscript: examines the potential pedagogical take--how to teach epistemological uncertainty, performance, and emotion as a vehicle of meaning
The role of emotions and affectation on texts....contains expectations, etc, making knowledge acquisition more subjective than objective.
Music creates affect without have a referential aspect to it...
Techne: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/science/21wormgrunting.html?ref=science
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/science/21arch.html?ref=science
Visual, and logocentric? Isn't that a contradiction?
Also we rely on visually-based metaphors to shape our knowledge. So we need a set of metaphors based on aural and temporal experience as championed by the ancients sophists, Isocrates, and Cicero--early sophists as intellectuals in an oral culture as they believed in the ability of language to constitute and communicate knowledge
Plato is seen as a transitional figure to a more literate culture
Gorgias linked language with thought
Isocrates--a sophist; put writing in the service of orality through use of a style attuned to aural effects
Uses a classical rhetorical approach and an aural approach to critique Reader Response Criticism. So it is the philosophy of language, and music theory. Simultaneously, he assesses the scientific empiricism and technological rationalism that control the parameters of reading and writing theory, research, and pedagogy. In doing so, Katz examines the possibility and desirability of teaching reading and writing as "rhetorical music" to supplement the formalistic, logocentric imperatives that underlie current methods of reading and writing instruction. This book will interest not only theorists and teachers in rhetoric, composition, and literature but also scholars and teachers of oral interpretation, literature and science, a
It is said that Isocrates admitted to a lack of the vigor for public performance; how was he able to excel in orality and aural
Cicero capitalized in the Roman conception of the orator and oratory--to him style is epistemic
Eloquence is seen in the uniting of philosophy and rhetoric? form and content together conveys full knowledge -- both rational (via content) and affective (via style). Cicero in his De Oratore excels in the sophistic tradition of equating language with thought and experience while considering sensory perception of the world imprecise.
Chapter 2 documents a parallel development in literary criticism and science
Chapter 3 turns back to classical rhetoric to find precedents and models for dealing with affective response
Chapter 4 shifts to the theory and study of language as a musical experience
The postscript: examines the potential pedagogical take--how to teach epistemological uncertainty, performance, and emotion as a vehicle of meaning
The role of emotions and affectation on texts....contains expectations, etc, making knowledge acquisition more subjective than objective.
Music creates affect without have a referential aspect to it...
Techne: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/science/21wormgrunting.html?ref=science
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/science/21arch.html?ref=science
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Topics: Discovery of arguments, P. J. Corbett--Darwin, the Origin of Species
Analogy produces probable truth. Analogy argues that if two things are alike in one of two characteristics, they are probably alike in another characteristic. This argument is similar to Campbell's notion of Vera causa logic pg 363 which means in harmony with other causes already known. Vera causa treats things that are the same the same way. It does not work where there are distinctions.
For Aristotle, rhetoric concerned probable knowledge, which includes dialectic. In classifying, he was very much the scientist. But when he comes to the Topics, his social constructionism comes through.
The Topoi, Corbett makes a neo-Aristotelian stance, to result in a contemporary compilation of Aristotle's take presented randomly withing the context of an ongoing discussion.
Useful for seeing through a terministic screen the way scientists argue along with Latour, Toulmin, etc. Corbett's is a very "classical" take.
Bitzer's argument of exigence is mechanical rather than causal (side note).
Vera causa--Darwin uses causality based on observation
A versa causa argument, which means true cause, is a direct response to the .....To work, with vera causa, one has to establish the existence of a potentially causal process then demonstrate that the process is competent to explain the phenomenon of interest and that the process is inf act possible.
Darwin wanted to build the argument that would be acceptable to the audience first before making declarative statements.
Topoi in the Origin of the Species: the use of precedents..where accepted facts exist--law
Darwin's vera causa argument:
1. ability of new conditions to cause heredity variants in domestic species
2. the struggle for existence entails that just such a selective breeding exists
3. natural selection has longer to work and is more discriminating than artificial selection, so
4. the extant and extinct species could have originated as races produced by natural selection. Thus species probably did originate as varieties or races produced by natural selection.
Darwin's is a muted revolution in Biology
Darwin makes the case for the scientific method that of the hypothetico-deductive from which you deduce the truth. You use selective induction, find what you want to support the hypothesis--the myth of induction. Induction is based on analogy (Corbett, Campell)and analogy is the weakest form of argument. It is weak because it draws a probable conclusion from one form of similarity--if two things are similar, induction brings them together, classifies them, and then draws conclusion...it's circular reasoning, paralogical
Aristotle on Emotions
Rhetors need to understad the role of character and emotion in persuasion.
Aristotle's concern for rhetoric provided with the opportunity to develop a discussion on emotions. This is because judgment is the object of rhetoric and judgements vary with emotions.
Emotions are the things on account of which the ones altered differ with respect to
their judgments, and are accompanied by pleasure and pain: such are anger, pity,
fear, and all similar emotions and their contraries. (Rhetoric 1378a20-23)
Emotions are temporary states, says Aristotle, but they affect judgement. They are an example of external causality.
Logos-->Pathos-->Ethos-->
It's all about how to use emotions in rhetoric...emotions are multi-dimensional (Steve Katz).
Darwin on Emotions
According to Darwin, emotion generates emotion, which is manifested in three forms:
For Aristotle, rhetoric concerned probable knowledge, which includes dialectic. In classifying, he was very much the scientist. But when he comes to the Topics, his social constructionism comes through.
The Topoi, Corbett makes a neo-Aristotelian stance, to result in a contemporary compilation of Aristotle's take presented randomly withing the context of an ongoing discussion.
Useful for seeing through a terministic screen the way scientists argue along with Latour, Toulmin, etc. Corbett's is a very "classical" take.
Bitzer's argument of exigence is mechanical rather than causal (side note).
Vera causa--Darwin uses causality based on observation
A versa causa argument, which means true cause, is a direct response to the .....To work, with vera causa, one has to establish the existence of a potentially causal process then demonstrate that the process is competent to explain the phenomenon of interest and that the process is inf act possible.
Darwin wanted to build the argument that would be acceptable to the audience first before making declarative statements.
Topoi in the Origin of the Species: the use of precedents..where accepted facts exist--law
Darwin's vera causa argument:
1. ability of new conditions to cause heredity variants in domestic species
2. the struggle for existence entails that just such a selective breeding exists
3. natural selection has longer to work and is more discriminating than artificial selection, so
4. the extant and extinct species could have originated as races produced by natural selection. Thus species probably did originate as varieties or races produced by natural selection.
Darwin's is a muted revolution in Biology
Darwin makes the case for the scientific method that of the hypothetico-deductive from which you deduce the truth. You use selective induction, find what you want to support the hypothesis--the myth of induction. Induction is based on analogy (Corbett, Campell)and analogy is the weakest form of argument. It is weak because it draws a probable conclusion from one form of similarity--if two things are similar, induction brings them together, classifies them, and then draws conclusion...it's circular reasoning, paralogical
Aristotle on Emotions
Rhetors need to understad the role of character and emotion in persuasion.
Aristotle's concern for rhetoric provided with the opportunity to develop a discussion on emotions. This is because judgment is the object of rhetoric and judgements vary with emotions.
Emotions are the things on account of which the ones altered differ with respect to
their judgments, and are accompanied by pleasure and pain: such are anger, pity,
fear, and all similar emotions and their contraries. (Rhetoric 1378a20-23)
Emotions are temporary states, says Aristotle, but they affect judgement. They are an example of external causality.
Logos-->Pathos-->Ethos-->
It's all about how to use emotions in rhetoric...emotions are multi-dimensional (Steve Katz).
Darwin on Emotions
According to Darwin, emotion generates emotion, which is manifested in three forms:
- certain expressions spring from habit
- certain expressions go to their natural opposite when the emotion is reversed
- emotions are a response of the nervous system
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Prospectus
Common moves in research article introductions:
John Swales, Research into the structure of introductions to journal articles and its application to the teaching of academic writing.
Move 1: Announce the topic--in present tense
Move 2: summarize previous knowledge and research--literature review; support, verifying
Move 3: prepare for research by indicating a gap in previous research and/or by raising a question about previous work
Move 4: Introduce the present research by stating the purpose and/ by outlining the research
Creating a research base. Methods and results are framed in the past
Objectives and Criteria
Show own awareness of topic and audience' criteria in judging the article successful.
p45
Latour gives us the epistemology that makes us aware of practice. It assumes that knowledge is a social construction. So Latour looks at strategies of academic writing (25). The literature I site transforms the knowledge. You can identify controversial points by modality/style/structure. Who you site becomes very important...(33) Latour calls stacking use of former texts
Gross: The arrangement of the scientific paper
the scientific paper is itself an object. It's epistemological.
Gross claims that the arrangement of the scientific paper is a realization of the principles of Baconian induction. What is typification in science? What is the arrangement or the order of sections in the scientific paper. The Baconian principles record the series of steps taken ---Baconian induction "from contingency to natural necessity" ().
The order tells the story of how the findings came to be.
Induction regarded as foolproof.
The myth of causality is problematic...we don't always know why things happen...we can only infer cause most of the time. Gross references the IMRD form first conceptualized by P.D. Medawar (1964) a form which mirrors and substantiates the inductive method. The various sections are framing sections (intro and discussion) but the methods section is all induction.
Fayerabend talks about the context of discovery (what scientists do to get published. They reconceptualize the whole process to accomodate "rational reconstruction") and the context of justification (the methods, the rationale,
Look at sample IMRD: treatment of
An introduction to reasoning
Toulmin objects to science being seen as informal logic. He suggests a different way of thinking about logic in science and in other fields.
What's written is what gets tested--the falsifiability statements that Popper wrote about.
1. Claims
2. Grounds--results section
3. Warrants--prejudices, issues and perspectives. hard to find in science because they are tacit... can take the form of laws of nature, mathematical formulas, legal principles, rules of thumb, etc
Focus: how do you get from this starting pint to that destination?
4. Backing--the generalization make explicit the body of experience or knowldge necessary to support warrants...to establish trustworthiness of the ways of arguing a particular case. Solegal statutes must be validly legislated
Backing-->Warrants-->claims--rebuttals are answers to anticipated arguments to fend off attacks on assertions, methodology, etcl
John Swales, Research into the structure of introductions to journal articles and its application to the teaching of academic writing.
Move 1: Announce the topic--in present tense
Move 2: summarize previous knowledge and research--literature review; support, verifying
Move 3: prepare for research by indicating a gap in previous research and/or by raising a question about previous work
Move 4: Introduce the present research by stating the purpose and/ by outlining the research
Creating a research base. Methods and results are framed in the past
Objectives and Criteria
Show own awareness of topic and audience' criteria in judging the article successful.
p45
Latour gives us the epistemology that makes us aware of practice. It assumes that knowledge is a social construction. So Latour looks at strategies of academic writing (25). The literature I site transforms the knowledge. You can identify controversial points by modality/style/structure. Who you site becomes very important...(33) Latour calls stacking use of former texts
Gross: The arrangement of the scientific paper
the scientific paper is itself an object. It's epistemological.
Gross claims that the arrangement of the scientific paper is a realization of the principles of Baconian induction. What is typification in science? What is the arrangement or the order of sections in the scientific paper. The Baconian principles record the series of steps taken ---Baconian induction "from contingency to natural necessity" ().
The order tells the story of how the findings came to be.
Induction regarded as foolproof.
The myth of causality is problematic...we don't always know why things happen...we can only infer cause most of the time. Gross references the IMRD form first conceptualized by P.D. Medawar (1964) a form which mirrors and substantiates the inductive method. The various sections are framing sections (intro and discussion) but the methods section is all induction.
Fayerabend talks about the context of discovery (what scientists do to get published. They reconceptualize the whole process to accomodate "rational reconstruction") and the context of justification (the methods, the rationale,
Look at sample IMRD: treatment of
An introduction to reasoning
Toulmin objects to science being seen as informal logic. He suggests a different way of thinking about logic in science and in other fields.
What's written is what gets tested--the falsifiability statements that Popper wrote about.
1. Claims
2. Grounds--results section
3. Warrants--prejudices, issues and perspectives. hard to find in science because they are tacit... can take the form of laws of nature, mathematical formulas, legal principles, rules of thumb, etc
Focus: how do you get from this starting pint to that destination?
4. Backing--the generalization make explicit the body of experience or knowldge necessary to support warrants...to establish trustworthiness of the ways of arguing a particular case. Solegal statutes must be validly legislated
Backing-->Warrants-->claims--rebuttals are answers to anticipated arguments to fend off attacks on assertions, methodology, etcl
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Science in Action-class discussion
According to Harris, incommensurability either doesn't exist or is the result of stubbornness of people. So it's not about fields, incommensurable paradigms, but who do not want to change? What if it is a group of stubborn people/an entire discipline of stubborn people? We get a network of people that begin a new school? go through the motions of making scientific knowledge as exemplified in Science in Action.
In Science in Action, Latour notes that scientists have certain rules of method by which they communicate knowledge. These include:
(21) The rules of method
Be present during the process and after the conclusion. Positive modalities--sentence that leads a statement away from its conditions of production and so makes the statement solid. used to build something else. Negative modalities--a statement that leads to conditions of production; your claim is used to question its source and cite of production instead of being used to build something else. it makes (23) citations are about changing the status of other people's claims. It takes other people to turn claims into a fact. In moving an idea toward the lab, the certainty of the idea is diminished, the process called into question. Negative doesn't necessarily have a bad connotation; it may simply move the number to the other side of zero. An artefact leads to the death of the author and so does a fact (where your ideas become common knowldge)
Shifting modalities: elevate those arguments that support yours and demote those that don't in the form of footnotes--that's the rhetoric of science!
(25) A sentence, depending on how it is inserted in other sentences may become more of a fact or artifact. A given sentence is validated by other sentences. The way modalities change claims...(28) A statement is judged on the merits of validation accorded to it by subsequent sentences. This means that coming up with facts and machines as itself a process--a collective process.
Science does not defer to ethos?
(33) However, a scientific document is validated by collective claims, which qualify ideas and quantify proponents, who are named. Ironically, this proves isolates the reader, who feels compelled to assent in the face of overwhelming logical and authoritative backing.
The second rule of method
The First rule requires the study of science and technology in action. The second rule goes beyond the "intrinsic qualities" of a statement to focus on its construction given the various inputs. Note: In scientific literature:
Labs are about inscribing facts, creating data, which then becomes the fact that gets proliferated. The act of creation in the lab that goes into the creation of scientific knowledge may actually take away from the validity of science.
Can his theory be:
misused?
ignored?--papers that do not get cited cease to matter; the validity of their claims is eroded (41)
overused?
create new paradigms?
It's improbable to convey exactly what one means--a very Platonic concept. How can texts withstand a hostile environment?
The lab is where the scientific text originates such as patients, tumors, i.e. what scientists present to us as work completed after the lab. Its been tested, tried, and validated so that all we see is the finished product. That final product, however, may not allay out fears because it does not show the whole picture (64).
Laboratory observations allow us to witness the transformations. Janus--two-faced/conflict/reversal. Science in action is a drama of gran orchestration. there is a plce where ideas become reality..and language is the reality
In Method I when we doubt scientific literature we dig up the references and sources used. In Method II do we go to the labs, conduct our own experiment so we ca confirm/disprove the facts? Going to the lab is going away from the literature. It requires instruments, tools that provide a visual display of a scientific text. (68)
An instrument mediated by the scientists becomes both visual and audio with the metanarrative from the technician, i.e. a lay person does not get it without the interpretation of the technician, e.g. interpreting x-rays, lie detector tests, etc.
(74) The text can speak speak powerfully for itself when an instrument in the hands of the dissenter yields the results claimed by the technician. In the face of incontrovertible evidence are any further questions necessary? The dissenter may be looking for an "aggregate of possible answers" (74) which means that no one step necessarily leads to the aforegone conclusions. So we move from disbeliving the literature (Library) to manipulating the isntrument in the lab. A trial of strength(s) both for the dissenter and the technician. The technician represents musltiple aggregates until disproven, at which point he then speaks for himself. Trials of strengths contain objectivity (the technician) and subjectivity (the dissenter)--a delicate balance of power.
Counter labs (79) subjectivity on the part of the dissenter can be tied to ideology and religion (84). Dissenters argue, mobilize intruments, inscriptions but also are influenced by New Objects--what it does--something that emerges in the process?
The core of the second basic princpile (90) is the act of defining a new object.
Appealing to Nature
Can nature settle the dissens arising from the literature and from the labs? nature is like God--brings abou resolution for no one side. Nature adds to the dispute only after its ended (98).
The third rule of Method
Scientists engage in double talk. (99) "since the elements of controversy is the cause of nature's represetation not the consequence, we can never use the outcome--nature--t explain how and why a controvery has been settled (99). Scietists shift from:
hardcore activists to dyed in the wool realists (100)
Tribunas of reason
From weak to strong rehtoric
establishing proof is a costly and drawn out process; that means only a few ca do it, hence techno science comes about in new circumstances using a big amount of resources--powerful, yet small. A NETWORK. Techno-sciece fuses together the technological and social context of science. Scientific knowledge is social, historical, and sustained by material networks.
Non-technicians/experts are often seen as offering mere opinion that do not hold up to reason. Through networks, scientific knowldge can be widely dissemniated (187) or risk two binaries--rational (focuses on the phenomena) /irrational (focus on the people who conjecture). Accusations of irationality can be broken (190). differences in beliefs and knowledge are not a result of cognitive abilities, methods, adverbs. the world is logical only--it's symetery between claims. We can undertsnd ideas by mapping associations. How cause and effect are attributed; what points link to which> what size, strengths the links possess..legitimacy of the spokesperson. How when controversy arises, these elements are modified. All these questions can be raised anywhere.
Hard facts--claims encounter other claims, which may or may not be hard claims.
This view of science may be unsettling, however, lets focus.
Focus on: what ways science is rhetorical and the significance of that; the fact that science is rhetorical does not in any way undermine its power because the rhetoric is invisible. We are now making rhetoric visible. The authority of science remains a source/ standard of knowledge, as a social, educational, cultural force. We are creating transparent the knowledge that makes science.
Latour gives us a new phase: a social study of science. He moves us from abstract philosophy, paradigms, epsitemological anarchies to what goes on isnide those anarchies. We are inside the paradigms and examine how they work.
p14
The graphic presentation
Scientists rarely quote; when they do they want to distance themselves from the idea while demonstrating that they are aware of its existence. The sentence moves from a stable fact to a controversy--making it disputable. Moves from fact-->blackbox-->controversy-->lab-->quote-->fact-->lead to the nature/cycle of scientific fact.
A big piece is about modalities--the level of certainty. You have a statement, make a claim and get the paper published. There is no reaction; you are not read (ignored). To be read, you need to find an opening, a crack, a niche in the discipline so you can construct knowledge in that field. Death: you have no impact
The alternative is people pick up your ideas and cite you.
Latour focuses on who you are cited (modalities). your claim is not taken at face value; it's used to make their own arguments. You could be misquoted (which weakens the person's argument); take a piece of the claim and run with it, which misconstrues if you beleive there is a special truth. The criteria for determining misuse--
Citations al Latour
Invisbile colleges--a dimension of science--where certain authors do the work repeatedly so they get cited in that field more times. The interconnections between colleagues where the collaboration often leads to dis/association.
The Prospectus
Title--working title
Journal--mention possible ournal
Overview
Problem/opportunity/niche
Objectives/Criteria (think Latour)-- acouple of sentences
Reources
Plan for delivering of article
Bibliography
Sample article and author guidelines from Journal
Submission
Due: October 10th.
In Science in Action, Latour notes that scientists have certain rules of method by which they communicate knowledge. These include:
- declaring facts/machines in the process of generating a theory
- eliminate all preconceived notions of what constitutes knowledge (13)
(21) The rules of method
Be present during the process and after the conclusion. Positive modalities--sentence that leads a statement away from its conditions of production and so makes the statement solid. used to build something else. Negative modalities--a statement that leads to conditions of production; your claim is used to question its source and cite of production instead of being used to build something else. it makes (23) citations are about changing the status of other people's claims. It takes other people to turn claims into a fact. In moving an idea toward the lab, the certainty of the idea is diminished, the process called into question. Negative doesn't necessarily have a bad connotation; it may simply move the number to the other side of zero. An artefact leads to the death of the author and so does a fact (where your ideas become common knowldge)
Shifting modalities: elevate those arguments that support yours and demote those that don't in the form of footnotes--that's the rhetoric of science!
(25) A sentence, depending on how it is inserted in other sentences may become more of a fact or artifact. A given sentence is validated by other sentences. The way modalities change claims...(28) A statement is judged on the merits of validation accorded to it by subsequent sentences. This means that coming up with facts and machines as itself a process--a collective process.
Science does not defer to ethos?
(33) However, a scientific document is validated by collective claims, which qualify ideas and quantify proponents, who are named. Ironically, this proves isolates the reader, who feels compelled to assent in the face of overwhelming logical and authoritative backing.
The second rule of method
The First rule requires the study of science and technology in action. The second rule goes beyond the "intrinsic qualities" of a statement to focus on its construction given the various inputs. Note: In scientific literature:
- you can give up--so the text won't count
- you can go along--believe everything
- you cab read the text critically--tear it apart
Labs are about inscribing facts, creating data, which then becomes the fact that gets proliferated. The act of creation in the lab that goes into the creation of scientific knowledge may actually take away from the validity of science.
Can his theory be:
misused?
ignored?--papers that do not get cited cease to matter; the validity of their claims is eroded (41)
overused?
create new paradigms?
It's improbable to convey exactly what one means--a very Platonic concept. How can texts withstand a hostile environment?
The lab is where the scientific text originates such as patients, tumors, i.e. what scientists present to us as work completed after the lab. Its been tested, tried, and validated so that all we see is the finished product. That final product, however, may not allay out fears because it does not show the whole picture (64).
Laboratory observations allow us to witness the transformations. Janus--two-faced/conflict/reversal. Science in action is a drama of gran orchestration. there is a plce where ideas become reality..and language is the reality
In Method I when we doubt scientific literature we dig up the references and sources used. In Method II do we go to the labs, conduct our own experiment so we ca confirm/disprove the facts? Going to the lab is going away from the literature. It requires instruments, tools that provide a visual display of a scientific text. (68)
An instrument mediated by the scientists becomes both visual and audio with the metanarrative from the technician, i.e. a lay person does not get it without the interpretation of the technician, e.g. interpreting x-rays, lie detector tests, etc.
(74) The text can speak speak powerfully for itself when an instrument in the hands of the dissenter yields the results claimed by the technician. In the face of incontrovertible evidence are any further questions necessary? The dissenter may be looking for an "aggregate of possible answers" (74) which means that no one step necessarily leads to the aforegone conclusions. So we move from disbeliving the literature (Library) to manipulating the isntrument in the lab. A trial of strength(s) both for the dissenter and the technician. The technician represents musltiple aggregates until disproven, at which point he then speaks for himself. Trials of strengths contain objectivity (the technician) and subjectivity (the dissenter)--a delicate balance of power.
Counter labs (79) subjectivity on the part of the dissenter can be tied to ideology and religion (84). Dissenters argue, mobilize intruments, inscriptions but also are influenced by New Objects--what it does--something that emerges in the process?
The core of the second basic princpile (90) is the act of defining a new object.
Appealing to Nature
Can nature settle the dissens arising from the literature and from the labs? nature is like God--brings abou resolution for no one side. Nature adds to the dispute only after its ended (98).
The third rule of Method
Scientists engage in double talk. (99) "since the elements of controversy is the cause of nature's represetation not the consequence, we can never use the outcome--nature--t explain how and why a controvery has been settled (99). Scietists shift from:
hardcore activists to dyed in the wool realists (100)
Tribunas of reason
From weak to strong rehtoric
establishing proof is a costly and drawn out process; that means only a few ca do it, hence techno science comes about in new circumstances using a big amount of resources--powerful, yet small. A NETWORK. Techno-sciece fuses together the technological and social context of science. Scientific knowledge is social, historical, and sustained by material networks.
Non-technicians/experts are often seen as offering mere opinion that do not hold up to reason. Through networks, scientific knowldge can be widely dissemniated (187) or risk two binaries--rational (focuses on the phenomena) /irrational (focus on the people who conjecture). Accusations of irationality can be broken (190). differences in beliefs and knowledge are not a result of cognitive abilities, methods, adverbs. the world is logical only--it's symetery between claims. We can undertsnd ideas by mapping associations. How cause and effect are attributed; what points link to which> what size, strengths the links possess..legitimacy of the spokesperson. How when controversy arises, these elements are modified. All these questions can be raised anywhere.
Hard facts--claims encounter other claims, which may or may not be hard claims.
This view of science may be unsettling, however, lets focus.
Focus on: what ways science is rhetorical and the significance of that; the fact that science is rhetorical does not in any way undermine its power because the rhetoric is invisible. We are now making rhetoric visible. The authority of science remains a source/ standard of knowledge, as a social, educational, cultural force. We are creating transparent the knowledge that makes science.
Latour gives us a new phase: a social study of science. He moves us from abstract philosophy, paradigms, epsitemological anarchies to what goes on isnide those anarchies. We are inside the paradigms and examine how they work.
p14
The graphic presentation
Scientists rarely quote; when they do they want to distance themselves from the idea while demonstrating that they are aware of its existence. The sentence moves from a stable fact to a controversy--making it disputable. Moves from fact-->blackbox-->controversy-->lab-->quote-->fact-->lead to the nature/cycle of scientific fact.
A big piece is about modalities--the level of certainty. You have a statement, make a claim and get the paper published. There is no reaction; you are not read (ignored). To be read, you need to find an opening, a crack, a niche in the discipline so you can construct knowledge in that field. Death: you have no impact
The alternative is people pick up your ideas and cite you.
Latour focuses on who you are cited (modalities). your claim is not taken at face value; it's used to make their own arguments. You could be misquoted (which weakens the person's argument); take a piece of the claim and run with it, which misconstrues if you beleive there is a special truth. The criteria for determining misuse--
Citations al Latour
Invisbile colleges--a dimension of science--where certain authors do the work repeatedly so they get cited in that field more times. The interconnections between colleagues where the collaboration often leads to dis/association.
The Prospectus
Title--working title
Journal--mention possible ournal
Overview
Problem/opportunity/niche
Objectives/Criteria (think Latour)-- acouple of sentences
Reources
Plan for delivering of article
Bibliography
Sample article and author guidelines from Journal
Submission
Due: October 10th.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Bruno Latour’s Science in Action
We can see the science in action by opening the blackbox of science as we follow engineers and scientists through society by following the "cycles of accumulation. Behind all scientific texts lie inscriptions, and all inscriptions are produced through instruments: this is what scientists do in labs, in action. The end result is what is presented to the public in the form of graphs, equations, photos--all scientific texts.
Latour's Science in Action approaches science rhetorically, by highlighting the persuasive and political work that must be done to establish a scientific or technological fact. He bases his analysis on three central figures:
We will enter facts and machines while they are in the making; we will carry with us no preconceptions of what constitutes knowledge; we will watch the closure of the black boxes and be careful to distinguish between two contradictory explanations of this closure, one uttered when it is finished, the other while it is being attempted. This will constitute our first rule of method and will make our voyage possible. ( pp. 13-15.)
The rules of Method
Latour's Science in Action approaches science rhetorically, by highlighting the persuasive and political work that must be done to establish a scientific or technological fact. He bases his analysis on three central figures:
- science as war
- as network, and
- as Janus-faced --to help delineate the junctures between Ready Made Science & Science in the Making
We will enter facts and machines while they are in the making; we will carry with us no preconceptions of what constitutes knowledge; we will watch the closure of the black boxes and be careful to distinguish between two contradictory explanations of this closure, one uttered when it is finished, the other while it is being attempted. This will constitute our first rule of method and will make our voyage possible. ( pp. 13-15.)
The rules of Method
Rules of Method
Rule 1 We study science in action and not ready made science or technology; to do so, we either arrive before the facts and machines are blackboxed or we follow the controversies that reopen them
Rule 2 To determine the objectivity or subjectivity of a claim, the efficiency or perfection of a mechanism, we do not look for their intrinsic qualities but at all the transformations they undergo later in the hands of others
Rule 3 Since the settlement of a controversy is the cause of Nature's representation, not its consequence, we can never use this consequence, Nature, to explain how and why a controversy has been settled.
There are several increases in the number of elements that help establish a claim--papers, labs, new objects, professions, nature, etc (179)
Rule 4 Since the settlement of a controversy is the cause of Society's stability, we cannot use Society to explain how and why a controversy has been settled. We should consider symmetrically the efforts to enroll human and non-human resources.
Rule 5 We have to be as undecided as the various actors we follow as to what technoscience is made of; every time and inside/outside divide is built, we should study the two sides simultaneously and make the list, no matter how long and heterogeneous, of those who do the work
Rule 6 Confronted with the accusation of irrationality, we look neither at what rule of logic has been broken, nor at what structure of society could explain the distortion, but to the angle and direction of the observer's displacement, and to the length of the network thus being built.
Rule 7 Before attributing any special quality to the mind or to the method of people, let us examine first the many ways through which inscriptions are gathered, combined, and tied together and sent back. Only if there is something unexplained once the networks have been studied shall we start to speak of cognitive factors.
Principles
Principles are Bruno Latour's personal summary of the empirical facts, after a decade of work in the area.
First principle The fate of facts and machines is in later users' hands; their qualities are thus a consequence, not a cause, of collective action.
Second principle Scientists and engineers speak in the name of new allies that they have shaped and enrolled; representatives among other representatives, they add these unexpected resources to tip the balance of force in their favour.
Third principle We are never confronted with science, technology and society, but with a gamut of weaker and stronger associations; thus understanding what facts and machines are is the same as understanding who the people are.
Fourth principle The more science and technology have an esoteric content the further they extend outside; thus 'science and technology' is only a subset of technoscience.
Fifth principle Irrationality is always an accusation made by someone building a network over someone else who stands in the way; thus, there is no Great Divide between minds, but only shorter and longer networks; harder facts are not the rule but the exception, since they are needed only in a very few cases to displace other on a large scale out of their usual ways.
Sixth principle History of technoscience is in a large part the history of the resources scattered along networks to accelerate the mobility, faithfulness, combination and cohesion of traces that make action at a distance possible.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Fayerabend's Objection
Objects to the measuring sticks for knowledge across cultures; these include observations, experiments, measurement, etc, as basis for scientific truth. Any method that narrows things down to a stable set of parameters is anathema to Fayerabend; not even language is main element of reality.
Overlapping paradigms:
(17) The creation of a theme (the relationship between idea and action) juxtaposed with propaganda, brainwashing. Facts are constructed from raw data and interpretation...it's a process of symbolizing. The fact is already a construction (see Bacon). Even the medium that light moves in skews what we see.
Philosophy is important in this discussion because there are a lot of assumptions made
(21) linear accumulation is being called into question here
(22)...facts and statements..calls into question the accumulation of knowledge and discipline and the testing of fact against what? Criticism of sensory data and the medium that the data goes through being abstract and not being subject to criticism.can't compare a fact to the material medium because of the related problems (medium, ideal, ) how do you check a fact? what do you compare it to; not even critical rationality (Popper's falsification--to prove something is true you have to prove it's false). We can compare facts to a dreamworld (22). You wipe the slate and admit everything into science.
All things being equal, a fairy tale equals science--depending on different belief systems...
(29)
Overlapping paradigms:
(17) The creation of a theme (the relationship between idea and action) juxtaposed with propaganda, brainwashing. Facts are constructed from raw data and interpretation...it's a process of symbolizing. The fact is already a construction (see Bacon). Even the medium that light moves in skews what we see.
Philosophy is important in this discussion because there are a lot of assumptions made
(21) linear accumulation is being called into question here
(22)...facts and statements..calls into question the accumulation of knowledge and discipline and the testing of fact against what? Criticism of sensory data and the medium that the data goes through being abstract and not being subject to criticism.can't compare a fact to the material medium because of the related problems (medium, ideal, ) how do you check a fact? what do you compare it to; not even critical rationality (Popper's falsification--to prove something is true you have to prove it's false). We can compare facts to a dreamworld (22). You wipe the slate and admit everything into science.
All things being equal, a fairy tale equals science--depending on different belief systems...
(29)
Against Method
Fayerabend asserts that scientists have no particular claims on truth. To him, the rationality of science does not really exist and the special status and prestige of scientists are based on their own claims to objective truth. Progress in science is because scientists break every principle in the rationalists' rule book and adopt the principle that "anything goes." Individual theories are not consistent with one another, and since there is no single "scientific method," scientific success flows not only from rational arguments, but also from a mixture of subterfuge, rhetoric, conjecture, politics and propaganda
The history of science is not based on facts and their conclusion. It contains:
Chapter 1
Method viz historical research presents new paradigms in the scientific revolution resulted from (a) scientists breaking with the set of methodologies (b) refusing to be bound by set methods (14), which is a prerequisite to the growth of knowledge. Interest plays a bigger role in the growth of knowledge (17). Idea + action; what comes first? Action may help solidify the idea better.
ideas-->other ideas-->new instruments -->evidence
-->new research-->..........................-->new theories
All resulting in new ideologies that can provide independent arguments to account for some of it (17). Anarchism helps to achieve progress in any one of the sense (18). Note:
1. you cannot have a fixed method/theory of rationale
Chapter 2
Testing empiricism
This can be done through facts, experimental results, and data supporting the theory. What about the counter rule? When the hypothesis is inconsistent with accepted theories and when the hypotheses are inconsistent with established facts. How to obtain evidence that refutes a theory "use alternative, when refutations have discredited the orthodox theory (20-21). Develop a pluralistic methodology (21) compare ideas and other ideas NOT experience. In the process, discard wholly, or in part; accept others, build/cumulative a body of knowledge that consists of "mutually incompatible alternatives" (21)--> an articulation of theories that helps form man's consciousness.
1. Break the cycle
2. use a new conceptual system that clashes with the norm; use a counter induction.
Bottom line: why against method? All methodologies have their limits (23).
Chapter 3
why the counter rule? [use hypothesis, inconsistent with well-established theories]
Precipitate real progress and not merely arbitrary change (26). Walls are created by the consistency condition (25-26) stick with what you know. So: invent and articulate alternatives then produce refuting facts; use rational inquiry...pluralism of ideas and forms of life.
Doing, insinuating and assumes a great deal of ignorance in follow up by example that illustrate the contention.
Chapter 4
Overcoming the status quo in science
1. adopt a pluralistic methodology (33)
2. compare theories with other theories not with experience/data/facts
3. tries to improve not discard view that appear wavy.
Sources of alternative theories (see bottom pp33-34)
Past, future, myths. prejudices, fantasies
Scientific chauvinism exemplified in many ways. Advocates pluralism of theories and metaphysical view for methodology as essential to a humanitarian outlook.
Chapter 5
"No single theory ever agrees with the known facts, objects, domain (34)
1. Qualitative failures
2. quantitative adjustments
Theories with qualitative defects need not to be rejected, e.g. Newton's theory of colors (44) and classical mechanics (46)
50: Method demands that a theory be judged by experience, and be rejected if it contradicts accepted basic statements.
Fayerabend: reject for these demands are useless. New paths: Hume: theories can be derived from facts where there are no facts, no theories can be derived/
Solution: drop the demands for facts before theory. Revise methodology to include counter induction and unsupported hypotheses.
51: eliminate all rules even on the basis of falsification claim: theory may be inconsistent with evidence, not because it is incorrect, but because the evidence is contaminated, e.g. Copernican theory.
52: Evidence should never judge our theories directly.
Chapter 15
Contemporary criticisms.
Context of discovery and context of justification norms and facts/observational terms theoretical term
147: 2. Popper's critical rationalism
3. incommensurability
Fayerabend attempts to draw methodological conclusion from historical examples. In doing so, he confounds 2 distinct contexts, namely, discovery and justification. Discovery--> may be due to serendipity, it is irrational
Justification-->has to be ordered
Logical reconstruction of the conceptual structure testing of the theories
Can science advance with no strong interaction between the 2 domains.
Do scientists often go against the rules?
148: 1: they invent theories
2: contemplate the new theories in a relaxed fashion
3: make moves that go against methodological rules by:
history as description ---these two are not boundary lines; they are temporary
methodology: what should be done
Theories may be removed for conflicting observations, which may be removed from theoretical reasons.
Learning involves both observation and theory without privileging one over the other. Experiences is developed together with theoretical assumptions not before.
150: incommensurability and rationality of science; what so the standard rational argument?
151: be able to produce rules, standards, restrictions so we can measure against irrational behavior/ Establish rules and standards of criticism. Attempts to protect from criticisms tale away from rationality.
Natural science connects criticism to experiments and observation. the content of theory is the sum total of its potential falsifiers (151)
How does critical rationalism develop?
1, Start with a problems--expectations not fulfilled/mistaken irregularity because the expected regularity is amiss.
2. Try to solve the problem by
153: Facts are discovered then explained by theories. Dangers of living within the rules of critical rationalism produce monsters frowning upon personal connection between entities may harm people.
So science needs to be reformed to make it more anarchic/subjective (Kierkeguard). It is not possible to have both science as we know it and the rules of critical traditionalism. Why?
1. Ideas, practices, etc, do not start with a problem. If they start from play, should that aspect be excluded?
2. Strict falsification wipes out science--not permit it to start.
The principles of critical rationalism are:
Attempting to make science rational will wipe away science. The so called deviations and errors are what permit science to develop. Reason must frequently be dismissed for progress to occur.
Appendix I
Logic does not operate in science. Science is not a measure of excellence. Initial impulses (215) awareness, individual consciousness (216). How change was effected; observer questions: the details f an e.g. Hagel; traditional position, negation, synthesis. A starting place for establishing rules of thumb.
Participant question--attitude that participants have towards the intruder/
217: Pragmatic philosophy is taken where there is no way out but to conform. A pragmatist is both participants (what to do) and can observer what lends that?
Platonisms--assumes new entities, real, entities of common sense imperfect
Sophism--natural objects critical objects of mathematical unrealistic, simple minded. (219)
Platonists and ideal forms of knowledge despise existing knowledge. Value statement pertaining to science have their origin is tradition. They do not reflect individual preferences. So what the relationship between readers and practice?
222. 1: reason guides practice--it holds independent authority from practices, traditions--ideal
2: reason receives content and authority from practice.
Naturalism describes how practice works and what principles guide it.
223: the two ought work together with the practice helping to correct/improve the ideal
225: on traditions--neither good nor bad. Rationality is neither good nor bad. Does not provide an alternative to tradition. Tradition assumes desirable qualities when compared with some other so as to reveal its shortcomings (229)/
All methodologies have their limits. Idealism claims rationality to justify its actions, which makes it dogmatic and critical. The demand for content increase/drive knowledge, pushes people beyond the accepted limit.
235: Non-contradiction as a necessary condition for reason/
236: Knowledge qualitative and observatory (Aristotle). Today knowledge is quantitative and theoretical. It all depends on privilege and on the culture.
Postscript on Relativism
268: relativism as much a chimaera of absolutism
Appendix 2
the separation of science and non-science is not only artificial but also detrimental to the advancement of knowledge.
The language of observations: the absence of language does not hinder scientific inquiry
Against Method
attacks the idea that science has a single method that has stood the test of time that advances science
irrational ideas are the core of science as they are the basis upon which revolutions are built.
The method is that is that science works by collecting facts and inferring theories from them but that cannot be because theories do not result from facts in a logical sense.
falsification is not the answer as some theories are not falsifiable and have some observations that do not fit perfectly those that exist are not in agreement with the statements. every theory has flaws.
Like Kuhn, Feyerabend believed that standard logical-empiricist accounts of confirmation, theory, and other topics were quite inadequate to explain the major transitions that have occurred in the history...
Three Biographies
Kuhn's incommensurability is the relations between 2 scientific traditions separated by a scientific revolution and implies:
Fayerabend's incommensurability began with his perceived imitation in the notion of observational (154) terms applied. Incommensurability is the tie between two succeeding general scientific theories (154). Meanings and usage play as big a role in paradigm shifts as do in/observable features of the world (155). Incommensurability has a lot to do with meanings and descriptive terms of theories being "mutually inconsistent" (155).
Kuhn and Fayerabend both address the same phenomena -- a particular form of theory change with strange properties (157). Kuhn was concerned with modern physics and Aristotle 's diminished role in it. To Fayerabend, observation sentences are strongly theory dependent. Fayerabend's trigger is philosophical while Kuhn's is historical, brought about by a particular experience. A range of theories is subject to incommensurability. Underscore: Fayerabend: fundamental theories that are interpreted in particular ways --realism, e.g. Greeks,-->classical antiquity; impetus-->classical mechanics, etc.
Such theories once interpreted a specific way (realism) influence their respective objects.
could no be understood as an addition to Kuhn--wider range including small unexpected discoveries. To Kuhn "the new development the oldest" (160). New also carries new meaning shifts.
The history of science is not based on facts and their conclusion. It contains:
- ideas
- interpretation of facts
- problems resulting from different interpretations
- mistake, etc
Chapter 1
Method viz historical research presents new paradigms in the scientific revolution resulted from (a) scientists breaking with the set of methodologies (b) refusing to be bound by set methods (14), which is a prerequisite to the growth of knowledge. Interest plays a bigger role in the growth of knowledge (17). Idea + action; what comes first? Action may help solidify the idea better.
ideas-->other ideas-->new instruments -->evidence
-->new research-->..........................-->new theories
All resulting in new ideologies that can provide independent arguments to account for some of it (17). Anarchism helps to achieve progress in any one of the sense (18). Note:
1. you cannot have a fixed method/theory of rationale
Chapter 2
Testing empiricism
This can be done through facts, experimental results, and data supporting the theory. What about the counter rule? When the hypothesis is inconsistent with accepted theories and when the hypotheses are inconsistent with established facts. How to obtain evidence that refutes a theory "use alternative, when refutations have discredited the orthodox theory (20-21). Develop a pluralistic methodology (21) compare ideas and other ideas NOT experience. In the process, discard wholly, or in part; accept others, build/cumulative a body of knowledge that consists of "mutually incompatible alternatives" (21)--> an articulation of theories that helps form man's consciousness.
1. Break the cycle
2. use a new conceptual system that clashes with the norm; use a counter induction.
Bottom line: why against method? All methodologies have their limits (23).
Chapter 3
why the counter rule? [use hypothesis, inconsistent with well-established theories]
Precipitate real progress and not merely arbitrary change (26). Walls are created by the consistency condition (25-26) stick with what you know. So: invent and articulate alternatives then produce refuting facts; use rational inquiry...pluralism of ideas and forms of life.
Doing, insinuating and assumes a great deal of ignorance in follow up by example that illustrate the contention.
Chapter 4
Overcoming the status quo in science
1. adopt a pluralistic methodology (33)
2. compare theories with other theories not with experience/data/facts
3. tries to improve not discard view that appear wavy.
Sources of alternative theories (see bottom pp33-34)
Past, future, myths. prejudices, fantasies
Scientific chauvinism exemplified in many ways. Advocates pluralism of theories and metaphysical view for methodology as essential to a humanitarian outlook.
Chapter 5
"No single theory ever agrees with the known facts, objects, domain (34)
1. Qualitative failures
2. quantitative adjustments
Theories with qualitative defects need not to be rejected, e.g. Newton's theory of colors (44) and classical mechanics (46)
50: Method demands that a theory be judged by experience, and be rejected if it contradicts accepted basic statements.
Fayerabend: reject for these demands are useless. New paths: Hume: theories can be derived from facts where there are no facts, no theories can be derived/
Solution: drop the demands for facts before theory. Revise methodology to include counter induction and unsupported hypotheses.
51: eliminate all rules even on the basis of falsification claim: theory may be inconsistent with evidence, not because it is incorrect, but because the evidence is contaminated, e.g. Copernican theory.
52: Evidence should never judge our theories directly.
Chapter 15
Contemporary criticisms.
Context of discovery and context of justification norms and facts/observational terms theoretical term
147: 2. Popper's critical rationalism
3. incommensurability
Fayerabend attempts to draw methodological conclusion from historical examples. In doing so, he confounds 2 distinct contexts, namely, discovery and justification. Discovery--> may be due to serendipity, it is irrational
Justification-->has to be ordered
Logical reconstruction of the conceptual structure testing of the theories
Can science advance with no strong interaction between the 2 domains.
Do scientists often go against the rules?
148: 1: they invent theories
2: contemplate the new theories in a relaxed fashion
3: make moves that go against methodological rules by:
- interpreting evidence in a manner that fits theories ideas
- eliminate differences by ad hoc procedures or
- push aside/refuse to take differences seriously
history as description ---these two are not boundary lines; they are temporary
methodology: what should be done
Theories may be removed for conflicting observations, which may be removed from theoretical reasons.
Learning involves both observation and theory without privileging one over the other. Experiences is developed together with theoretical assumptions not before.
150: incommensurability and rationality of science; what so the standard rational argument?
151: be able to produce rules, standards, restrictions so we can measure against irrational behavior/ Establish rules and standards of criticism. Attempts to protect from criticisms tale away from rationality.
Natural science connects criticism to experiments and observation. the content of theory is the sum total of its potential falsifiers (151)
How does critical rationalism develop?
1, Start with a problems--expectations not fulfilled/mistaken irregularity because the expected regularity is amiss.
2. Try to solve the problem by
- inventing a theory that is relevant/falsifiable
153: Facts are discovered then explained by theories. Dangers of living within the rules of critical rationalism produce monsters frowning upon personal connection between entities may harm people.
So science needs to be reformed to make it more anarchic/subjective (Kierkeguard). It is not possible to have both science as we know it and the rules of critical traditionalism. Why?
1. Ideas, practices, etc, do not start with a problem. If they start from play, should that aspect be excluded?
2. Strict falsification wipes out science--not permit it to start.
The principles of critical rationalism are:
- take falsification seriously
- increase content
- avoid ad hoc hypotheses
- be honest
- -precision
- base theories on measurements
- avoid vague/unstable ideas
Attempting to make science rational will wipe away science. The so called deviations and errors are what permit science to develop. Reason must frequently be dismissed for progress to occur.
Appendix I
Logic does not operate in science. Science is not a measure of excellence. Initial impulses (215) awareness, individual consciousness (216). How change was effected; observer questions: the details f an e.g. Hagel; traditional position, negation, synthesis. A starting place for establishing rules of thumb.
Participant question--attitude that participants have towards the intruder/
217: Pragmatic philosophy is taken where there is no way out but to conform. A pragmatist is both participants (what to do) and can observer what lends that?
Platonisms--assumes new entities, real, entities of common sense imperfect
Sophism--natural objects critical objects of mathematical unrealistic, simple minded. (219)
Platonists and ideal forms of knowledge despise existing knowledge. Value statement pertaining to science have their origin is tradition. They do not reflect individual preferences. So what the relationship between readers and practice?
222. 1: reason guides practice--it holds independent authority from practices, traditions--ideal
2: reason receives content and authority from practice.
Naturalism describes how practice works and what principles guide it.
223: the two ought work together with the practice helping to correct/improve the ideal
225: on traditions--neither good nor bad. Rationality is neither good nor bad. Does not provide an alternative to tradition. Tradition assumes desirable qualities when compared with some other so as to reveal its shortcomings (229)/
All methodologies have their limits. Idealism claims rationality to justify its actions, which makes it dogmatic and critical. The demand for content increase/drive knowledge, pushes people beyond the accepted limit.
235: Non-contradiction as a necessary condition for reason/
236: Knowledge qualitative and observatory (Aristotle). Today knowledge is quantitative and theoretical. It all depends on privilege and on the culture.
Postscript on Relativism
268: relativism as much a chimaera of absolutism
Appendix 2
the separation of science and non-science is not only artificial but also detrimental to the advancement of knowledge.
The language of observations: the absence of language does not hinder scientific inquiry
Against Method
attacks the idea that science has a single method that has stood the test of time that advances science
irrational ideas are the core of science as they are the basis upon which revolutions are built.
The method is that is that science works by collecting facts and inferring theories from them but that cannot be because theories do not result from facts in a logical sense.
falsification is not the answer as some theories are not falsifiable and have some observations that do not fit perfectly those that exist are not in agreement with the statements. every theory has flaws.
Like Kuhn, Feyerabend believed that standard logical-empiricist accounts of confirmation, theory, and other topics were quite inadequate to explain the major transitions that have occurred in the history...
Three Biographies
Kuhn's incommensurability is the relations between 2 scientific traditions separated by a scientific revolution and implies:
- a change in the problems to be addressed by theory
- change in methods and concepts
- people in different paradigms practice their trades in different worlds (152-153)
Fayerabend's incommensurability began with his perceived imitation in the notion of observational (154) terms applied. Incommensurability is the tie between two succeeding general scientific theories (154). Meanings and usage play as big a role in paradigm shifts as do in/observable features of the world (155). Incommensurability has a lot to do with meanings and descriptive terms of theories being "mutually inconsistent" (155).
Kuhn and Fayerabend both address the same phenomena -- a particular form of theory change with strange properties (157). Kuhn was concerned with modern physics and Aristotle 's diminished role in it. To Fayerabend, observation sentences are strongly theory dependent. Fayerabend's trigger is philosophical while Kuhn's is historical, brought about by a particular experience. A range of theories is subject to incommensurability. Underscore: Fayerabend: fundamental theories that are interpreted in particular ways --realism, e.g. Greeks,-->classical antiquity; impetus-->classical mechanics, etc.
Such theories once interpreted a specific way (realism) influence their respective objects.
could no be understood as an addition to Kuhn--wider range including small unexpected discoveries. To Kuhn "the new development the oldest" (160). New also carries new meaning shifts.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Thomas S. Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions chronicles major turning points in scientific development. Notable names in this field include Einstein, Newton, Copernicus, and Lavoisier. See also
and
How revolutions came about
Scientific revolutions can also emerged from not so revolutionary episodes (6-7) if they were resisted no matter how revolutionary. New inventors of theories challenge the status quo on many levels. A complete overhaul of theory and practice of theory that has long held. the cummulative effect of new inventions is science is not wihout price; it means re-evaluation, alteration of the familiar, and a shift of the network of theory hence the new discoveries are revolutionary (8).
Key terms: norma science as a puzzle-solving activity
The route to normal science.
What is normal science? it is research based on one or more past scientific achievements accalaimed (10)
Paradigms are classics of science that:
How does a science develop before it becomes a paradigm?
It begins with a fundamental disagreement, for example, how electrical research began. So early fact gathering is crucial.
What makes a theory a paradigm?
Effects of a new paradigm:
If a paradigm is a work that has been done, what follows therafter? A paradigm is an object; it calls for further rticulation (23) under strictre conditions (23). examples of paradigms (23). here is normal science in action: "normal scientific researc is directed to the articulation of pehnomena and theories supplied by the paradigm (24). What is normal/paradigmatic research cosnsits of scientific investigation:
Results-obtained in research help solidify the values of the paradigm. Knowing the reults before hand does not take away from the hows--puzzle--solving--> therein lies the challenge
What are puzzles?
Priority Paradigms
Careful examination involves isolating the in-thing and examining the rules that govern "direct inspection of paradigms " (44) common attributes--resemblances (45). Scientists work from establishing models; neither questions nor answers are relevant to scientists. paradigms determine normal science without rules.
Anomaly and the structure of scientific discoveries
Normal science is cumulative; successful in its aim, extension of scope, and precision of scientific knowledge (52). Novelties are not the goal of normal science; they are only stumbled upon.
Crisis and the emergence of scientific theories (66)
fact: there are no categorical nor permanent distinctions between fact and theory and discovery and inventions; e.g the discovery of oxygen is sees as discovery (by Priestley) and Oxygen as invention (by Lavoisier).
When existing rules fail, it becomes fertile ground for new ones to develop..
case: astronomical system; Joseph Black--Co2; phlogiston theory (70) was the basis of theory research that resulted in "proliferation of numerous versions of the theory indicating a crisis. Alternate theories can account for one source of data. they work with existing theories until unable then they are retooled (76).
The response to crisis
Crises are necessary conditions for the emergence of new novel theories (77). How do scientists respond to the existence of crises? they never renounce the current paradigm and do not treat anomalies as counter.
rejecting the current paradigm is accepting the new after comparisons with each other and against the anomaly (77). paradigms that are the basis for research do not resolve all problems. If they do, they cease to be fodder and become instead tools like geometric optics (79).
Theory and fact have to come together. Falsification (80) was necessary in the search for confirmation. Einstein's relativity fixed Newton's motion of Mercury. Incremental data results when crises worsens stereotypes then paradigm shift happens (89).
Crises blur the paradigm and allow rules to loosen for normal research. both trigger research akin to the pre-paradigm days. Crises close in one of 3 ways:
Nature of and necessary Scientific Revolutions
What are scientific revolutions?
what is their function in scientific development.
Scientific revolutions are non-developmental/cumulative episodes that see an older paradigm replaced by another either wholly or in part (92).
Why revolution?
An existing paradigm ceases to function adequately (92) malfunctioning can lead to revolutions based on the notion: what is the problem? what is the solutions?
No paradigm solves all inherent problems.
A change in paradigm is often a change in worldview (113...the Gestalt) The scientists may deduce differently from observing the same thing but that does not make that thing the same. Aristotle--constrained
Galileo--Pendulum swing stones (121)
Data are not unequivocally stable (121) but "interpretation is central to the enterprise that explores it (122) by articulating, not correcting it. Worldview comes about by making distinctions which leads to a search for an operational definition )13-135).
The Resolution of Revolutions (144)
What is the process of paradigm change? Individuals see things differently, focus on them are new to the field. The researcher solves puzzles using various alternative moves within the existing paradigm only when they fail is the paradigm subjected to test against a competing (emerging) one. Verification: is a theory probable in the light of possible relevant tests not verifiable.
verification too;--natural selection that seeks out the most viable among alternatives.
Karl Popper denies the existence of verification and prefers falsification, which theory fits the facts better(147)
Incommensurability of standards between the two schools of thought (Einstein--relativity; Copernicus earth rotates).
The transition between incommensurable/competing must occur at once
152-153 only after acceptance does a new paradigm cause dissent and questions no in h revolution into textbook where it is debated (157) resolution.
Does Kuhn's notion of paradigm change
Assumptions of traditional science as per Pratt
pg 96 is he critiquing Pratt and Locke? Kuhn disputes cumulation, given the paradigmatic shifts that occur in revolutions "the normal-scientific tradition that emerges from a scientific revolution is not only incompatible but often actually incommensurable with that which has gone before" (103). Kuhn equates the paradigm to perception.
and
How revolutions came about
- The community rejected the then honored scientific theory in favor of one incompatible with it (6)
- Problem--solution: what presented itself as a problem and what admitted a s solution
- The transformation factor in which both the scientific community and the world were forever transformed
Scientific revolutions can also emerged from not so revolutionary episodes (6-7) if they were resisted no matter how revolutionary. New inventors of theories challenge the status quo on many levels. A complete overhaul of theory and practice of theory that has long held. the cummulative effect of new inventions is science is not wihout price; it means re-evaluation, alteration of the familiar, and a shift of the network of theory hence the new discoveries are revolutionary (8).
Key terms: norma science as a puzzle-solving activity
The route to normal science.
What is normal science? it is research based on one or more past scientific achievements accalaimed (10)
Paradigms are classics of science that:
- were unprecendented as achievements that attracted groups hitherto committed to a previous position
- opn-ended for a new group to resolve
How does a science develop before it becomes a paradigm?
It begins with a fundamental disagreement, for example, how electrical research began. So early fact gathering is crucial.
What makes a theory a paradigm?
- beat the comptetion--be better than the current
- need not explain all the facts
Effects of a new paradigm:
- It eviscerates the status quo
- loses its members to the new movement
- ignores those who won't change
- Gives rise to specialized journals along with a new and more rigid defintion.
If a paradigm is a work that has been done, what follows therafter? A paradigm is an object; it calls for further rticulation (23) under strictre conditions (23). examples of paradigms (23). here is normal science in action: "normal scientific researc is directed to the articulation of pehnomena and theories supplied by the paradigm (24). What is normal/paradigmatic research cosnsits of scientific investigation:
- class of facts that the paradigm shows reeal the nature of things
- facts that compare with predictions frm the paradigm's theory
- empirical work is invloved in articulating and solving problems that resulted in the paradigm
- serendipity as discussed by Bacon
- developing special apparatus, precision
- exploration (29)
- determining significant facts
- match the facts with theo theory
- articulate the theory
Results-obtained in research help solidify the values of the paradigm. Knowing the reults before hand does not take away from the hows--puzzle--solving--> therein lies the challenge
What are puzzles?
- Problems that have solutions
- stated in conceptual terms
- problems must have rules that limit the nature of acceptable solutions and the steps to obtain them (38)
Priority Paradigms
Careful examination involves isolating the in-thing and examining the rules that govern "direct inspection of paradigms " (44) common attributes--resemblances (45). Scientists work from establishing models; neither questions nor answers are relevant to scientists. paradigms determine normal science without rules.
- rules are difficult to discover
- theories come with applications
- paradigms guide research by direct modeling as though abstracting ideas (47). paradigms need not be applied to a very broad scientific group (49).
Anomaly and the structure of scientific discoveries
Normal science is cumulative; successful in its aim, extension of scope, and precision of scientific knowledge (52). Novelties are not the goal of normal science; they are only stumbled upon.
- Discovery and invention became aware of anomaly
- explore the anomaly
- adjust the theory so there is no anomaly when X then Y that becomes scientific fact (53)
- Fact/theory discovery involves recognizing that something is and what it is (55).
Crisis and the emergence of scientific theories (66)
fact: there are no categorical nor permanent distinctions between fact and theory and discovery and inventions; e.g the discovery of oxygen is sees as discovery (by Priestley) and Oxygen as invention (by Lavoisier).
When existing rules fail, it becomes fertile ground for new ones to develop..
case: astronomical system; Joseph Black--Co2; phlogiston theory (70) was the basis of theory research that resulted in "proliferation of numerous versions of the theory indicating a crisis. Alternate theories can account for one source of data. they work with existing theories until unable then they are retooled (76).
The response to crisis
Crises are necessary conditions for the emergence of new novel theories (77). How do scientists respond to the existence of crises? they never renounce the current paradigm and do not treat anomalies as counter.
rejecting the current paradigm is accepting the new after comparisons with each other and against the anomaly (77). paradigms that are the basis for research do not resolve all problems. If they do, they cease to be fodder and become instead tools like geometric optics (79).
Theory and fact have to come together. Falsification (80) was necessary in the search for confirmation. Einstein's relativity fixed Newton's motion of Mercury. Incremental data results when crises worsens stereotypes then paradigm shift happens (89).
Crises blur the paradigm and allow rules to loosen for normal research. both trigger research akin to the pre-paradigm days. Crises close in one of 3 ways:
- normal science proves able
- problem resists new approaches
- a new candidate for paradigm emerges
- the proliferation of articulations
- the willingness to do anything
- the expression for explicit discontent
- the recourse to philosophy and debate over fundamentals (91
Nature of and necessary Scientific Revolutions
What are scientific revolutions?
what is their function in scientific development.
Scientific revolutions are non-developmental/cumulative episodes that see an older paradigm replaced by another either wholly or in part (92).
Why revolution?
An existing paradigm ceases to function adequately (92) malfunctioning can lead to revolutions based on the notion: what is the problem? what is the solutions?
No paradigm solves all inherent problems.
A change in paradigm is often a change in worldview (113...the Gestalt) The scientists may deduce differently from observing the same thing but that does not make that thing the same. Aristotle--constrained
Galileo--Pendulum swing stones (121)
Data are not unequivocally stable (121) but "interpretation is central to the enterprise that explores it (122) by articulating, not correcting it. Worldview comes about by making distinctions which leads to a search for an operational definition )13-135).
The Resolution of Revolutions (144)
What is the process of paradigm change? Individuals see things differently, focus on them are new to the field. The researcher solves puzzles using various alternative moves within the existing paradigm only when they fail is the paradigm subjected to test against a competing (emerging) one. Verification: is a theory probable in the light of possible relevant tests not verifiable.
verification too;--natural selection that seeks out the most viable among alternatives.
Karl Popper denies the existence of verification and prefers falsification, which theory fits the facts better(147)
Incommensurability of standards between the two schools of thought (Einstein--relativity; Copernicus earth rotates).
The transition between incommensurable/competing must occur at once
152-153 only after acceptance does a new paradigm cause dissent and questions no in h revolution into textbook where it is debated (157) resolution.
Does Kuhn's notion of paradigm change
Assumptions of traditional science as per Pratt
- Objective--the senses as non-filters; the mind and senses don't play games
- language as conduit
- linear and accumulative
- accurate record
- control of nature
pg 96 is he critiquing Pratt and Locke? Kuhn disputes cumulation, given the paradigmatic shifts that occur in revolutions "the normal-scientific tradition that emerges from a scientific revolution is not only incompatible but often actually incommensurable with that which has gone before" (103). Kuhn equates the paradigm to perception.
Rhetoric and Incommensurability
Incommensurability, According to dictionary.reference.com means having no common basis, measure, or standard of comparison; utterly disproportionate, having no common measure, Impossible to measure or compare
Commensurable --> measurable
Plato/Stanford distinguishes value incomensurability, which is incommensurability between values that must be distinguished from the kind of incommensurability associated with Paul Feyerabend (1978, 1981, 1993) and Thomas Kuhn (1977, 1983, 1996) in epistemology and the philosophy of science. Feyerabend and Kuhn were concerned with incommensurability between rival theories or paradigms — that is, the inability to express or comprehend one conceptual scheme, such as Aristotelian physics, in terms of another, such as Newtonian physics.
In contrast, "contemporary inquiry into value incommensurability concerns comparisons among abstract values (such as liberty or equality) or particular bearers of value (such as a certain institution or its effects on liberty or equality). The term “bearer of value” is to be understood broadly. Bearers of value can be objects of potential choice (such as a career) or states of affairs that cannot be chosen (such as a beautiful sunset). Such bearers of value are valuable in virtue of the abstract value or values they instantiate or display (so, for example, an institution might be valuable in virtue of the liberty or equality that it engenders or embodies)" http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-incommensurable/.
According to Kuhn, epistemological different ideas are not compatible. The categories of incommensurability (p22). There are a number of types:
diachronic--language as time /synchronic--language at one particular time (23).
3 ways of talking incommensurability etiology--what causes the communication breakdown.
severity--how substrantial are breakdown
population--who is affected between whom?
Among these are correlations that affect one more than the other, perhaps brick wall incommensurability (25). Two mutually impenetrable walls of communication. Total incommensurability (p27) is it trivial, banal, fictitious? lack of communication = incommensurability, e.g. humans-->dolphins
Cosmetic: seeing one thing in two different ways because of the angle.
Lingusitic relativity--language and thought are inextricably interelated (34) bottom (34).
Semantic incommensurability arises out of lingusitics complication variance in meaning (41) relative to age, region, or interest. It's OK to have meaning various. it only becomes an issue when meaning is impinged upon Locke, Pratt (perception through Whorf accounts for different (49).
Local incommensurability is confined to a small space (50)
Dialogic rhetoric (50) the role of audience (51) constrant shifting/refining of positions to accomodate listeners lexicon (53) "mastering the lexicon means acquiring the skill to recognize its appropriate application in various settings and to encounter the world in those terms (53).
Misaligned meanings
Pragmatic incommensurability concerns non-referential, non-lexical patterns of talk and practice that divide and sepate "pardigmatic disposition" (56).
Patterns of talk are wjat values argument are based on; what data informs those values
Related uses of incommensurability (61)
Value incommensurability (moral, political, aesthetic) 69 value pluralism and sophists (73) Socrates-->Phaedrus-->Soul constitutive role of rhetoric (73). Miller on rhetoric and diversity in communities (74).
Postmodernist incommensurability reinforces post-modernism and opacity between language and the concepts of differend (74).
Allows for differences because it rejects totalization, hates metanarratives associated with power and authority...distrusts political structures.
Meta incommensurability
Incommensurable among incommensurable (80). A realist and an instrumentalist can take opposite views of the same data and find it "commensurable in some instances and ...incommensurable in other ways (80).
**********************
Rhetoric and
According to Khun, incommensurability can be termed in lexical notions in a manner amenable to scientific theory (80-81)
Fayerabend believed in the flexibility that allows scientific discourse to mutate; so rhetoric can ind a way around incommensurability (81). scientific theorie are incommensurable (82) that discovery has implications.
Words have the capacity to evolve with time, usgae (83) theories too with time, except there are not enough theories and incommensurability is an extreme form of ebbing (84).
Commensurable --> Measurement-->Precision--necessary for science
Undermining that quality is off-putting. ergo-different theories cannot be interchangeable; different theories=different language; distinct, unique
But theories are about terminologies not grammar (86) Whorf
Incommensurability does not obtain for trivial theories in the same domain (88). Meaning is contextual and argumentation relies on a selective approach to build context that affords one meaning while constraining another. so with context you ca bring 2 disparate theories together (89) so "two perspectives can be assimilated to the same overall framework (89). how can any two things be completely compatible? Incommensurability = misunderstanding/disagreement (92).
***************************
Rhetoric and Remedy
Incommensurability invites non-scientists to examine how science does what it does given the disparities in themes, practices, meanings (97).
Significantly where thinkers do not perceive differences (97-98); what is rhetoric?
rhetoric offers a compromise (99) in that:
audience strives for charity, empathy, generosity, truth
Have a good attitude at all times; strive for consensual truth to achieve reciprocal suasion (101).
Persistence of incommensurability
exists where:
Alan Gross--Kuhn's Incommensurability (179)
Gross focuses on lexicon--words ; on local semantics resulting from research not based on theory and how that affects mis/communication. Gross argues that Kuhn is using paradigm, etc metaphorically so he goes out of the way to point to ideas. To Gross, science is more about making worlds than about truths, which makes it rhetorical as it seeks to persuade in the face of meaninglessness.
Rhetoric and Incommensurability 196
Gross claims that you can have a position free of Kuhn's lense...Induction/deduction (192) Because history is purely inductive, you can arrive at incommensurability (as revealed by historical examples) because you see the lexicon in particular cases and recognize the miscommunication therein--the theories/terms were incompatible or deductively where by analogy you can argue incommensurability away.
does the existence of incommensurability put a stop to progress?
Gross says the issue of incommensurability is a problem of rhetoric and not of philosophy; certainly not of science.
Induction and lexicon are not incommensurable terms...
Commensurable --> measurable
Plato/Stanford distinguishes value incomensurability, which is incommensurability between values that must be distinguished from the kind of incommensurability associated with Paul Feyerabend (1978, 1981, 1993) and Thomas Kuhn (1977, 1983, 1996) in epistemology and the philosophy of science. Feyerabend and Kuhn were concerned with incommensurability between rival theories or paradigms — that is, the inability to express or comprehend one conceptual scheme, such as Aristotelian physics, in terms of another, such as Newtonian physics.
In contrast, "contemporary inquiry into value incommensurability concerns comparisons among abstract values (such as liberty or equality) or particular bearers of value (such as a certain institution or its effects on liberty or equality). The term “bearer of value” is to be understood broadly. Bearers of value can be objects of potential choice (such as a career) or states of affairs that cannot be chosen (such as a beautiful sunset). Such bearers of value are valuable in virtue of the abstract value or values they instantiate or display (so, for example, an institution might be valuable in virtue of the liberty or equality that it engenders or embodies)" http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-incommensurable/.
According to Kuhn, epistemological different ideas are not compatible. The categories of incommensurability (p22). There are a number of types:
- Brick-wall--stymied communication
- Cosmic--differences in habituation
- Semantic--clusters of meaning
- Pragmatic--appeal to different values
- Values and postmodernists --> pragmatic
diachronic--language as time /synchronic--language at one particular time (23).
3 ways of talking incommensurability etiology--what causes the communication breakdown.
severity--how substrantial are breakdown
population--who is affected between whom?
Among these are correlations that affect one more than the other, perhaps brick wall incommensurability (25). Two mutually impenetrable walls of communication. Total incommensurability (p27) is it trivial, banal, fictitious? lack of communication = incommensurability, e.g. humans-->dolphins
Cosmetic: seeing one thing in two different ways because of the angle.
Lingusitic relativity--language and thought are inextricably interelated (34) bottom (34).
Semantic incommensurability arises out of lingusitics complication variance in meaning (41) relative to age, region, or interest. It's OK to have meaning various. it only becomes an issue when meaning is impinged upon Locke, Pratt (perception through Whorf accounts for different (49).
Local incommensurability is confined to a small space (50)
Dialogic rhetoric (50) the role of audience (51) constrant shifting/refining of positions to accomodate listeners lexicon (53) "mastering the lexicon means acquiring the skill to recognize its appropriate application in various settings and to encounter the world in those terms (53).
Misaligned meanings
Pragmatic incommensurability concerns non-referential, non-lexical patterns of talk and practice that divide and sepate "pardigmatic disposition" (56).
Patterns of talk are wjat values argument are based on; what data informs those values
- not semantic
- not cosmic--no perceptua issues at stake
- not brickwall (61).
Related uses of incommensurability (61)
- totalizing terminology (absolute, entire)
- perceptual (different, relative, degree)
- pragmatic term (practice, problem, values) 62
Value incommensurability (moral, political, aesthetic) 69 value pluralism and sophists (73) Socrates-->Phaedrus-->Soul constitutive role of rhetoric (73). Miller on rhetoric and diversity in communities (74).
Postmodernist incommensurability reinforces post-modernism and opacity between language and the concepts of differend (74).
Allows for differences because it rejects totalization, hates metanarratives associated with power and authority...distrusts political structures.
Meta incommensurability
Incommensurable among incommensurable (80). A realist and an instrumentalist can take opposite views of the same data and find it "commensurable in some instances and ...incommensurable in other ways (80).
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Rhetoric and
According to Khun, incommensurability can be termed in lexical notions in a manner amenable to scientific theory (80-81)
Fayerabend believed in the flexibility that allows scientific discourse to mutate; so rhetoric can ind a way around incommensurability (81). scientific theorie are incommensurable (82) that discovery has implications.
Words have the capacity to evolve with time, usgae (83) theories too with time, except there are not enough theories and incommensurability is an extreme form of ebbing (84).
Commensurable --> Measurement-->Precision--necessary for science
Undermining that quality is off-putting. ergo-different theories cannot be interchangeable; different theories=different language; distinct, unique
But theories are about terminologies not grammar (86) Whorf
Incommensurability does not obtain for trivial theories in the same domain (88). Meaning is contextual and argumentation relies on a selective approach to build context that affords one meaning while constraining another. so with context you ca bring 2 disparate theories together (89) so "two perspectives can be assimilated to the same overall framework (89). how can any two things be completely compatible? Incommensurability = misunderstanding/disagreement (92).
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Rhetoric and Remedy
Incommensurability invites non-scientists to examine how science does what it does given the disparities in themes, practices, meanings (97).
Significantly where thinkers do not perceive differences (97-98); what is rhetoric?
rhetoric offers a compromise (99) in that:
- it recognizes variance in meaning and sees theory ladenness in context and purpose
- it denies privilege to theory laden terms
audience strives for charity, empathy, generosity, truth
Have a good attitude at all times; strive for consensual truth to achieve reciprocal suasion (101).
Persistence of incommensurability
exists where:
- Agonistic rhetoric--all or nothing stance (105)
- dialectical exchanges that drive apart (106). the remedy is in incommensurability itself (107)
Alan Gross--Kuhn's Incommensurability (179)
Gross focuses on lexicon--words ; on local semantics resulting from research not based on theory and how that affects mis/communication. Gross argues that Kuhn is using paradigm, etc metaphorically so he goes out of the way to point to ideas. To Gross, science is more about making worlds than about truths, which makes it rhetorical as it seeks to persuade in the face of meaninglessness.
Rhetoric and Incommensurability 196
Gross claims that you can have a position free of Kuhn's lense...Induction/deduction (192) Because history is purely inductive, you can arrive at incommensurability (as revealed by historical examples) because you see the lexicon in particular cases and recognize the miscommunication therein--the theories/terms were incompatible or deductively where by analogy you can argue incommensurability away.
does the existence of incommensurability put a stop to progress?
Gross says the issue of incommensurability is a problem of rhetoric and not of philosophy; certainly not of science.
Induction and lexicon are not incommensurable terms...
Why Rhetoric of Science?
Scientific knowledge guides the way the public is targeted and hinges on the formulation of public policy. The public then has a stake in the outcome of the myriad of experiments. The aim of scientific publication is to improve the public's understanding of science.
Based on my understanding that rhetoric of science is more than scientific discourse that rather it is science as it is communicated to and consumed by the public who then use that knowledge (not information) is used to advocate public policy.
Scientists stake their claims based not on proof but on likely outcomes ; on probable cause and effect. However, putting that information out their on its own is not enough to effect change. it is not until data becomes information and then knowledge that science can work.
The audience is often lay persons--the public, who deliberate about the world around them, not scientists. Audiences get scientific information through text, and visuals, which include graphs, tables, diagrams, photographs, paintings, and drawings . This information should not be obfuscated in any way, if it is to serve its purpose.
Scientific information comes to the public through newspaper and magazine articles. People who would not normally pick up a scientific journal
Contemporary communication has seen the need for visualization in designing content; this visualization is seen as adding value to content and making it worthwhile for readers.
Resources:
Kenneth Burk writes about symbols inducing action "symbolic means of influencing belief and behavior" (7). Randy Harris in Rhetoric and Incommensurability writes about "effective suasion" (8)
Rhetoric..."speculation into language as filtes, as tools, as medium, first of knowing and then of distributing hat is made known" (9).
Variables of argumentation (19)
Cateories of rhtorical proof (ethos, pathos, logos) strategies and techniques inherent within thse strands and how they are applied to particular cases (hueristics)
Strategies of inquiry--we call them. They include enthymeme, topoi
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Stasis is to stand (131)
From status as promulgated by Gorgias->aristotle-->Hermagoras
"the place between the direction of a controversy can take" (13). There are Four parts to Stasis: (fact--> definition-->quality-->jusridiction
Cicero in "De Inventione" indicate 4-ways stasis system-->has got 5 elements of rhetoric of rhetoric-->3 genres of oratory-->6 parts of oration. Cicero moves from casting rhetoric as persuasion to casting it as a "fluid instrument of understanding" (14) resulting in wisdom delivered through eloquence.
Aesthetics "concerns have always been integral to rhetoric" (15). Gorgias' influence is said to have resulted in figures, tropes, schemes ushering in an element of aesthetics and science.
Harris claims these have come to be seen as misleading, corrosive to truth and knowldge (15) while Spratt, Locke, Bacon resisting rhetoric largely due to mistrust meant that science steered clear of rhetoric--Plato/Ramus/Bacon.
The irony, though, is that in this phase, science communication was largely based on monologue--knower addressing the ignorant. Isocrates' claim that persuasion-->identification-->Burke (what's in it for me?)
Epsitemology--what counts for knowldge in science? According to Harris " a conequence of inerpretatioon, social construction, and rhtorical choice" (17).
Based on my understanding that rhetoric of science is more than scientific discourse that rather it is science as it is communicated to and consumed by the public who then use that knowledge (not information) is used to advocate public policy.
Scientists stake their claims based not on proof but on likely outcomes ; on probable cause and effect. However, putting that information out their on its own is not enough to effect change. it is not until data becomes information and then knowledge that science can work.
The audience is often lay persons--the public, who deliberate about the world around them, not scientists. Audiences get scientific information through text, and visuals, which include graphs, tables, diagrams, photographs, paintings, and drawings . This information should not be obfuscated in any way, if it is to serve its purpose.
Scientific information comes to the public through newspaper and magazine articles. People who would not normally pick up a scientific journal
Contemporary communication has seen the need for visualization in designing content; this visualization is seen as adding value to content and making it worthwhile for readers.
Resources:
Kenneth Burk writes about symbols inducing action "symbolic means of influencing belief and behavior" (7). Randy Harris in Rhetoric and Incommensurability writes about "effective suasion" (8)
Rhetoric..."speculation into language as filtes, as tools, as medium, first of knowing and then of distributing hat is made known" (9).
Variables of argumentation (19)
Cateories of rhtorical proof (ethos, pathos, logos) strategies and techniques inherent within thse strands and how they are applied to particular cases (hueristics)
Strategies of inquiry--we call them. They include enthymeme, topoi
***************************************************************
Stasis is to stand (131)
From status as promulgated by Gorgias->aristotle-->Hermagoras
"the place between the direction of a controversy can take" (13). There are Four parts to Stasis: (fact--> definition-->quality-->jusridiction
Cicero in "De Inventione" indicate 4-ways stasis system-->has got 5 elements of rhetoric of rhetoric-->3 genres of oratory-->6 parts of oration. Cicero moves from casting rhetoric as persuasion to casting it as a "fluid instrument of understanding" (14) resulting in wisdom delivered through eloquence.
Aesthetics "concerns have always been integral to rhetoric" (15). Gorgias' influence is said to have resulted in figures, tropes, schemes ushering in an element of aesthetics and science.
Harris claims these have come to be seen as misleading, corrosive to truth and knowldge (15) while Spratt, Locke, Bacon resisting rhetoric largely due to mistrust meant that science steered clear of rhetoric--Plato/Ramus/Bacon.
The irony, though, is that in this phase, science communication was largely based on monologue--knower addressing the ignorant. Isocrates' claim that persuasion-->identification-->Burke (what's in it for me?)
Epsitemology--what counts for knowldge in science? According to Harris " a conequence of inerpretatioon, social construction, and rhtorical choice" (17).
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Situating Science in Rhetoric
Definitions
Rhetoric as it comes to us from Ancient Greece is the study of persuasion.
Rhetoric as it comes to us from Ancient Greece is the study of persuasion.
With time, the term has gone beyond persuasion to mean "symbolic inducement"(Burke) or "arguments for adherence'" (Perelman), which all come down to studying how language works "to instill, dislodge, or modify beliefs--to suasion".
Science is the practice of making knowledge about the natural world. Rhetoric of Science then is an epistemological pursuit, which leads us to epistemology, knowledge, truth, and science. Our task then is to reconcile such esteemed terminology with words like persuasion, opinion, belief, and rhetoric.
How does rhetoric occur in science?
There is considerable work necessary to transform ideas from the scientific sphere to even the semi-popular pages of Scientific American or New Scientist.
Modern science distastes metaphors as is documented by Spratt, of the Royal Society. Spratt called for scientists to eschew all tropes including metaphor. 'Give me as many things in so many words, give me as many ideas in so many words.' He was against literary elaboration, which metaphor is wont to do. "Metaphor names things 'incorrectly', so in one sense it describes an incorrect referent. Spratt's desire to 'cleanse' the language of science arose from the perceived power of metaphors to inflame passion in one of the most internally poisonous periods of English domestic history. Yet Spratt's ideas about good language have a surprisingly modern resonance.
Rhetoric and Incommensurability
Why the Copenhagen method was shelved in favor of the Newtonian method.
Cooperation—works when scientists debate and critically think about issues they can come to a consensus. Rather than Newtonian schools working better than Copenhagen has to do with what the public does with science. P107 incommensurable does not mean not/working together, which makes inco…ty a good thing.
For Khun it's not just about sensation; there must be a physical aspect
How do apriori categories aid in the nature of science? (Kant: Prolegomena p.4-46). "Objective reality and necessary reality for everybody are equivalent.
Incommensurability is not in ideas, theories, language but in people. The remedy is in rhetoric (what doesn't get resolved are people). Is it physical incommensurability—an incommensurability of things, not of people?
Incommensurability is not in ideas, theories, language but in people. The remedy is in rhetoric (what doesn't get resolved are people). Is it physical incommensurability—an incommensurability of things, not of people?
If incommensurability….does exist and derails physics, what's the point of science?
Bacon's four idols and Harris' ways of incommensurability
Bacon Harris ways of incommensurability
Idols of the tribe Brick-wall (gibberish)
Idols of the cave Cosmic (differences in perception of the same phenomena
Idols of the marketplace-- Semantic (clusters of meaning being out of synch)
Idols of the theatre—philosophical systems Pragmatic (themes ad practices of contending parties are out of synch)
It's a problem of people rather than things or theories.
Fit for pint: A rhetorical analysis of peer reviews in scientific publications
technological change and scientific publication
continues to influence society, how those changes are reported, argued about, and decided upon within and without the scientific community will increase in importance.
rhetorical dynamics of science policy controversies as they play out in public disputes
over medical ethics.
What role, if any, do rhetorical interpretations play in the discourse of science? Can the acceptance of scientific ideas be exhaustively explained in terms of epistemic criteria alone, or is there always necessarily recourse to rhetorical topoi?
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