[William_Rehg]_Science Wars, Argumentation Theory and Habermas

8/15/2019 [William_Rehg]_Science Wars, Argumentation Theory and Habermas

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The Science Wars , Argumentation Theory , and Habermas

WILLIAM REHG

COGENTSCIENCEIN CONTEXT


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Cogent Science in Context


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Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought (partial listing)Thomas McCarthy, general editor

Theodor W. Adorno, Hegel: Three Studies Theodor W. Adorno, Prisms

James Bohman, Democracy across Borders: From Dêmos to Dêmoi James Bohman, Public Deliberation: Pluralism, Complexity, and Democracy James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, editors, Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s CosmopolitanIdeal Hauke Brunkhorst, Solidarity: From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal Community

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Action Jürgen Habermas, Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God and Modernity Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of BourgeoisSociety

Jürgen Habermas, Truth and Justication Joseph Heath, Communicative Action and Rational Choice Axel Honneth, The Critique of Power: Reective Stages in a Critical Social Theory Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conicts Tom Huhn and Lambert Zuidervaart, editors, The Semblance of Subjectivity: Essays in Adorno’s AestheticTheoryElliot L. Jurist, Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche: Philosophy, Culture, and AgencyCristina Lafont, The Linguistic Turn in Hermeneutic Philosophy

Jeff Malpas, Ulrich Arnswald, and Jens Kertscher, editors, Gadamer’s Century: Essays in Honor ofHans-Georg Gadamer Christoph Menke, The Sovereignty of Art: Aesthetic Negativity in Adorno and Derrida Brian O’Connor, Adorno’s Negative Dialectic: Philosophy and the Possibility of Critical RationalityClaus Offe, Modernity and the State: East, West Claus Offe, Varieties of Transition: The East European and East German Experience Kevin Olson, Reexive Democracy: Political Equality and the Welfare State Kirk Pillow, Sublime Understanding: Aesthetic Reection in Kant and Hegel William Rehg, Cogent Science in Context: The Science Wars, Argumentation Theory, and Habermas William Rehg and James Bohman, editors, Pluralism and the Pragmatic Turn: The Transformation ofCritical Theory

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Cogent Science in Context

The Science Wars, Argumentation Theory, and Habermas

William Rehg

The MIT PressCambridge, MassachusettsLondon, England


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© 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rehg, William.Cogent science in context : the science wars, argumentation theory, and Habermas / WilliamRehg. p. cm.—(Studies in contemporary German social thought)Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 978-0-262-18271-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)1. Habermas, Jürgen. 2. Science—Philosophy. 3. Debates and debating. 4. Persuasion(Rhetoric). I. Title.B3258.H324R444 2009121—dc22 2008029433

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: Science Wars, New and Old 1

I The Argumentative Turn in Science Studies 15

1 Science as Argumentative Practice 17

2 Kuhn’s Gap: From Logic to Sociology 33

3 Closing the Gap: Three Rhetorical Perspectives on Science 57

Postscript I: The Return of the Logical: Achinstein’s RealistTheory of Evidence 81

II Integrating Perspectives: Habermas’s Discourse Theory 99

4 Habermas’s Critical Theory and Science: Truth and Accountability 101

5 Habermas’s Theory of Argumentation as an Integrated Model ofCogency 129

6 Argumentation at Fermilab: Putting the Habermasian Modelto Work 163

Postscript II: Who’s Afraid of SSK? The Problem and Possibilitiesof Interdisciplinary Cooperation 195


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III Toward a Critical Contextualist Framework forInterdisciplinary Assessment 211

7 Adjusting the Pragmatic Turn: Lessons from Ethnomethodology 213

8 Three Dimensions of Argument Cogency—A Contextualist CaseStudy 241

9 Critical Science Studies and the Good Society 269

Notes 297

References 313

Index 337

viContents


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Preface and Acknowledgments

In this work I reect on the cogency of scientic arguments. Although Iapproach that issue primarily as a philosopher, the issue itself is a matterof concern for many groups—not only the scientists who make argumentswhen they adduce evidence in support of hypotheses, but for anyone

concerned about the basis of scientic claims or interested in understandingthat basis: laypersons, policymakers, science journalists, scholars of scienceand technology studies (STS), critical social theorists, rhetorical scholars, andargumentation theorists. Although many members of these groups do notconsider themselves philosophers, they nonetheless have an interest in thephilosophical issues raised by scientic inquiry. I therefore address thisbook not only to professional philosophers but also to members of these othergroups as well—in the hope that they do not nd the philosophical terrainoverly taxing. The growing importance of science for policy-formation andlawmaking, as well as the increasing need for interdisciplinary work, posestough philosophical problems that are not well served by supercialtreatment.

The approach I defend is both critical and contextualist in character. Incalling the approach “critical,” I do not mean that it takes a dismissive, skepti-cal attitude toward the sciences and scientic argumentation; rather, “critical”here has the sense of a discriminating evaluation. In labeling the approach“contextualist,” I emphasize the sensitivity of such evaluation to the particular

contexts—the particular experimental locales and subdisciplinary communi-ties of discourse—in which arguments are made and assessed. At the sametime, I formulate the critical contextualist approach as a comprehensive frame-work within which analysts from different disciplines can cooperate in the


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viiiPreface and Acknowledgments

critical evaluation of scientic arguments. The endless parade of case studieswithin STS has led some of its members to ask: to what end? The presentstudy, I hope, provides an answer: a way to see how case studies can t togetherwithin a larger vision oriented toward the assessment of cogent science thatserves both the production of knowledge and the good of society.

This work is the product of engagement with many groups and individuals.I am thankful to a number of people who provided helpful feedback on earlierdrafts: Garth Hallett, S.J., and three anonymous reviewers for going throughthe entire book, Kent Staley and Richard Blackwell for feedback on chapters

dealing with the philosophy of science and physics, and Thomas McCarthyfor his ever sage advice on the introduction and overall framing of the project.The History and Philosophy of Science reading group at Saint LouisUniversity, organized with the help of Kent Staley, Aaron Cobb, and ScottCrothers, commented on two chapters. A number of people provided feed-back on earlier versions of chapters or parts of chapters that appeared in talksand articles: Alison Wylie, Paul Roth, James Bohman, Peter Achinstein, SteveFuller, Scott Berman, David Bogen, Douglas Marcouiller, S.J., Michael

Barber, S.J., Walter Jost, Walter Ong, S.J., Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, AndreasNiederberger, Jean Goodwin, and J. Anthony Blair. I also thank participantsin the following occasions for feedback on papers that eventually worked theirway into book chapters: the 1999 and 2004 meetings of the Philosophy ofSocial Science Roundtable (St. Louis, 1999); the Science Studies Seminar atthe University of Oslo (Oslo, Norway, 1999) and the STS Colloquium atMIT (2002); philosophy department colloquiua at Saint Louis University(2000, 2004), the Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany (2005), andLoyola University-Chicago (2006); the Critical Theory Roundtable (St. Louis,2004); and the Society for the Social Study of Science (4S) (Pasadena, 2005).Finally, I am especially grateful to comembers of three interdisciplinary panelsof which I was a member, and to the audiences for those panels. The rst,at the 2002 meeting of 4S in Milwaukee, included William Keith, JamesCollier, and Steve Fuller. The second panel, held at the National Commu-nication Association meeting in Chicago (2004), was organized by JeanGoodwin and included J. Anthony Blair and Robert Asen, with Lynn Clarkeas chair. This panel proved especially important for chapter 8 of the book,and I thank Jean for inviting me into such a fruitful exchange that continuesto this day. The third panel, organized by Kent Staley and including HenryFrisch and Deborah Tollefsen, dealt with scientic collaborations; it was held


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ixPreface and Acknowledgments

at the 2004 meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association in Austin,Texas.

Research for the book itself began during my stay as a Visiting Scholar atthe Science, Technology, and Society Program at MIT in 2001–2002, fundedby a Saint Louis University SLU2000 Research Leave Grant. At MIT I founda very hospitable environment: as chair, Merritt Roe Smith graciously wel-comed me into the STS Program, and Kenneth Oye of the MIT PoliticalScience Department invited me into his colloquium on science and technologypolicy. For particular aspects of research, I owe thanks to Alison Wylie, who

generously provided me with a copy of an article by Jean Gero, and to theCouncil for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) for a copy of their1982 report on the National Academy of Science’s Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer .For research assistance during the years I worked on the book, I thank TakiSuto, David Packman, Jonathan Nelson, Paul Leisen, and Yong Li.

There is, however, an older debt I would also like to acknowledge. I doubtthat this book would have come about but for teachers who stimulated myinterest in science and for the opportunity to work as a research chemist in the

mid-1970s. For their stimulating teaching and mentoring, I am particularlygrateful to Joseph Sens, Rubin Battino, and Michael Smith. For the opportu-nity to engage in professional research, I am deeply thankful to Robert E.Sievers, with whom I worked over an exciting two-year career transition thattook him from Aerospace Research Labs and Monsanto Research Corpora-tion in Dayton, Ohio, to the University of Colorado in Boulder. My gratitudeextends not only to Bob for his professional leadership but also to his entirefamily for their gracious hospitality and friendship in Boulder.

This book incorporates some previously published material, most of itheavily revised. Material in chapter 5 rst appeared as a chapter in Rhetoric andHermeneutics in Our Time (edited by W. Jost and M. J. Hyde; Yale UniversityPress, 1997). The postscript for Part II rst appeared in Philosophy of the SocialSciences (March 2000). Earlier versions of chapter 7 appeared as a chapter inPluralism and the Pragmatic Turn (edited by W. Rehg and J. Bohman; MIT Press,2001) and then, after substantial revision, in Economic Policy under Uncertainty (edited by P. Mooslechner, H. Schuberth, and M. Schürz; Edward ElgarPublishing, 2004); chapter 7 also includes material from an article publishedin the Canadian journal Symposium (2005). Some material in chapter 8 rstappeared in the journal Informal Logic (2005). I gratefully acknowledge the workof the editors and referees of these venues.


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xPreface and Acknowledgments

Finally, there are a number of people whose support goes beyond the tan-gibles. Eleonore Stump has provided insistent and ongoing encouragement tobring the project to a conclusion. My Jesuit superiors Douglas Marcouiller,Ralph Huse, Timothy McMahon, and Frank Reale have all been supportiveover the years—as have so many Jesuit brothers in communities that welcomedme as I worked on various phases of the project: at the Weston School ofTheology in Cambridge, Massachusetts; at the Sankt Georgen community inFrankfurt am Main; at Loyola University-Chicago; and here at Saint LouisUniversity. Finally, my department chair, Ted Vitali, C.P., has not only pro-

vided release time but has been a constant source of support and good humor.Without the moral support of these people, I doubt this project would havereached completion.


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Introduction: Science Wars, New and Old

Today one can hardly avoid noticing an odd polarization in attitudes towardthe natural sciences. What makes the polarization odd is its place. It does notappear so much as a split between two areas of the globe—between an alleg-edly rational, secular West and religious, tradition-bound non-Western cul-

tures. Rather, the polarization is found precisely in those Western cultures thathave been historically most committed to the advancement of science andtechnology. This is especially true in the United States. Among the interna-tional leaders in science and technology, the United States has nonethelessbeen the host of intense, increasingly acrimonious debates over the status andlegitimacy of the natural sciences.

Among the most publicly visible debates are those over the relationshipbetween science and religion. Here evolutionary biology has been a particu-larly effective lightning rod. Atheistic scientists employ Darwinian modes ofnaturalistic explanation in arguments against religious belief, while Christianfundamentalists advance a literal reading of Genesis as the basis for a “cre-ation science” that deserves equal time in science education. “Intelligentdesign” theorists take a somewhat different tack, arguing that improbablebiological complexity requires supernatural explanations of evolution. Likethe naturalists they oppose, both creationists and intelligent design theoristslay claim to an idea of “science.” In doing so, they advance a view aboutwhat counts as a scientic argument—what sort of evidence or explanatory

inference provides good reason for accepting a claim about the natural worldand its origins.

However, conicts over the nature of scientic argument and explanationdo not arise only when religion gets involved. The potential for polarization


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2Introduction

exists whenever the sciences claim to uncover avoidable risks that call forpolitical or personal response. The political and corporate resistance to theclaims of the International Panel on Climate Change provides an example.Similar to the evolution debates, here too an oppositional atmosphere devel-oped in which the trend of opinion in the science community by 2007—con-sensus on the reality of warming and growing acceptance of its likely sourcein human fossil-fuel emissions—ran into a small group of skeptics, includingsome scientists, whose inuence on the debate exceeded their numbers (seeLahsen 2005; Weart 2003). But unlike the evolution debates, the players were

not attempting to redene science itself so much as arguing about the strengthof evidence and whether it warrants potentially costly economic measures. Forthe public at large, however, such public dissension raises questions about howto assess controversial scientic claims.

The debates over evolution and global warming involve more than themutual misunderstanding that often separates scientists and nonscientists(Snow 1961). Although misunderstandings abound, the recent debates reecta distinct issue, an issue that must arise for any culture committed to taking

the sciences seriously. Scientic research is bound to generate claims thatimpinge not only on cherished religious beliefs but also on lifestyle, health,diet, environmental quality, and the like—and thus on the pursuit of personal,economic, and political interests. In such contexts, the rationality of scienticarguments deserves special scrutiny. As the debates show, scientic evidencecan be contested: the evidence normally involves uncertainties; often enoughit rests on assumptions that later prove incorrect. And are not scientic claimsmerely “theories” or “hypotheses” rather than facts? Do not scientists too havetheir biases? So say the creationists about evolution, and so claim the skepticsabout global warming.

In this book I tackle the deeper question that underlies controversies likethose described above: what makes a scienti c claim merit our consideration? In aca-demic contexts, versions of this question have been at the forefront of inter-disciplinary controversy for the last half-century. The rationality debates—or,as they now tend to be labeled, the “science wars”—have been a contentiousaffair involving the disciplines that contribute to “science studies,” whichinclude inter alia the history and philosophy of science, and the sociology ofscientic knowledge. The public controversies over evolution and globalwarming (among others) display the new, public face of the academic sciencewars. 1


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3Introduction

The science wars should hardly surprise us, given what is at stake. On theone hand, the sciences are widely perceived as tremendously successful: incontributing to technological development and improving health care andthe quality of life, in understanding the mysteries of nature. On the otherhand, in contemporary pluralistic societies, “science” is one of the few intel-lectual authorities that nearly everyone still acknowledges. In general, theprevailing popular assumption has been that properly conducted scienceestablishes the facts in an “objective” manner, which remains neutral withrespect to value-laden decisions for which those facts are relevant. To be sure,

as the latest science wars demonstrate, lay publics can withhold recognitionof specic disciplines (evolutionary biology) or contest specic claims (regard-ing climate change) when these conict with cherished beliefs or particularinterests.

These widespread assumptions about scientic objectivity and the neatdivide between fact and value, science and policy, are precisely what cameunder re in the academic science wars that had been brewing since the 1960s.Upon closer inspection, the vaunted “scientic method” proved to be a dubious

oversimplication that belied the messy, often controversial pastiche of localtechniques, shortcuts and biased judgments, ad hoc decisions, and social nego-tiations that characterize the actual conduct of inquiry. Like other areas ofhuman endeavor, the sciences exist and develop as social practices—exercisesin embodied social rationality, which the various empirical branches of sciencestudies have documented through a series of sociological and historical casestudies. This trend has challenged defenders of science to develop more real-istic conceptions of scientic rationality.

This challenge confronts anyone who still regards the sciences as capable ofplaying a legitimate role in contemporary life. If the claims of science do notissue straight from the mouth of nature, amplied without distortion by scien-tic method, then on what basis do they deserve acceptance? Inuenced bythe study of controversy in the sciences, many science studies scholars answerthat question by referring, implicitly if not explicitly, to the argued character ofscientic claims. Scientists strive to support their claims with good reasons ofone sort or another: observational evidence, experimental tests, mathematicaland theoretical considerations, and so on. The two debates I described aboveinvolve conicting views about how we ought to understand the process andstandards of argument-making in the sciences. In light of such conicts, wecan put the central question of this book more precisely: what is it that makes


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4Introduction

scientic arguments cogent, and how ought we reasonably to assess thatcogency?

This question calls for a prescriptive or normative reply. The empiricallyminded disciplines in science studies generally strive to avoid prescription.But descriptive-explanatory analyses leave open the unavoidable problem ofassessing the reasonableness of the scientic claims that increasingly confrontus with potentially relevant information for public and personal decisionmaking. From administrative policymakers designing environmental regula-tions to courts grappling with DNA tests, from legislatures debating hazardous

material controls to international bodies negotiating fossil-fuel emission stan-dards, from publics deliberating limits on stem cell research to individualsdeciding on cancer detection and treatment, increasingly we nd ourselvesconfronted by questions in which reasonable choices require us to assess therelevant scientic ndings. Whether one accepts such ndings as input forchoice, puts them aside as overly uncertain, or contests them as irrelevant,one takes a normative stance on what makes scientic arguments strong orcogent.

Within science and technology studies (STS), one nds different approachesto scientic argumentation (see Keith and Rehg 2008). Evidence theories tendto focus on the logical relationships linking statements of evidence with hypoth-eses, though some take a more dialectical approach that stresses the severityof tests a hypothesis has passed (cf. Popper 1980; Mayo 1996; Achinstein 2001).Social epistemologists typically examine the ways in which scientic argumen-tation is socially organized (Longino 1990; Solomon 2001), in some casesdrawing on the rhetorical tradition as well (Fuller 1993). Ideas of rhetoric havealso entered into sociological and historical studies of scientic controversy andtheoretical development (Shapin and Schaffer 1985; Beller 1999). This plural-ism in the approaches to scientic argumentation leads me to propose a morecomprehensive framework that can integrate these various initiatives at aconceptual level and foster greater cross-fertilization and interdisciplinaryexchange within science studies.

For a comprehensive normative framework I look to the study of argumen-tation (“argumentation theory”) as an interdisciplinary endeavor that providesa set of categories—drawn from logic, linguistics, dialectic, rhetoric, and soon—for the description and evaluation of arguments. My thesis is that catego-ries and questions from the study of argumentation can provide a broadframework or heuristic that will help us critically assess the information and


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5Introduction

claims issuing from the empirical sciences. Although philosophers have donemuch work on the nature of inductive evidence and justication, systematicefforts to bring the full scope of argumentation studies explicitly to bear on thestudy of science remain rare. The best-known confrontations between argu-mentation studies and science have gone by the label “rhetoric of science.” Inthis vein, Steve Fuller’s Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge(1993; cf.Fuller and Collier 2004) makes one of the more ambitious attempts to date atworking out a general rhetorical-dialectical framework for cross-disciplinaryexchange in STS. But as I explain in chapter 1, rhetoric and dialectic do not

exhaust the resources of argumentation theory. Moreover, though Fuller andI converge on particular points (see esp. the end of sec. 1 in chapter 9 below),his central focus differs from mine. He does not provide a detailed treatmentof cogency as a normative concept, but rather places the brunt of his normativeanalysis on how to hold scientic policy discourse accountable to democraticinstitutions. By contrast, I arrive at democratic accountability only by way ofa broader normative analysis of cogency.

In turning to argumentation studies for a normative framework, I assume

that even in noncontroversial settings, scientic hypotheses, results, and fore-casts must take shape as arguments and nd their way in social processes ofargumentation. Indeed, scientic ndings and hypotheses become matters ofpublic knowledge only through a process of “critical discussion” or argumenta-tion—the construction, presentation, scrutiny, and reception of scientic argu-ments, that is, claims supported by evidential reasons. Scientists put forth sucharguments publicly via a range of venues—lectures, preprints and publishedarticles, internal reports, monographs. In doing so, they expect other scien-tists—at the very least, journal referees—to take a critical attitude, askingwhether the evidence and reasoning supports the author’s claims. In speakingof the “critique” or “critical assessment” of scientic arguments, then, I do notmean a skeptical dismissal or rejection of the argument, but rather a processthat lies at the heart of good science and science-intensive policy. Both in thesciences and in the various contexts in which the sciences meet society, onemust examine scientic claims for their strength—is the nding conclusive,probable, or a mere possibility based on a limited amount of research? Inpolicymaking, one must also ask whether the science is relevant. The popularpress often omits the nuances and qualications connected with research nd-ings, or it overdramatizes ndings that scientists themselves consider highlytentative. Critical assessment, then, requires an accurate evaluation of the


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6Introduction

strength and relevance of the evidence for the claim—in other words, an evalu-ation of the cogency of the scientic arguments.

Cogency as a Boundary Concept

The notion of argument strength or cogency provides the conceptual focalpoint in this book. I examine the various approaches to the study of science— philosophical, sociological, rhetorical—as models of cogent argument in thesciences. In other words, I treat cogency as a “boundary concept” that illumi-

nates points of convergence and divergence within science studies, and hencepossibilities and obstacles to greater interdisciplinary cooperation. Accordingto Julie Klein (1996, 50–51), such concepts are “powerful sources of cross-fer-tilization” between two (or more) disciplines. As she goes on to explain, bound-ary concepts “are negotiable entities that simultaneously delimit and linkparticular territories. In cognitive terms, they facilitate hybrid intellectual work.In social terms, they facilitate intergroup alliance.” For example, concepts of“text” and “discourse” have fostered interdisciplinary exchange in the rhetoric

of science, in which theorists have combined resources from rhetoric, literarystudies, linguistics, and composition in studies of scientic texts and controver-sies (ibid., 66–70). 2 To serve this cross-fertilizing role, a boundary concept musthave some purchase in the different disciplines. Toward this end, it helps if suchconcepts are on the one hand “loose” or “weakly structured in common use,”

yet on the other hand “strongly structured” at the interdisciplinary site (Starand Griesemer 1989, 393). The boundary concept, as I understand it here,must at one level allow a sufciently exible or broad interpretation that coversdifferent methods and uses across disciplines, yet at the level of actual exchangeand cooperation it must facilitate translation across disciplinary boundaries andgenerate specic research questions, points of debate, and possibilities forhybrid analysis that combine resources from different disciplines. 3

The concept of cogency has just the properties we need for a boundaryconcept of the above sort. This supposition nds support in both the standardusage of the term and its use among argumentation theorists. As to standardusage, the word “cogency,” when applied to arguments, refers to the “convinc-ing quality,” the “logical or persuasive force” of arguments; thus “cogent”arguments have “power to compel assent or belief,” they are “argumentativelyforcible, convincing.” 4 These denitions of “cogent” link a normative idea, thestrength or logical character of good reasons, with a psychological effect on


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7Introduction

audiences, namely, the perception of a persuasive force that is not easilyresisted. Thus the idea of cogency sits at the boundary between psychologicaleffect and rational content. Moreover, the broad association of “cogency” withpersuasiveness suggests that cogent arguments include not only logically validdeductions but also inductive arguments with sufcient probability (or plausi-bility) to persuade. This observation, along with the etymological associationwith force (deriving from the Latin root), suggests that cogency might some-times come in degrees, that perhaps in some cases an argument we considercogent, stronger than a set of counterarguments, is later met by a still stronger,

hence more cogent rebuttal. Among argumentation theorists, “cogency” does not have a generally estab-

lished technical sense—unlike “validity” or “soundness,” which normally referto specic properties of deductive arguments. Rather, we nd a range of usessimilar to what we saw in the standard denitions. In their survey of argumen-tation studies, van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Snoeck Henkemans, et al. (1996)identify theories (a) that take “cogency” as a broad term that covers the ideasof “soundness,” “validity,” and “strength” (ibid., 155); (b) that understand

“cogency” as a comparative measure of dialectical strength (ibid., 90); and (c)that use “cogency” in relation to the rhetorical effect on an audience (ibid.,32). Informal logicians sometimes use “cogency” as a term for the strength ofan argument’s content, albeit understood to include at least one audience-relative property, rational acceptability (see, e.g., Govier 2005; Vorobej 2006).On the whole, then, argumentation theorists tend to use the term as a broadsynonym for argument strength and/or persuasiveness.

We thus have at least three reasons for regarding the idea of cogency as apromising boundary concept for an interdisciplinary argumentation theory inthe service of a critical science studies. First, as the standard denition andcommon use imply, “cogency” is more or less synonymous with a range ofexpressions that refer to the strength or convincing quality of arguments; itthus has the breadth and exibility to cover a large territory of approaches toargument evaluation. Second, the term sits precisely at the key point of conten-tion in the science wars, namely at the point where normative and empiricalcategories come together—where reasons display their psychological andsociological effects. Third, in contrast to terms such as “valid,” the word itselfis not overburdened with technical expectations connected with specic modesof argument analysis (e.g., formal logic). Thus the term is relatively open totheoretical articulation at the sites of interdisciplinary exchange.


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8Introduction

Theoretical articulation, as I understand it here, aims to specify the proper-ties or features of arguments that make them cogent. To do so, one must lookto argumentative practices. When participants in such practices refer to somearguments as cogent or convincing and others as weak and unconvincing, theyoperate with at least an inchoate notion of cogency-conferring properties; insome areas, such as mathematics and the sciences, what makes an argumentcogent might be precisely dened, provided we can identify a range of moreor less equivalent evaluative terms (“highly probable,” “convincing,” “conclu-sive,” etc.) with “cogent,” or with different degrees of cogency. In attempting

to articulate these inchoate notions, or to translate discipline-specic standardsof argument into a general account of cogency, one engages in a theoreticalenterprise.

Because many of the initiatives in science studies involve approaches toargumentation in the sciences, we can construe them as contributing, at leastpotentially, to a theory of cogency. Some contributions lie primarily at adescriptive or explanatory level: most sociologists and historians, and manyrhetoricians, strive to articulate the norms and values that scientists themselves

employ in their argumentative practices, or to explain why scientists foundsome arguments more convincing than others. Philosophers, on the otherhand, have traditionally sought to provide normative or prescriptive accountsof scientic argumentation. The nal burden of my analysis is to elaborate amultidimensional conception of cogency that pulls these different approachestogether, integrating logical, rhetorical, and sociological tools for purposes ofcooperative critical assessment of scientic arguments.

In pursuing this task, I hope to avoid an overly holistic kind of integration. As Klein (1996, 11–15) uses the term, “holistic” approaches tend to rest onmetaphysical assumptions or overly strong claims of unication that ultimatelyundermine interdisciplinarity—the attempted theoretical unication cannotbear the strains of disciplinary difference. As an example, Klein (ibid., 13) citesthe unity of science approach of the early twentieth century; some versions ofMarxist social theory also seem to t her description. For purposes of this study,I take the holist mistake to reside in an overreaching attempt to unify perspec-tives on cogency in a single conception of the norms of scientic argumentationin general. So understood, a tendency to holism appears in certain features ofHabermas’s discourse theory, which I take up in Part II.

The problems associated with holism ultimately lead me, in Part III,to propose a contextualist approach to conceptual and interdisciplinary


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9Introduction

integration. In doing so, I assume that what we need is not so much a singleone-size-ts-all as a capacious set of concepts and questions that allow theoriststo collaborate in the study of science, even when their deeper epistemologicalpresuppositions differ. This assumption is reinforced by the observation thatthe so-called scientic method does not reduce to a single set of rules governingall of science. What we call “science” today is not a unitary enterprise, evenif there are some broad family resemblances and perhaps some minimal sharedcommitments among the different sciences. In any case, I focus in this bookmainly on the natural sciences, as they are generally identied—physics, chem-

istry, geology, biology, and the like—and the health sciences. Argumentation studies promise us the complexity and openness required

for such an interdisciplinary and multiperspectival endeavor. As the compre-hensive study of modes of analyzing and evaluating arguments and argumenta-tion processes (both in formally structured institutional settings and in everydaylife), argumentation studies are both internally complex and open to coopera-tion with a wide range of other disciplines. The internal complexity arises fromthe fact that argumentation theory, as a eld of study, attends to all the dimen-

sions of arguments and argumentative discourses—not only logical but alsodialectical, rhetorical, social-institutional, and so on. We can see this internalcomplexity in the eld itself, in which scholars from a range of disciplines,including inter alia logic and philosophy, speech communication and rhetoric,linguistics, composition, and computer science, engage in interdisciplinaryexchange. 5

Outline of the Argument

The project I have been introducing above integrates interdisciplinarity intoa theoretical framework for analyzing and evaluating scientic argumentationas an embodied social practice. Using the notion of cogency as the overarchingidea, I look to argumentation studies for a framework that brings together aset of more specic boundary concepts, a constellation of common concernsand questions shared by those disciplines that study scientic practices. Suchconcepts make it possible to bring different disciplinary tools to bear onthe study of scientic argumentation. In the rst chapter, I clarify this con-ceptual framework in relation to a number of related theoretical develop -ments: the “practice turn” in science studies, that is, the focus on science as amaterial practice; the rhetorical turn in the study of scientic texts; and cross-


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10Introduction

fertilization between rhetoric and argumentation studies. I then close thechapter by addressing ambiguities in the way some key elements of the frame-work have been aligned by argumentation theorists. The basic evaluative per-spectives that argumentation theorists have inherited from the ancientGreeks—logical, dialectical, and rhetorical—do not neatly align with another,more recent triad: argument as product, procedure, and process. By modifyingthe “perspectivist” framework appropriately, we obtain a useful set of tools forstudying different conceptions of cogency in science studies and fosteringgreater interdisciplinary cross-fertilization.

To demonstrate the interdisciplinary usefulness of this framework, in chap-ters 2 and 3 I show how it emerges from developments within science studiesitself. Taking Thomas Kuhn as the pivotal gure, I show how the perspectivistframework can illuminate issues in science studies since his 1962 Structure ofScienti c Revolutions (see Kuhn 1996) . In opposing his social-institutional analysisto logical empiricism, Kuhn opened up a gap within argumentation theory,that is, a situation in which two perspectives on the cogency of scientic argu-mentation opposed one another across an area of unexplored territory—the

area in which arguments are persuasive but not logically compelling. Afterelaborating on these developments in chapter 2, I go on in chapter 3 to discussthree rhetorics of science that responded to “Kuhn’s Gap” with analyses ofpersuasion that might reconcile the logical and the sociological. These fallalong a spectrum of possibilities that stretch from Marcello Pera’s abstractnormative dialectics at one end, through Lawrence Prelli’s more concrete,communitarian rhetoric, to Bruno Latour’s antinormative, sociologicallyinformed approach at the other end. The postscript to Part I updates the storyby examining a more recent version of the logical perspective: Peter Achin-stein’s realist theory of evidence. Achinstein’s approach is relevant because itsuggests a principled distinction between a denition of cogency as an objectiveproperty of arguments and the social process necessary for accurately assessingsuch cogency. His analytical approach supplies an instructive contrast to Kuhnand rhetoricians of science, who include social process not merely as a meansto assessing cogency but as partly constitutive of cogency itself.

Taken together, these views mark out different positions and perspectiveson scientic argumentation—they advance diverse views about the cogency ofarguments, about the most signicant aspects of such argumentation, andabout the rationality of science. I survey these different theories to show howcertain broad categories of argumentation theory have already emerged


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11Introduction

autochthonously within science studies. To this extent, the study of argumenta-tion provides a suitable multidisciplinary framework for understanding theissues and concepts at stake in the assessment of scientic arguments. Moreimportantly, the survey reveals specic tasks and challenges confronting theattempt at an interdisciplinary normative framework. Foremost is the questionof how one bridges Kuhn’s Gap and integrates the different perspectiveson cogency in a way that maintains the possibility of interdisciplinarycooperation.

In Part II I begin to tackle those further tasks, with the aim of developing

an argumentation-theoretic framework that can guide an assessment that is atonce critical and interdisciplinary. For this purpose, Jürgen Habermas’s dis-course theory provides one of the most developed attempts at a normativesocial-institutional theory structured around a perspectivist model of argumentevaluation. Habermas’s theory deserves consideration in the present contextfor at least three reasons. As a second-generation member of the FrankfurtSchool of critical social theory, he inherits from his forebears an interest in thecritical, yet nonskeptical, study of society and its various institutions, including

science. As I explained earlier, “critique” here does not mean rejection or dis-missive skepticism, but rather a discriminating evaluation that partly relies onscientic methods and ndings. This leads to a second reason: like the earlierFrankfurt School, Habermas has an interest in an interdisciplinary approachthat draws on a range of disciplines, sciences, and theoretical perspectives forinput. Finally, in contrast to his forebears, he explicitly depends on a compre-hensive argumentation-theoretic framework.

In Part II, then, I move from an overview of science studies to the ground-level of a particular theory: with the move to Habermas we can see how thebroad argumentation-studies framework interacts with substantive theorizingto generate critical assessments open to interdisciplinary input. Because Haber-mas has developed his discourse theory most fully in the areas of morality,politics, and law, further elaboration is necessary to bring it to bear on thesciences. To prepare the theoretical background, in chapter 4 I recount hiscommunicative, formal-pragmatic approach to the problem of social order,his pragmatic-realist theory of truth, and his larger emancipatory vision.

In chapter 5 I elaborate Habermas’s theory of argumentation in detail. Indoing so, I esh out his rather thin conception of rhetoric with more sub-stantive Aristotelian categories. I also argue that Habermas’s pragmatism, incontrast to Achinstein’s realism, commits him to a multiperspectival—and


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12Introduction

irreducibly social—conception of cogency. As serving the communicative aimsof argument-making, the dialectical and rhetorical properties of argumenta-tion as a social process are not simply a means for accurately evaluatingcogency, which would then reside solely in process-independent merits of theargument product. Rather, properties of the social process of evaluation areamong the merits in virtue of which arguments should count as cogent. But itremains unclear whether Habermas’s model fully reconciles the gap Kuhnopened up between logic and sociology. Habermas’s dialectical and rhetoricalperspectives are social only in an idealized sense; the status of the social-insti-

tutional perspective, understood in the sociological sense, remains ambiguousin his model—it remains unclear whether that perspective makes a distinctnormative contribution to the idea of cogency.

In chapter 6, I analyze a case of argument construction in high-energyphysics, the writing up of the 1994 paper announcing evidence for the topquark at Fermilab. That case serves in part to illustrate the different aims ofcritical assessment. It also points to a difculty in Habermas’s theory that isrelated to the ambiguity above. Although in many respects favorable to his

model, the case involves an element of compromise that he cannot readilyaccommodate. In the Postscript to Part II I show how the perspectivist frame-work might allow a rationalist like Habermas to engage in interdisciplinarycooperation with the strongly relativistic and skeptical sociology of scienticknowledge (SSK) developed by the so-called Edinburgh School. Here we seehow the use of argumentation theory can pave the way for interdisciplinarycooperation in the service of critical assessment. However, the move one mustmake to enable such cooperation points to a deeper problem in Habermas’sapproach—a holistic tendency that arises from his particular mode of integrat-ing perspectives and that underlies the difculties his model has with socialcontext.

In Part III, I defend a contextualist alternative to Habermas’s approach. Todo so, I confront a further challenge of interdisciplinary engagement, namelythe challenge posed by nonskeptical but radically contextualist ethnographicapproaches, in particular the ethnomethodological study of scientic work(ESW). Taking their cue from Harold Garnkel and colleagues, ethnometh-odologists such as Michael Lynch, Eric Livingston, and others have argued fora radical particularism that appears strongly at odds with the universalism ofHabermasian discourse theory. Engaging this challenge at its more radicallevel leads me to a critical contextualist approach to cogency.


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13Introduction

In chapter 7, I set out the contextualist challenge and develop its implica-tions for the ideas of truth, objectivity, and reasonable dialogical process. Theanalysis suggests that Habermas’s idealizing pragmatic presuppositions (inclu-siveness, equal voice, noncoercive process, etc.) should be understood as rhe-torical potentials implicit in argumentative practices. As such, they are effectiveonly in conjunction with detailed substantive argumentation—a point I illus-trate by recalling feminist critiques of science. Interpreting process ideals thisway renders the normative framework for critical assessment more context-sensitive. But does it also require a potentially relativistic “indifference” incom-

patible with critique? That is, must one always simply accept local standardsof rationality as the nal word, immune to critical evaluation by higher courtsof appeal? In reply, I describe the stance critical theorists must adopt to incor-porate the insights of ESW without abandoning their commitment to criticalassessment and falling into relativism.

In chapter 8, I apply the critical-contextualist approach to a case studyof three expert committee reports sponsored by the National Academy ofSciences (NAS). The case analysis turns on a distinction between two levels

of argument-making process that correspond to different initiatives inscience studies and in argumentation theory: the difference between localtransactions and public arenas. Using a variety of source materials andargumentation-theoretic tools, the study shows how the participants wereconcerned with cogency at three levels: the reports’ content, the quality ofthe committee transactions, and the public merits of the reports. Furtherexamination of the debates surrounding the reports and NAS proceduresreveals important tensions in the rhetorical use of process ideals—tensionsthat refer in turn to competing visions of the contract between science andsociety.

In chapter 9, nally, I recapitulate the book as a whole and clarify the pre-scriptive character of critical contextualism in relation to substantive criticalassessment. As a general framework for argument evaluation, critical contex-tualism amounts to a metacritical procedure that follows arguments throughthe network of relevant contexts. By way of further clarication, I close withsome tentative explorations of three kinds of controversy, each of which posesdistinct challenges for contextualist analysis: interdisciplinary scientic contro-

versies, science-intensive policy debates, and the exchanges between atheisticchampions of evolutionary biology and Christian believers. The latter twocases are especially interesting for the questions they raise about the relation


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14Introduction

of scientic arguments to discursive contexts outside the sciences. Althoughthe contextualist approach points toward a deliberative democratic approachto such controversies, it leaves open important questions regarding the politicalorganization of deliberation and the specic institutional designs that wouldbe appropriate for critical discussions involving scientic questions. How oneanswers such questions partly depends on one’s vision of the good society. Thecontextualist framework does not fully specify that vision.


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I

The Argumentative Turn in Science Studies


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1

Science as Argumentative Practice

The normative framework I propose in this book links the assessment ofexpert claims with the notion of cogent scientic argumentation. The ideathat scientic practices depend centrally on social processes of argumentationand not simply on experimentation, is, I believe, rather widely accepted.

That argumentation can provide a sufciently comprehensive framework inwhich to understand the sciences is a more ambitious assumption. In thischapter I provide some initial clarication of what I mean by science as aset of “argumentation practices.” I also introduce the conceptual frameworkI employ in Parts I and II for analyzing scientic argumentation. After somepreliminary orientation (sec. 1), I describe the “rhetorical turn,” which led tothe rhetoric of science, and the emergence of argumentation studies (secs. 2,3). These developments in the study of rhetoric and argumentation led anumber of theorists to propose a multiperspectival framework for the evalu-ation of argumentative practices; this framework, appropriately claried, canserve as a heuristic for understanding developments in science studies (secs.4, 5).

1 Scientic Inquiry and Argumentative Practices

Approaching scientic inquiry as an argumentative practice immediately sug-gests a possible objection, which I want to dispel at the outset. The objection

goes as follows. Granted, there are occasional scientic controversies, andgranted, science articles employ specic types of rhetoric and can be inter-preted as arguments of one sort or another. But as a general framework, anargument-centered approach seems overly textual and abstract—just one


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18Chapter 1

more variant on the old “science-as-knowledge” approach, which misses themateriality of “science-as-practice” (Pickering 1995; also 1992b). To pressthe point, one might ask whether arguments and argumentation capture theprocess of inquiry and “logics of discovery” that lie at the very heart of scienticknowledge-production. Must not an approach based on the assessment of sci-entic arguments ultimately reproduce—to be sure, in more complex andsophisticated terms—the old disjunction between context of discovery andlogic of justication, and in such a way as to privilege that latter?

The short answer to the last question is “no.” For the long answer, one must

actually attempt to work out an argumentation-theoretic framework. But theshort answer has a number of considerations in its favor already. As we shallsee in the next section, the developments that shaped argumentation studiesin recent decades are precisely of the sort that undermines a discovery–

justication distinction, at least in the logical-empiricist sense. Rejecting formallogic as an adequate theory of argument, many argumentation theorists todaystrive to situate arguments in their practical contexts. Although they generallyunderstand these contexts as discursive or intellectual, in the natural sciences

we must also consider them material contexts: evidential arguments are typicallyabout what one can do with materials in a laboratory, or about what one canobserve in the physical world.

This does not mean that no distinction remains between scientic argumen-tation and experimentation. What it does mean is that argumentative practicesin the sciences are partly material practices. Experimental practices of inquirythus intertwine with argumentation, even at the very concrete level of contin-gent material “resistances” (Pickering 1995, 51; Galison 1997). The success ofscientic arguments is measured by their relation to experimental practicesand not simply by standards for the logical composition of articles. We can seethis at a number of levels of scientic practice, beginning with the localresearch site or laboratory. As the novice scientist soon learns, one of the rstchallenges is to arrive at stable, reliable experimental methods and results inone’s own laboratory: mastering the material situation, therefore, is partlyconstitutive of argument construction, for without reproducible results one hasno evidence to report as reasons in support of one’s hypothesis. At the veryleast, one must get one’s instrumentation and observational methods to func-tion properly. To a large extent, the daily work of bench-top science is orientedtoward solving specic experimental problems, solutions that presuppose onehas gained sufcient mastery of the relevant laboratory techniques to obtain


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19Science as Argumentative Practice

results that are both reproducible and trustworthy. Only if one answers suchquestions of detail—for example, in the area of pollutant testing, questionsregarding such mundane details as the best sample size and reagent concentra-tions, possible interferences, optimal instrument settings, and so on—can oneacquire the empirical evidence that can adequately support a conclusion. Thisdaily struggle with the physical world in the laboratory or in the eld is thusoriented toward the development or construction of an argument—indeed is partand parcel of the constructive process, where “construction” simply refers toputting together the evidence required to support a publishable result.

Experimentation ultimately aims beyond the lab, however: experimentalpractices are heavily oriented toward the production of public knowledge, andto reach that goal ndings have to be presented in a convincing manner aspublicly acceptable arguments (Ziman 1968). Here public acceptability is notmeasured by publication alone, but more pertinently by the usability of one’sndings and arguments for the research of other scientists (cf. Hull 1988). Theongoing concern with classied military and corporate research testies to the

value of this traditional orientation.

The orientation of everyday laboratory practices toward the production ofarguments is also evident in the development of a research proposal. Althoughone might consider the proposal itself as a kind of argument, here I am inter-ested in the tacitly projected argument at which the proposal aims. To formu-late a research proposal, the researcher generally must (a) identify a problemor question that is (or can be) of interest to other scientists (and perhaps certaingroups of nonscientists) and (b) have an idea about how to go about answeringthe question or solving the problem (cf. Montgomery 2003, chap. 11). Inidentifying a question or problem, one commits oneself to arriving at somekind of conclusion; in proposing an approach or method, one commits oneselfto some kind of argument that will support the conclusion that addresses thequestion.

The research proposal, in other words, is the rst step in a process of con-structing an argument that the researchers hope will have a place in a broaderdialectic of inquiry within the subdiscipline or area of research. Thus the dia-lectic of inquiry that constitutes science as a substantive intellectual process—ofresearch in response to a question, which in turn opens up further questionsleading to further research—sets the argumentative context in which the pro-posal is supposed to make sense. Inquiry is dialectical insofar as it involvesan interlocking series of substantive moves—communication of results or


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20Chapter 1

arguments in one venue or another—in which later moves respond to or buildon earlier ones. The series can be controversial, involving objections, replies,and rebuttals, but it can also have a more irenic character, involving a seriesof studies that gradually close in on establishing some result or hypothesis.

If we can understand the broader dialectic of scientic inquiry or progressas argumentative, and if we can understand inquiry within the laboratoryor research team as part of argument construction (even if it is not onlythat), then there is no reason to split inquiry, the process of discovery, fromscientic arguments and argumentation. Although an argumentation-theo-

retic framework provides a context in which to assess the cogency of scienticclaims—and hence is in that sense a context of justication—the notion ofargumentation I employ here takes in, as part of its substance, the discoveryprocess itself.

2 The Rhetorical Turn

As I mentioned earlier, the area of research that goes by the name “rhetoric

of science” has gone the farthest in applying argumentation theory to the studyof science. But the rhetoric of science emerged as part of a broader “rhetoricalturn” and the so-called new rhetoric associated with it. These developmentswere motivated by dissatisfaction with the positivist and logic-centeredapproaches in the study of inquiry and argument. Among philosophers, thismovement was led by attempts to go beyond formal-logical analysis to theanalysis of informal and noncompelling arguments (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969 [Paris ed. 1958]; Toulmin 1958; Naess 1966 [Oslo ed. 1947]). Iwill say more about these initiatives below, in connection with argumentationstudies. Among rhetorical scholars and speech communication theorists, dis-satisfaction centered on the rather wooden neo-Aristotelian mode of rhetoricalcriticism dominant in the mid-twentieth century (see Black 1978; Wenzel 1987,103–104). In these elds, Kenneth Burke was a prime mover.

On the one hand, theorists who engaged in these developments desired aricher set of analytic tools and foci; in particular, they wanted to get beyondthe neo-Aristotelian focus on the speaker’s use of logos -centered rhetoric innarrow occasional contexts. For their part, philosophers wanted to bring innormative and hermeneutic perspectives that were more context-sensitive thanlogical analysis. On the other hand, the rhetorical turn also involved an exten-sion of the focus of rhetorical analysis beyond its traditional subject matter of


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civic discourse. Emboldened by Burke’s idea that rhetoric operated whereversymbols were involved in communication to induce cooperation, rhetoricalscholars turned their sights on a range of texts and domains, including science,which had been hitherto considered nonrhetorical (Simons 1989, 1990; Gross1996; Pera and Shea 1991; Harris 1997). The rhetorical turn has led to inter-disciplinary cooperation involving the disciplines of literary studies, composi-tion, linguistics, sociology, history, philosophy, and communication studies. 1

As Klein (1996, 66–70) notices, the rhetorical turn has spawned a number ofimportant “boundary concepts” (“discourse,” “rhetoric,” “text”) that facilitate

cross-fertilization. Even analytic philosophers of science have begun to takethe rhetoric of science seriously (e.g., Kitcher 1995).

Among students of argument, the rhetorical turn has also been a site ofcontestation. In the perception of some scholars (e.g., Schiappa 1995; Kauffeld2002), rhetoricians have tended to emphasize persuasive effect to the point ofeschewing normative evaluation. This objection points to an ambiguity in the

very idea of “rhetorical criticism” (cf. Lucas 1981): in what sense is it critical? According to Black (1978, 47, 77ff.), the old-style neo-Aristotelians tended to

take the speaker’s ends for granted, thereby focusing rhetorical criticism onthe effectiveness of means. Indeed, much rhetorical criticism primarily explainswhy a given argument succeeded or failed with a given audience. But as sometheorists have pointed out (including Black), rhetorical analysis does not neces-sitate such a restriction (Wenzel 1990; Leff 2002). One might, for example,take certain rhetorical means, such as appeal to emotion, and develop norma-tive standards for distinguishing reasonable and unreasonable, and not merelyeffective or ineffective, rhetorical appeals (cf. Walton 1989, chap. 4; Tindale1999). Thus a rhetoric of inquiry need not be at odds with ideals of objectivity(Keith and Cherwitz 1989).

Other critics have objected to the emphasis on the intentions and agency ofthe speaker to the disregard of other types of forces, such as deeper linguisticstructures, that shape the speaker’s discourse in unintended ways (e.g., Black1978, 35; Gaonkar 1997a,b). However, the vast range of discourse-analyticmethods now available for rhetorical criticism (see Sills and Jensen 1992) sug-gests that there are ways beyond this overemphasis on agency. Moreover, astudy of the Sophists casts doubt on an overly strict association of rhetoric withthe goal of persuasion (Tindale 2004, chap. 2). On a broad view, therefore,rhetoric studies “all the ways by which meaning is created symbolically amongpeople” (Wenzel 1987, 106).


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22Chapter 1

Still other scholars have expressed dissatisfaction with the overemphasis inthe rhetoric of science on the analysis of particular texts and their construc-tion—an imbalance that probably stems from the dominance of literary disci-plines in the rhetorical turn. This dissatisfaction has generated interestingattempts to move beyond the textual product. For example, Myers (1990) andBlakeslee (2001) both examine argument construction as a social process inwhich authors shape their arguments in light of interaction with different audi-ences: journal editors and referees, members of other disciplines, and so on.

I mention one nal criticism, which might also apply to argumentation

studies and thus can serve as a transition to that topic. Gaonkar (1997a,b) tar-geted the globalizing move that extended rhetorical analysis to any discourse,including science. Specically, he wondered whether the rhetoric of science,in its current form, genuinely illuminates scientic discourse rather than merelyadding a veneer of useless new jargon to scientic arguments that are clearenough as they stand. For my purposes this challenge raises the question ofhow rhetorical analysis—or more generally, an argumentation studies frame-work—can help in the critical assessment of scientic arguments and claims.

The answer must await later chapters.

3 Rhetoric and Argumentation Studies

The rhetorical turn and the emergence of argumentation studies share commonorigins, but that does not mean we should equate the two movements. As aeld of study, argumentation theory involves a number of different ways ofinvestigating argumentation, not all of which are rhetorical. Logicians, forexample, are concerned with truth-preserving structures, not persuasion ordiscourse in context. Acknowledging this does not foreclose the possibility thatfor some purposes, the rhetorical perspective—given its holistic character andopenness in principle to a wide range of analytic tools—might do best at bring-ing together these various perspectives into a unitary analysis of actual argu-mentation. To be sure, to avoid the problematic kind of holism described inthe introduction, one should not, in employing the tools of another discipline,forthwith reduce that discipline to a subcategory of rhetoric. In light of suchconsiderations, I use the term “rhetoric” to designate a specic perspective onscience, albeit a perspective whose interpretation, scope, and relation to otherperspectives vary according to different theories of science and thus remain anopen question.


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I use the term “argumentation studies,” on the other hand, as an umbrellato cover the multidisciplinary complexity I briey described in the introduc-tion. This multifaceted study of argument goes back to the classical Greektraditions (logic, dialectic, rhetoric), but along with the rhetorical turn it expe-rienced a rebirth in the mid-twentieth century (see Cox and Willard 1982;Wenzel 1979). Again, commentators typically cite Toulmin’s Uses of Argument (1958) and Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s New Rhetoric (1969; Paris ed.,1958) as leading the way. Toulmin maintained that most argumentation as itactually occurs in various elds such as law, science, and so forth is not analyti-

cal but “substantial,” dependent on inductive moves governed by standardsspecic to the eld of inquiry or institution. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tytecalikewise drew attention to context, in this case the rhetorical context as denedby the particular audience and its presuppositions. Thus, argumentation aimsnot at deductive demonstration but at gaining (or increasing) the adherenceof an audience. 2 Because both initiatives linked the study of arguments withcontextual awareness—in one case institutional, in the other rhetorical—theycould not take the logician’s purely formal approach to argument evaluation.

To develop an account of good arguments, that is, theorists had to pay atten-tion to the empirical details of the different contexts in which argumentsoccurred.

We can describe the shift initiated by Toulmin, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, as well as Arne Naess and others, as a move from formal to “informal”logics.3 The move to informal logics was driven not only by theoretical con-cerns but also by broad dissatisfaction with the standard logic texts for teachingcritical thinking: standard logical methods, many contended, were inadequatefor understanding and teaching real argumentation (Govier 1987, chap. 1). 4 To get a sense of what “informal” means in this context, it helps to review themain uses of “formal.”

The term “formal” admits of a range of meanings (van Eemeren et al. 1996,236–245, 263–271; Johnson 2000, 119–120). For present purposes, I consideras paradigmatically formal those deductive logics that rely solely on an axiom-atic syntax that abstracts from all content and context (e.g., Kyburg 1968).Barth and Krabbe (1982) designated deductive rule systems as “formal 2,” incontrast to Plato’s Forms (“formal 1”) and rules of dialogical procedure(“formal 3”). As we shall see with logical empiricists such as Carl Hempel, onecan also develop formal inductive logics that are purely syntactical (chap. 2).Such logics are both prescriptive and purely formal: they provide a set of rules


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24Chapter 1

dening valid sentential entailments, and these rules operate independently ofanything beyond the syntax itself and the formal semantics to which it may belinked.

Informal logics, on the other hand, introduce a certain amount of substan-tive content into the norms of argument assessment. Consequently, they allowargumentation theorists to handle a broader range of everyday argumentforms in a less articial manner: the vast range of argument forms that includesnot only simple induction but also analogical arguments, inference to bestexplanation, casuistic reasoning, narrative, and so on. The inferential proper-

ties of such arguments depend on substance: one must understand the inter-related meanings of terms as well as background information that resistscomplete formalization.

To evaluate the substance of informal arguments, however, one must attendto the interpretive subtleties of arguments in their social contexts . Thus the shiftto informal logic also involves a turn to the social practices of argumentation.

Arguments—as premise–conclusion packages or claims supported by reasonsor evidence—should thus be distinguished from “arguing” as a kind of social

interaction (O’Keefe 1982). Many argumentation theorists now view argu-ments as the products that issue from the process of argumentation as a social

practice (e.g., Johnson 2000). Still others distinguish three normative perspec-tives on argumentation: the logical product (open to both formal and informalapproaches), the dialectical procedure or method, and the rhetorical process(Brockriede 1982; Wenzel 1990; Tindale 1999, 2004). Joseph Wenzel’s elabo-ration of this framework has been particularly inuential: “rhetoric helps us tounderstand and evaluate arguing as a natural process of persuasive communica-tion; dialectic helps us to understand and evaluate argumentation as a cooperativemethod for making critical decisions; and logic helps us to understand andevaluate arguments as products people create when they argue” (Wenzel 1990,9, my emphasis; see also Wenzel 1979, 1987).

This multidimensional framework has been widely accepted among argu-mentation theorists (though they tend to use the term “procedure” rather than“method”). The upshot is a loose alignment of the following triads, where eachrow represents one dimension of, or perspective on, argument that interpene-trates the other two:

rhetorical perspective arguing social process

dialectical perspective argumentation cooperative procedure

logical perspective argument product


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The term “argument” has both a narrow and comprehensive usage here. Asone dimension, “argument” refers to the package of reasons supporting aconclusion; as a multidimensional social practice, “argument” takes in all threedimensions. After drawing up the alignment, Wenzel (1990) characterizes eachperspective in terms of its typical purposes, scope and focus, situation, resources,standards, and roles.

Wenzel (1979, 83, 85; 1990, 12) grants that these categories only “roughly”align, that the framework serves merely as hermeneutic starting point; more-over, these three perspectives are not exhaustive. The value of such “perspec-

tivism,” as I shall designate it, lies in its hermeneutic and evaluative breadth,and thus in its serviceability as a heuristic open to a range of approaches andfoci that make up argumentation studies as a eld. Although the three perspec-tives do not exhaust the approaches, they do seem to capture the central nor-mative perspectives on argumentation. Perspectivism thus provides a kind ofheuristic for reading developments in science studies over the last half-century,as I show in the next two chapters. Moreover, as a set of normative perspec-tives on argument evaluation, this framework might be taken as a multidimen-

sional account of cogency: the different ways one can understand or assess thecogency of arguments.

Before pursuing these ideas, however, I want to tinker with the frameworkby introducing some further distinctions. In fact, there is considerable slippagebetween the columns above. After noticing some points of nonalignment, Isuggest a more serviceable multidimensional heuristic.

4 Critical Analysis of the Perspectivist Alignment

To employ perspectivism as a heuristic, it helps to notice, and then repair,certain points at which the alignment of columns does not do justice to theactual practices of argument evaluation. I am not concerned so much with themiddle column: “argument,” “argumentation,” and “arguing” strike me as fartoo uid and interchangeable for marking technical distinctions. The two othertriads (logic, dialectic, rhetoric; product, etc.) are more readily linked withoperative distinctions in argumentation studies. However, their alignment isanything but tight. I rst notice some points of slippage and suggest furtherdistinctions in the framework, and then conclude, in the next section, with somebroader clarications of how I understand the framework as a heuristic.

Start with the most obvious loose spot, the alignment between logic andproduct. Even if we accept an informal pluralist logic that recognizes more


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26Chapter 1

forms than deduction and induction, the logical perspective cannot bear thesole responsibility for assessing argument products, as Wenzel (1990, 19) rec-ognizes. The logical assessment of an argument requires, at the least, that werst interpret a text as a set of reasons or grounds intended to support a claimor conclusion. That is, one must rst analyze the argument content as havinga determinate structure—as one or another kind of deduction, or as an induc-tive inference, or an analogy, narrative, and so on. If one is dealing with realarguments, this task requires a certain amount of rhetorical analysis: one must,for example, understand the particular audience context, shared tropes, gures,

genre conventions, and so on (cf. Wenzel 1987, 108). Only then can one applylogical standards for appraising the degree of support provided for the claim.But one may not stop with that. Ralph Johnson (2000) has made a convincingcase that appraisal of the product must also examine the argument in relationto existing counterarguments, further questions and consequences, and soon—what he refers to as the product’s “dialectical tier.” And why stop with adialectical analysis of the product? To understand the persuasive force of argu-ments as products, one must return to the rhetorical perspective. It seems,

then, that we can, and for some purposes must, apply each perspective to anassessment of the product.

Second, we should acknowledge some plasticity in the triad of product-procedure-process. The “product” that is subjected to logical analysis can vary,depending on one’s theoretical interests. The word itself suggests a focus onthe outcome of a completed process of argumentation. But argumentationtheorists are also interested in the different arguments that arise on the way tothat outcome. As reason-conclusion packages that can be assessed using thesame methods used for assessing the nal product, these intermediate argu-ments fall under a broader sense of “product.” Moreover, what counts as thenal product can differ with analytic perspective. Rhetorical scholars oftentrain their methods on the actual substance of written articles, whereas logicalempiricists construed the relevant product as a set of observation statementsabstracted from context and placed in a (probabilistic) inductive relationshipto a hypothesis. Similarly, if “procedure” refers to all the ways of criticallytesting and discussing hypotheses, then it should encompass laboratory proce-dures, meetings of a research team, referee procedures, conferences, publisheddebates, and so on. Science as a social “process” likewise has both narrowerand broader boundaries: process within the research team, within a subdisci-pline or problem area, within a nation, and so on. Nor are process and


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procedure so clearly demarcated: whereas one can at least identify the productas an entity (e.g., an article) distinct from the process, formal procedures andinformal processes of arguing intertwine in ways that resist separation.

Third, notice that the dialectical perspective seems to include two kinds ofmethodical rules or procedures. As Wenzel denes it, “the dialectical perspec-tive embraces all methodological, procedural approaches to organizing argu-mentative discussions. The focus . . . is on rules, standards, attitudes andbehaviors that promote critical decision-making” (Wenzel 1990, 16). Wenzelseems primarily to have in mind institutionally dened procedures: “dialectical

situations are consciously planned or designed. . . . [they] are often institution-alized by the creation of special forums, e.g., courtrooms, legislatures, and theregular meetings of learned societies” (ibid., 18; see also 22). This ts with thetraditional association between dialectic and rules of debate (Rescher 1977).However, it leaves unclaried the relation between such institutional proce-dures and the natural dialectic of objection-and-reply in ordinary critical dis-cussion. Theorists who propose dialectical models of dialogical argumentationhave studied the latter context extensively (e.g., van Eemeren and Grooten-

dorst 1992; Walton 1989, 1998). In fact, the largely tacit dialectical rules ofordinary discourse may play the more fundamental role, inasmuch as theyprovide the standpoint from which to criticize institutional procedures. Suchcriticism can lead to procedural reforms or even violations. In law, for example,a jury might consider a line of testimony relevant and thus disobey a judge’sinstruction to disregard it on procedural grounds.

The tacit rules that operate in ordinary critical discussion may have morein common with idealized conditions of rational discourse than institutional-ized procedures. In fact, early on Wenzel (1979) construed the “ideal speechsituation” elaborated by Habermas (1971/2001) as a contribution to the dia-lectical perspective. 5 We examine this idea more extensively in later chapters.To anticipate that discussion, the ideal speech situation is a regulative idealrather than a fully realizable “situation”; as such, it involves a set of coun-terfactual “pragmatic presuppositions” of rational consensus. That is, if par-ticipants in argumentation are to consider a consensual outcome rational,then they must presuppose that the outcome has been (or could be) acceptedby participants who took part as equals in an open discourse free of coercionor hidden compulsions (Habermas 1990, 89; 1993, 41–57). According toHabermas, such presuppositions constitute our tacit self-understanding asparticipants in any argumentative practice, and thus apply both to institu-


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28Chapter 1

tionalized discourse and to our informal attempts at critical discussion ineveryday life.

Institutionalized rules for the conduct of discussion and debate, however,differ from such idealizations. In contrast to pragmatic presuppositions, insti-tutional procedures are contextually determinate—and often include mecha-nisms for reaching closure in the face of ongoing disagreement. 6 It is not thatthe name itself matters so much—whether we call an aspect of argumentationdialectical, rhetorical, or institutional—but that the analyses move at differentlevels of contextualization. They also involve different standards of criticism:

a legal proceeding, for example, can be procedurally correct from the stand-point of legal standards, but involve subtle forms of coercion that violate animportant dialectical idealization.

Fourth, notice that the rules governing formal procedures tend to be of twosorts. Some apply to the ow of speech acts and judgment of content, that is,what kinds of statements and questions each side may introduce, when certainargumentative moves may or must be made, which argument counts as stron-ger, or conclusive, and so on. Rules of formal debate tend to consist of such

rules. But there are also rules that assign different roles to the various partici-pants. In courtrooms, for example, we differentiate the roles of plaintiff anddefendant, counsel or attorney, judge and jury. Presumably these role divisionsare designed to foster an impartial critical testing of the claim under dispute.But again, we see two different kinds of standard here. The dialectic of content,or what we might call the “intellectual dialectic,” is subject in the rst instanceto rules determined by inferential connections between statements, as well asby pragmatic and illocutionary obligations and commitments that differenttypes of speech acts bring with them (e.g., in a debate, an objection calls forresponse; an assertion obligates one to provide justication if asked to do so).The dialectical rules that regulate the positioning of the participants, by con-trast, pertain to persons: their attitudes, disposition, different powers andduties, and so on.

These complications—above all the slippage between the two triads—leadme to suggest that we simply break the one-to-one alignment between product-procedure-process and logic-dialectic-rhetoric. The rst triad, let us say, des-ignates different dimensions or elements that are woven together inargumentative practices. Each of the three dimensions is publicly available forinvestigation, that is, each dimension presents science studies with sites or dataopen to description and thus available for study, regardless of one’s theoretical


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orientation. Theoretical concerns might, of course, affect exactly how onedescribes or what one picks out for a given dimension (recall the differentapproaches to the product). We can understand then the logic-dialectic-rhetoric triad as different argumentation-theoretic perspectives that employmore or less distinct sets of analytic and evaluative tools for assessing thedimensions of argumentation. But we need not limit perspectives to the tradi-tional three. Indeed, we might be able to handle some of the complications inthe categories of dialectic and procedure by recognizing something like asocial-institutional perspective. Such a perspective certainly plays a dominant

role in science studies.To be sure, this modication does not handle all the conceptual difculties.

As Blair (2005, 142) points out, one can easily nd the same normative stan-dard appearing in more than one perspective. There is also a potential problemof cross-perspectival conicts that requires us to determine which perspectiveprovides the overriding standards. The rst difculty I address in chapter 5 byshowing how perspectives can be internally linked to each other; the seconddifculty must await Part III.

5 A Heuristic Framework for Science Studies

I offer the above critical analysis as a way to bring the perspectivist frameworkcloser to the kinds of analyses one nds in the study of scientic argumentation.By noticing such complications and making some additional distinctions andmodications, we render the framework more serviceable as a heuristic. Sucha multidimensional/perspectival framework allows us to see how scholarsbring different analytic perspectives to bear on science. These perspectivaldifferences lead scholars to focus on different dimensions of science and todescribe those dimensions differently. The different approaches to the productin logical empiricism and recent rhetoric of science provide one of the clearestexamples of this. We should also expect differences in how theorists describethe procedures and processes of science. We need not settle the precise refer-ence of these terms in advance, but can simply allow science studies scholarsto speak for themselves about these dimensions and how they are to bedescribed. In using argumentation studies this way, we allow the differentapproaches in science studies to further shape argumentation-theoretic catego-ries, which are somewhat vague and ambiguous in any case. (In fact, this sortof feedback from science studies already informs the critical analysis in section


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30Chapter 1

4 above.) In illuminating science studies, the argumentation-theoretic heuristicdevelops in ways that take us beyond Wenzel’s model.

In other words, perspectivism as a heuristic framework does not function asan architectonic, a predened grid into which we squeeze the various initiativesin science studies. Rather, I employ these categories primarily as a set ofopening questions and boundary concepts that can illuminate developmentsin science studies and thereby foster contacts across disciplinary boundaries.

As a heuristic, this framework has one direct specic questions such as thefollowing to the theories, case studies, and proposals in science studies:

• What does the approach say about the products of science, and what doesit say about the a

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[William_Rehg]_Science Wars, Argumentation Theory and Habermas