What Do You Mean, Rhetoric Is Epistemic?

Harpine, William D.

doi:10.1353/par.2004.0026

Cited by 23 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…While rhetorical analyses of science have rather caused stir than resolved existing problems -see debates over whether rhetoric is epistemic, and 'Big Rhetoric' (Scott 1967;Schiappa 2001;Harpine 2004) -, such a 'normative pragmatic' model is more closely connected to our notion of 'rational debate', and is thus reconcilable with how scientists themselves see scientific controversies.…”

Section: The Argumentative Alternativementioning

confidence: 99%

Conflicting Agendas: Critical Thinking versus Science Education in the International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge Course

Zemplén

2007

Sci Educ

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The article investigates the Theory of Knowledge course of the International Baccalaureate Organization. After a short overview of the aims and objectives of the course, the assessment criteria and a popular textbook are investigated. Shortcomings concerning the treatment of the natural sciences are highlighted and the problem is generalised to courses or curricula that aim to reconcile agendas focusing on critical thinking and philosophical analysis on the one hand and traditional science subject-agendas on the other. The article argues that these problems also surface in the actual teaching practice and their implications for the curricula need to be taken more seriously. Three possible alternatives to overcome these problems are outlined. The first is based on novel work in history and philosophy of science, the second on general theories of argumentation, and the third on systematic exploration of student interests and stakes.

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Section: The Argumentative Alternativementioning

confidence: 99%

Conflicting Agendas: Critical Thinking versus Science Education in the International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge Course

Zemplén

2007

Sci Educ

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“…Consequently, rhetoric either pertains to the effective transmission of such truths to audiences (in these instances, rhetoric may be subordinated to or treated as an equal to dialectic and logic) or rhetoric is total in the sense of informing, and being informed by, all aspects of decision and world making. Adopting a proposal by William Harpine (2004), I conclude with a discussion of the reliability of suasory devices, suggesting that reliable insights into what counts as persuasive remain overgeneral. The resulting trade-off between reliability and the specificity of suasory knowledge undermines the claim that rhetorical insights can inform the evaluation of natural language arguments in the three normative approaches discussed here.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Do Normative Approaches to Argumentation Stand to Gain from Rhetorical Insights?

Zenker

2013

Philosophy &Amp; Rhetoric

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This article appropriates Thomas Conley's (1990) four classical positions on the nature and function of rhetoric, and assesses their relevance vis-à-vis three contemporary normative approaches to argumentation: the epistemological approach, pragma-dialectical theory, and informal logic. In each case, the room for the integration of rhetorical insights into argument evaluation is found to be restricted by dialectical and logico-epistemic norms endorsed in these approaches. Moreover, when rhetorical insights could fit the so restricted room, then the reliability and the specificity of such insights remain inversely related, with methodologically well-hardened knowledge of what persuades remaining too general. The trade-off between reliability and specificity of suasory knowledge, or so is our thesis, undermines the claim that rhetorical insights can presently inform the evaluation of natural language arguments in these three normative approaches.

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“…Although this position is certainly controversial among some rhetorical theorists (see e.g. Harpine, 2004) I, like Scott (1973), believe that ''rhetoric is present and is sensed as a part of the normal experiencing of one's environment' ' (p. 84) and that ''an enlarged conception of rhetoric is necessary if we are to comprehend the substantial and dynamic senses in which rhetoric functions to generate continuous validation of ways in which communities act together'' (p. 94).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reason as a Nexus of Natural Law and Rhetoric

Maciejewski

2005

J Bus Ethics

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Although the pages of Journal of Business Ethics have hosted an ongoing dialogue on the ethics of rhetoric and persuasion, the debates have been unable to account for the underlying morality of the human propensity to engage in rhetorical discourse as a part of living in society. In this paper, I offer natural-law ethical theory as a moral paradigm in which to examine rhetoric. In this context, I assert that rhetoric services reason, which in turn services our dispositions or inclinations that are one ideological foundation of natural-law theory. As rhetoric affects the apprehension of these dispositions it subsumes a related morality in which rhetorical endeavors can be seen as ''natural''. So endowed, I believe that this conception of rhetoric offers a number of philosophical and practical implications, one of which is a new way to assess the morality of commercial manifestations of rhetoric such as spin and the use of puffery in advertising.

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What Do You Mean, Rhetoric Is Epistemic?

Cited by 23 publications

References 29 publications

Conflicting Agendas: Critical Thinking versus Science Education in the International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge Course

Conflicting Agendas: Critical Thinking versus Science Education in the International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge Course

What Do Normative Approaches to Argumentation Stand to Gain from Rhetorical Insights?

Reason as a Nexus of Natural Law and Rhetoric

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