Marie Secor

The Stases in Scientific and Literary Argument.

This article explores the usefulness of identifying the stasis of an argument, that is, whether it concerns an issue of fact, definition, cause, value, or action. The stasis of an argument can be seen as a component that has to be justified. An author must either assume or overtly appeal to the value of addressing a particular audience on a topic in a particular stasis. Once this principle of rhetorical analysis is in place, it is especially useful as an approach in the current enterprise of analyzing the rhetoric of the disciplines. While arguments in public forums naturally exploit the full stases, arguments in disciplinary contexts usually concern only the first two. “Exemplary” arguments in representative issues of Science and PMLA are then analyzed for their stasis and how they justify arguing over the issues they address. While science articles open and reopen questions of fact, classification, and cause while assuming the value of their enterprise, articles in literary criticism are problematic. They concern issues of value that are to a great extent already granted by their audience.

Teaching Argument: A Theory of Types.

The climax of many composition courses is the argumentative essay, the last, longest, and most difficult assignment. An effective written argument requires all the expository skills the students have learned, and, even more, asks for a voice of authority and certainty that is often quite new to them. Aware of the difficulty and importance of argument, many composition programs are devoting more time to it, even an entire second course. At Penn State, for example, the second of our required composition courses is devoted entirely to written argument, out of our conviction that written argument brings together all other writing skills and prepares students for the kinds of writing tasks demanded in college courses and careers. We know what we want our students to do by the end of our second course: write clear, orderly, convincing arguments which show respect for evidence, build in refutation, and accommodate their audience. The question is, how do we get them to do it? What is the wisest sequence of assignments? What and how much ancillary material should be brought in? The composition teacher setting up a course in argument has three basic approaches to choose from: the logical/analytic, the content/problem-solving, and the rhetorical/generative. All of these approaches teach the student something about argument, but each has problems. Our purpose here is to defend the rhetorical/generative approach as the one which reaches its goal most directly and most reliably. The teacher who uses the logical/analytic approach in effect takes the logic book and its terminology into the classroom and introduces students to the square of opposition, the syllogisms categorical and hypothetical, the enthymeme, the fallacies, induction and deduction. It has not been demonstrated, however, that formal logic carries over into written argument. Formal logic, as Chaim Perelman and Stephen Toulmin have pointed out, is simply

A Rhetorical Perspective on the Sokal Hoax: Genre, Style, and Context

In 1996, New York University professor of physics Alan Sokal wrote a parody of an academic article he titled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.” This parody escaped detection by the editors and was published in the journal Social Text. Sokal outed his own hoax in the academic magazine Lingua Franca, after which prolonged discussion about the hoax took place in both academic and popular venues. This article explores the rhetorical dimensions of Sokal’s hoax, defining the hoax as a rhetorical genre, relating the Sokal hoax to some 19th-century American scientific hoaxes, explaining why this hoax inspired such intense reactions, and identifying some of the stylistic and the generic exaggerations. The impassioned discussion of this hoax may be explained by the dynamics of its rhetorical context, which drew in Social Text’s editors as it flattered their professional vanity and revived the debate over the culture wars. But the textual dynamics of Sokal’s hoax have been largely ignored, even though closer attention to genre, style, and argument might have prevented the hoax. Rhetorical understanding thus requires attention to both texts and contexts.

Reconsidering Contentious Argument: Augustus DeMorgan on Fallacy

This essay examines Augustus DeMorgans chapter on fallacy in his Formal Logic (1847) in order to show how DeMorgans treatment represents an expansion and advance upon Aristotle. It is important that Aristotle clearly distinguishes among dialectical, didactic, demonstrative, and contentious types of argument, based upon the acceptability of premises and the aims of participants. Appropriating Aristotles list of fallacies, DeMorgan discusses examples that reveal how the charge and countercharge of fallacy function in contentious argument, which is more widespread than Aristotle imagined. DeMorgans treatment of fallacy is in the spirit of Aristotle because of its focus on dialogue arguments, but it represents an advance because it expands the possible scenes of contention and shows how unshared premises and the will to win inform many argument situations. The emphasis on contention in natural-language argument puts DeMorgan in the company of his l9th century peers, Mill and Whately.

Mill's Fallacies: Theory and Examples

In noting contemporary neglect of Mills work on fallacy, Hansen and Pinto say that his account is tied more closely to scientific methodology than to problems of public discourse and everyday argumentation. This paper re-examines Mills fallacies from a rhetorical perspective, assessing the extent to which his examples – drawn from the domains of popular superstition, science, philosophy, and public discussion – fit his theoretical structure. In articulating the relationship between Mills philosophical assumptions and the discursive practices of the fields from which he draws his examples, it will suggest the ambiguities in Mills mentalistic, rationalistic, inductivist approach and the inescapable rhetoricity of his examples.