Abstract

344 RHETORICA and yet know all it takes to be American" (p. 245). In the Afterword, Clark and Halloran reiterate that one of their inten­ tions in editing this volume was to encourage more narratives of the histo­ ry of rhetorical theory and practice in the nineteenth century. In its poten­ tial for encouraging additional studies and new theories of cultural and public discourses, this volume has certainly taken a considerable step toward fulfilling its editors' hopes. Rosa A. Eberly Science, Reason, and Rhetoric, eds. Henry Krips, J. E. McGuire, and Trevor Melia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995). This volume of twelve essays and six comments treats a continuingly provocative subject. The book, the product of a conference convened to inaugurate a new program in the rhetoric of science at the University of Pittsburgh, offers some illuminating discussions of the varied appearances of rhetoric in the practice of science. That practice the editors describe carefully in the introduction to the volume. Describing three possible approaches to science, they seek to adopt the third: studies which would "stress the variety and complexity inherent in the production of scientific knowledge and also the attendant human contexts within which science is made and established." Thus they would accept even "accounts of science that are patently not rhetorical." The paths not chosen include a Gorgianic view—science, unable to produce truth, develops strategies of inquiry and uses rhetoric to construct tropes and audiences—and the view that science is sub specie rhetoricae. The book promotes reflection about the relation of rhetoric and science, but, unfortunately, it contains no index to facilitate the examination of concepts, terms, and names. My focus here will be on what seems to me to be the contribution of the volume to rhetoric of sci­ ence studies and on the problems presented by the ahistorical approach of some of the essays. From the editors' introduction, it should not be surprising that the nature and practice of science is the focus of the volume. The nature and practice of rhetoric as an art in itself, however, receives little attention. Most authors proceed as if rhetoric is simply a familiar term without a his­ tory or a discipline, but whose presence in science should be remarked upon. This curious approach is exemplified in the lead-off essay by Stephen Toulmin, the title of which, "Science and the Many Faces of Reviews 345 Rhetoric, would seem to promise to furnish the necessary background. In an attempt to bridge the gap envisioned by philosophers between the polar extremes of rhetoric and rationality, Toulmin turns to the Organon of Aristotle to illustrate the varied and overlapping types of reasoning prac­ ticed by human beings. But his account disappoints by its brevity. In his survey of the Organon, although he makes brief initial reference to the Analytics and the use of dialectical or topical reasoning in science, he then moves on to rhetoric, failing to treat Aristotle's conception of rhetoric or to remark on its relation to dialectic, a point that would seem to illuminate both science and a rhetoric of science. He intends, he says at the end of his seven-page essay, only a "'clearing away [of] the underbrush,"' making no attempt to discuss "questions about the rhetoric of science, or about scien­ tists as rhetors." J. E. McGuire and Trevor Melia, whose responses to Alan Gross's The Rhetoric of Science (1990) have appeared twice in Rhetorica, again reply neg­ atively to Gross's view that science is merely rhetorical invention and rep­ resentation, always relative to time and place (p. 77). Neither foundationalists nor nonfoundationalists, they position themselves as minimal real­ ists, seeing the actual practice of science as constitutive of science. They argue for a "proportionalizing rhetoric" (one that presumes a balance between representation and investigative practice) which would reflect "the proportionalizing strategies of scientific fallibilism" (p. 86). Several studies attend to sociological aspects of rhetoric. Trevor Pinch, in his analysis of the presentation of the Cold Fusion Process, demonstrates the importance of analyzing spoken rhetoric within its con­ text as a means to understanding both the presentation and reception of science by different audiences. Steve Fuller calls for...