Scientific discourse, sociological theory, and the structure of rhetoric

Abstract

This thesis examines the rhetorical, analytical, and critical efficacy of reflexivity and sociological theory as means for reconciling the normative and descriptive functions of the rhetoric of science. In attempting to define a separate research domain within Science Studies, rhetoric of science has borrowed Strong Program and constructivist principles and descriptions of scientific practice from the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) as a basis for analyzing scientific discourse. While epistemological claims in the social sciences have been considered inherently self-referential and subject to reflexive analysis and critique, rhetoricians have generally taken these claims on face value and applied them to a treatment of scientific practice. Accordingly, rhetoricians have maintained a natural ontological attitude to sociological theories and descriptions supporting an understanding of scientific discourse as implicitly rhetorical. Recently, however, the concept of "rhetoric" in rhetoric of science has come under scrutiny. This thesis will connect arguments involving the relation of the "irreducibly social" nature of science, to a concept of scientific discourse as rhetorical "without remainder,” to the philosophical commitments of reflexive analysis. Stipulations as to the universal presence and influence of social and rhetorical forces in science substitute, I argue, for a conception of the scientific rhetor as a social type. Although I do not mystify either scientific discourse or practice, I wish to provide grounds for determining whether, given claims about the nature and relation of scientific discourse and practice, rhetorical analyses can be considered either trivial or substantive, descriptive or normative, or even rhetorical or social.