Rhetoric and Incommensurability

by Randy Allen Harris (Editor)

RHETORIC AND INCOMMENSURABILITY examines the complex relationships among rhetoric, philosophy, and science as they converge on the question of incommensurability, the notion jointly (though not collaboratively) introduced to science studies in 1962 by Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend. The incommensurability thesis represents the most profound problem facing argumentation and dialogue-in science, surely, but in any symbolic encounter, any attempt to cooperate, find common ground, get along, make better knowledge, and build better societies. This volume brings rhetoric, the chief discipline that studies argumentation and dialogue, to bear on that problem, finding it much more tractable than have most philosophical accounts. The introduction charts the many variations of incommensurability in scholarly literatures, anchoring them in Kuhn's and Feyerabend's work; probes the implications of seeing incommensurability as a rhetorical phenomenon; and introduces the ten chapters from prominent scholars in the rhetoric, history, and philosophy of science, including Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Alan G. Gross, Thomas M. Lessl, Herbert W. Simons, Leah Ceccarelli, Lawrence J. Prelli, John Angus Campbell, Jeanne Fahnestock, Charles Bazerman, René Agustín De los Santos, and Carolyn R. Miller.

600 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2005

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this last year. It was epic. But my Kindle has recently decided to link to my Goodreads against my will so whenever I open a book it thinks I'm reading the book.. when I'm only sourcing the book for a quote for a convo.

Anyhoo this book is phenomenal.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been intrigued by incommensurability for years, since before I even knew the word, and wish I'd had this book ages ago. I especially wish I'd had the introduction, which provides an in-depth taxonomy of the many meanings of "incommensurability." The premise of the book as a whole -- that rhetoric is how we get around problems of incommensurability -- appeals to my vanity (I am a rhetorician, after all), but also makes sense. As I.A. Richards said, rhetoric "should be the study of misunderstanding and its remedies."