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8Reinventing Certainty: The Significance of Ian Hacking’s RealismPSA Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1990 (1): 421-431. 1990.In a recent paper (1989), Ian Hacking has extended his discussion of entity realism, a discussion begun six years ago in the final chapter of Representing and Intervening (1983). This extension allows us to examine for the first time the whole of one impressive attempt to rescue scientific realism from the ever more subtle skepticism of post-positivist thinking (Laudan 1984; Fine 1986). Hacking’s approach complements that of Nancy Cartwright. Like Cartwright, he implies that a full-blown realism…Read more
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6Philosophy Versus Science: The Species Debate and the Practice of TaxonomyPSA Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988 (1): 223-230. 1988.Although generally informed by an intimate knowledge of evolutionary biology and taxonomy, the controversy over the nature of species is clearly philosophical; it consists almost entirely of the clarification of old, and the invention of new arguments for or against calling the species category a class, The debate seems firmly divided between those, like Kitts and Bernier, who see homo sapiens as a class, and those, like Hull and Ghiselin, who see it as an individual. In the first case, particul…Read more
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40The conceptual unity of Aristotle's rhetoricPhilosophy and Rhetoric 34 (4): 275-291. 2001.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.4 (2001) 275-291 [Access article in PDF] The Conceptual Unity of Aristotle's Rhetoric 1 - [PDF] Alan G. Gross and Marcelo Dascal The standard view--that the Rhetoric lacks conceptual unity--has strong and prestigious support, stretching over most of the century. To David Ross in 1923 the unity of the Rhetoric was practical, not theoretical; to misunderstand this fact was to see this work, mistakenly, as "a …Read more
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53Douglas Walton, The Appeal to Pity: Argumentum ad MisericordiamPragmatics and Cognition 7 (1): 223-226. 1999.
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14Nicholas Russell. Communicating Science: Professional, Popular, Literary. xxiv + 324 pp., index. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. $31.99 (review)Isis 101 (4): 926-927. 2010.
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11The scientific sublime: popular science unravels the mysteries of the universeOxford University Press. 2018.The sublime evokes our awe, our terror, and our wonder. Applied first in ancient Greece to the heights of literary expression, in the 18th-century the sublime was extended to nature and to the sciences, enterprises that viewed the natural world as a manifestation of God's goodness, power, and wisdom. In The Scientific Sublime, Alan Gross reveals the modern-day sublime in popular science. He shows how the great popular scientists of our time--Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Bri…Read more
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59The Rhetoric of Science. 1996.Alan Gross applies the principles of rhetoric to the interpretation of classical and contemporary scientific texts to show how they persuade both author and audience. This invigorating consideration of the ways in which scientists--from Copernicus to Darwin to Newton to James Watson--establish authority and convince one another and us of the truth they describe may very well lead to a remodeling of our understanding of science and its place in society.
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42Review of Hyland (1998): Hedging in Scientific Research Articles (review)Pragmatics and Cognition 8 (2): 446-450. 2000.
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46Review of van Eemeren & Houtlosser (2002): Dialectic and Rhetoric: The Warp and Woof of Argumentation Analysis (review)Pragmatics and Cognition 11 (2): 386-390. 2003.
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Rhetorical Hermeneutics: Invention and Interpretation in the Age of SciencePhilosophy and Rhetoric 32 (3): 282-285. 1999.
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24Communicating Science: The Scientific Article From the 17th Century to the PresentOxford University Press USA. 2002.This book describes the development of the scientific article from its modest beginnings to the global phenomenon that it has become today. The authors focus on changes in the style, organization, and argumentative structure of scientific communication over time. This outstanding resource is the definitive study on the rhetoric of science.
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38Some Limits of Non-dualismConstructivist Foundations 8 (2): 242-246. 2013.Context: Josef Mitterer’s non-dualism advocates a method of analysis as distinct from a metaphysical position. As such it bears resemblance to my earlier work. Problem: Is there only the world of discourse or is there a sense in which some facts and some theories are beyond argument and will remain so? Approach: In my analysis I try to apply Mitterer’s ideas to science, philosophy, and literary criticism. Results: I claim that it is not possible to argue against certain scientific facts or again…Read more
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56Adaptation in evolutionary epistemology: Clarifying Hull's model (review)Biology and Philosophy 3 (2): 185-186. 1988.
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40The Challenger Disaster And The Revival Of Rhetoric In Organizational LifeArgumentation 11 (1): 85-93. 1997.Explanations of the cause of the Challenger disaster by the Presidential Commission and by communication scholars are flawed. These explanations are characterized by a common tendency to emphasize the technical and procedural aspects of organizational life at the expense of the cognitive and ethical. Rightly construed, the Challenger disaster illustrates both the need for a revived art of rhetoric and the importance of putting in place the political and social conditions that make this art effic…Read more
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26Philosophy versus Science: The Species Debate and the Practice of TaxonomyPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988. 1988.A reading of a sample of taxonomical papers leads to the conclusion that new species identification is both taxonomically plausible and philosophically incoherent. As a result, taxonomy becomes a science that apparently violates a necessary condition of its rationality. It is this apparent violation that is the focus of the philosophical debate, a debate whose goal for taxonomy is theoretical coherence at a global level. In this paper, I assess the appropriateness of this goal.
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21Shaping written knowledge: The genre and activity of the experimental article in scienceStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 21 (2): 341-349. 1990.
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11Examines the nature of rhetorical theory and criticism, the rhetoric of science, and the impact of poststructuralism and postmodernism on contemporary accounts of rhetoric.
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26A Model for the Division of Semiotic Labor in Scientific Argument: The Interaction of Words and ImagesScience in Context 24 (4): 517-544. 2011.ArgumentA growing cross-disciplinary literature has acknowledged the importance of verbal-visual interaction in the creation and communication of scientific texts. I contend that the proper understanding of these texts must flow from a hermeneutic model that takes verbal-visual interaction seriously, one that is firmly grounded in cognitive constraints and affordances. The model I propose has two modules, one for perception, derived from Gestalt psychology, the other for cognition, derived from …Read more
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36The science wars and the ethics of book reviewingPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 30 (3): 445-450. 2000.
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76Rhetoric as a technique and a mode of truth: Reflections on chaïm PerelmanPhilosophy and Rhetoric 33 (4): 319-335. 2000.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.4 (2000) 319-335 [Access article in PDF] Rhetoric as a Technique and a Mode of Truth: Reflections on Chaïm Perelman Alan Gross In memoriam: Henry Johnstone, fons et origo.In one of his many criticisms of The New Rhetoric, the philosopher Henry W. Johnstone Jr. complains about its chapter "The Dissociation of Concepts" that "one is never sure whether [Chaïm Perelman is] thinking of rhetoric primarily as a te…Read more
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40Do Disputes over Priority Tell Us Anything about Science?Science in Context 11 (2): 161-179. 1998.The ArgumentConflicts between scientists over credit for their discoveries are conflicts, not merely in, but of science because discovery is not a historical event, but a retrospective social judgment. There is no objective moment of discovery; rather, discovery is established by means of a hermeneutics, a way of reading scientific articles. The priority conflict between Roger Guillemin and Andrew Schally over the discovery of the brain hormone, TRF, serves as an example. The work of Robert Mert…Read more
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Shaping written knowledge: The genre and activity of the experimental article in science: Charles Bazerman,(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988). Paper $17.50 (review)Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 21 (2): 341-349. 1990.
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80Rhetoric, narrative, and the lifeworld: The construction of collective identityPhilosophy and Rhetoric 43 (2). 2010.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric, Narrative, and the Lifeworld: The Construction of Collective IdentityAlan G. GrossAt the beginning of King Lear, at the point of ceding his throne to his three daughters, Lear asks each for a public acknowledgment of her love. Goneril and Regan flatter their father with effusive declarations, but Lear’s youngest, and his favorite, Cordelia, refuses to do so:I love your Majesty According to my bond; no more or less..........…Read more
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University of MinnesotaRegular Faculty
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |