On the shoulders of giants: Seventeenth‐century optics as an argument field
- 1 February 1988
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Quarterly Journal of Speech
- Vol. 74 (1) , 1-17
- https://doi.org/10.1080/00335638809383825
Abstract
In the seventeenth century, Descartes founded, and Newton revolutionized, modern optics. This story, often told by historians and philosophers of science, can be profitably reconceived in terms of rhetoric. Conceived this way, analyzed this way, the history of optics becomes a‐succession of argument fields, scientific works are disclosed as sets of persuasive structures, and scientific revolutions are revealed as rhetorically constituted: successful efforts to persuade us that the present is seriously discontinuous with the past.Keywords
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