STS Lecture Series

Scientific Decorum and the
Sophistic and Plain Styles of Speaking

Joan Leach
Rhetoric of Science
University of Pittsburgh

and editor of Social Epistemology

Abstract

But purity, which is the foundation of style, depends on five rules …

-- Aristotle The Art of Rhetoric Book III.

This paper explores the notion of ‘rules’, a modest five for Aristotle but more for other theorists, of scientific decorum. First, I establish the basis for examining decorum in scientific contexts and give an overview of theories of scientific decorum; as professional context (civil decorum), as a way of establishing credibility (moral decorum) and as a mode of truth-telling (epistemic decorum). Second, I outline the historical motivations for these particular constructions of the appropriate in relation to styles of speech. Finally, I suggest that decorum need not be seen as a list of rules, as Aristotle and others might have it, but as a structuring of social norms, a place to look for how we organize the conduct of conduct in science. In so doing, two calls for appropriate style in science are apparent and heirs of the plain and sophistic styles of antiquity.