RHETORICAL ARGUMENTATION AND CONTROVERSIES: A CASE STUDY

Charles Darwin and George Mivart once engaged in a famous polemic concerning the origin of species. I will analyze this polemic in the light of the conceptual framework and argumentative strategies of Darwin's Origin of Species (1872) and Mivart's On the Genesis of Species (1871). In order to understand the nature of their polemic, I will compare the problems they intended to deal with, their answers as well as their motivations, presuppositions, arguments, and argumentative strategies. In particular, I will focus on Mivart's objections and Darwin's responses as part of their argumentative strategies. I will treat refutation in its widest sense (without reducing it to merely proving falsehood) as a collection of procedures to challenge an opponent's position or proposition.