The Darwinian Rhetoric of Science in Petr Kropotkin's Mutual Aid. A Factor of Evolution (1902)

Nicolosi, Riccardo (2020): The Darwinian Rhetoric of Science in Petr Kropotkin's Mutual Aid. A Factor of Evolution (1902). In: Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Vol. 43, No. 1: pp. 141-159

Abstract

The paper explores the significance of rhetorical argumentation in Petr Kropotkin's treatise Mutual Aid. A Factor of Evolution (1902). It argues that Kropotkin's work is steeped in the tradition of a rhetoric of science that is profoundly Darwinian and in which various forms of analogic reasoning play a central role. After explaining the epistemic function of the metaphors “struggle for existence” and “mutual aid,” the paper analyses Kropotkin's argumentation strategies and offers an interpretation of them as a further development and reworking of Darwinian rhetoric.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Languages and Literatures > Department 2 > Slavic Philology
• Subjects: 400 Language > 400 Language
• ISSN: 1522-2365
• Language: English