The Malthus-Ricardo correspondence: Sequential structure, argumentative patterns, and rationality

Marcelo Dascal*, Sergio Cremaschi

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

Although the controversy between Malthus and Ricardo has long been considered to be an important source for the history of economic thought, it has hardly been the object of a careful study qua controversy, i.e. as a polemical dialogical exchange. We have undertaken to fill this gap, within the framework of a more ambitious project that places controversies at the center of an account of the history of ideas, in science and elsewhere. It is our contention that the dialogical co-text is essential for reconstructing the meaning and the evolution of science. In the present paper we try to substantiate this contention by means of a pragma-rhetorical study of this particular controversy. First, we reconstruct, through an analysis of a chunk of the correspondence, a micro-level of specific moves and countermoves which constitute a sequential structure within which also meta-scientific and meta-controversial considerations play a role. We then move to a macro-level of analysis, looking for recurrent patterns of argumentation. Finally, we draw epistemological conclusions on the nature of rationality and progress as manifested in actual scientific controversies.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1129-1172
Number of pages44
JournalJournal of Pragmatics
Volume31
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1999

Keywords

  • Argumentation
  • Controversy
  • Dialectics
  • Dialogue
  • History of economics
  • Pragma-rhetorical analysis
  • Rationality
  • Scientific correspondence

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