The Darwinian Rhetoric of Science in Petr Kropotkin's Mutual Aid. A Factor of Evolution (1902) |
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Authors: | Prof. Dr. Riccardo Nicolosi |
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Affiliation: | University of Munich, Slavic Philology |
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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. |
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Keywords: | Peter Kropotkin Charles Darwin Russian Darwinism rhetoric of science struggle for existence mutual aid |
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