cusses the concepts of ‘poly-anchorage’ and ‘polyphony’, as well the rela-tions between these concepts.

Finally, in a very brief concluding chapter, the analyses are comple-mented with a Paretian theory of action. In this theory, argumentation isconsidered as an action type.

Alban Bouvier succeeds in convincing his readers of the interestof studying philosophical argumentation from a sociological point ofview. His investigations of the Meditations, including the Objections andResponses, bring out clearly the interest of such an endeavour. Here, wefollow the ways in which the author makes use of Pareto’s argumentativeprocedures, which he enriches with pertinent insights of, notably, Perelman,Toulmin, Ducrot and Grize. This work is, as the author announces, at thesame time an extraction, an adaptation and an extension of his thesisdefended at the University of Paris-Sorbonne entitled Essai d’anthroposo-ciologie de l’argumentation philosophique. Hétérogénéités et dissonancesdans les Méditations métaphysiques de Descartes et dans le Contratsocial de Rousseau, 3 t., 1991. Such a revised version possesses both thequalities and the shortcomings of the initial project: richness in content,abundance of references, and, now and then, elliptical expositions. But thisis not detrimental to the fact that this is an indispensible book for all thosewho have an interest in the study of argumentation.

DENIS MIÉVILLECentre de Recherches Sémiologiques

NeuchâtelSwitzerland

Marianne Doury, Le débat immobile. L’argumentation dans le débat médiatique sur les parasciences. Paris: Kimé, 1997.

Astrology, parapsychology, dianetics, instinctotherapy et cetera are regu-larly evoked by television programs to oppose supporters and opponentsof these parasciences. As a linguist and a specialist in argumentation,Marianne Doury analyses the discourse strategies adopted in these con-troversies in a book the title of which translates as ‘The Immobile Debate’.Clear and well-written, this book makes its readers more familiar with theparasciences and their common logic.

The book is in the first place successful in practicing argumentativeanalysis on an extended corpus. Most argumentative analyses are eitherpurely theoretical or they are applied to a very small corpus. MarianneDoury succeeds in defining the chief argumentative techniques used in 23television programs. In a clear way, she demonstrates that supporters of theparasciences and their opponents discuss the framework of the debate (whois authorised to speak, what is the nature of the debate et cetera), rather

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than the phenomena themselves. In this way, Doury confirms Perelman’sinsistence upon framing techniques. Most of these framing strategies givethe supporters of the parasciences great advantage over their opponents.This is, for example, the case when they claim that the opponents are notauthorised to speak because they are not specialists in the parasciences;when they compare themselves with Galilei and their opponents with obscu-rantist Inquisition; and when they present the ‘official sciences’ as laggingbehind the ‘advanced sciences’ – to be understood as the parasciences.

Another feature of the debate between supporters and opponents of theparasciences is the proliferation of metalinguistic interactions about theway in which phenomena are established. These interactions are goinground in circles as they suppose two conflicting conceptions of science:one based on the refutability of a constructed theory, the other based onthe submission to facts and testimonies.

Eventually, Marianne Doury shows how media favour parasciences’supporters by the very fact that their language is in keeping with medialanguage as resorting to feelings and sensations.

Marianne Doury’s book may be of interest both to discourse analystsand argumentation specialists, and to readers who are concerned aboutmedia communication or popularising science.

SIMONE BONNAFOUSUniversité Paris XII

France

Johan van Benthem, Frans H. van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst and FrankVeltman (eds.), Logic and Argumentation (1996). Amsterdam: North-Holland.

This book contains a selection from the papers presented at a colloquiumon Logic and Argumentation sponsored by the Royal Netherlands Academyof Arts and Sciences and held in Amsterdam in 1994 together with a fewadditional papers solicited later by the editors. There are fifteen papers inall, each beginning with an accurate and informative abstract and endingwith ample references to the relevant literature. There is a short index tothe book as a whole.

And there is an editors’ Preface which tells us that the main purpose ofthe colloquium was, and of the book is, to overcome ‘the oppositionbetween logic and argumentation theory.’ (1) To this end the papers provideboth historical reviews and contemporary surveys and also samples of thepresent state of the state of the art in the neighboring parts of both disci-plines. The editors offer them as a ‘gambit’ which, if followed up byreaders, will, they hope, lead to a real bond developing between logic andargumentation.

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