Questions of evidence proof, practice, and persuasion across the disciplines

Contains 12 essays originally published in three consecutive issues of Critical inquiry (Summer 1991 to Winter 1992), an essay by Mary Poovey, responses to the essays by various faculty members of the University of Chicago, and replies to the responses by the authors of the essays.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contagious Folly: An Adventure and Its Skeptics / Terry Castle -- For Your Eyes Only: Ghost Citing / Francoise Meltzer -- A Rejoinder to Francoise Meltzer / Terry Castle -- Self Evidence / Simon Schaffer -- Massaging the Evidence / Lawrence Rothfield -- Gestures in Question / Simon Schaffer -- Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl / Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick -- Evidences of Masturbation / Lauren Berlant -- Against Epistemology / Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick -- Belief and Resistance: A Symmetrical Account / Barbara Herrnstein Smith -- Resistance to Constructed Belief / Robert Richards -- Circling Around, Knocking Over, Playing Out / Barbara Herrnstein Smith -- Reasonable Evidence of Reasonableness / Mark Kelman -- On Finding Facts / Cass R. Sunstein -- A Rejoinder to Cass R. Sunstein / Mark Kelman -- The Question of Art History / Donald Preziosi -- A Response to Donald Preziosi / Joel Snyder -- A Rejoinder to Joel Snyder / Donald Preziosi.

Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern Europe / Lorraine Daston -- Proving a History of Evidence / James Chandler -- Historical Epistemology / Lorraine Daston -- Checking the Evidence: The Judge and the Historian / Carlo Ginzburg -- Carlo Ginzburg and the Renewal of Historiography / Arnold I. Davidson -- A Rejoinder to Arnold I. Davidson / Carlo Ginzburg -- Atlantis and the Nations / Pierre Vidal-Naquet -- Using and Abusing Fiction / Elizabeth Helsinger -- How to Get beyond Myth? / Pierre Vidal-Naquet -- The Evidence of Experience / Joan W. Scott -- Experience and the Politics of Intellectual Inquiry / Thomas C. Holt -- A Rejoinder to Thomas C. Holt / Joan W. Scott -- Figures of Arithmetic, Figures of Speech: The Discourse of Statistics / Mary Poovey -- A Response to Mary Poovey / Harry Harootunian -- Grand Narrative or Historical Overdetermination? / Mary Poovey -- Two Souls in One Body / Ian Hacking -- Aristotle Re-membered / Jean Comaroff.

Aristotle Meets Incest - and Innocence / Ian Hacking -- Facts and the Factitious in Natural Sciences / R. C. Lewontin -- Lewontin's Evidence (That There Isn't Any) / William Wimsatt -- A Rejoinder to William Wimsatt / R. C. Lewontin.

This anthology brings together thirteen major essays by leading scholars and researchers in multiple fields across the sciences and humanities. In addition, each essay is accompanied by a never-before-published critical response and a rejoinder by the author of the original essay.