Chapters in this book

1. Prelim pages i
2. Table of contents v
3. Crossing borderlines: Traditions, disciplines, and controversies ix
4. Part I. Ancient traditions: East and West
5. Towards a taxonomy of controversies and controversiality: Ancient Greece and China 3
6. Controversy in Jewish law: The Talmud's attitude to controversy 17
7. Debates and rhetoric in Sumer 63
8. Persuasion in the Pre-Qin China: The Great Debate revisited 85
9. 'In proper form': Xunzi's theory of xinger 101
10. The right, duty and pleasure of debating in Western culture 125
11. Part II. Medieval and Early Modern traditions: Logic, dialectic, and rhetoric in controversy
12. The medieval disputatio 141
13. Disputing about disputing: The medieval procedure of positio and its role in a dispute over the nature of logic and the foundations of metaphysics 151
14. Antibarabarous contra pseudophilosophers: Metaphors in an early modern controversy 165
15. Dialectics, topology and practical philosophy in early modern times 181
16. Part III. Modern traditions: The rise of scientific disciplines
17. Legal controversy vs. scientific and philosophical controversies 209
18. The controversy over the foundation of sociology and its object: Simmel's form versus Durkheim's collectivity 223
19. Controversies about politeness 249
20. Controversies over controversies: An ontological perspective on the place of controversy in current historiography 267
21. Traditions of controversy and conflict resolution: Can past approaches help to solve present conflicts? 281
22. About the contributors 297
23. Index 301