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Controversies and Interdisciplinarity: Beyond disciplinary fragmentation for a new knowledge model
Edited by Jens Allwood, Olga Pombo, Clara Renna and Giovanni Scarafile
[Controversies 16] 2020
► pp. 155–176

Chapter 8
A historical controversy about politeness and public argument

The dispute about fashion between Melchiorre Gioja and Antonio Rosmini

| Università della Svizzera italiana,
| Università della Svizzera italiana,
This article presents the Nineteenth-Century dispute arising from the criticism that the Italian philosopher Antonio Rosmini expressed against the arguments that the statesman Melchiorre Gioja supported in defense of fashion in his Apologia della moda ‘Apology of Fashion’ (1822) and against the utilitarian ideology that permeates the text. Gioja’s aggressive answer (in 1827) leads Rosmini to write a treatise on polite manners writers must have in public debate, thus offering an interesting ethical treatise. We aim to analyze the controversy adopting an interdisciplinary approach that investigates metapragmatic evaluative comments from the point of view of argumentation in order to reconstruct the argumentative justification behind each evaluation of (im)politeness and to show the principles defended by the disputants.
Keywords: argumentation, politeness, Nineteenth Century, Italy, historical controversy, fashion, interdisciplinarity, ethics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical premise
    • 2.1Controversies and argumentation
    • 2.2Argumentation analysis: Analytical overview and inferential configuration
    • 2.3The meta dimension of a controversy and its relationship with politeness
  • 3.The controversy between Gioja and Rosmini about fashion
    • 3.1The development of the conflict
    • 3.2The first part of the controversy: Rosmini dissecting the Apology of Fashion
      • 3.2.1Gioja’s Apology of Fashion and Rosmini’s confutation
      • 3.2.2Gioja’s Answer to the Ostrogoths
    • 3.3The second part of the controversy: The meta level and the public dimension
      • 3.3.1The Writers’ galateo: Pars destruens and pars costruens
  • 4.The non-conclusion of the controversy
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cvs.16.08sal
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