Explicação e persuasão na argumentação Daawiniana em "The expression of the emotions in man and animals"

Abstract

This work analyzes the main argumentative strategies used by Charles Darwin in "The expression of emotions in man and animals". Starting from a debate with the scientific community, Darwin highlights difficulties inherent to the theme and the explanatory superiority of the view he defends, using various resources, such as the analogy and appeal to the explanatory power of "simplicity" contained in the subsumption of facts to few principles. In this work, Darwin elaborates a theory of the expression of emotions in an evolutionary perspective, in opposition to creationist treatises. Facts collected by Darwin since 1838 are discussed with the reader, through certain principles. It is in the first three chapters that these principles are spelled out and discussed in general terms,  and our analysis of Darwinian argumentative strategies focuses on these chapters and the introduction.