ABSTRACT
In Donne, Milton, and the End of Humanist Rhetoric, Thomas Sloane implicitly calls for a return to the pedagogical practice of controversia, or what is sometimes called pro-con argumentation. In On the Contrary, Sloane makes this call explicit. Sloane defines controversia as the play of both sides in the invention of one’s argument. Not simply the presence of both sides, as in many argumentation readers, nor even the consideration of both in order to predict, and preempt, the opposition’s argument, this is, he argues, a way of thinking. It is, he claims, a skeptical search for contingent solutions to issues of common concern.
