This course is a part of HF's PhD week.
Course description
Plato was, most likely, the one who coined the word “rhetoric,” and he is also our prime source for the distinction between two basic forms of knowledge: doxa and episteme. These facts are intimately connected, for Plato famously ranked these forms of knowledge and associated oratory with the former – forever giving rhetoric a bad name. When (new) rhetoric re-emerged in the 20th century, however, the relative valuation of belief and certainty had been turned on its head. Rhetoric’s re-emergence can thus be seen as one of many expressions of changing conceptions of knowledge – which we can think of as a doxic turn.
In this course, we discuss what doxa is, how it is distinct from episteme, and what it entails to do research within a doxic theory of science. We will discuss what the central distinction meant to the Greeks and what it means to us, and discuss what difference a “doxological” approach to research makes for science-society relations. The course is useful for a wide selection of humanist disciplines. It aims to create a space where PhD candidates can explore the relevance of doxa and doxology to their own work, and encourages the crossing of disciplinary boundaries by offering readings, lectures, and discussion sessions that connect to different parts of the humanities and social sciences.
This is a 1 ECTS course.
Preparation and Program
Course participants will prepare a selection of 150-200 pages from the suggested reading list, and submit this selection for approval by the course convener by 23 May. Before the course, participants will also write a 2-page paper where they critically engage with a one or several of their selected texts: This paper should be submitted by 30 May. After the course, each participant will write a 3-page essay relating themes from the course to their own field or research project, to be submitted by 20 June.
Course Language
The course language is English. The initial papers must be in English, though the post-course essay can be in either English or a Scandinavian language.
Course Convenor / Lecturer
Kristian Bjørkdahl, kristian.bjorkdahl@iln.uio.no
Suggested Readings
Candidates choose 150-200 pages from the list below. A reading list shall be submitted to the course convenor in advance for approval.
Amossy, Ruth. “How to Do Things with Words: Toward an Analysis of Argumentation in Discourse.” Poetics Today 23, no. 3 (2002): 465-487.
Amossy, Ruth. “Introduction to the Study of Doxa.” Poetics Today 23, no. 3 (2002): 369-394.
Barthes, Roland. Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes. New York: Vintage Classics, 2020.
Bengtsson, Erik. “The Concept of Doxa in the European Reinvention of Rhetoric.” In Rhetoric in Europe: Philosophical Issues, edited by Norbert Gutenberg and Richard Fiordo, 79-87. Berlin: Frank & Timme.
Biesta, Gert. “Pragmatising the Curriculum: Bringing Knowledge Back into the Curriculum Conversation, but via Pragmatism.” Curriculum Journal 25, no. 1 (2014): 29-49.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
Davies, William, and Linsey McGoey. “Rationalities of Ignorance: On Financial Crisis and the Ambivalence of Neo-Liberal Epistemology.” Economy and Society 41, no. 1 (2012): 64-83. DOI: 10.1080/03085147.2011.637331
Dewey, John. The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action. [Proposed extract: “Escape from Peril” and “Philosophy’s Search for the Immutable”]
Dufays, Jean-Louis. “Received Ideas and Literary Reception: The Functions of Doxa in the Understanding and Evaluation of Texts.” Poetics Today 23, no. 3 (2002): 443-464.
Fuller, Steve. “Can Science Survive its Democratisation?” Logos & Episteme 2, no. 1 (2011): 21-31. https://doi.org/10.5840/logos-episteme20112146
Hariman, Robert. “Status, Marginality, and Rhetorical Theory.” The Quarterly Journal of Speech 72, no. 1 (1986): 38-54.
Lippman, Walter. Public Opinion. [Proposed extract: “Introduction” and “Stereotypes”]
McGoey, Linsey. “Strategic Unknowns: Towards a Sociology of Ignorance.” Economy and Society 41, no. 1 (2012): 1-16. DOI: 10.1080/03085147.2011.637330
Moss, Jessica. Plato’s Epistemology: Being and Seeming. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. [Proposed extract: “Doxa Is of What Seems” and “The Basic Conception of Doxa at Work”]
Norgaard, Kari Marie. Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2011. [Proposed extract: “Prologue: An Unusual Winter” and “Introduction: The Failure to Act, Denial versus Indifference, Apathy, and Ignorance”]
Plato, Gorgias.
Rorty, Richard. “Texts and Lumps.” New Literary History 39, no. 1 (2008): 53-68. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20058049
Rosengren, Mats. “Doxa: That Which Sticks to the Retina.” The Yearbook of Comparative Literature 62, (2016): 120-132.
Rosengren, Mats. “On Creation, Cave Art and Perception: A Doxological Approach.” Thesis Eleven 90, no. 1 (2007): 79-96. https://doi.org/10.1177/0725513607079258
Rosengren, Mats. Doxologi: En essä om kunskap. Retorikförlaget, 2008.