Skip to main content
Log in

Social epistemology as a rhetoric of inquiry

  • Published:
Argumentation Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Fuller's program of social epistemology engages a rhetoric of inquiry that can be usefully compared and contrasted with other discursive theories of knowledge, such as that of Richard Rorty. Resisting the model of “conversation,” Fuller strikes an activist posture and lays the groundwork for normative “knowledge policy,” in which persuasion and credibility play key roles. The image of investigation is one that overtly rejects the “storehouse” conception of knowledge and invokes the metaphors of distributive economics. Productive questions arise as to how notions of creation and distribution might guide this rhetoric.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Eco, U.: 1984,Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuller, S.: 1988,Social Epistemology, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A.: 1979,Central Problems in Social Theory, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyne, J.: 1990, ‘The Culture of Inquiry’,Quarterly Journal of Speech 76, 192–224.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacIntyre, A.: 1988,Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, J., A. Megill, and D. McCloskey: 1987,The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R.: 1979,Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R.: 1989,Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Willard, C.: 1989,A Theory of Argumentation, University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, AL.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lyne, J. Social epistemology as a rhetoric of inquiry. Argumentation 8, 111–124 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00733364

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00733364

Key words

Navigation