A rhetorical analysis of episteme shift: Darwin's origin of the species

• Barbara Warnick ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Washington

     University of Washington

     Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Southern communication journal, ISSN 1041-794X, Vol. 49, nº 1, 1983, págs. 26-42
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Certain rhetoric‐as‐epistemic theorists have held that consensus is the only criterion by which knowledge claims are assessed; their opponents have replied that consensus is not an epistemological criterion at all. Opponents of the epistemic view believe consensus is overruled by direct empirical observation. The present study proposes a compromise and argues that knowledge is a system of claims based on observation, experience, authority, and consensus. Hence a knowledge system is a socially coordinated, linguistically based network of propositions grounded in a reality external to discourse. Rhetoric therefore plays an inherent and significant, but not all‐encompassing, role in the formation of a knowledge system. The usefulness of this systemic model of knowledge is illustrated by applying it to the rhetorical analysis of Darwin's Origin of the Species.