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Philosophical Mode of Inquiry                        

Nature of "Knowledge"

The impulse for philosophical inquiry is to account for, frame, critique and analyze the field's fundamental assumptions and beliefs. Both its logic and its form are dialectical. Individual contributions are governed by rules of inference—the movement from one or more premises to some conclusion—the body of knowledge of the community is held together by a specialized dia-logic: the dialectical opposition of competing inferential systems.  Philosophical knowledge in this communal sense takes the form of a free-ranging, never-ending debate.

Inquiry—Philosophical Inquiry
The method of Philosophical inquiry is identical with public dialectic—the presentation and refutation of arguments—and not whatever private ruminations might precede and/or support it.

  1. Identify Problems
  2. Establish Premises
  3. Making Argument(s): The Communal Dialectic
  4. Drawing Conclusion(s): Disseminating to a Wider Audience

Identifying Problems
It has no internal means for discriminating among the particular problems it addresses—not in terms of relative importance or any other criteria. Philosophical inquiry demands allegiance only to a mode, not a subject matter: what matters is how one investigates, not what. The dominant strategy of establishing premises in Composition has been foraging other disciplines to borrow philosophical premises. The Technician tendency in this community tends to consider its premises as unquestionable (breaking the fundamental nature of dialectic—no premises are unassailable). Thus, the inferentially reasoned position such an inquirer advances is not to be tested dialectically but pragmatically or experimentally. Dangers of giving certain premises special status; shut down dialectic.

Making Arguments

  1. identify the problem—some gap
  2. identify criteria for adequate solutions to the problem
  3. establish some premises by offering foraged knowledge
  4. make arguments based on those premises
  5. conclude by indicating the new position's implications, areas for further inquiry

 

Key Figures: Ann Berthoff, Janet Emig, Richard Young, Patricia Bizzell, Robert Connors—lots of people!

 

 

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This site contains direct excerpts from The Making of Knowledge in Composition by Stephen North. Portsmouth: Heineman, 1987.
Lirvin Researching | Site created by Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College (2007) | Last updated August 20, 2007