Retorik som humanvetenskaplig kunskapsteori och metod i samhällsplanering - En idéöversikt

Abstract

Rhetoric as an epistemology and method of human sciences in community planning - an overview of ideas. The thesis of this article is that logic/science does not exclude but requires a knowledge of rhetoric. Rhetoric is not merely a technique for persuasion but, more importantly, a science of how we structure our knowledge through language. Logic and science are nothing but instruments that natural language construct to handle observable factual circumstances, something that became possible with the invention of alphabet and written language. A positivistic, reductive science is suitable only by research on given facts. Alongside the knowledge of facts, we must also handle the knowledge of action, which is impossible to do only with the positivistic methods of conventional social science. Drawing on his personal experiences of municipal politics and communal planning the author suggests that rhetorical conceptions and methods of research can play a big role in community planning research and in sciences of man, which necessarily brings facts and actions together. The article refers to a rhetorical based theory called 'human-scientific theory of action'. While science helps us to know (knowledge of causes), rhetoric helps us to understand (knowledge of intentions and meanings).