Curricular Unit:Code:
Argumentation, Evidence and Post-Truth1151AEPV
Year:Level:Course:Credits:
1DoctorateCommunication Sciences15 ects
Learning Period:Language of Instruction:Total Hours:
Spring SemesterPortuguese/English195
Learning Outcomes of the Curricular Unit:
a) Promoting the scientific study of argumentation and its importance for public debate, for democracy and for the common good; ethical and moral dimensions;
b) Promoting the scientific study of the close relationship between argumentation and evidence / knowledge;
c) Promoting the scientific study of tribalism in argumentation, which arises from disinformation, from fake news, from post-truth.
This will allow the student to obtain the following qualifications:
Knowledge: in-depth knowledge of the curricular unit's bibliography and fundamental concepts.
Skills:
Critical thinking on the themes analysed and discussed;
Original and independent conceptualization of the addressed issues;
Understanding and communicating of these topics to fellow students and to the scientific community.
Competences:
Skilful use of resources learned in the curricular unit;
Autonomy and meta-cognition capacity.
Syllabus:
a) Argumentation, and democracy, in the classical era.
b) Argumentation in contemporaneity.
c) Argumentation and knowledge; arguments and evidence.
d) Argumentation in the era of post-truth, fake news and social networks.
e) Argumentation, common good, consensus and values.
Demonstration of the Syllabus Coherence with the Curricular Unit's Objectives:
In this curricular unit we seek to reflect on the decisive importance of argumentation in the context of a free, informed and lucidly critical society.
The argumentation appears, in the classical era, precisely in this framework.
On the other hand, it has always been inseparable from a previous polymathy that allows us, roughly speaking, to know what we are talking about (to argue).
Nowadays, due to disinformation and post-truth, argumentation has become tribalized, thus losing its fundamental purpose: the possible agreement in the light of evidence and knowledge.
In a nutshell, for the most part, there is currently no argumentative practice on the most various subjects, since it is difficult and requires knowledge, but instead a vast set of opinions that, paradoxically, are both sovereign and unfounded.
These are the topics that the course proposes to analyse and discuss, thus converging the learning objectives with the contents.
Teaching Methodologies (Including Evaluation):
Given the nature of a post graduate seminar, the teaching methodology presupposes an autonomous reflection, based on readings and critical research, by the students about the subjects to be discussed. It is, understandably, the lecturer´s role to steer this process.
The evaluation will be conducted through an individual final work which, ideally, may be the first step towards a publication shared with the lecturer.
Demonstration of the Coherence between the Teaching Methodologies and the Learning Outcomes:
The critical, grounded and autonomous work required in this curricular unit is directly correlated to the stated objectives of the course: it is, in fact, up to the students to be citizens and professionals, which means, in this context, to assert their points of view through solid, informed and community argumentation. This is the only way to do academic work and a doctoral thesis be done, that is, only in this way is knowledge produced: arguing in a civil manner.
Reading:
Barroso, E. P. e Estrada, R. (2018). De Hípias Menor a Trump: das virtudes do erro (e da mentira) ao erro da pós-verdade. Estudos em Comunicação, Volume I, nº 26, 301-309.
Butter, M. and Knight, P. (2021). Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories. Routledge.
Guthrie, W. K. C. (1993). The sophists. Cambridge: Cambride UP.
Mello, P. C. (2021). Máquina do Ódio. Quetzal.
Muirhead, R. and Rosenblum, N. L. (2020). A Lot of People are Saying. The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy. Princeton University Press: Princeton.
Nichols, T. (2017). The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters. Oxford University Press: Oxford
Platão. (1981). Fedro. (Trad. P. Gomes). Lisboa: Guimarães Editores.
Platão. (1990). Hípias Menor. Introdução, versão do grego e notas de Maria Teresa Schiappa de
Azevedo. Coimbra: INIC.
Lecturer (* Responsible):
Eduardo Paz Barroso (epb@ufp.edu.pt)
Rui Estrada (restrada@ufp.edu.pt)