The doxa , it is the unit - more or less homogeneous - confused opinions, popular prejudices, generally allowed and evaluated presuppositions positively or negatively, on which any form of Communication is based. The doxic study of the phenomenon is thus at the contact point of the Sémiologie, of the studies of the Discours, the Sociologie and the epistemology.

Origin of the concept

The doxa (of the Greek: Doxe, be: The opinion) is, in the Philosophie of Parménide, the confused Opinion which one is made on somebody or an aspect of the Réalité, in opposition to the true access path to the Vérité: the To be which is.

The doxa is thus a Concept which goes back to the same origins of philosophy.

Parménide was a Greek philosopher , which lived end of the Life century in the middle of Ve century before J. - C., a little front Plato and Aristote. It was the principal one representing Eleatic school, founded by Xénophane de Colophon with Élée, colony of Phocée. Élée was located in Campania in the south of the current Italy.

Parménide would have come at the age 65 years to Athens, where he would have known Socrate.

The Eleatic school includes/understands several philosophers Présocratiques: in addition to Parménide, we find Zénon d' Élée, and Mélissus de Samos.

Parménide and Zénon d' Élée influenced the largest Greek philosophers: Plato and Aristote.

See also: Présocratiques

The modern concept: some definitions

The comprehension of the world is obviously not a simple Phénomène, not mediatized. The knowledge is always a construction and, which more is, a preconstruction and a rebuilding. All that the man conceives and meeting is a resumption (or at least an alternative) of the knowledge that it has some already, of a significance and an evaluation to which it agreed beforehand.

Knowledge and communication supposes the passage through, and thus the division of a system of comprehension. According to Charles Grivel (1980: d1) this filtering between the man and the world is double: beside filtering sémantico-logic of the Language, there exists a précompréhension which is social, founded on the Goût, the behavior, i.e. on “the slogans of well-thinking”. We find the same idea at Itamar Even-Zohar (1980: 65): any semiotic code transmits information on “the following real-world” of cultural conventions. There exists a “repertory”, a structured system, of “réalèmes” (of the “realia”, elements coming from the “real-world”), which enters relations intra- and inter-systemic.

So that a message is acceptable (or at least probable), it must be in conformity with these “requirements of transmission” of comprehensibility, utility and persuasivity (Grivel 1981: 74). That supposes the division of the same speech, same “credits” (Grivel 1980: d5), i.e. a “community of faith” enters the participants of the Communication. All this basic agreement is implicit: “one does not speak about what everyone knows”. Moreover, that could sow confusion and cause the setting in question of these presupposed same: “the truth is sometimes best left unsaid” (Grivel 1980: d5,10).

What applies to any form of communication, is worth a fortiori for the text: any text is dominated by distributive powers, mechanisms of insertion:

The “réalèmes” of Even-Zohar do not imply a value judgment. However it announces that, precisely by the conventional constraints imposed on the réalèmes, it becomes possible to assign “secondary functions to them”, beside that to inform on the world. Even-Zohar gives examples of an esthetic and literary nature, but it is clear that these secondary functions can be also, and especially, of an ideological nature. This is already suggested by Pierre Bourdieu: “To each position correspond of the presuppositions, a doxa, and the homology of the positions occupied by the producers and their customers is the condition of this complicity which is all the more strongly required that what is committed is more essential, nearer to the ultimate investments. ” (Bourdieu 1979: 267)

Indeed, the concept of “doxa” receives its full value only when the idea is accepted that the réalèmes are subjected to a value judgment. They then become “idéologèmes” (“universals” in the terminology of Grivel 1978: 40), which constitutes a network of values: the doxa.

The doxa thus constitutes a whole (a “network”, a system) of values, maxims around some (all, but some more than of others) aspects and elements of the Réalité meant. It is located beyond the Langue, but in on this side Discours of which it founds, tacitly, mutual comprehension.

Some distinctions

Doxa and épistémè

The doxa is at the same time recognition and ignorance: one recognizes a stereotype which one knows already, and this one prevents us from really knowing the Réalité in front of us. Indeed, it is important to distinguish the concept of “doxa” from that of “épistémè”. In the Years 1950, Roland Barthes exclaimed already: “(…) one of our major constraints: overpowering divorce of the Mythology and the Knowledge. Science goes quickly and right in its way; but the collective Représentation S do not follow, they are centuries, maintained stagnant behind in the error by the capacity, the large press and the values of order. ” (Barthes 1957:72 - 73)

But divorce does not mean absolute opposition inevitably. It would be better to say than doxa and épistémè is in a report/ratio Dialectique. Like Charles Grivel (1981: 83) the fact of noticing rightly, any whole of structured knowledge includes/understands a doxa, and all doxa is presented in the form of a épistémè. A company knows itself through two systems of knowing: the doxa, primarily preserving, and the épistémè, which can be progressist. The second functions like the development of the first, the first like the brake of the second. The difference between the two consists of what the doxa is by legitimated definition (generally accepted, therefore checked) and unverifiable.

Doxa and ideology

Another distinction which is essential is that between “doxa” and “Idéologie”. We already raised general confusion around this last concept. Several authors identify doxa and Idéologie: “If all this knowledge is gathered, all these vulgarisms, it is formed a monster, and this monster, it is the ideology. ” (Barthes 1970:104)

It seems to us however that the doxa is rather an instrument, or a mask of the Idéologie basic.

If the Idéologie is “the imaginary report/ratio of the individuals to their real conditions of existence” (Althusser), the doxa is a system of Représentation S of this “imaginary report/ratio”. If the ideology, for example, requires the maintenance of the oppositions of class, the doxa transforms them well into oppositions between and badly, order and disorder, deserves and masses, etc Imposing on the subject a “mental horizon”, it is an ideological mode of Connaissance, a system of significances which propagates the ideology by hiding it.

The term of ideology having today a Pejorative direction , one can employ it with an aim of denouncing an adversary in a Débat. This process will be all the more effective as the debate will be mediatized, and that the bottom of the object of the debate is unknown those which take part in it or assist to with it. It will cause to sow confusion in the spirit of people, and thus to emphasize that which denounces.

The process can also draw its effectiveness owing to the fact that, as one saw, the concept of ideology is badly included/understood greater number. For example, one can denounce the liberal ideology, in order to dissimulate the ideologies which one defends oneself, forgetting that there exist more or less radical forms of Libéralisme (ultraliberalism,…), and that this philosophy has evolved/moved much for three centuries. The same applies to socialism.

Doxa and myth

The concept of “myth” (that we take with feel definite by Barthes 1957) is much univocal. The individual myth is a tool of the ideology, it carries out the credits, whose doxa is the system, in the speech: the myth is a sign. Its meant is a idéologème, its meaning can be anything: “Each object of the world can pass from an existence closed, dumb, in an oral state, opened with the appropriation of the company. ” (Barthes 1957:216)

In the myth, writing Barthes, the semiological “meaning/meant chain = sign” is doubled. The myth is constituted starting from a preexistent chain: the sign of the first CHAIN becomes meaning it of the second. Barthes gives the example of a sentence appearing like example in a grammar: it is a sign made up of meaning and meant, but which becomes in its meaning context of grammar new of which meant “I am here like example of a grammatical rule” (Barthes 1957:222 - 223).

Doxa and stereotyped

Finally, it is necessary to establish a distinction between the “Mythe”, the “Idéologème”, the “Stéréotype” on the one hand and the “Cliché” on the other hand. Anne Herschberg-Pierrot locates the stereotype, “as some say”, on the level Rhétorique, between the level of the personal expression (“as I say”) and the ideological level, “like one says” (Herschberg-Pierrot 1979:88 - 89). According to Laurent Jenny, the myth has an ideological intention, while the stereotype has an intention rhetoric, esthetics (in the case of the parody) or null, while having an ideological operation (Jenny 1972:498). Indeed, the practice of the stereotype is a practice of writing to the direction barthien of the term: it is the choice of a tone, an act of historical solidarity, often unconscious but always eloquent. The writer constitutes himself as one idéologico-cultural moment an impersonal spokesperson (Jenny 1972:505).

The stereotype shows the speech of the Other, and the action ways of thinking of the company where it has success - a success which has nothing to do with its esthetic value, but which is a reflection of sociocultural values (Amossy & Rosen 1982:17). The stereotype thus has a statute comparable with that of the myth: it is word, it means the doxa. We however did not put it at the same level: its impact including and more is limited at the same time more. While the myth means idéologème, particular element of the doxa, the stereotype always introduces the doxa as a whole. In addition, the stereotype does not reproduce, does not propagate the doxa: its function is especially to make the speech probable, acceptable, by making it resemble the “accepted” speech of the company.

The function sociétale of the doxa

We said that the doxa facilitates the communication - but by melting it. (The homonym is ironic: to found implies to melt.) That means that its function first is its service with the dominant ideology. In particular, its function is to gradually register the social order in the individual. The doxa converts the social structures into principles of structuring, of manner of organizing the social world: “(…) the experiment first of the world is that of the doxa, adhesion to the relations of order which (…) are accepted as self evident. ” (Bourdieu 1979:549)

Bourdieu takes again a term of Durkheim, “logical conformism”, to indicate this decisive process for the conservation of the social order: “the orchestration of the categories of perception of the social world which, being adjusted with divisions of the established order (and by there, on the interests of those which dominate it) and common to all the spirits structured in accordance with these structures, impose themselves with all appearances of the objective need. ” (Bourdieu 1979:549 - 550)

At the bottom, which makes the speech doxic, it is to convert the history, the culture, out of gasoline, nature. Several authors announce this phenomenon: Bourdieu (1979: 73) presents it like the fundamental fitting of the ideology, Barthes was irritated some so much that it started to write its Mythologies: “(…) I suffered to see constantly confused in the account of our topicality, Nature and History, and I wanted to seize again in the decorative exposure of EC-which-go-of-oneself, the ideological abuse which, with my direction, is hidden there. ” (Barthes 1957:7)

This transformation of the history in kind, of the existence out of gasoline, is propagated on the level of the speech by the myth. The mythical image, which is with the truth the mask of the concept, is presented in the form of a reason of the concept. A system of values is propagated like a series of facts (Barthes 1957:237 - 239). “The world enters the language like a dialectical report/ratio of activities, human acts: it leaves the myth like a harmonious gasoline table. ” (Barthes 1957:251)

As point out it Amossy and Rosen (1982: 47), the stereotype, which does not have any “natural quality” makes the same thing exactly: he claims “naturalness” to veil his conventionnality.

It is clear that the conversion of the history in kind is used to prolong the current order of the things: The actual position is proclaimed natural, i.e. realization of the gasoline of the human being, therefore morally well. History becomes Nature which becomes Morale: thus very reached with the structures sociétales even becomes immorality. (Cf Barthes 1957:151.) In last analysis, the doxa, for Barthes, is the image that the Bourgeoisie is made world and imposes on the world. The middle-class strategy is to fill the whole world of its culture and its morals, while making forget its own statute of historical class: “The statute of the middle-class is particular, historical: the man whom it represents will be universal, eternal; (…) Lastly, the idea first of the world perfectible, mobile, will produce the reversed image of an immutable humanity, defined by an infinitely started again identity. ” (Barthes 1957:250 - 251)

The doxic structure

On several occasions, we presented the doxa like a “system”. However this statute is not so obvious, if it is necessary to believe certain authors of them. In any case, let us accept the doxa like a “whole” of credits subjacent with the communication. As we pointed out, this function carries several authors to compare the doxic structure with that of the language: a system meaning preestablished, relatively fixed, obvious, normative, réifiant.

Julia Kristeva (1969: 27,113) extends this analogy even to very practical social: the economy, manners, art all are considered like a meaning system and can be studied scientifically like secondary systems compared to the language. Obviously, that does not mean that the categories of these systems can be reduced with those of the natural language: they are translinguistic practices, of systems which are superimposed on the language.

Grivel informs us that the “ideology” cannot be regarded as a monolithic system: “the ideological activity of a company is never presented in the form of an approximation supplements and ever succeeded of a system of thought. ” (Grivel 1980: d4)

In addition, it announces that the “rate of universality” of the universals of text fluctuates (Grivel 1978:39) - what amounts saying that the system doxic comprises movements centers - periphery and vice versa.

In any case, just like the system of the language as a system of potentialities, the ideology continues to exist. The language doxic changes, the language remains - or even: the language changes so that the language can perpetuate its existence. “The rule includes/understands the innovation of its demonstration which conceals it like rule. ” (Grivel 1973:63)

The paradox is clear: the maintenance of law and order, i.e. the principles of variation, opposition, division imposed by the ideology on our vision of the company, is precisely assured by a ceaseless change the representations of these variations, oppositions and divisions. Thus, we can describe the doxa as the system which it is: comprising a center and a periphery, just like of the relations of opposition and competition intra- and inter-systemic.

However we will try not to lose sight of the fact the relative statute of this structure: it exists because it serves the dominant ideology, and it is thus not question of devoting as “universal” a structure which is fundamentally historical: “The dialectical one of the downgrading and the reclassification which is with the principle of all kinds of social processes implies and imposes that all the groups concerned run in the same direction, towards the same objectives, the same properties. ” (Bourdieu 1979:182)

Also let us announce the importance of systems doxic in the definition of the cultural identity of a group, a nation or a culture. Like Clem Robyns (1994, 1995) describes it, the product imports cultural or of values of another culture or another group in the culture, new idéologèmes brings immediately. Thus the cultural importation threatens the obviousnesses of the culture or the receiving speech, therefore them doxa.

Systems doxic

By inspiring several authors mentioned to us below, we will say that the “idéologèmes”, the units composing the system doxic, are structured in two dimensions (diversified).

Initially, there are the axes or axiologies: bipolar lines of which the ends are concepts opposed absolutely, like Bien-Mal, Ordre-Désordre, etc the axes can be presented as continued, by comprising “ambivalent” terms (unhappy love affair, for example), but the two ends remain always dominant and determine the end value. Always, one of the two opposite terms is evaluated positiviment, the other negatively. An axis can rise from another or concretize it.

Then, horizontally, we have the semantic fields, like the Family, the Nature, the War, etc, which in their turn can be subdivided in more limited fields. (Let us point out that the generic notions of the fields can also be reproduced like such on some axiology.) Each idéologème is then a maxim, a presupposition which is on one or more axes and in one or more semantic fields.

It is especially the concept of the axes which one finds at many authors. Barthes (1970: XIV) declares the antithesis one of most stable hundreds of figures suggested by rhetoric to name, to found the world. Faithful to its assumption of the account like “disjunction, nondisjunction, disjunction”, Kristeva applies this principle to the literary account: “The text thématiquement is thématiquement centered: it will be about a play between two exclusive oppositions whose nomination will change (vice-virtue, love-hatred, praise-critical…), but which will always have the same semic axis (positive-negative). They will alternate in a course that nothing limits except the initial presupposition of the excluded third, i.e. of the inevitable choice of one or other (” or “exclusive) of the terms. ” (Kristeva 1969:119)

We find an application explicit of the principle of the axiologies at Bourdieu (1979: 546), which shows how various doxic axiologic oppositions used in the cultural field (haut-bas, spiritual-material, free-forced, single-common, brilliance-tern…) are derived from a fundamental opposition which is active in all the social field and constitutes one of the fundamental categories of its perception: that between the elite and the undifferentiated mass.

Leo H. Hoeck (1980: e9-10, based on Greimas & Courtès, reasoned Dictionnaire of the theory of the language) proposes the most developed version axiologic assumption. It distinguishes five types of axiologies (definite like “modes of paradigmatic existence of the values”): morals (well-malicious), logic (truth-false), esthetics (beautiful-ugly), economic (rich person-poor) and social (superior-inferior).

We can thus describe a system doxic like a field arranged hierarchically in evolution, where various models follow one another in the center. These models join together one or more “idéologèmes” or presuppositions, which all are definite on one or plusiers axes and in one or more fields, and which is expressed in the speech by a mythical image or a whole of images. All these models, by their hierarchical and oppositional character, contribute to carry out and bring up to date the basic ideological direction which is the perpetuated existence of a hierarchical company, where the terms can change but where the structure must remain immutable.

See too

On the origins of the concept

On the philosophical concepts

  • List of the concepts of philosophy
  • To be
  • Metaphysical

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