This lecture will adopt the life and work of Anton Wilhelm Amo as the take-off point for reflecting on the genesis of doubt and its uses in society and politics. It will be shown through and interpretation of various sources from philosophy and literature that doubt has many modes of articulation, partly in relation to established protocols of reasoning, but also with respect to aesthetic objects and to shared communal values. It will be shown that in philosophy doubt is elevated to a cardinal methodological principle regarding the interrogation of premises, and that this interrogation forms the primary scaffolding for the construction of arguments in all branches of the discipline. In literature, on the other hand, doubt is expressed in relation to affect and consciousness, the primary mode relating to the rejection of dominant norms of being in society.

Ato Quayson is a distinguished professor specializing in African American Studies and English Literature and is the chair of the Department of African and African American Studies at Stanford University.