New Rhetoric, The

L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, Chaïm Perelman

Description

The New Rhetoric is founded on the idea that since “argumentation aims at securing the adherence of those to whom it is addressed, it is, in its entirety, relative to the audience to be influenced,” says Chaïm Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, and they rely, in particular, for their theory of argumentation on the twin concepts of universal and particular audiences: while every argument is directed to a specific individual or group, the orator decides what information and what approaches will achieve the greatest adherence according to an ideal audience. This ideal, Perelman explains, can be embodied, for example, "in God, in all reasonable and competent men, in the man deliberating or in an elite.” Like particular audiences, then, the universal audience is never fixed or absolute but depends on the orator, the content and goals of the argument, and the particular audience to whom the argument is addressed. These considerations determine what information constitutes "facts" and "reasonableness" and thus help to determine the universal audience that, in turn, shapes the orator's approach.

The adherence of an audience is also determined by the orator's use of values, a further key concept of the New Rhetoric. Perelman's treatment of value and his view of epideictic rhetoric sets his approach apart from that of the ancients and of Aristotle in particular. Aristotle's division of rhetoric into three genres–forensic, deliberative, and epideictic–is largely motivated by the judgments required for each: forensic or legal arguments require verdicts on past action, deliberative or political rhetoric seeks judgment on future action, and epideictic or ceremonial rhetoric concerns values associated with praise or blame and seeks no specific decisions. For Aristotle, the epideictic genre was of limited importance in the civic realm since it did not concern facts or policies. Perelman, in contrast, believes not only that epideictic rhetoric warrants more attention, but that the values normally limited to that genre are in fact central to all argumentation. "Epideictic oratory," Perelman argues, "has significant and important argumentation for strengthening the disposition toward action by increasing adherence to the values it lauds.” These values are central to the persuasiveness of arguments in all rhetorical genres since the orator always attempts to "establish a sense of communion centered around particular values recognized by the audience.”

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Épistémologie
• Movements
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Logic
• Analytic
• Rhetoric
• Ethics
• Aristotle

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 30 septembre 1991
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268175092
• Langue: English

Extrait

The New Rhetoric
A Treatise on Argumentation
The New Rhetoric
A Treatise on Argumentation
CH. PERELMAN
and
L. OLBRECHTS-TYTECA
Translated by
J OHN W ILKINSON AND P URCELL W EAVER
Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
Copyright © 1969 by
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
First paperback edition in 1971
Reprinted in 1971, 1975, 1978, 1982, 1988, 1991, 1996,
2000, 2003, 2006, 2008
Manufactured in the United States of America
Originally published as
La Nouvelle Rhetorique: Traite de l’Argumentation
Presses Universitaires de France, 1958
ISBN 13: 978-0-268-00446-0 (pbk.)
ISBN 10: 0-268-00446-3 (pbk.)
ISBN 13: 978-0-268-00191-9 (hardback)
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-20440
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party
vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability
issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at
[e-mail]
CONTENTS
F OREWORD
I NTRODUCTION
PART ONE
THE FRAMEWORK OF ARGUMENTATION
§ 1. Demonstration and Argumentation
2. The Contact of Minds
3. The Speaker and His Audience
4. The Audience as a Construction of the Speaker
5. Adaptation of the Speaker to the Audience
6. Persuading and Convincing
7. The Universal Audience
8. Argumentation Before a Single Hearer
9. Self-Deliberating
10. The Effects of Argumentation
11. The Epidictic Genre
12. Education and Propaganda
13. Argumentation and Violence
14. Argumentation and Commitment
PART TWO
THE STARTING POINT OF ARGUMENT
I. Agreement
§ 15. The Premises of Argumentation
16. Facts and Truths
17. Presumptions
18. Values

19. Abstract Values and Concrete Values
20. Hierarchies
21. Loci
22. Loci of Quantity
23. Loci of Quality
24. Other Loci
25. Use and Systematization of Loci; Classical Outlook and Romantic Outlook
26. Agreements of Certain Special Audiences
27. Agreements Particular to Each Discussion
28. Argumentation ad Hominem and Begging the Question
II. The Choice of Data and Their Adaptation for Argumentative Purposes
§ 29. Selection of Data and Presence
30. The Interpretation of Data
31. The Interpretation of the Discourse and Its Problems
32. Choice of Qualifiers
33. On the Use of Notions
34. Clarification and Obscuration of Notions
35. Argumentative Usage and Plasticity of Notions
III. Presentation of Data and Form of the Discourse
§ 36. Content and Form of the Discourse
37. Technical Problems in the Presentation of Data
38. Verbal Forms and Argumentation
39. Modalities in the Expression of Thought
40. Form of the Discourse and Communion with the Audience
41. Rhetorical Figures and Argumentation
42. Figures of Choice, Presence, and Communion
43. Status and Presentation of the Elements of the Argumentation
PART THREE
TECHNIQUES OF ARGUMENTATION
§ 44. General Remarks
I. Quasi-Logical Arguments
§ 45. The Characteristics of Quasi-Logical Argumentation
46. Contradiction and Incompatibility
47. Procedures for Avoiding Incompatibility
48. Techniques for Presenting Theses as Compatible or Incompatible

49. The Ridiculous and Its Role in Argumentation
50. Identity and Definition in Argumentation
51. Analyticity, Analysis, and Tautology
52. The Rule of Justice
53. Arguments of Reciprocity
54. Arguments by Transitivity
55. Inclusion of the Part in the Whole
56. Division of the Whole into Its Parts
57. Arguments by Comparison
58. Argumentation by Sacrifice
59. Probabilities
II. Arguments Based on the Structure of Reality
§ 60. General Considerations
61. The Causal Link and Argumentation
62. The Pragmatic Argument
63. The Causal Link as the Relation of a Fact to Its Consequence or of a Means to Its End
64. Ends and Means
65. The Argument of Waste
66. The Argument of Direction
67. Unlimited Development
68. The Person and His Acts
69. Interaction of Act and Person
70. Argument from Authority
71. Techniques of Severance and Restraint Opposed to the Act-Person Interaction
72. The Speech as an Act of the Speaker
73. The Group and Its Members
74. Other Relations of Coexistence : Act and Essence
75. The Symbolic Relation
76. The Double Hierarchy Argument as Applied to Sequential Relations and Relations of Coexistence
77. Arguments Concerning Differences of Degree and of Order
III. The Relations Establishing the Structure of Reality
§ 78. Argumentation by Example
79. Illustration
80. Model and Anti-Model
81. The Perfect Being as Model
82. What Is Analogy?
83. Relations Between the Terms of an Analogy
84. Effects of Analogy

85. How Analogy Is Used
86. The Status of Analogy
87. Metaphor
88. Dormant Metaphors or Expressions with a Metaphorical Meaning
IV. The Dissociation of Concepts
§ 89. Breaking of Connecting Links and Dissociation
90. The “Appearance-Reality” Pair
91. Philosophical Pairs and Their Justification
92. The Role of Philosophical Pairs and Their Transformations
93. The Expression of Dissociations
94. Statements Prompting Dissociation
95. Dissociative Definitions
96. Rhetoric as a Process
V. The Interaction of Arguments
§ 97. Interaction and Strength of Arguments
98. Assessment of the Strength of Arguments as a Factor in Argumentation
99. Interaction by Convergence
100. Amplitude of the Argumentation
101. The Dangers of Amplitude
102. Offsetting the Dangers of Amplitude
103. Order and Persuasion
104. The Order of the Speech and Conditioning of the Audience
105. Order and Method
C ONCLUSION
B IBLIOGRAPHY
I NDICES
FOREWORD
On the occasion of the publication of the American edition of The New Rhetoric, I would like to extend my warmest thanks to those in the United States who have helped me make my ideas known here or who have facilitated the appearance of this book.
I am grateful to Professor Richard P. McKeon of the University of Chicago, who in 1951 recommended to Ethics our first article to appear in America, “Act and Person in Argument.” Mr. Henry W. Johnstone, Jr., was the first person to draw the attention of the American public to our work through his critical article published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research in 1954. It was through him and Professor Robert T. Oliver, past president of the American Speech Association, that I received a joint invitation from the Departments of Philosophy and Speech at Pennsylvania State University, where I gave a seminar on “The Philosophical Foundation of Argumentation.” Thanks to Professor Oliver, I was able to present my ideas at an annual meeting of the American Speech Association at Denver in 1963. These efforts at collaboration between philosophers and specialists in the techniques of speech and communication were continued in 1964 through a colloquium at Pennsylvania State University on the theme “Philosophy and Rhetoric,” and have culminated in the appearance of a new review, Philosophy and Rhetoric , in 1968, under the editorship of Henry W. Johnstone, Carroll C. Arnold, and Thomas Olbricht.
I also wish to thank those colleagues who have been kind enough to invite me to present my ideas at the University of Chicago, Cornell University, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania.
The invitation which I received from Carl J. Friedrich, head of the Department of Political Science at Harvard, was preceded by a generous review which he had published in 1962 in the Natural Law Forum . It was through him that I first met the editor of this review, Professor John T. Noonan, Jr., presently at Berkeley, who published certain of my articles and recommended my work to the University of Notre Dame Press. I wish to thank the director of that press, Miss Emily Schossberger, for taking the risks involved in bringing out a work which is compactly written and demands close study from the very outset.
Finally, my sincere thanks go to the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions at Santa Barbara. Mr. John Wilkinson, who is its director of studies on the theme “The Civilization of Dialogue,” has enthusiastically propagated my ideas and has also translated part of the present treatise. But I know that without President Robert M. Hutchins, who supported my efforts and granted a generous subvention for translation, this volume would not have seen the light of day. I wish to thank him sincerely for his support and help.
Ch. P.
INTRODUCTION
I
The publication of a treatise devoted to argumentation and this subject’s connection with the ancient tradition of Greek rhetoric and dialectic constitutes a break with a concept of reason and reasoning due to Descartes which has set its mark on Western philosophy for the last three centuries. 1
Although it would scarcely occur to anyone to deny that the power of deliberation and argumentation is a distinctive sign of a reasonable being, the study of the methods of proof used to secure adherence has been completely neglected by logicians and epistemologists for the last three centuries. This state of affairs is due to the noncompulsive element in the arguments adduced in support of a thesis. The very nature of deliberation and argumenta­tion is opposed to necessity and self-evidence, since no one deliberates where the solution is necessary or argues against what is self-evident. The domain of argumentation is that of the credible, the plausible, the probable, to the degree that the latter eludes the certainty of calculations. Now Descartes’ concept, clearly expressed in the first part of The Discourse on the Method , was to “take well nigh for false everything which was only plausible.” It was this philos­opher who made the self-evident the mark of reason, and considered rational only those demonstrations which, starting from clear and distinct ideas, extended, by means of apodictic proofs, the self-evidence of the axioms to the derived theor