The Realm of Rhetoric 0268016046, 0268016054

Table of contents :
Title page
Copyright
Contents
Introduction
1. Logic, Dialectic, Philosophy, and Rhetoric
2. Argumentation, Speaker, and Audience
3. The Premises of Argumentation
4. Choice, Presence, and Presentation
5. Significance and Interpretation of Data
6. Techniques of Argumentation
7. Quasi-Logical Arguments
8. Arguments Based on the Structure of Reality
9. Argumentation by Example, Illustration, and Model
10. Analogy and Metaphor
11. The Dissociation of Ideas
12. Fullness of Argumentation and Strength of Arguments
13. The Order of Arguments in a Discourse
14. The Realm of Rhetoric
NOTES
Introduction
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
Index

Citation preview

The Realm of Rhetoric CH. PERELMAN Translated by William Kluback Introduction by Carroll C. Arnold

UNIVERSITY O F NOTRE D A M E PRESS NOTRE DAME

LONDON

Copyright © 1982 by University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

Originally published as L 'Empire rhétorique: rhétorique et argumentation

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Perelman, Chasm. The realm of rhetoric. Translation of: L'empire rhétorique. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Reasoning. 2. Rhetoric. I. Title. BC177.P38413 808 79-66378 ISBN 0-268-01604-6 AACR2 ISBN 0-268-01605-4 (pbk.)

Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents Introduction, Carroll C. Arnold

vii

1. Logic, Dialectic, Philosophy, and Rhetoric 2. Argumentation, Speaker, and Audience 3. The Premises of Argumentation

1

9

21

\

4. Choice, Presence, and Presentation

33

\

5. Signification and Interpretation of Data

\/

6. Techniques of Argumentation

\/

7. Quasi-Logical Arguments

41

48

53

8. Arguments Based on the Structure of Reality \

(0.1 Argumentation by Example, Illustration, and Model 106

\

10 Analogy and M e t a p h o r 11. The Dissociation of Ideas

114 126

12. Fullness of Argumentation and Strength of Arguments 138 [ 13. The Order of Arguments in a Discourse 14. The Realm of Rhetoric Notes

163

Index

181

153

146

81

Introduction

THE REALM

OF RHETORIC

is a n E n g l i s h t r a n s l a t i o n of

Professor Perelman's L'Empire rhétorique: rhétorique et argumentation, published at Paris in 1977. The book develops and adds to analyses of argumentation originally presented by Perel man and Mme. L. 0 1 b rec h ts-Ty teca in their The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, published in French in 1958 and in English in 1969. I am honored to have been asked to introduce this new work to American readers. Professor Perel man's account of how his interest in the nature of argument and rhetoric arose helps one to understand his work. As a student of philosophy and law, Perel man undertook to study the nature of justice. He soon faced a question which popular systems of philosophy and logic failed to answer satisfactorily. The question was: By what processes do we reason about values? The question was inevitable because one cannot arrive at clear conclusions concerning how justice or any other value is distinguished from its opposite without understanding how "cases" are made for and against that value. Finding no adequate expositions of these argumentative processes in existing philosophical literature, Perel man and Mme. OlbrechtsTyteca undertook a detailed study of "texts which attempt to have a value or a rule prevail, showing that such a n action or choice is preferable." They analyzed "writing of moralists and politicians, speakers extolling this or that behavior, vii

Vil!

The Realm of

Rhetoric

leading newspaper articles, all kinds of justifications." 1 Their basic question can be expressed as: What does justification of values "look like" in actual, verbal discourse? The Realm of Rhetoric presents their major findings in concise form, together with additional observations developed by Perel man in the years since his original investigation. Perel man's independent study of what people actually do when they argue about values reconfirmed the ancients' contention that when one's initial premises or instances or assumptions are disputable, the best possible argument can only follow "a method by which we shall be able to reason f r o m generally accepted opinions about any problem . . . and shall ourselves, when sustaining an argument, avoid saying anything self-contradictory." 2 As Perel man points out, the modern aspiration to arrive at certain conclusions in philosophy through general arguments is traceable to such figures as Rudolf Agricola and Peter Ramus in the history of rhetoric and René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza in the history of philosophy. But the arguments which Perel man studied showed clearly that to equate the principles and processes of practical argument with principles and processes of formal logic and mathematics is mistaken, as Aristotle originally asserted. In contemporary American treatises on rhetoric and argument this equating of the processes of formal logic with those of general argument is gradually disappearing, but there still remains an ambivalence to which Perelman would object. 3 Perelman contends for a completely different kind of analysis. He is disturbed that the claims to rationality made by philosophers do not lead to agreement, so he inspects what philosophers and others actually do in arguing. He seeks to identify, in their verbal structures, how arguers claim rationality. He does not make purely linguistic, semiotic, or psychological analyses of verbal forms.

Introduction vii

Rather, without denying the usefulness of these kinds Q analysis, Perelman concentrates on: How do claims ti reasonableness arise in prose that is not formally logical What does "reasonable" mean for someone who speaks ( "reasonable men" or "beyond reasonable doubt"? .Raisij such questions has led him to notice many ways of arguing! addition to the quasi-logical methods—the methods cor ventionallv discussed by writers of American textbooks. Perelman was led to observe that the acceptability Q assumptions about the nature of reality gives some arguf ments their qualities of rationality; that arguments example, illustration, and model do not really pretend inductions but appear rational by virtue of the "rules" the] imply; that metaphors can argue as surely as extendec analogies; that dissociating certain notions from p r i m a r j conceptions can render the primary conceptions reasonable that presumed relations between persons and their actions allow rational conclusions; and that amplifying and ord„ ing ideas and arguments serve not only as dispositional ancfi stylistic actions but can strengthen or weaken the reas