Ежен Дюпреель і Хаїм Перельман: нормативно-критичні засади «риторичного повороту» в сучасній філософії. Частина І

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to give a critical assessment of the methodological, epistemological and philosophical principles of the “rhetorical turn” as a historico-philosophical phenomenon in contemporary philosophy. The first part offers a reconstruction and a critical assessment of the methodological and epistemological foundations of Eugène Dupréel's critique of the key features of “classical philosophy”, namely, the concept of necessary knowledge and the concept of progress. These are supplemented by a brief analysis of Chaїm Perelman’s reception of Dupréel's theses in his works of the so-called “turning point” period (1947–1949). It is shown that Dupréel's critique is “axiological” in nature and consists in his reassessment of the principles of classical methodology and epistemology. In his critique of the doctrine of necessary knowledge from the standpoint of humanism, Dupréel wittingly vindicates the methodological and epistemological principles of sophistry (critical realism, subjectivism, pragmatism, pluralism, relativism, conventionalism, etc.), but endows these, as well as other concepts of classical epistemology, with a new, humanistic, meaning. Perelman generally supports the main points of Dupréel's criticism, strengthening their social and humanistic orientation. This article demonstrates that the criticism of classical philosophy offered by both thinkers is limited in terms of both its subject and its principles. After all, it (1) provides a simplified image of “classical philosophy”, (2) is based on a misunderstanding of the fundamentally conceptual and constructive nature of philosophical knowledge, (3) is carried out from the standpoint of “socially oriented realism”, and, therefore, (4) has no bearing on the epistemological principles of idealistic and religious movements,(5) leading to the separation of philosophy from scientific and religious knowledge.