Rhetoric Achieves Nature. A View from Old Europe

Abstract

I would like to quote a well-known example used by Frege to illustrate difference between Sinn and Bedeutung, as a point of departure for this essay: Venus is morning star and evening star?it depends on beholder1?but Venus, celestial body, it objectively is. In eyes of beholder lies sense (Sinn); in an objective view, resides reference (Bedeutung). Or, to put it rhetorically: Venus is this or that, according to a given set of commonplaces, it is address-bound; whereas, in an objective and cohesive language, it is what science explains it to be. Henry Johnstone, in his 1973 article and Rhetoric in Philoso phy, gives his own version of this aphrodisiac exemplum. In his essay, ity behaves not unlike Venus, as for philosopher rationality awakes at dusk, in flight of Hegelian owl, while, for rhetor, it shines at sunrise, when arguments begin to be exchanged on market place. Hauser neatly encapsu lates this when he writes, the character of philosophical . . . [does] not permit a clear dividing line between what [is] philosophical and rhetorical in an argument (2001, '5). Rationality is bound by addressed nature of arguments that, prudentially, make our civil life bearable or, at very least, less beastly, and help believers in morning star to live side by side with those of evening star. The recent success of French referendum (in May 2005) when, following deliberative mobilization by a large number of non-governmental organizations, voters declined to accept a choice presented them by media and politicians united, as only rational option, and voted no, has highlighted SinnlBedeutung political tension. I would go as far as to say that Sinn/Bedeutung game is democratic or republican civility's aphrodisiac. Without its incentive, in politics may be reduced to a handbook of quotations held as truths, with no escape from rectification, in words of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (no date, 9). This aphrodisiac tension between Sinn and Bedeutung enters civil life every time political choices offered sovereign, either directly (through