Thesen zum homo rhetoricus und zur Neugestaltung der Philosophie im 21. Jahrhundert

Abstract

The following thirteen theses expose the anthropology of the homo rhetoricus and attempt to outline a new design of philosophy for the 21st century: I. Man is a rhetorical being. - II. The general power of speech exists as a fundamental and universal phenomenon in human life world and is the necessary foundation of all artificial rhetoric. - III. Man as homo rhetoricus is the main object of a fundamental, rhetorical anthropology. - IV. The categories of classical rhetoric have a heuristic function with respect to the anthropology of the homo rhetoricus. - V. The five basic faculties of invention, disposition, elocution, memory and performance form a heuristic pattern for a fundamental, rhetorical conception of spirit (Geist). - VI. The (post-)modern existence of homo rhetoricus is dominated by the figure of irony. - VII. Ironic alterity also designates the culture in the beginning of the 21st century. - VIII. The danger of an unlimited postmodern irony consists of an infinite ironical regress. - IX. Philosophy in general is also a creation of the homo rhetoricus. - X. The rhetorical metacritique of philosophy is directed against classical metaphysics as well as against its antagonist - postmodern deconstruction . - XI. Both - the supposed evidence of dogmatic metaphysics and the neosophistical evidence of non-evidence are contingent. - XII. The rhetorical enlightenment does not aim at a pure postmodern deconstruction of philosophy but consequently reaches forward to its fundamental, rhetorical reconstruction. - XIII. A rhetorically well-informed and enlightened metaphysics represents a new and positive mode of existence of the homo rhetoricus.