Toward a rhetoric of reason

Abstract

It is customary to oppose logic to argumentation, just it goes without saying that the latter differentiates itself from literary rhetoric. This tradition, born with Aristotle, was faithfully followed by Perelman, who brought rhetoric back to its proper place by going beyond the logical empiricism then prevailing. Argumentation has never ceased to be anything but a weak inference, noncompelling in its conclusions, which must be brought to life in countering the monopoly of demonstrative or apodictic inference represented by logic. As a result of this negative definition of the rhetorical field, rhetoric finds itself ab initio in a position of inferiority, not to say on the defensive. And thus it is necessary to discern just what the reduction of rhetoric to a conflict between propositions signifies. Yet the goal remains, in logic, a conclusion about truth and the justification of its acceptance. But in this game, logic is without a doubt more efficient since its conclusions are without appeal: its propositions are true, and known well the indisputable justifications of their truth-values. Argumentation, which also deals with propositions, i.e., truth-values, can thus be no more than a substitute, appropriate in non-scientific contexts before any scientific decision can take place. The least one can say is that rhetoric finds itself in a position of inferiority since it is situated well short of the establishment of truth, and in any case, rhetoric cannot settle once and for all alternative theses in opposition. We should equally note the underlying idea behind the propositional model: it combines truth and justification. Not only is science privileged, but the idea itself of truth implies that its possession justifies its acceptance beyond any possible debate. The exclusion of the rhetorical field goes along with this idea of truth. Truth is convincing as such, hence the superiority of any procedure which establishes truth univocally over any thought process, which debates without establishing one conclusion in a decisive and necessary way, and which makes acceptance subjective instead of placing it in an objective field which constrains and subordinates subjective movements. Whoever asserts a proposition, gives it a truth-value, and whoever speaks of truth, conditions intellectual procedure to exclude all which does not lead to it. Rhetoric, on the contrary, works with the conflicts between propositions. If one conceives of rhetoric a possible procedure for deciding between propositions, it will inevitably be inferior to science and to logic, which are conclusive. In turn, rhetoric will also be external to the literary field, since literature does not argue. As to science, it is situated beyond all argumentation by virtue of its method of justifying propositions. Scientific method can resolve any opposition by reductio ad absurdum. Since any proposition must in principle be true or false, science must be the propositional model even if one is still at the (inferior) level where one does not really have knowledge. In this model of reason, what can the positive role and place of rhetoric be? Such a conception of rhetoric sketched can be found in Plato, who was able to discredit it easily. It rests on the propositional model of the Logos: a