Perelman’s Ideas For a New Rhetoric

Chaim Perelman was born in Warsaw, Poland on May 20, 1912. He was first introduced to the study of Rhetoric in Secondary school. He developed an interest in law, and because of this interest, early in his professional career he developed a concept of “formal justice,” a principle action in accordance with which beings of one and the same essential category must be treated in the same way. This led him to questions of value \. “How do we reason about values?” He began to ask questions of how rationality and logic compare to one another. These questions couldn’t be answered by either of his fields of study, Rhetoric or Law. So, he and his counterpart Mme. L. Olbrechts-Tyteca decided to investigate the ways authors in diverse fields of study use argument to reason about values. They summarized their results: We obtained results that neither of us had ever expected. Without either knowing or wishing it, we had rediscovered a part of Aristotelian logic that had been long forgotten, or at any rate, ignored and despised. It was the part dealing with dialectical reasoning-called by Aristotle analytics- which is analyzed at length in the Rhetoric, Topic, and On Sophistical Refutations. We called this new, or revived branch of study, devoted to analysis of informal reasoning, the new rhetoric.

Perelman felt that a new approach to rhetoric was needed because rhetoric stressed matters of style at the expense of matters of rationality. He traces the connection of rhetoric to style to Aristotle’s analysis. Aristotle divided rhetoric into three oratory forms. They were forensic, deliberative, and Epideictic. Deliberative and Forensic speeches deal with matters of fact. Epidetic or ceremonial speeches deal with matters of value. The Classical treatment of rhetoric seemed to indicate that audiences are capable of judging matter of fact and policy on their merits, but are incapable of judging matters of value in the same manner. Perelman felt the need for a theory of argument in which values could be assessed rationally in the same way as facts and policies.

That leads me to my next point, The move to what is known as the New Rhetoric, whose basis according to Perlman is argumentation. Argumentation is different from formal logic and demonstration of the past. Formal logic is impersonal, demonstrations are assumed to be true regardless of an audience’s agreement with them. Argumentation is personal, they begin with a premise that the audience accepts. Argumentation requires an audience “ a speech must be heard, just as a book must be read,” the aim of argumentation is to secure it’s adherence. Perelman believes that for argumentation to occur, a contact of the minds must exist. People engaged in argumentation must have the same frame of reference.

Perelman identifies two types of audience. The first is the universal audience. It consist of all reasonable and competent people. The second is a particular audience. This is any group of people, whether they are reasonable and competent, or not. The particular audience may range from people who are physically present and who are addressed at a particular time to a specific group of persons whom the speaker is attempting to influence. The Universal audience, on the other hand does not have to be composed of many people. It can be one person or one’s own self. The adherence of the universal audience is the ultimate rationality in Perelman’s theory.

Perelman says that to secure certain audiences a speaker starts with certain starting points of agreement. There are two types of starting points that he identifies, starting points dealing with the preferable and starting points dealing with reality. Starting point dealing with reality deal with facts, truths, and presumptions. They all enjoy universal agreement. Starting points of the preferable deal with values hierarchies, and loci are all more persuasive. The only way that starting points dealing with reality can be overturned is by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. According to Perelman, what a rhetor attempts to do is to transfer the agreement accorded these starting points, to a thesis that may be contingent or controversial. This is accomplished by establishing presence and securing communion with the audience.

This is important to the final point made about Perelman’s theory. He discusses a wide variety of techniques aimed at accomplishing these argumentative aims. Three techniques of argumentation are: quasi-logical, arguments based on the structure of reality, arguments establishing the structure of reality. These involve the creating of a bond between the starting points of an argument and the speakers thesis. The technique of dissociation involves dividing concepts that otherwise would produce a conclusion that would produce a conclusion incompatible with the speakers thesis.

It is suggested that Perelman fails to work out the details of the relationship between the audience and the techniques of argumentation. Another strong argument is that Perelman’s universal audience is so ambiguous that it is almost useless. Despite all these criticisms his work had been particularly useful and influential to scholars interested in rhetorical thought. Perelman’s perspectives helps us to understand how the “arguer develops arguments and how the critic of argumentation analyzes argument from this value- centered perspective.

Dee Dee Toon, DLT7372