Chaim Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric, A Brief Summary

In this excerpt from The Realm of Rhetoric from The Rhetorical Tradition on pages 1379-1383, Perelman gives a brief history of rhetoric and explains the realm of rhetoric.

He begins by discussing ancient philosophy and rhetoric, and uses the sophists to give a voice to a version of rhetoric that is greater than philosophy, can argue on both sides of the question, and puts specific opinions over general truths. Then philosophy is given a voice by Plato, who makes philosophy greater than rhetoric, makes rhetoric as a means to truth, and shows that when a philosopher has perceived truth, he or she uses rhetoric to make it known.

But for Perelman, Aristotle’s views are more nuanced, since he believed that philosophy and rhetoric are both important, useful, and necessary. For example, a rigorous mathematical proof would not be appropriate in a speech, and a speech would not be appropriate in a mathematical proof. Certain situations require certain ways of demonstration.

But while anciently rhetoric had been taught as consisting of the five canons of invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery, later in the early modern period, Peter Ramus reduced rhetoric to style and ornamentation, and Descartes went even further to eliminate rhetoric from philosophy altogether. Descartes wanted a philosophy that was pure and unambiguous and, neglecting Aristotle’s advice, also wanted to have mathematical rigor in language, in all fields, and in all realms and areas of study. Descartes wanted to build all knowledge on what was self-evident.

But Perelman has a problem with self-evidence. He says that self-evidence imposes itself on everyone and takes away people’s free will. If a thing is self-evident, then nobody can choose to disagree with it. And even if a thing is self-evident, that self-evidence vanishes as soon as people try to communicate it because language is fallible and not self-evident. In other words, even the trope of “self-evidence” becomes problematic because too many deceptions can come from it. Our words never force anyone else to believe what we say—others have that choice whether to accept our statements or reject them. The choices we make in language and expression, however, are “influenced by reasons which come from dialectic and rhetoric” (1382).

Hence Perelman writes, 

“Even today the teaching of the sciences is inspired by the Cartesian approach. In the areas which are free from controversy, it is not customary to refer to the opinion of one or another scholar. The theses which are taught are considered true, or are accepted as hypotheses; but there is hardly any need to justify them.
“Thus, although axioms in the mathematical sciences, considered at first self-evident, were subsequently shown to be conventions of language, this change of perspective, however fundamental, has not affected the way in which such formal systems are laid out. In fact, if it is not a question of self-evidence, but of hypotheses or conventions, why choose this hypothesis or that convention rather than another? Most mathematicians consider such questions foreign to their discipline” (1381).

In other words, we confess that scientific thought is human thought. And that “Every new idea must be supported by arguments which are relevant to its discipline’s proper methodology and which are evaluated in terms of it” (1382). So, as human beings, we can’t get away from argumentation. Hence, rhetoric as a theory of argumentation is the way to go. We persuade one another to viewpoints, and we use good reasons to support our conclusions.

Philosophy is about separating “the important from the secondary, the essential from the accidental, the construct from the given, all from a perspective whose pertinence and superiority does not compel everyone. Hence the obligation to support the chosen perspective through argumentation, using analogies and metaphors, by which the adequacy and superiority of the one perspective over rival perspectives can be shown.” In other words, people have freedom to choose. A theory of argumentation lets people have freedom because it does not compel anyone to believe a certain way. A “general theory of argumentation” is “a new rhetoric” (1383).

So what is the realm of rhetoric? For Perelman, the realm of rhetoric includes anything that is human: “In identifying this rhetoric with the general theory of persuasive discourse, which seeks to gain both the intellectual and the emotional adherence of any sort of audience, we affirm that every discourse which does not claim an impersonal validity belongs to rhetoric” (1383). Or, put another way, “As soon as a communication tries to influence one or more persons, to orient their thinking, to excite or calm their emotions, to guide their actions, it belongs to the realm of rhetoric” (1383).