FROM METAPHYSICS TO RHETORIC

SYNTHESE LIBRARY

STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY, LOGIC, METHODOLOGY,

AND PffiLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Managing Editor:

JAAKKO ffiNTIKKA, Florida State University, Tallahassee

Editors:

DONALD DAVIDSON, University of California, Berkeley

GABRI1~.L NUCHELMANS, University ofLeyden
WESLEY C. SALMON, University of Pittsburgh

VOLUME 202
FROM METAPHYSICS
TO RHETORIC

Edited by

MICHEL MEYER
University of Brussels, Belgium

KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS

DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LONDON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publlcation Data
From ~etaphyslcs to rhetorlc / edlted by Mlchel Meyer.
p. cm. -- (Synthese llbrary : 202)

1. Rhetor1c. I. Meyer. Mlchel. II. Serles: Synthese llbrary :

v. 202.
PN175.F76 1989
808--dc19 88-24073

ISBN-13: 978-94-010-7672-2 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-2593-9

DOl: 1O.l 007/978-94-009-2593-9

Translated from the French by

Robert Harvey, University of California at Berkeley.
* indicates author's own translation.
Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
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Originally published in French .as:

a
De La Metaphysique la Rhitorique
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

MICHEL MEYER' Foreword - The Modernity of Rhetoric 1

CHAIM PERELMAN, Formal Logic and Informal Logic 9
JEAN LADRIERE 'Logic and Argumentation 15
JEAN-BLAISE GRIZE, To Reason While Speaking 37
PIERRE OLERON 'Organization and Articulation of Verbal
Exchanges: Question-Response Exchange in Polemical
Contexts 49
JEAN-CLAUDE ANSCOMBRE and OSWALD DUCROT ,
Argumentativity and Informativity 71
JUDITH SCHLANGER' Saying and Knowing 89
LAMBROS COULOUBARITSIS , Dialectic. Rhetoric and
Critique in Aristotle 95
MICHEL MEYER 'Toward an Anthropology of Rhetoric 111
PAUL RICOEUR' Rhetoric-Poetics-Hermeneutics 137
MICHEL BEAUJOUR, Rhetoric and Literature 151
OLIVIER REBOUL ,The Figure and the Argument 169
ROMAIN LAUFER' Rhetoric and Politics 183
 MICHEL MEYER

FOREWORD - THE MODERNITY OF RHETORIC

Perelman suddenly left us on 22 January 1984, just as he was getting ready to

write the great synthesis that he had been preparing for several years. He
wanted to entitle it From Metaphysics to Rhetoric. I have insisted on keeping
that title for this volume of essays on argumentation. I shall speak neither of
the man that he was nor of the thought which is henceforth associated with
his name. It is thus that the discretion of friendship joins with the work's
notoriety in order to justify this silence.
What should instead be dwelt upon is the significance of that passage from
ontology to rhetoric which Perelman wished to make the keystone of his new
work.
In its genesis as well as in its ambitions, ontology opposes itself to rhetoric.
That the two coexist with Aristotle is owing to his lucidity concerning the
services that dialectics can render - services which Plato, obsessed as he was
by the Sophists' manipulative intellectual games, could not discern in
argumentation. While it forgot rhetoric, the metaphysics which was to follow,
up to and including Heidegger, was inspired by the Stagirite.
For it must be recognized that Plato's critique is unavoidable. Is argumenta-
tion truly anything other than a technique for making people act and think, an
act of violence upon freedom and upon respect for truth? Conviction is not
demonstration, persuasion is not reason, opinion is not science. These are
some of the oppositions whose evidence Plato consecrated. And it is difficult
today, as it was in the past, to separate the Greek Sophist from the tribune
which our society (which is democratic as well) engenders regularly at every
crisis.
Here is rhetoric reduced to propaganda and to the exaltation of the
irrational. What is the use of looking for a rationality proper to argumentation
if it must remain the servant of everything within us that escapes the field of
reason? It will continue to be objected that the great philosophical debates are
elsewhere, on the side of essential values. Because they are threatened, it is
necessary to speak of these values. In sum, were rhetoric not harmful, it
would at the very least be secondary. All is said: we can close our Plato in
good conscience.

1
2 MICHEL MEYER

However, the implications, or rather the presupposItlOns, of such an

attitude that consists in depriving rhetoric of all possibility have not yet been
perceived. What model of rationality or logos does such a condemnation
suppose? It is obviously a logos closed upon itself and in which discussion
only exists in the form of a vehicle for pre-constituted truths. Thus the role of
intuition and evidence. Is this really rational? Thus no question will be asked
without our already having the answer (by intuition) or the means of making
it spring forth from other answers (by deduction) which are already at one's
disposal. Being closed, a question is then no longer but the pretext for
answering out of context and independently. No real problem may any longer
arise: somewhere the proposition that suppresses it exists. By the play of
opposites which it activates, argumentation hides that which renders it vain
and which only the ignorance of the true proposition makes possible. The
knowledge of this disputed proposition is quite the contrary of argumentation.
We have simply to improve our means of knowledge and we will have
nothing more to debate. Does not truth speak for and of itself? Rhetoric
creeps into us like a defect of the soul in order to make up for our ignorance,
our natural imperfection.
Thus, the propositional model of reason is that in the name of which
rhetoric was rejected. How could such a model emerge? What indeed could
have happened to Socratic logos - open and interrogative as it was - that it
became entrenched through and through in propositional logos? In order to
answer these questions, it is necessary to understand what Plato reproaches
Socrates. The latter, it shall be recalled, restricts himself to challenging what
his interlocutors say and ends the discussion with the acceptance of the non-
resolution of the question put initially. Socrates does not care about answer-
ing since he knows that he knows nothing. What use is questioning if it does
not lead to an answer? Moreover, can knowing be an answer? How can I find
an answer to the questions that I put to myself if I do not know what I am
looking for? And if I know what I should find, what need have I still to
search? This reasoning may well contain a sophism, it nevertheless will have
the decisive and irreversible impact of dissociating knowledge from that
which pertains to problematization. And as there is no answer without a
question, and as the articulation of both results only in a sophism, it will be
necessary that knowledge be elucidated otherwise. For knowledge transcends
individuals, contrary to questions which appertain, in each case, to what each
individual may know or not know already. This is subjective, and knowledge
is not. Knowledge can certainly arise because a problem is posed, as the
theory of reminiscence claims. But this knowledge can in no way be justified
 FOREWORD 3

by the question in its being an answer, if only in a circumstantial (i.e.

inessential) manner. One indeed must question oneself in order to remember,
says Plato, but the dialectic, which would be scientific, must be something
else even if it remains a play of question and answer. This contradiction did
not escape Aristotle: he split the scientific from the dialectic and logic from
argumentation whose respective theories he was led to conceive in order to
clearly define their boundaries and specificities. As for Plato, he found in the
famous theory of Ideas what he sought in order to justify knowledge as that
which is supposed to hold its truth only from itself.
What do Ideas mean within the framework of our approach? In what
consists the passage from rhetoric to ontology which leads to the denaturation
of argumentation? When Socrates asked, for example, "What is virtue?", he
thought one could not answer such a question because the answer refers to a
single proposition, a single truth, whereas the formulation of the question
itself does not indicate this unicity. For any answer, another can be given and
thus continuously, if necessary, until eventually one will come across an
incompatibility. Now, to a question as to what X, Y, or Z is, one can answer
in many ways and nothing in the question itself prohibits multiplicity. Virtue
is courage, is justice, and so on. Just as Napoleon is the emperor of the
French, is the victor of Austerlitz, is Josephine's husband, and who knows
what else.
Lacking an answer, we remain, in the final analysis, with the question
which thus becomes an aporia. For there to be an answer, virtue (to take up
the same example) must be something well defined: that which causes it to be
virtue and not something else, that which defines it necessarily thus to the
exclusion of anything else. Necessity, unicity, definition - all this goes back
to the idea that virtue is this and not something else; it supposes that the being
of virtue exists, that virtue has an essence that corresponds to it and which
founds all correspondence with an individuation of this virtue. The question
"What is X?" thus sustains a radical alteration: it is interpreted as assuming
an essence - an Idea - that one inquires about (in order to recall it through
inquiry, precisely). We have effectively moved on from "What is X?" to
"What is X?". Ontology subtends interrogative activity and guarantees its
meaning through an outcome. It is possible, moreover, to speak of a veritable
ontological stroke of power, if not of a stroke of the magic wand. Who says
that virtue essentially is? Who proves to us that it is even that (i.e. an
essence) which is asked in "What is virtue?" Is it not, in the end, Socrates
who is right? But in declaring the contrary, Plato begs the question: as
answer, he provides something problematical, that is, that virtue has its own
4 MICHEL MEYER

being. Now, the unicity of the answer (thus, simply, the answer) is precisely
what Socrates puts radically into doubt until proof to the contrary. Ontology
consists in affirming what should be justified. Whence my expression of
"stroke of the magic wand". Ontology can thus only be circular. Furthermore,
Plato draws up all questions concerning any X in such a way that it is a
question not about X but about its being as the sole condition for an answer.
Thus doing, he subordinates questioning to ontology and thereby generally to
propositional ism. Let us take up this last point. The essence of things informs
us about what they are, while excluding what they are not. This amounts to
making the Idea the criterium of identification - of identity as well as the
foundation of that of which one is speaking. This foundation makes specific
to us why they are this and not the contrary. What courage is, for example,
allows us to identify any act of courage and not to confuse it with anything
else; the being, the Idea, the essence of courage is thus indeed that which
justifies the truth of any utterance on the subject of courage by virtue of the
fact that the essence justifies anything one might say, either directly or by
deduction, about courage. The first point brought up earlier is of importance
as well. With the advent of ontology, questioning and, consequently, non-
propositional rhetoric (i.e. rhetoric which refuses to sub-contract) are dead.
We always already know what we are looking for as soon as we are told that
we can only seek the being of what we are analyzing. Intuition and deduction
will ensure the coherence of this Platonic logic (which is still to a large extent
ours) - a coherence which, in the final analysis, is founded merely on the
ontological decree. Let it be noted, as Pierre Aubenque has, that ontology will
never be but a science to be sought, a science which is impossible to find. It
was necessary to wait until the present day in order to see the propositional
model collapse without, for all that, being replaced.
Ontology is born of the need for answers which, it must be recognized,
Socrates did not satisfy. But, the primacy of being - ontology - can only
evacuate the very practice of philosophizing as Socrates understood it. The
being to which one would be able to relate back all interrogation (an idea that
we encounter, moreover, up to and including Heidegger's Introduction to
Metaphysics) must inevitably be covered by the answer. There is henceforth
no difference between what is in question (being) and what the answer will
say. Without this difference, questioning, which articulates problems and
solutions, would disappear as such. Being resolves problems by suppressing
them at the outset, by transforming them into the forms of the answers to be
found. Consequently, we have ready-made solutions to problems not
formulated to begin with. Resolution through suppression and not through
 FOREWORD 5

answer as such - this is really all that ontology offers us. But in dogmatically
affirming what each answer must be (not as such, for questioning has not
been questioned, but de/acto), metaphysics has, throughout its history, given
the impression that it resolves when in fact it simply prevents questioning -
whence the illusion of questioning. Listening to being is indeed one of those
illusions. Just because it has been decreed that to answer is to utter the
essence and not anything else, does not mean that even the plural which was
decreed impossible and overcome has been suppressed in reality. From that
moment on, it was inevitable that metaphysics be constantly wandering and
at the prey of "conflicts of reason".
This displacement, which would establish the propositionalist norm, was
fatal for rhetoric. Rhetoric is not to be understood outside the interrogativity
of logos. Only a question to be resolved creates debate: an opposition of
propositions maintained by its pure contradictoriness is difficult to imagine
without there being a subjacent problem to which, precisely, there is a choice
between at least two answers that confront each other. With propositionalism,
questions, far from being primary, are derived: as Aristotle says, they are but
the interrogative form of assertions about truth upon which it behoves us to
pronounce judgement (Topics I.iv.lOlb.33-36). A real problem cannot exist
since it is but a sentence whose content, precisely, is a proposition. As for the
proposition itself, it is of course an answer, but one which, referring back to
no question, is not really an answer. It is quite simply the minimal support of
the truth that it expresses; it is the unity of the thinkable which cannot be
measured by the subjective yardstick of individual questions. If there no
longer remains but the propositional, there is no longer but the axis of truth
and science, at least as far as a norm. Situated on this side of the true, where
truth is not yet decided or even decidable, rhetoric will inevitably be of
inferior stature. The propositions discussed are at best awaiting confirmation
concerning their truth. On the other hand, logic puts order into truths, which
confers a superiority upon it if one refers to the values of propositionalism.
Henceforth either the dialectic prepares us for science and is useful at that
level (this is Aristotle's argument), or else, on the contrary, it cannot ascribe
to itself such a task because it places itself outside established truth. And
since it (supposedly) operates with propositions, it succeeds in getting what
only has the appearance of truth accepted as truth. For this reason it is pure
manipulation, the very leading astmy of the propositional order which only
knows truth and its indubitable justification. For debates, there are proposi-
tions, but we are not here in the realm of the true; and the propositional is
indeed that which always possesses a truth-value. Consequently, the propos i-
6 MICHEL MEYER

tion at hand can only have propositional appearance, the appearance of truth,
the opinion hiding behind a reasoning that is only illusorily so. How would
we expect that a proposition (thus, what is true) only be problematic without
the essence of the proposition being, in the same stroke, betrayed? Of course,
we will have recognized Plato's argument in this second path of the alterna-
tive.
But his critique has no other validity than that which propositionalism,
with its corresponding idea of truth, enjoys. Aristotle perpetuates the model.
And even if he handed down to us both a theory of argumentation and a
theory of science, he did so only in order to show that the positivity of
dialectic resides in the fact that it can be useful to establish a propositional
order of science. Let us not forget that in his dialectic, Plato had mixed the
scientific with the interrogative which are nevertheless incompatible if one
confines oneself to his own conception, thus leaving only the manipulatory
path to rhetoric stricto sensu.
If we give up the propositional model, we eliminate at the same time the
Platonic condemnation. Logos grounded in the evidence of universal
assertability has today lived itself out. The crisis of reason has also become a
crisis of language. We know that to argue is to discuss a question; it is from
this that the contradictory alternatives that define rhetoric spring. But, in
general, speaking equals answering and, by extension, the raising of ques-
tions. Logos, as it is emerging in the new rationality that we must institute, is
problematological and, as such, meant for argumentation. Ontology bas now
proven its failure. It has closed up the logos on the problematic which,
nevertheless, must be increasingly sayable because it is the very
problematicity of our logos which must be faced and expressed. Dogmatic
reason can only conceive of the problematic as inconceivable; and it can only
say it as the unsayable. And yet, with the crisis of Western thought in-
augurated in Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, reason finds itself once again
problematized in its very foundation, i.e. the Cartesian subject, dubbed
transcendental by Kant. Unable to enunciate its new condition in order to
overcome it, logos created a new absurd, a new irrational: the impossibility of
calling itself Reason, whence silence - or the opposite solution, the reassur-
ing cult of science with its machinery for answering. At the basis of all this is
the famous concept of proposition which evacuates, a priori, any referral to
the interrogativity of logos. And it is too often forgotten that Being appeared
as philosophical concept in order to ensure the function of universal respon-
dent for rhetorical and assertorialized questions. Heidegger's endeavor may
have been the last great ontological adventure (in spite of a repeatedly
 FOREWORD 7

reaffirmed preoccupation with overcoming) because Being remains con-

ceived as the universal meeting point of every answer with every questioning
which, once again, prevents the latter from expressing itself independently.
Ontology (thus, metaphysics in the sense that this concept has always been
understood) was born of the closure of logos upon itself with the correlative
impossibility of thinking rhetoric otherwise than by propositionalizing it, that
is, otherwise than by deforming it. Metaphysics and rhetoric are opposed to
one another as the negation of questioning is to thought's real, explicit taking
charge of questioning. Questioning is indeed the key concept - inherited from
history -, which allows us to comprehend this opposition and which, by
extension, permits us to overcome it towards a new rhetoric and a
metaphysics which would no longer be ontological. It is a matter of opening a
path for thought which falls neither into the Socratic non-answer nor in the
Platonic deformation of answerhood. It is imperative to reject the Socrates-
Plato dilemma. To Socrates, an answer cannot be given to a question because
the answering is multiple; to Plato, an answer must be given which neces-
sarily establishes its own unicity. In order to avoid this double bind, it is at
least necessary to question questioning as such, that is, to establish a
problematology which neither Socrates (who questioned without being able
to answer) nor Plato (who answered without questioning) could erect.
What then is this modernity of rhetoric, if not the return to a logos, to a
rationality become once again possible, rejuvenated by an interrogativity that
founds the propositional field for what it is, i.e. as an answering?
 CHAl'MPERELMAN

FORMAL LOGIC AND INFORMAL LOGICt

While the concept of fonnallogic has been known since the time of Aristotle,
the idea that logic and fonnallogic are synonymous by virtue of an elimina-
tion of any conception of infonnal logic becomes generalized in the mid-
nineteenth century under the influence of mathematician-logicians. Father
Bochenski, who is one of the representatives of this tendency, expressed as
much once again in a recent colloquium held in Rome in 1976 on the theme
of modem logic. In a communication entitled "The General Sense and
Character of Modem Logic",1 he identifies modem logic (ML) with fonnal
logic. He characterizes ML by three methodological principles: the use of an
artificial language, fonnalism, and objectivism.
He also stresses the great progress that recourse to an artificial language
has made possible by allowing for the elimination of misunderstandings,
ambiguities, and controversies which are not easily avoidable with natural
languages.
Indeed, the fundamental condition for the construction of an artificial
language is that each sign, as well as each well-conceived expression, have
one and only one meaning. The objectivism to which he alludes presupposes
that modem logic only deals with objective properties, truth, falseness,
probability, necessity, etc., independent of humans' attitudes, independent of
what they think or what they believe. The same would be true of the system's
axioms (enumerated at the outset), as well as of the substitution and deduc-
tion rules which indicate which operations are allowed (in accordance with
the rules) and which enable one to tell a correct deduction from an incorrect
one.
Every formal system will thus be limited in its possibilities of expression
and demonstration in such a manner that, given an artificial language, it does
not permit everything to be said; given a set of axioms and rules of deduction,
one must allow (at least if the system is coherent) the existence of irresolv-
able propositions, i.e. those whose affirmation, no more than whose negation,
may be resolved.
By these various requirements, an artificial language and a formal system

9
10 CHArM PERELMAN

are opposed to the characteristics both of a natural language and of a non-

formal system like that of modem law.
A natural language is an instrument of communication which, in principle,
is universal. It must be capable of communicating any idea whatsoever. The
methodological conditions of a sensible communication take precedence over
all other considerations like that of the univocity of signs used. It is thus that
we presume that what we are told is not incoherent and is not without
interest. When we read the famous Heraclitean fragment, "We enter and we
do not enter the same river twice", our first reaction is not to think Heraclitus
incoherent. We strive instead to interpret what he tells us so as to ascribe an
acceptable meaning to it, for example, by pointing out the ambiguity of the
expression "the same river" which alternately refers to the shores and the
waters which run between them. To safeguard the notion of sensible com-
munication, we renounce the hypothesis of the univocity of words employed.
In the same manner, when in Cesar, Pagnol's famous play, the author has
Panisse say on his death-bed, "Dying doesn't bother me, but leaving life
does", we are compelled, in order to understand Panisse, to not treat "dying"
and "leaving life" as synonyms even though that is what dictionaries teach us.
When someone says to us "a penny is a penny" or "money is money", no
one interprets these expressions as applications of the principle of identity,
for except in a logic course (where it suffices that someone make the effort of
expressing these ideas) these expressions must communicate something other
than a tautology.
I recall a real life experience. A young man's parents came to a train
station to await his return after their son's long absence in a foreign country.
When the son appeared at the doorway, the father could not hold back his
tears of emotion. When the mother saw this, she exclaimed, "Now I see that
not only mothers will be mothers, but also fathers will be fathers". If the
mother needed this moving event to admit that fathers will be fathers, then
this statement could not be tautological.
There are other situations which compel us to interpret a text in a less than
usual way. We are all familiar with Pascal's thought "When God's word,
which is truth, is false literally, it is true spiritually".2 In order to safeguard
the truth of the sacred text, Pascal advises us to stray from the literal
meaning. Similarly in law, the letter of the law will be countered by the spirit
of the law in order to provide the text with an acceptable interpretation.
The possibility of lending several sometimes entirely novel meanings to a
single expression, of appealing to metaphors and controversial interpretations
is connected to the conditions for use of natural language. The fact that the
 FORMAL LOGIC AND INFORMAL LOGIC 11

latter often resorts to fuzzy notions which give way to numerous interpreta-
tions, varied definitions, quite often compels us to make choices and
decisions which do not necessarily coincide with them. Then, we are very
often obliged to justify these choices and to provide motives for these
decisions.
In law, usually (contrary to what happens in a formal system), the judge is
simultaneously obliged to make a decision and to justify it. The famous
Article 4 of the Code Napoleon indeed proclaims that "the judge who shall
refuse to give judgment under pretext of the silence, obscurity or insuf-
ficiency of the law, may be prosecuted as guilty of denying justice". Even
when, at first glance, the law appears to contain a loophole, an antinomy or
an ambiguity, the judge must interpret the system by means of legal reason-
ing techniques, in order to find a solution and justify it. In all such cases, one
must appeal to informal logic which is the logic which justifies action, which
allows a controversy to be settled and a reasonable decision to be made.
It is thus that when it is a matter of bringing out the reasonable opinion
(euAo)Qc;), Aristotle opposed analytical reasonings, such as syllogisms, with
dialectical reasonings, that is, those one encounters in debates and con-
troversies of all sorts.
While formal logic is the logic of demonstration, informal logic is that of
argumentation. While demonstration is either correct or incorrect and binding
in the flISt case or worthless in the second, arguments are more or less strong,
more or less pertinent, more or less convincing. In argumentation, it is not a
matter of showing (as it is in demonstration) that an objective quality (such as
truth) moves from the premises toward the conclusion, but rather it is a
matter of showing that one can convince others of the reasonable and
acceptable character of a decision, based on what the audience already
assumes and based on the theses to which it adheres with sufficient intensity.
Persuasive discourse therefore aims at a transfer of adhesion, of a subjective
quality which may vary from mind to mind.
That, moreover is the reason why the error in reasoning called "begging
the question" is an error in argumentation, for is supposes that a contested
thesis is granted. Conversely, the principle of identity, "if P, then P", far from
being an error in reasoning, is a logical law that no formal system can fail to
recognize.
A formal system shows us what consequences stem from axioms whether
the axioms be considered to be like obvious propositions or simple
hypotheses which are conventionally granted. In a formal system, axioms are
12 CHAW PERELMAN

never the object of controversy; they are taken to be true, either objectively or
by convention.
Such is not the case in argumentation where the starting point must be
granted by the audience one wants to persuade or convince by one's dis-
course. The original arguments consist in commonplaces, i.e. in commonly
held propositions, whether they be propositions of common sense or uncon-
tested arguments in a particular discipline. Sometimes, as in the Socratic
dialogues, the speaker will make certain, in expressed manner, of the
adhesion of the interlocutor to the theses upon which he builds his argumenta-
tion.
But contrary to axioms, which do not give rise to controversy inside the
system, commonplaces, about which there exists a general consensus,
concern vague, scrambled, controversial notions from which one cannot draw
consequences without seeking to clarify them. It is thus that everyone will
agree that freedom is better than slavery and that justice and the common
good must be sought; but in order to derive a particular line of conduct, one
must clarify what one means by these theses which initially seemed uncon-
tested. Moreover, the commonplaces which are presumed granted at the
outset and that no one objects to when they are taken individually, may give
rise to incompatibilities. What is to be done when the seeking of the common
good hinders the realization of justice, at least at first? Some would say that
the good opposed to justice is but an apparent good; others would say that the
common good is opposed to an apparent justice. How do we decide what is
authentic value and what is only illusory? We must give a customary notion a
new meaning - one that is more adapted to the situation. But this change of
meaning cannot take place without reason, for contrary to the generally
granted meaning, the change in meaning must be justified. The burden of
proof befalls the opponent to the customary meaning. This notion of the
burden of proof, unknown in fonnal logic (as the notion of presumption is
unknown there) is borrowed from law where it dispenses one of factual proof.
It is thus that the presumption of innocence imposes the burden of proof upon
he who would reverse it. Similarly, since the spouse of the mother is
presumed to be the child's father, he does not have to produce proof of
paternity.
This notion of presumption, along with the corresponding notion of the
burden of guilt, is of common usage in the area of nonns and values. And this
explains philosophical pluralism, as P. Day showed in his communication
entitled "Presumptions".3 As soon as we adhere to a principle or a value, we
have not to justify what is in accordance with it, but only what violates or
 FORMAL LOGIC AND INFORMAL LOGIC 13

opposes it Day distinguished three attitudes which he calls conservative,

liberal and socialist - each being characterized by its adhesion to other
principles and other values. Thus conservative presumption favors what is,
and manifests itself by the rule according to which only change -
everywhere, always and in anything - requires a justification. Thus he who
conforms to precedents, to custom and tradition, has not to justify himself,
only all deviation from these must do so. Liberal presumption is well
expressed in that sentence by John Stuart Mill (On Liberty, Chapter V):
"letting people do what they will is always better, ceteris paribus, than
forcing them". Freedom is self-evident, only the limitation of freedom
requires a justification. Isaiah Berlin expresses socialist presumption when he
writes: "Equality needs no reasons, only inequality does" (Equality,
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56 [1955-1956] p. 305). But his
argument may be generalized: he who abides by the golden rule, or by the
categorical imperative, or by the principle of utilitarianism, has no need to
justify his behavior. The existence of these varied principles (which can come
into conflict with each other in concrete situations) explains the diversity of
philosophies, each of which fits into a current of opinion which is generally
accepted in a milieu at a given moment. By this, we see that informal logic,
basing itself on facts, principles, opinions, topoi and values accepted by the
audience, is necessarily situated and thus cannot claim the objectivity of
formal logic.
But, in this case, does the criterion to which informal logic is submitted
merely consist in efficiency, in the fact of persuading the audience which it
addresses? This was the serious objection that Plato had to the sophists and
demagogues who utilized means unworthy of the philosopher - lies and
flattery - in order to gain the adhesion of an ignorant crowd. In exchange for
this objectionable procedure, presented in the Gorgias, he proposes, in the
Phaedrus, another rhetoric worthy of the philosopher - one which could
convince the gods themselves (273e). In other words, the efficiency of a
persuasive discourse is not enough to guarantee its value. Since efficiency is
a function of the audience, the best argumentation is that which could
convince the most demanding, the most critical, the best informed audience -
like one made up of the gods or constituted by divine reason. It is thus that
philosophical argumentation appears as an appeal to reason, which I translate
into the language of argumentation, or that of the new rhetoric, as a discourse
addressed to the universal audience. A rational argumentation is charac-
terized by a universalizing intention: it aims to convince, i.e. persuade an
audience which, in the mind of the philosopher, incarnates reason. While a
14 CHArM PERELMAN

formal demonstration is valid to the extent that it conforms to purely formal

criteria, one cannot really speak of the validity of a non-formal argumentation
or reasoning. In fact, an argumentation is never binding and always allows an
opposing argumentation. Whence the fundamental principle of legal proce-
dure according to which one must always listen to the opposing party. But it
is not because there exist arguments for the thesis as well as for the antithesis
that these arguments have the same value. How may arguments be evaluated?
Their value depends on the philosophy and methodology that are adopted.
Thus utilitarianism essentially takes into account the value of consequences,
Aristotelianism valorizes that which conforms to essence, neo-Platonism is
based on ontological hierarchy, etc. But each of these conceptions abides by
the rule of formal justice according to which essentially similar situations
must be treated similarly. He who has, in one case, conceded to the value of
an argumentation must, ceteris paribus, concede to the value of this same
argumentation in an essentially similar case. This rule justifies conformity to
precedents, not only in law, but in all matters. This rule is what allows for the
elaboration of a methodology adequate to each discipline.
One final question: can argumentative techniques be formalized? One can
try to reduce arguments to a calculation of probability using certain prear-
ranged conditions. And, in certain cases, such conditions can be agreed upon.
But this always supposes an agreement on the notions to be utilized. And
when disagreement plagues these, which is the case with fundamental notions
of philosophy - such as reality, freedom, justice, virtue - such a reductionism
appears to me to be impossible. Using the techniques of argumentation,
philosophy attempts to put forth a reasonable vision of man in relation to
society and the universe. This vision does not appear to me to be reducible to
the most probable. This is moreover why all original philosophy is the
product of freedom.

NOTES
t UnpUblished text of a lecture given in Maurice Loi's seminar at the Ecole Normale
Superieure in Paris on 23 February 1981.
1 In the volume Modern Logic edt by E. Agazzi (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1980) pp. 3-14.
2 Pascal, Pensees 555 (31)(inL'Oeuvre "Pleiade") p. 1003.
3 Appeared in the Acts of the XIVth International Congress of Philosophy (Vienna:
Herder, 1970), vol. V, pp. 137-143.
 JEAN LADRIERE

LOGIC AND ARGUMENTATION

At fIrst glance, logic is paradigmatic. It provides us with the model for valid
reasoning and, in its fIgures, proposes the exemplar which any procedure
pretending to a rational foundation should try to approach. If it is such, it is
undoubtedly because logic creates an ideal situation (ideal in the way one
speaks in physics of an "ideal gas"), perhaps inspired by what effectively
happens in the scientifIc pursuit, and - in a singular manner - what happens
in mathematics, but free from any contingency. The notion of form expresses
this well. Logic appears as soon as we discover that it is possible, in any
proposition, to isolate an organizing diagram (which is available for an
infinity of possible applications) and the terms organized by this diagram.
The terms constituting a scientifIc language are generally divided into two
classes: "purely logical" terms on the one hand, and, on the other,
"descriptive" terms. This classification indeed corresponds to the presupposi-
tion of logic. It then appears that certain typical relationships between
propositions are, in reality, relationships between their organizing diagrams,
the "descriptive" terms being neutral, in a way, in these relationships. The
usual procedures of modelling reflect this propositional behavior. If we take a
language L and a universe U, in which we propose to construct an interpreta-
tion of language L, we will have to specify the interpretation of the individual
and predicative constants of L by relating these elements of L respectively
with well-defIned individuals of U and with well-defined subsets of U. An
elementary proposition of L like "a is P" can thus be interpreted by means of
a set proposition expressing the allegiance on the part of the individual
corresponding to a to the subset corresponding to P. But if it is a matter of
interpreting, for example, the conjunction, we can no longer simply establish
a correspondence with an element of U or constructed upon U. We must have
recourse to the metatheoretical predicate ''True in relation to an interpreta-
tion". We may say, for example: "A proposition of L like A & B is true in
relation to a given interpretation (for the constants of L) if and only if the
propositions A and B are both true for this interpretation" (which we may
express by saying that the set propositions corresponding to A and B by virtue
of the interpretation are true in the universe under consideration). The

15
16 JEAN LAORIERE

distinction in the treatment that a semantic interpretation must set aside for
"logical terms" and for "descriptive terms" shows that "logical terms" are not
directly related to elements (individuals, classes, properties, processes, or
whatever) of the universe upon which the discourse turns, but rather are
related to the manner in which the repercussions of the arrangement that they
impose upon the descriptive terms are felt in the validity of what the proposi-
tion states.
This duality between constituent elements in the proposition is also, to a
certain extent, the duality that exists in language between "descriptive terms"
and the propositions themselves. A descriptive term and a proposition mayor
may not be endowed with meaning. But in either case, it does not take place
in the same way. A descriptive term endowed with meaning indicates (or
names) an individual, denotes a class, connotes a property (either monadic or
relational), but cannot be true or false. The proposition, on the other hand,
expresses a fact and may be true or false depending on whether the fact that it
expresses happens to be realized or not in the form of an effective state of
things. In sum, the proposition affords the speaking subject the possibility of
taking a position with respect to the behavior of the world's elements which
are described by the terms which it puts into place. Now, it is precisely these
elements which are dubbed "logical", which allow us to construct proposi-
tions. Furthermore, these elements seem to possess the remarkable property
of introducing a relationship to truth.
These elements are, in fact, operators. One may, indeed, interpret them as
abstract objects acting upon descriptive terms in the language in order to
produce propositions. The central problem in logic is to study the relation-
ships between propositions which depend solely on their form, that is, on
their mode of construction. In other words, the problem consists in studying
the behavior of propositional operators. Still more precisely, it consists in
studying the effect upon the propositions' truth value of the transformations
which can be performed upon these operators (or, what amounts to the same
thing, of the relationships existing between these operators). The most
obviously interesting aspect of this problem concerns the transformations
which leave the truth value constant. This, however, can be considered from
two different perspectives: either that which amounts to making the conse-
quences of a given set of propositions known, or that which consists in going
back to general propositions of which the given set could be considered an
exemplification. The first view only gives results which are certain. The
second view inevitably brings in the concept of probability (under the guise
of the degree of confirmation, of acceptability, plausibility, etc.). And even
 LOGIC AND ARGUMENTATION 17

though we speak of "inductive logic" in reference to it, this perspective could

already be considered to pertain to the idea of argumentation and even to
constitute a particularly remarkable case of argumentation (because it is
analyzable by means of mathematical methods). Thus, the notion of deduc-
tion appears to be the most significant, taking on the value of exemplar.
Correct deduction assures us that the truth descends from premises to
conclusions, and moreover, reciprocally, that falseness ascends from
conclusions toward premises.
But what is a correct deduction? It is a sequence of elementary transforma-
tions (acting upon propositions assumed to be given or already deduced),
each of which is effected according to rules, and each rule being assumed to
guarantee the transfer of truth from the antecedents to the consequents. But
the transformations which the rules effect pertain to the structural elements of
the proposition, that is, in fact, to the logical operators. A priori, nothing
guarantees that a rule in fact possesses the property that we would want to
attribute to it That must be shown. Two procedures are possible. The first
would consist in stating the condition to which the rule must abide (to ensure
the transfer of truth) in the form of a proposition in an appropriate metalan-
guage, and then in showing that this proposition can be deduced from
appropriate axioms formulated in this metalanguage. In this case, obviously,
one would merely be shifting the problem from one level of language to
another. This problem, however, is altogether general: the rules must be
justified no matter what the level of language considered. One is thus
obligatorily referred to a second procedure which will consist in justifying the
rules on the basis of an interpretation of the logical operators. And to
interpret an operator is to specify in what circumstances it may be introduced
or eliminated (in a proposition). Such an interpretation is not a deduction. It
in no way has that absolute and indisputable character which we recognize in
the result of the application of a rule once that rule has been accepted (to the
extent, of course, that said rule responds to the condition which is always
presumed in the elaboration of a system of formal rules, i.e. that each
application of the rule to particular propositions must be subordinated to
effective control). In short, the rule must be recognized as acceptable with
respect to a given objective which is precisely the conservation of the truth.
However, if the acceptability of the rules must be established even before a
deductive procedure can be rendered operable, it is difficult to see how one
could proceed if not by way of argumentation.
Let us consider, for example, the modus ponens rule. Drawing on the
methods of Gentzen, Curry furnished a justification of this rule which rests
18 JEAN LADRIERE

entirely upon the intuitive notion of deduction. Suppose the proposition "If A,
then B" appearing in an axiomatized (but not necessarily strictly formalized)
deductive theory T. It may be interpreted as follows: if we add A as a new
axiom to those of T, then the proposition at hand is true if B is a theorem of
the theory thus enriched. In a formal structure, we can attempt to depict to
ourselves the intuitive notion of deduction by means of the notion of the
"deductive tree". We say that a proposition B is deducible, or derivable from
the propositions A l , ••. , An if a set of propositions arranged in the form of a
tree exists in which each proposition occupies the position of a node in the
tree. The tree itself will be constructed according to certain rules in such a
way that the proposition B occupies the last node in the tree and so that the
nodes above be either occurrences of the propositions Al' ... , An or proposi-
tions eliminated in a move from one node to another (on the path leading
from the upper nodes to the lower node). The "truth" of the proposition "If A,
then B" will be representable by the "derivability" of this proposition. And,
depending on the interpretation proposed, we will be able to say that this
proposition is derivable if there exists a deductive tree for which it is the last
node, such that the part of the tree above this node constitutes a deductive
tree for the proposition B, it being possible to eliminate all of the occurrences
of the proposition A in this tree. (In other words, the proposition "If A, then
B" can be deduced from the axioms of the theory under consideration if by
means of the supposition of A, one can derive B from these axioms.) Let us
now suppose that we in fact have a derivation of "If A, then B". In pursuance
of the proposed interpretation, this implies that the situation just described is
in place. Henceforth, we have a derivation of B at our disposal in which the
proposition A intervenes by way of supposition. Let us assume that A be
derivable. If we place the derivation of A above each occurrence of A in the
derivation of B, we obtain a tree of derivation constituting a complete
derivation of B (without supposition this time). In short, if the propositions
"If A, then B" and A are both derivable, then the proposition B is also
derivable.
We have assumed in the preceding that the "truth" can be represented by
"derivability". Only a completely relative notion has thus been understood
since derivability must always be understood "in relation to certain axioms
and certain rules". We will be able to state the nature of the correspondence
under consideration more precisely by introducing the notion of validity; a
proposition belonging to an axiomatized theory is valid if it is an axiom of
that theory or if it is derivable in that theory. One could then say that the
"validity" of a proposition (in an axiomatized validity) represents the
 LOGIC AND ARGUMENTATION 19

"assumed truth" of that proposition. A transformation which preserves the

validity can then be interpreted as a transformation preserving the "assumed
truth". And we can say that a rule justified on the basis of the notion of
derivability indeed responds to the condition which must render a rule
acceptable. In the case of modus ponens, we will thus have: if the proposi-
tions "If A, then B" and A are assumed true, then the proposition B must also
be considered to be true. (If it is false, at least one of the premises must be
considered false and the premises cannot therefore both be assumed true). As
we can see, everything in this justification depends on the credit we bestow
on the proposed representation (of the truth through validity) and on the
reconstruction proposed for the concept of deduction. In a sense, there is an
apparent circularity here. Supposed truth is represented by validity and the
latter is explained on the basis of the notion of the deductive tree, but this
notion itself is obviously conceived in such a way as to represent as ade-
quately as possible the idea of "transfer of truth". We thus show that a given
rule indeed ensures the transfer of validity, and thus represents a transfer of
truth, by presupposing a notion of derivation itself founded upon the intuitive
idea of a transfer of validity, and thus (via the assumed representation) of a
transfer of truth. There would only be true circularity if we had proposed to
deduce the idea of "transfer of truth" from the idea of derivation. In reality,
we have merely clarified this idea by means of a representation which allows
us to extract, so to speak, from the intuitive idea that which is truly pertinent
in it. The representation in question completely brackets the role of axioms -
which may be absolutely arbitrary just as the peculiar nature of the proposi-
tions concerned - in order to only retain the properties of the logical
operators. This representation thus allows a precise meaning to be given to
what is more or less confusedly expressed by the idea of assumed truth.
But the manner in which the justification of rules proceeds clearly reveals
that the rules do not have an absolute character. This is particularly obvious
in the case of rules concerning the role of negation. With the support of the
notion of derivation, one can provide different interpretations of the notion of
negation. Following the given interpretation, the rules will differ. This means
that what becomes recognized as conditionally true (on the basis of assumed
truths) will also be different. Now the arguments capable of compelling
someone to prefer one interpretation to another have nothing deductive about
them. Thus the argumentation given in favor of intuitionist negation rests
upon an entire conception of mathematical thought and merely translates the
requirement of constructivity stemming from that conception into the sphere
of logic. If need be, the preferences could be bracketed. Then, one would
20 JEAN LADRIERE

of logic. If need be, the preferences could be brl:' keted. Then, one would
obtain metatheoretical propositions like "If we grant such and such an
interpretation of negation, then such and such a proposition is a theorem and
such and such other one is not". But, of course, these very propositions
presuppose the existence of rules which function according to the general
criterium of the transfer of validity. For to say "Such and such a proposition
is a theorem" is to in fact say "The granted rules guarantee the derivability of
this proposition on the basis of accepted axioms". Thus, even within this
hypothesis of a neutralization of controversy, one is led back to the problem
of the justification of rules. It becomes clear that the concept of validity is
always relative to rules which are assumed to be accepted, but this relativity
of the notion of validity is, in fact, already inscribed in the very notion of
derivation. The philosophical implication of the variability of rules is that it
shows us -- if we at least accept that the truth may be represented by validity
-- that there is a certain relativity in the notion of truth itself. The effects of
the decisions made concerning formal rules are felt like aftershocks, if you
will, on the criteria of truth. Thus the variety of the possible interpretations of
negation leads us to recognize that there are "intuitionistically true" proposi-
tions and "classically true" propositions.
But throughout all this, axioms have been bracketed. And, consequently,
we have confined ourselves to discussing "assumed truth". If we now wish to
speak simply of truth, then we must obviously take an interest in the premises
of the argument, and thus in those propositions which, in the deductive
representation which we conjure up of a theory, play the role of axioms. The
case of mathematics is exemplary here. What is interesting is not deductions
as such, but rather problems. Yes or no, can a fifth degree equaLion be solved
by radicals? Yes or no, can a sphere be turned inside out in a continuous
manner? Yes or no, can the structure of continuum be represented by means
of the structure of the class of countable ordinals? And so on. In each case,
the sole basis for departure is the nature of the objects at hand. But it is a
matter of discovering methods of analysis which would allow us to penetrate
quite deeply into the comprehension of the nature of these objects in order to
find the answer to the problem posed. In the case, for example, of the
problem of continuum, the method consisted in exploring the properties of
certain classes of models of the axiomatic theory of sets. We were able to
perceive that, in certain models, the continuum hypothesis is verified; in
others, it is not. This allows for the reformulation of the problem with much
greater precision. Finally, it is always a matter of revealing certain properties
via detours which are sometimes of extraordinary complexity, along the lines
 LOGIC AND ARGUMENTATION 21

of a procedure which is present in an almost immediate form in ancient

geometric demonstrations by construction. A certain manner of decomposing
or complementing a figure reveals a property which was not altogether
apparent. This is the "synthetic" path which consists in proceeding backward
toward a "principle" liable to clarify the situation. In this circumstance, the
principle is not necessarily a general law , but rather the key to the problem:
the property of the structure starting with which a solution may be es-
tablished. The deduction, strictly speaking, only happens after the event. It
confines itself to exhibiting, in a systematic and step-by-step manner, the
fecundity of the principle and to showing how, starting with the proposed
construction or with the imagined detour, one can in effect establish a
solution (or show that there is none and why). This is the analytic path. It
plays but a secondary role. If it is recognized as having a peculiar virtue, it is
because it offers a security guarantee, in a sense, to thought: made up of
elementary steps, each of which consists in the application of a rule, it is
controllable from beginning to end and thus allows for the verification of the
cogency of the inventive procedure characteristic of the synthetic path.
When we have recourse to axiomatization, it is in order to provide as
precise a characterization as possible to the category of objects under study
and to facilitate the application of the analytic procedure. But a system of
axioms is only interesting and acceptable to the extent that it can be con-
sidered to be an adequate representation of the area under study. And this
means that it must be possible to derive from it all of the propositions which
are pertinent to this area, i.e. all propositions which express the answers
which may be provided for the problems pertaining to this area. Of course we
judge of the acceptability of a system of axioms on the basis of its deductive
possibilities. But these possibilities themselves have value in relation to a
capacity for representation which itself cannot be evaluated except in relation
to the knowledge that one can have, moreover, of the area represented. This
is readily apparent when one sees the functioning of the method thanks to
which the study of the properties of an axiomatic system from the point of
view of its ability to represent is possible. This method consists in studying
the nature of the models acceptable by a system. An axiomatic system is
relatively adequate with respect to a given theory if that theory constitutes a
possible model of the system, i.e. if an interpretation of the system can be
constructed in the theory in question such that every theorem of the system be
true according to this interpretation (thus true within the theory). Further-
more, an axiomatic system is entirely adequate with respect to a given theory
if it is complete for that theory, i.e. if for any interpretation of the system
22 JEAN LADRIERE

within the theory in question, a proposition which is true according to this

interpretation is a theorem of the system. We know that, in general, adequa-
tion in this sense is not obtained. But, however it may be as to the question of
completeness, it must be emphasized that the acceptability of a theory must
be measured by its representative capacity and that the latter refers back, via
the notion of interpretation, to the truth value which can be granted to the
propositions of a theory. Validity, in an axiomatized system, is precisely
nothing more than a representation of the truth of the represented proposi-
tions. And, finally, it is this truth which counts. The discovery of truth is
never entirely analytic.
It is true that one can purpose to legitimize an axiomatic system by means
of a demonstration of non-contradiction. It is doubtful if such demonstrations
can ever be carried out in an absolute sense in the case of the great mathemati-
cal theories. But in the cases where a demonstration has in effect been
realized, and in cases where one could be, what, exactly, is its meaning? This
demonstration is relative to the deductive possibilities of the system being
considered. And if it is recognized as a criterium of validity, then this would
seem to indicate that through its agency, it is possible to show in a purely
intrinsic manner the validity of a body of axiomatic propositions by merely
making use of the relation of deducibility in the system. But what is the
criterium itself worth? The worth of the proposed demonstration is merely to
make the question about the validity of the system fall back upon that of the
validity of the criterium. And how could such a criterium be justified, if not
on the basis of certain considerations of a philosophical order concerning the
nature of mathematical being? Now, from the philosophical point of view, it
may be asserted that non-contradiction, i.e. logical possibility, is but a
minimal condition which does not yet guarantee existence. And, what is at
stake is indeed the existence of mathematical objects and their properties. In
reality, as the motivations of the Hilbertian idea of the demonstration of non-
contradiction clearly shows, the true goal of such a demonstration is to lead
the validity of non-constructive procedures (of demonstration in mathe-
matics) back to that of constructive procedures. This problem is not, in itself,
one which pertains to deducibility. It is a problem which pertains to the very
idea of mathematical demonstration. But a demonstration is quite another
thing as a deduction. By privileging constructive procedures, Hilbert indeed
seemed bent on showing that it is possible, finally, to tum any demonstration
back to a synthetic moment in which it is possible to "see" how the studied
object behaves. The privilege of construction is that it gives us an understand-
ing of the object from the very heart of its production: the apprehension of its
 LOGIC AND ARGUMENTATION 23

nature and properties being identified with the procedure which constructs it.
By constructively demonstrating the non-contradiction of a theory which has
recourse to the agency of non-constructive procedures, one only renders
plausible the acceptability of non-constructive propositions on the basis of
the acceptability that one supposes to be recognized of constructive proce-
dures (the notion of constructivity being, of course, acceptably defined). The
method used to ensure this transfer of acceptability is itself merely a plausible
argument whose entire strength consists in convincing us that by accepting
such a transfer, we run no risk of ending in total confusion (if the theory is
contradictory, anything can be demonstrated in it). It remains to be said that
this is only a guarantee that one offers oneself a posteriori and that the true
indicator of research remains the discovery of interesting properties, the
solution of problems remaining open, the formulation of new problems, and,
if possible, the revelation of yet unknown domains. Moreover, this is why
there is absolutely nothing dramatic in the difficulties encountered with
regard to demonstrations of non-contradiction.

* **
We thus see that logic, considered in its most meaningful nucleus - which is
the theory of deduction - refers us to argumentation. It is thus not the idea of
deductive reasoning which appears exemplary, but rather that of a procedure
that provides a justification. Deduction ensures the transfer of the assumed
truth of certain propositions to certain others. The procedure which provides
a justification must render a proposition acceptable, i.e. have its truth
recognized, if possible, or, if not, have the title it may have as a candidate for
truth recognized. But how is the acceptability of a proposition established?
Only two methods are possible: either an intrinsic method or an extrinsic one.
The intrinsic method consists in showing the acceptability of the proposition
in question directly, by simple monstration. This, in short, corresponds to the
traditional idea of "self-evident truths". Of course, some preparation may be
necessary: an explanation of the meaning of terms, the elimination of
misunderstandings which may arise from certain ambiguities in the language
used or from certain inopportune comparisons, possibly the contrast with
other propositions or suggestive comparisons with other propositions. In
short, it is a question of revealing the proposition considered according to its
peculiar meaning, by eliminating any interference, so that it may itself show
its validity. The extrinsic method consists in connecting the proposition
considered to already accepted propositions according to a determined link.
24 JEAN LADRIERE

This link must be of such a nature as to be recognizable as ensuring a transfer

of acceptability. The clearest case of this is the deductive link. If a proposi-
tion A can be deductively connected to a set of propositions P, then it can be
considered to be as acceptable as the most weakly acceptable of the proposi-
tions of P, but only relatively to the rules used for the deduction. The
acceptability of rules (in the sense stated above) is thus the condition of
transferability. But the deductive link is only a particular case. Besides, it
presupposes, itself, justifications which are not of the deductive type. The
example of the demonstration of non-contradiction cited above is quite
illustrating. By constructively demonstrating that a given theory is not
contradictory, we in fact, as we said earlier, reduce the acceptability of non-
constructive propositions to that of constructive propositions. This justifica-
tion is not a deduction. Here, the link is not constituted by the application of
rules (assumed acceptable), but by a principle like "If a theory is non-
contradictory, the procedures of demonstration, possibly non-constructive,
which it implements are acceptable and henceforth, the propositions which it
demonstrates are also". Let us call such a principle a "Hilbertian principle".
Suppose a non-constructive theory whose non-contradiction has been
demonstrated constructively. We thus have the following situation: if the
procedures of constructive demonstration are acceptable, the argument
according to which the theory is non-contradictory is acceptable and if the
Hilbertian principle is acceptable, then the theorems of this theory are
acceptable. But what allows us to say that this principle is acceptable? In the
case of rules of deduction, the guiding notion is that a rule is acceptable if it
ensures the transfer of the supposed truth. In the case of the Hilbertian
principle, the guiding notion of a possible justification seems to be that non-
contradiction is an index of truth. In the one case, there is only an indirect
relation to the truth, while in the other it is direct in the sense that it is a
matter of a criterium which allows for the recognition of the truth itself. This
difference probably stems from the fact that in the case of rules, we are only
dealing with the behavior of logical operators which are transformers, while
in the case of a criterium such as the Hilbertian principle, we are dealing with
the notion of mathematical truth and, through it, the idea of mathematical
reality. What the principle must guarantee is that the non-constructive
procedures afford us access, in spite of their non-monstrative character, to
authentic aspects of mathematical reality.
Nevertheless, in spite of this very significant difference, we could maintain
that argumentation refers us, in the end, back to deductive logic. Except in
the rare case where a proposition can manifest its own validity by itself and
 LOGIC AND ARGUMENTATION 25

where there is henceforth no place for an argumentation stricto sensu (the

preparation for the moment of evidence not really being an argumentation),
the essential thing is still the possibility of establishing a link between the
acceptability of a proposition and that of another. The argument is only valid
if this link can be established by virtue of a principle which is itself accept-
able. One can then say that if a proposition A could be connected to a
proposition B by means of a principle P, then the acceptability of A is
comparable to that of B in an amount corresponding to the degree of accep-
tability of P. But what exactly does "to be connected to" mean? It seems that
we can only represent this idea to ourselves precisely by taking its clearest
realization as a model: that of deducibility (the role of the principle P thus
held by the rules of deduction). Argumentation will henceforth appear to us
to be a generalization of the deductive procedure and only explainable in an
analogical mode: to maintain a proposition A by argumentative means, is to
connect it to a proposition B according to a link analogous to what unites the
conclusion to the premises in a deduction. It would thus indeed be deductive
logic constituting the paradigm of all valid reasoning.

***
It seems then that there must be a common root to logic (understood in the
narrow sense of deductive logic) and to argumentation. And this common
root must be such that it can account both for the difference between the two
procedures and for what in each of them refers to the other. In both cases, it is
a matter of the possibilities of discourse and, even more precisely (and
although according to different modalities) of the relation between discourse
and truth. The main theme which should allow us to understand both the role
of logic and that of argumentation is the notion of "logos". "Logos" is a
measure within things. It is also that which, within us, allows us to take note
of and to measure up to that measure: the sensible word in that, according to
the meaning which carries it, it attempts to fit together with the hidden word
which dwells in the world and makes it a comprehensible world. There is a
word which recounts, one that celebrates, one which institutes, another which
interpellates, questions, entreats, one which expresses admiration and pity,
love and disappointment, joy and abandonment, and there is that free word
which speaks only for its own delight. But there is also the word which
attempts to say what is, in truth - what must be said thus because of the
nature of things. The truth, however, does not allow itself to be captured
easily. In order to tame it, many tricks and long patience is needed. Since it is
26 JEAN LADRIERE

a matter of coming into harmony with a hidden "logos", the art of making
one's way to the encounter with truth could be called, in an altogether general
way, "logic". However, this must be clarified in two directions. On the one
hand, 3ince truth (in general, in any case) does not reveal itself in an ir-
refragable evidence, one must almost always proceed by conjecture: the
crucial problem thus becomes justification. Whence the idea of acceptability.
Something is acceptable, from the point of view of the discourse which
attempts to come into harmony with the truth, if its claim to truth appears
sufficiently founded. And since justification can be unequally well es-
tablished, there must be degrees of acceptability. In any case, justification
and acceptability are correlative concepts: something is acceptable in a
certain measure if it is justified in this same measure and reciprocally.
Furthermore, the very idea of justification leads to an extension of "logic" (in
the general sense) beyond what is marked by the notion of truth. This is
because there exist, beside descriptive propositions which attempt to express
how things are in the world, propositions which are normative with respect to
the orientations of action, and propositions which are evaluative with respect
to works and thus to the order of "technique" (in the most general sense,
covering all forms of art: that of the technician, the politician or the doctor, as
well as that of the artist, properly so-called). All of these propositions (in that
they are not simply the expression of subjective preferences as such) utter
claims to validity. These claims can only be supported with appropriate
justifications. A judgment which is normative with respect to a particular
situation can be justified by connecting it to more general norms. But, finally,
what can justify a norm is its ability to express the requirements which are
inscribed in the very structure of action. A judgment which is appreciative
with respect to a particular work can be justified with respect to criteria
which are contingently of very great generality. But what justifies the criteria
themselves is their ability to express the constitutive rules of the "art" that
they concern. There is thus an obvious analogy between the three types of
propositions considered from the viewpoint of problems of justification. In
each case, it is a matter of showing the acceptability of a proposition. In the
case of descriptive propositions, the criterium is the adequation with what
reality reveals of itself - what the notion of truth expresses. In the case of
normative propositions, the criterium is the adequation with the ethical order
(insofar as the inner requirements of action mean its ordering after the ethical
order). And in the case of appreciative propositions, the criterium is the
adequation with what could be called the "poetic order" (insofar as the rules
constitutive of an "art" mean making states of things exist in conformity with
 LOGIC AND ARGUMENTATION 27

an inspiring "idea" such as that of the city in the case of political art, or that
of health in the case of medical art). Because of this analogy, the term
"logic", in the general sense indicated above, can be extended to all the
contexts of justification which have their counterpart in discourse. And this
extension may be made explicit by saying that "logic", in the most general
sense, is the art of advancing towards the encounter with the acceptable
(whether the acceptable be defined with respect to the order of truth, the
ethical order or the "poetic order"). However, we must account for the
difference which appeared, in the effective practice of this art of justification,
between logic in the narrow sense and argumentation. The difference must
come from the very nature of what is under consideration. In order to explain
it, we can stick to the case of descriptive propositions, since the other cases
may be dealt with through analogy. A proposition is never absolutely
isolated; it only takes on its full meaning and value in the context of a
discourse which connects propositions to each other, thus creating, in a sense,
a solidarity between them. Deduction (studied by logic in the narrow sense) is
a very particular modality of sequencing which ensures, as we have seen, the
transfer of assumed truth. Argumentation establishes relationships between
propositions which could be characterized by the notion of "support". To
attempt to justify a proposition A on the basis of a proposition B is, in effect,
to reveal the truth of B as support for the truth of A. The strength of the
argument results from the acceptability of the proposed support relationship.
Deduction allows for the complete reduction of justification of a proposition-
consequence to the justification of its premises, and, in this sense, it can be
considered a privileged case of argumentation in which the degree of support
is the greatest. But the precisely deductive moment does not yet bring in
justification; it is only a possible instrument of it (in case it is feasible). In
general, argumentation implements quite varied support processes which the
theory of argumentation attempts to record and whose mechanisms it
attempts to analyze.
In both cases, there is a relationship to truth; on the one hand, in the form
of a relationship of transfer, and, on the other, in the form of a relationship of
support or foundation. A dual possibility thus seems to be inscribed in the
relation which the discourse can entertain with truth. If the propositions that
present themselves as true only appear so in a presumptive manner, it is
because their relation to truth is always indirect. Even if we grant that self-
evident propositions exist, it seems problematic to take evidence for a sort of
unconditional, definitive and absolutely indubitable revelation of the truth.
Evidence, after all, is but an index - although a privileged one. However,
28 JEAN LADRIERE

what allows us to recognize a proposition as being at least presumptively

true, is the relation that we believe to discern in it with an originary event:
that of an advent of truth of which it is, as a presumptive proposition, a local
and contingent trace. Agreement is founded upon this event; it is the con-
sonance which appropriates the discourse to what reveals itself. There cannot
be true discourse, even conjecturally, except for the fact that the world
reveals itself - thus, because there is manifestation. In truth, discourse is not
purely and simply secondary to manifestation. It belongs to its very structure,
inasmuch as it is that moment when the meaning of what reveals itself breaks
away, so to speak, from the materiality of its adherence and asserts itself for
itself, in the autonomy of an ideality capable of sustaining itself by its own
instituting force, which is precisely that of discourse. The originary event of
the advent of the truth is that moment when the meaning of the fact or the
event arises, then, from what is and from what happens, or else when the
immanent "logos" of things reveals itself in its purity.
But discourse can only clear its path in the medium of language and it can
only express meaning by adapting itself to the contingency and the inertia of
a device which, malleable as it may be, nevertheless always leaves discourse
at a certain distance from the very thing that it behoves it to express. The
passage into language is what could be called the inscription of meaning.
According to the most generally accepted analysis, the primordial locus of
this inscription is the proposition inasmuch as it possesses the minimal
structure necessary for expressing the fact that things can, effectively, be
understood as pertaining to such or such view of intelligibility, thus, for
expressing, even at great distance, the originary event of the automonstration
of meaning. However, on its own, the proposition does not exhaust this event
precisely because it only has a limited reserve of descriptive terms, predi-
cates, and operators at its disposal. Discourse attempts to make up for the
inadequacy of the proposition by hinging one proposition to another, thus, by
varying the views while at the same time showing how they fit together with
each other. It is only by this course, which connects propositions to each
other by various figures of concatenation, that discourse has a chance of
ietting the originary event come to the surface of words and thus of constitut-
ing itself as true discourse. In any case, it is this originary event which carries
discourse along its trajectory and which accounts for the force of the links it
establishes between propositions. In every relationship, there is some degree
of constraint. What constrains is the force which comes from the manifesta-
tion and which clears the path of meaning through the denseness of language.
But discourse can organize itself according to two very different
 LOGIC AND ARGUMENTATION 29

modalities. It may take advantage of the constructive resources specific to

language by provisionally leaving what is concerned in the inscription of
meaning in abeyance, or, it may, on the contrary, find a basis in the very
vicissitudes of that inscription. The means of construction that language
affords discourse are the logical operators whose nature and role were
recalled earlier. Now, the working of the operators allows for transformations
which could be called semantically neutral in that in their implementation,
they do not directly appeal to the instituting force of discourse (which is that
of the originary event). They, of course, can have an effect on the truth value
and, to the same extent, have a semantic effect, but it is always a matter of an
assumed truth value which is in a way only present in a purely gratuitous
fashion, by way of mere eventuality. If a proposition is modified by an
operator of negation, its truth value is altered. However, this happens
altogether independently of how things are, in reality, with this truth value
and with the manner in which one could possibly determine what it is. By
relying on this remarkable property of logical operators, regulated procedures
may be brought into focus which allow for the extraction from a proposition
of what it contains. (The premises of a deductive argument can be considered
to only form a single proposition. They must simply be linked by a conjunc-
tion.) The notion of deduction expresses very precisely what this procedure
of disimplication may signify. Deduction, however, implies rules. And what
produces the constraint of the rule and moreover its legitimacy is indeed, in
compliance with the general principle stated above, the refraction within it of
the originary event's force. If this is so, it is apparently because of the
thematizing possibilities of the operativity peculiar to language which are
implemented in the formalization process. If some proposition or other
appears with a certain claim to truth, it can only be to the extent that the
originary event of the apophansis of meaning is refracted within it, however
weakly. Now, this event is present within the proposition as an inscription of
the requirement of its own unfolding, i.e. as a growing explicitation of what it
was bent on expressing from the first moment of its formulation. And it is
this requirement which is conveyed in the process of dis implication and in
the concept of deduction which constitutes its theory. Now, such a process is
possible because the language in which meaning attempts to inscribe itself,
offers appropriate devices on its own accord. And because the language,
insofar as it is, in effect, a set of devices, possesses a sort of ideal materiality
(not that of expressive supports, like voice and writing, but that of structures
which linguistic theory so skillfully brings to the fore), it can be objectivized,
i.e. considered outside its effective usage, like a mere building material of
30 JEAN LADRIERE

discourse, or like a mere locus of the inscription of meaning. The objectiviza-

tion of language is ipso facto the thematicization of the operations which it
contains, i.e. their representation in a separate state, on a base which is no
longer driven by the will to express specific to discourse. Formalization
provides us with such a representation in which operations are shown to us in
the pure abstraction of their operativity, independently of the contents upon
which, in the realm of discourse, they must normally act. To the extent that
the constituting force of discourse has withdrawn from this representation, it
can be said that all direct relations to the originary event have been
suspended. But, to the extent that the representation itself reveals to us how
the operatory resources of language make a conservative disimplication (of
assumed truth) possible, and the extent that it brings to evidence the constrain-
ing force of rule, it can be said that in the deductive process, an indirect
relationship is maintained with the originary event and even that it is on
account of this relationship that deduction can take place. The power of
deduction thus consists in its ensuring the transition from the implicit to the
explicit according to a trajectory corresponding to the progressive accomplish-
ment of the apophansis of meaning. This transition is potentially fruitful, and
in many cases, necessary, because the proposition is, in a way, incapable, in
general, of showing, straight off, by a simple unveiling of its apparent
structure, everything revealing that it already possesses, in fact, concerning
the truth.
The other modality of the construction of discourse is that which is
involved in argumentation. Here, the course takes place in the opposite
direction from what happens in the case of deduction. Instead of starting with
a proposition (or a set of propositions) in order to move toward others whose
validity is guaranteed by the given proposition (or the given set of proposi-
tions), we start with a proposition given in a problematic form, and move
toward those which might offer it as substantial a support as possible.
Deduction, as the word indicates, is descendant; it departs from a seat of truth
and moves toward more and more distant partial truths, in a process of
crossed branching in which the final node of a deductive tree may itself be a
branching point from which several new deductive lines radiate. Argumenta-
tion is ascendant; it departs from a proposition the acceptability of which is
weakly ensured in order to move toward propositions the acceptability of
which is better and better secured. Argumentation should ideally be able to
anchor this whole regressive process, finally, in propositions whose accep-
tability would no longer raise the least doubt, i.e. in propositions whose truth
would impose itself in absolute fashion. Even if, in fact, such an ascent
 LOGIC AND ARGUMENTATION 31

toward absolute truths appears out of reach, nevertheless the "telos" of an

unconditional truth no doubt drives the enterprise of justification. In fact, it
seems that what can effectively be realized is merely the reduction of the
least plausible to the most plausible by settling upon propositions which seem
to enjoy maximum acceptability available in the historical context of the
research area one is involved in.
The enterprise is rendered both necessary and possible by the fact that
there exist various degrees of acceptability. When certain propositions
possess a small amount of acceptability (e.g. because they only possess the
conjectural value that certain facts might suggest), it is necessary to render
them more acceptable, or, in any case, to investigate whether they are liable
to become more acceptable. But this is only possible if propositions, whose at
least relative acceptability has already been established, are at our disposal. It
must be noted that the degree of acceptability is not linked to the relatively
general character of propositions. In certain cases, for example in the context
of confirming theoretical hypotheses, an attempt is made to render very
general propositions acceptable by relying on experimental propositions
whose degree of generality is lesser, but whose acceptability is based on their
proximity to an empirical practice, interpreted as a privileged locus of
manifestation. But in other cases, a very general proposition, judged to be
already acceptable to a sufficient degree may be relied upon in order to
justify more particularized propositions.
If there are thus differences between propositions from the point of view of
their acceptability, this means that the relation to truth is only revealed by
degrees. However, if it is true that this relation is founded on an originary
event which is the very constitution of discourse in the medium of manifesta-
tion, then this variability in the force of certification of the truth itself refers
back to the conditions under which that event takes place, i.e. under which
the advent of discourse takes place. Within every proposition appearing with
even the most minimal claim to say the truth, there is a trace of this advent,
like an echo of the originary. Now, the originary advent of the truth, which is
constitutive of discourse, is itself made up of the articulation of three
moments: there is the moment of the gift, which is the manifestation itself in
its most essential; there is the moment of institution, in which emerges, from
the very movement of manifestation, the medium in which the meaning of the
manifest may be shown; and there is the moment of receptivity where the
discourse thus constituted gathers within itself what is shown in the moment
of the gift. However, the proposition, which is the elementary link [maille] of
discourse, only gathers what is shown (as we have already stressed) through
32 mAN LADRIERE

the filter of language. The inscription of meaning is conditioned by the

limitations which the discourse's status of ideality imposes on its power of
monstration. Discursively, we only apprehend the world in fragments and in
perspectives, by isolating, with more or less arbitrariness, more or less
extensive regions in the universal field of what reveals itself (which cor-
responds to the referential function of language), and by constructing points
of view which allow us to look at things in a certain generality (which
corresponds to the predicative function of language). The proposition
articulates the generality of a point of view to the singularity of a concrete
aim. It thus refers, in accordance with its very structure, to this irreducible
something, aimed at by the reference, through which the power peculiar to
the moment of the gift comes to it, even if it be in a veiled form or by
delegation. In an apparently clear manner, the predicate exhibits a meaning; it
represents that moment when meaning broke away from the concreteness of
the manifestation and thus is shown in and for itself. The apophansis of
meaning appears to complete itself in the predicate. But this meaning is
elusive, unsituated, gratuitous in a way; its scope remains indeterminate and
thus enigmatic. The proposition attempts to restore it to its proper place, that
is, to restore it in the movement of manifestation, to retrace in the opposite
direction the path by which it came, from the concreteness of the primary gift
to the ideality of a pure representation. But in doing so, it provides a represen-
tation of that advance by which meaning emerges. It thus provides, locally
and only concerning a limited aspect of things, an image of manifestation
itself. Inasmuch as it belongs, as a part of discourse, to the structure of
manifestation, we can thus say that it is located in this reflexive moment
where that manifestation becomes effective by providing itself with an
objectivized form of its own execution.
In the structure of the proposition, it is obviously the articulation of the
predicative function with the referential function which constitutes the
decisive moment within which the problem of the relation to the truth is, so to
speak, concentrated. Discourse institutes this articulation, but it can do it
pertinently only to the extent that it attempts to gather together what is
announced at the moment of giving. The degree of legitimacy of the articula-
tion, i.e. the degree to which its relation to the truth asserts itself in the
proposition, is exactly the degree to which the force of the originary moment
of the giving acts within it. Now, this does not depend on the willpower of
the person holding forth the discourse, but on the objective resources (in
point of fact, on linguistic devices) that the latter implements. The ideal of a
proposition showing, without reservation, its acceptability is that of a
 LOGIC AND ARGUMENTATION 33

discursive situation in which the originary giving force of the manifestation

would be directly visible in the very structure of the proposition. The problem
of justification is, in short, that of approaching this ideal. And the idea of
argumentation is, in short, to propagate the justification of the most favorable
cases toward the less favorable ones.
The crucial moment in the process is obviously the establishment of an
appropriate connection between the proposition to be justified and those
which served as support for the justification. This connection must be of a
nature such that it can divert at least some of the originary giving force
already operating in the justifying propositions toward the proposition to be
justified. In order for the process may be effective, i.e. so that there really be
a justification, the connection must appear to be implemented after a
principle recognized as acceptable. And a principle of connection is accept-
able if it shows that it effectively expresses what is asked of the nature of the
connection. However, the acceptability of a principle is not exactly the same
as that of a descriptive proposition. Nevertheless, the very notion of accep-
tability indicates an analogy upon which one may usefully rely. What is at
stake in the principle is not directly the manifestation (insofar as it shows the
meaning of the portion of reality that is appearing), but the manner in which
it operates, or, more precisely, the manner in which the originary giving force
can be transferred from one proposition to another one, from a more receptive
structure to a less receptive one. Whereas, in a descriptive proposition, the
originary giving force gives to see the meaning which rises from the middle
of things and which the proposition tries to express, in the principle, the
originary giving force reveals in a sense itself in its mobilizing force, in its
ability to bend language to fit the event of the advent of meaning. Indeed, the
same force is at work in both cases; it is indeed in the very resources of the
manifestation that descriptive and justificatory discourses derive that which
can legitimize them. Just as a descriptive proposition would be recognized as
being fully acceptable to the extent that it rendered the action of the originary
giving force within it directly visible, so a justificatory principle would be
recognized as being fully acceptable to the extent that it rendered directly
visible, through the medium of language, the expansion of that originary
force from the loci where it is the most visible toward those where it is the
least visible.
The two modalities of the organization of discourse are thus both con-
nected to the structure of manifestation and to the originary giving which is
its primary moment. But while deduction puts the force of giving
provisionally in abeyance (in that it does not take into account what the
34 mAN LADRIERE

propositions upon which it operates say, stricto sensu, or claim to say),

argumentation consists essentially, to the contrary, in relying upon this very
force with a view to expanding its field of effectiveness. Deduction proceeds
by disimplication from what is contained in a set of propositions by taking
advantage of their mode of construction and of the relationships which exist
between them simply because of their mode of construction. Argumentation
is a sort of exploration: it attempts to increase the degree to which the
apophansis of meaning takes place within the given propositions, by
establishing between these and other propositions relationships which are not
simply of a structural order, according to principles of connection which are
recognized as acceptable. It is possible to say that in both cases, use is made
of relationships between propositions. However, in one case, it is by a mere
bringing to light of relationships already given with the very structure of the
primary propositions, while in the other, it is by the progressive constitution
of a network of relationships which was not given at all in advance. On the
one hand, there is merely a recording of virtualities inscribed in an already
available apophantic; on the other, there is a modification in the apophantic
structure, a reinforcement (at least a local one) of the degree of acceptability,
and extension of the sphere of effectiveness of the originary, and, correla-
tively, a transformation of the network of connections between propositions.
On the one hand, the process is retrospective, and on the other, it is prospec-
tive.

***
What has been said about descriptive propositions could easily be extended to
the case of normative propositions and to that of appreciative propositions.
The acceptability of the former is measured by the intensity according to
which the force of the originary giving is refracted within them. What is
made manifest by this giving is everything that happens, with all the condi-
tions which govern the production of what happens. In this sense, this could
be called the "evenementiel". In an analogous manner, an originary giving
refracts within normative propositions, viz. that original experience in which
ethical requirements are asserted. Here, it is the ethical order which is made
manifest. Similarly, in evaluative propositions, we see a refraction of that
originary constitution in which the requirements characteristic of the poetic
order (in the sense indicated above) are instituted. It would be well, of course,
to specify the nature of the criterium of validity peculiar to each of these
areas, as well as to distinguish (as in the case of descriptive propositions) the
 LOGIC AND ARGUMENTATION 35

acceptability of the propositions considered on their own from the accep-

tability of the principles by means of which one attempts to justify them.
Analogy, which allows the comparison of justificatory processes in the
three areas of description, normativity and appreciation, authorizes us to
generalize about what we have seen concerning descriptive discourse. In any
order of discourse in which a claim to acceptability is asserted, that duality
between deduction and argumentation will be found. And, in each case, it
will be possible to reduce this duality to two types of discursive organization:
disimplication (of a given apophansis) and restructuration (of the field of the
apophansis by redistribution of the degrees of apophansis upon the proposi-
tions of the discourse). On the side of deduction, validity (assumed) is merely
exhibited, in all its ramifications. On the side of argumentation, it is actively
constituted by a practice of exploration that tries to clear paths for the
extension of acceptability. This is why logic (in the strict sense) has an
atemporal character, while argumentation has an essentially historical
character. Deduction has value solely in virtue of the strength of rules,
independently of what those who implement it, in fact, do. Argumentation
has value only with respect to a given state of discursive elaboration,
relatively to experience and perplexities which are always situated and which,
furthermore, change with the transformation of knowledge, with variations in
ethical consciousness, and with the emergence of new "poetic" figures. One
can doubtless attribute the difference separating syntactic purity (considered
to also include the theory of models) from pragmatics to this difference
between the atemporal and the historical. Even when it speaks of contexts,
syntax is decontextualized. On the contrary, pragmatics is, by definition, the
restitution of language to its anchoring in acts. And it is through acts that
there is history. But the difference between the atemporal and the historical is
doubtless also what explains the relative poverty of pure logic, which invents
nothing, as well as the irremediable contingency of argumentation which
never demonstrates except conditionally and according to a certain measure
of plausibility. The pursued objective is indeed to give sufficient reason, but
the idea of reason is both superbly obvious and quite strangely fleeting.
 JEAN-BLAISE GRIZE

TO REASON WHILE SPEAKING

INTRODUCTION

The development of mathematical logic and the daily presence of computer

technology tend to lead one to believe that arguing amounts to proof and
deduction. However, nothing of the sort is true and I would like to discuss
argument in the altogether general sense of the shift from one judgement to
another.
Still, it must be noted that this shift does not necessarily require a dis-
course. Neither the very young child nor the computer speak: the former
because he does not yet have language at his disposal, the latter because it
calculates. Nevertheless, it will be a matter here of discursive reasonings
only.
All of these, however, are not of the same nature and it is useful to
distinguish between two types. On the one hand, those which have currency
in areas where it only matters that one proceed from one truth to another -
areas which thus pertain to formal logic. On the other hand, those which
unfold
in domains where it is a matter of establishing what is preferable, acceptable and
reasonable [ ... which] are neither formally correct deductions nor inductions ranging
from the particular to the general, but argwnents of all types aiming at gaining the.
adherence of minds for the theses which are presented for their approval. (Perelman,
p.7).

These arguments are part of the field which we call natural logic, by which is
understood the system of operations which allow thought to manifest itself
through discourse. It is characterized by two essential features. First, it is the
logic of the subject: each of the propositions has an enunciator who takes
responsibility for it. Next, it is the logic of objects in that their construction is
more important to him than predication.
This study will be devoted to this second type of argument. I must
nevertheless first make one thing clear. This text is meant to be an homage to
Chaim Perelman, to his work, and to the realms of thought that he opened. If
it is true that lowe him much (and probably even my taste for argumenta-
tion), the same is true, directly or transitively, of my collaborators. That is

37
38 JEAN-BLAISE GRIZE

why it will not be a question of my "ideas" in what will follow, but rather of
some research results of our Center. Since I am the senior member (and only
for this reason), I will consider myself their spokesman and thus take up the
pen for those who have reflected on what "to reason while speaking" means.

1. NON-FORMAL ARGUMENTS

In order to characterize this type of spoken argument, it will be most useful to

begin with what remains paradigmatic about formal arguments: the syl-
logism. I will stress five aspects of it which contrast with non-formal
arguments:

a) the type of discourse at stake;

b) the operations used;
c) the statute of the premises;
d) the nature of the conclusion;
e) the objects that are involved.

1. And first, the discourse itself. It is generally granted, since the work of
Benveniste, that the dialogue is the very condition of human language
(Benveniste 1966, 60) and that, consequently, every speech-act is an
exchange between an I and a YOU. Now, the discourse of formal arguments
is characterized, on this point, not only by the fact that it erases the inter-
locutors, but also aims to do so. Expressions like "I say that the triangle ABC
is equal to the triangle A'B 'c'" are purely stylistic clauses. Indeed, one can
say, expanding Perelman's terminology, that "I" is the universal speaker who
adresses a universal audience. Better yet, it is reason speaking to reason. This
is, moreover, what allows a computer ultimately to be entrusted with
calculating arguments of this sort. Non-formal arguments. on the other hand.
are expressed in discourses where receiver and sender remain present. The
obligation of a dual adjustment [double reglage] falls upon the orator: on the
one hand, that obligation demanded by cognitive necessities (which are only,
by right, present in formal arguments), and on the other, that which requires
the presence of YOU. This last remark implies that we have gone beyond the
demonstrative framework and penetrated the argumentative order.
More precisely, as M.-J. Borel has shown (Grize 1984, 12ff, 13Of!), the
signs of these discourses refer to three levels which are linked, but function-
ally distinct.
 TO REASON WHILE SPEAKlNG 39

a) The cognitive or notional level: what is said.

b) The argumentative level which ensures the coherence of the
dictum, which aims to avoid the receiver's production of counter-
discourses.
c) The purely rhetorical level (belonging to the speaker) which tries
to aid the reception of what is presented.
Thus in the following example: In sum, the discourse offormal arguments is
very different from that of non-formal arguments. Indeed, the first is
monological while the second is dialogical.
What is in italics pertains to the cognitive level; the clause introduced by
"indeed", to the argumentative level; and "in sum", to the rhetorical level.

2. Coming now to operations, it is known that formal arguments only utilize

propositional operations and quantifiers. But, let us consider this brief non-
formal argument which I borrow from C. Pequegnat: The distribution of
water is easy, for each targa feeds a determinate field surface which would
not exist without it: when water is abundant, everyone takes as much as they
want. (Grize 1966, 21) We notice that the conclusion "the distribution of
water is easy" results from the following series of transformations: The
argument's condition: "when water is abundant".
a) everyone takes as much as they want process
b) as much water is taken as is wanted erasure of the agent
c) water is easily distributed substitution of predicate
d) the distribution of water is easy nominalization, state
We see that the nature of the operations (transformations) at stake may be
multifarious. These pertain to:
- objects: abundant water ---+ distribution of water
- predicates: to be taken ---+ to be distributed
- legal content: everyone takes water ---+ water may be distributed
Finally, let it be noted that this type of argument may extend to pure plays on
words:
And, at the source of all reproduction, communication, association, and communion,
there is the gemination of two cellular beings born of a doubling (cellular auto-
reproduction): thus no father; the father is the son, the son is the father while at the
same time being neither son nor father, but himself and his own brother. (E. Morin, La
vie de la vie, Paris, Seuil, 1980, pp. 439-40).
40 JEAN-BLAISE GRIZE

3. It is difficult to decide whether for Aristotle himself, a syllogism could

have false premises. J. Lukasiewicz thinks so (Lukasiewicz 1959). But the
question here is not historical. It is rather that, in his mind, the premises of a
formal argument are hypothetical and that the logician's task is not to
guarantee the argument's truth.
In non-formal arguments, on the other hand, (arguments that a discourse
puts forth at any particular moment) premises are given precisely by way of
facts. And as a fact only counts if it is received as such, the necessity of
arguing is found once again.

4. I now come to the nature of conclusions. It is known that, formally, the

conclusion must contain nothing that was not already present in the premises.
It is for this very reason that logic lays itself open to the criticism of sterility.
The situation is very different in non-formal arguments where the conclu-
sion only has some interest, or only escapes the reproach of tautology, to the
extent that it offers up some new element. The most famous example is
provided by "I think therefore I am". This example allows us to see well the
essential role played by the meaning of terms which are face to face. To
replace "to think" or "to be" with other predicates, or even "I" with another
pronoun would destroy the argument. Thus to reason while speaking certainly
,always amounts to dealing with forms, but to the same degree as well with
contents of thought.
This leads us to study the objects under consideration.

5. It is known that a formal system comprises two parts. One is called pure
and its role is to provide the deductive apparatus. The objects that it deals
with are totally empty or banal, as F. Gonseth says (Gonseth 1937). And this
follows from the fact that deduction strives to be pure form. As for the second
part, called "applied", it quite obviously contains objects, but which are
entirely determined from the outset by the axioms to which they are subor-
dinated. These are artificial objects, created by the researcher, that is, which
amount to a few properties that seemed important to him.
For everyday arguments, the situation is totally different. Here, the objects
exist prior to the discourse to be held forth about them. Their properties, the
relationships that are maintained between them are limitless and we never
grasp but a few of them. In other words, in arguments founded on language
as it exists - and not as the scientist constructs it - two facts thrust themselves
upon us:
 TO REASON WillLE SPEAKING 41

a) All objects have a meaning before we reason upon them.

b) All arguments are founded upon certain aspects thought to be
familiar to the interlocutor, or which he makes explicit, or which
he even creates.
This is important enough for us to devote some thought to it.

2. THE OBJECTS OF DISCOURSE

1. An object of discourse is a linguistic sign which we say represents a

cognitive representation in language. It comprises two main characteristics:
a) It is always endowed with a meaning and this in contrast with the
signs of formal systems which must be interpreted.
b) This meaning is always more or less fuzzy, partially undeter-
mined, and the role of discursive activity is justly to bring it
progressively into definition. Thus, the object man in the
following text:
Racist and yet altruistic, a fanatical idealist endowed with the most highly perfected
sense of organization of the living kingdom. Fundamentally aggressive and often
putting this aggressiveness to the service of an offensive and militant pacifism.
Authoritarian and a loner, yet irresistibly swayed by the intoxication of totalitarianism
and of submission to absolute power. Such is this being that is stranger than all others:
man. (Dr. Escoffier-Lambiotte: "L'homme aux trois cerveaux," Le Monde, 19-20
February 1984, p. vi).

2. Before being put to discourse, an object is already accompanied by a

network of aspects, that is, a (fuzzy) totality of properties or relations with
other objects and potential actions.
To take an everyday example, the object key may be predicated on "being
of iron" or "being light-weight", but normally not on "being gaseous" or
"being even". It may be put into a relation with the object lock or with the
object pocket, but not with the object cloud. We may tum a key but not
determine its square root. Here a remark must be made which both compli-
cates the situation and opens unlimited possibilities for argument. I have
written "normally". This is indeed because languages are open to the
phenomenon of metaphor with the result that the speaker may always
broaden the cluster of objects that he deals with.
42 JEAN-BLAISE GRIZE

3. The preceding remains theoretical and it is necessary to have at one's

disposal an operational concept in order to deal with objects of discourse. We
have, for this reason, introduced the concept of object-class, a close relative
of the mereological class in the sense that Lesniewski gives it (Mieville
1984). With the help of a certain number of operations which we have dealt
with elsewhere (Borel-Grize-Mieville 1983), it is possible to follow the
construction of objects in a given discourse. I will limit myself here to
demonstrating this with one example.
The city was silent. Its streets deserted, not a single house lit. The city
center seemed abandoned.
In succession, there are:
- anchorage operation: the city;
- ingredience operation: the city, its streets;
- ingredience operation: the city, its streets, a single house;
- specification operation: the city, its streets, a single house, the city
center.
What may thus be described on the technical level corresponds, on the plane
of thought, to that which I will later call the expansion of an object: an
expansion directly linked, in non-formal arguments, to the enrichment of
conclusions.

4. The above text is only given by way of illustration and other operations are
required in order to elaborate object-classes. It follows that, contrary to what
happens with ordinary mathematical classes which only pertain to the relation
"is an element of' (e), object-classes (loci of non-formal arguments) enjoy
several distinct appurtenance relations. D. Apotheloz (Grize 1984, 197-201)
discerns five types:
a) Is an element of. "The rectangle is a quadrilateral".
b) Is part of. "Ixelles is part o/the Brussels urban area".
c) Belongs to the realm of. "The experimental method belongs to
the realm of contemporary psychology".
d) Belongs through restriction to. "Animal psychology belongs
through restriction to psychology".
e) Belongs through overdetermination to. "The advances in biology
belong through overdetermination to biology".
It is obvious that we are dealing with qualified relations, that the two latter
ones are even of a specifically speech-related nature, and that we are in an
entirely other context than that of formal logic.
 TO REASON WlllLE SPEAKING 43

3. THE MECHANISMS OF NON-FORMAL ARGUMENTS

1. Even if, as I have stated above, the operations of non-formal arguments are
not all of a propositional nature, it nevertheless remains true that, at a primary
level of analysis, such an argument appears as an ordered (and obviously
fmite) series of statements. The difficulty here is that a description, narrative,
or narration appear under the same aspect.
I will thus posit that an argument is characterized by the presence of a
specific statement: a conclusion. Let us suppose provisionally that we know
how to recognize a conclusion. Under these conditions, it is legitimate to
classify all other statements in a single category. I will call these premises.
Thus conclusion and premise(s) are two notions that are relative to each other
and nothing in an isolated statement allows us to determine anything about its
statute.
This is perhaps trivial, but it allows us to understand why it is necessary, in
formal arguments, to come to an advance agreement concerning what is
going to serve as premise and to mark it linguistically.
''If a triangle has two equal sides, then it has two equal angles". Such a
conditional proposition is a sort of reserve which means that in the case that I
encounter an isosceles triangle, I can affrrm that it has two equal angles. This
is nothing other than a modus ponens. It is nothing else than this, but nothing
less either. This in effect means that under the right circumstances, the
conclusion stands out from the premises.
Yet, remaining for the moment on the theoretical plane, and in a quite
general fashion, this allows us to posit that a conclusion is a statement that
distinguishes itself from others under the terms of a particular relationship
that it maintains with them.
Fortunately, it happens that discourse marks this distinction. The following
is an example:
The young of man can be situated with respect to verbal activity: the word enfant
["child"] is composed of two unities, "in" and "farl", which signify "to not speak".
Thus the child is perceived from the perspective of a lack or an absence. (D. Bouvet,
La parole de I'enfant sourd. Paris, PUF, 1982, p. 15). The "thus" signals that what
follows is the conclusion.

2. "Therefore" is also a sign of conclusion in formal arguments which, in the

classical tradition, are of the form: "I say that p. As a matter of fact q.
Therefore p." This is a form in which the premises precede the conclusion. It
is, however, illusory to think about relying on the order of statements.
44 JEAN-BLAISE GRIZE

Nothing in day-to-day arguments dictates the premise-conclusion order. In

the example of the targa, the conclusion precedes the premises. In that of the
child, it follows them. In this there are certainly rhetorical processes situated
beyond the formal mechanisms and whose scope remains to be studied.
The problem is thus to find other means for recognizing a conclusion.
There is one which is all the more important to us as it is of a perfectly
discursive nature and is indebted to one of the operations which we have
isolated in our natural logic. All conclusions are marked by a variation in the
level of discourse, a denivellation.
Let us examine things more closely and, in order to do so, start with an
example which I borrow, once again, from C. Pequegnat (Grize 1984,70).
Animals impose no restriction upon themselves in the satisfaction of their sexual
needs. An adult male may sexually approach any female, including the female who
gave birth to him (his mother), or females born of the same mother as him (his
sisters). This sexual behavior without inhibition ... (E. Reed, Feminism and Anthropol-
ogy, Paris, Denoi!l, 1979, p. 15.)

It may be noticed that the text (discourse) brings about a whole operation
upon the objects of discourse. First, there is an expansion:
animals ~ satisfaction of their sexual needs ~ an adult male ~ any female ~ the
female who gave birth to him ~ females born of the same mother as him.

This expansion is followed by a condensation: "This sexual behavior

without inhibition" which signals a change in level. With the assistance of the
operation we have called ro, the expression "this sexual behavior without
inhibition" refers to the whole expansion and what will be said about it will
become the conclusion.

3. If our way of understanding natural logic as pertaining as much to subjects

as to objects is correct, the expansions of objects must depend upon the point
of view of the speakers who argue. This phenomenon does not appear clearly
in the already-constituted areas of knowledge where, precisely, the competent
authorities have agreed upon a single point of view. Thus writes J. Piaget:
to say that bodies attract in direct proportion to their mass and in inverse proportion
to the square of their distance supposes [ ... ] a certain choice of defInitions of bodies.
(Piaget 1967, 1166).

And it is known that such a choice was not in the least bit obvious. Thus,
as long as a knowledge is groping, several points of view remain in competi-
tion, or in a polemical relationship in regard to each other. It follows that in
 TO REASON WlllLE SPEAKING 45

order to argue in favor of one of them, it is fitting to review some of the

others. It is thus that many non-formal reasoned processes initiate a veritable
circuit of the points of view and thereby reveal diverse facets of the objects in
question.
Here is a characteristic example which I have abbreviated somewhat:
l. Can it not be claimed that the inventory of all observable
phenomena is the ultimate goal of science? By experimenting
"randomly", my experiments contribute to the building of
universal knowledge. It is the ideal of the "exhaustive exploration
of reality".
2. Even if my experiments have little motivation, can I not hope to
detect, by this means, a significant anomaly or make a surprising
observation which will allow me to reach a fruitful hypothesis?
This is the idea of suggestive tlbricolage" which Claude Bernard
also defended ...
3. Finally, certain authors stress the importance of the "fruitful
error" ...
4. It is no doubt exact that some of the most brilliant experimental
results of our century were the effect of errors or of failures ...
But it would be difficult to justify sociologically the maintenance
of the great experimental apparatus which characterizes our
epoch by the fruitful error or by bricolage. (R. Thorn, ''La
methode experimentale",Le debat, nO 34, mars 1985, pp. 15-16).
Here, we are presented with four points of view. The three first ones are
explicitly those from which the author wishes to distance himself (thus the
use of quotation marks), whereas the fourth, presented as the only legitimate
one, is that of R. Thorn.

4. I have just spoken from a point of view presented as legitimate. Now this
poses a delicate problem. A non-formal argument has no necessity characteris-
tic. How, therefore, can it be convincing? I would answer that it is so by
giving a certain characteristic of the obvious to its conclusion, as in the
famous phrase, "one can thus see that".
In order to bring out the general mechanism, I will freely use as my
authority M. Meyer's extraordinarily fertile concept of problematology
(Meyer 1979, 1983). I stress [retiens] the following idea.
Every text and, particularly, every statement has two sides:
46 JEAN-BLAISE GRIZE

a) it indicates a question toward which it points;

b) it answers that question.
Thus, taking up once again a text we have cited, the assertion "the young of
man is located with respect to verbal activity" may answer more than one
question and, in particular, this one: "In what frame of reference should the
child be placed?" This stated, in order to understand the "evidence" character
of conclusions, one must investigate the type of questions answered by
statements having various levels. The classic way to proceed is to distinguish
open questions from closed questions (what, which, how, why ... ) which
present a choice between an infinite number of answers ("Did you walk, take
a taxi, or did someone bring you?'').
Under these conditions, it is conceivable that a non-formal argument does
not proceed from one truth to another, but rather from one question to
another. As any question can have more than one answer, we are theoretically
in the presence of a network constituting a veritable problematic on a given
theme. To argue is then to layout a path within this network by arguing in
such a manner that when the last question is asked, only one answer is
possible.
Schematically, the process is the following:
a) To begin with: a description of the matter at hand.
b) Through successive variations in level: answers to open ques-
tions, thus the delineation of the field of the matter at hand.
c) Answers to closed questions.
d) Conclusion distinguishing itself: the answer remaining.
We could thus say that the process aims at building a space of fibered
discourse.
Let it be further noted that a process of this type is only possible by means
of natural language which tends to pose the problem of its simulation by
artificial intelligence. Indeed, the three levels which I have brought to light
are required: expansion and variation of level take place on the cognitive
plane, the indices of changes in points of view are located on the argumenta-
tive plane, and the signs of detachment on the rhetorical plane.

5. Before concluding, one point remains to be examined. We cannot speak of

premises and conclusions without investigating the mechanism of inference,
that is, the operation of thought that allows the passage from one or several
propositions to another.
 TO REASON WHILE SPEAKING 47

The difficulty is that this definition is much too broad. When Caesar said
"Veni, vidi, vici", he might have been inferring "I conquered" from the two
other propositions (modesty was apparently not his strong point), but
certainly not "I saw" and "I came" even if the coming was the necessary
condition for observing the situation. I would thus posit that in order for there
to be an operation of inference between two propositions, there must be a
specific relationship which I will call founding relation between them. In
formal arguments, this relationship is unique: it is the relation of implication
which is entirely determined by the truth value of the propositions. In non-
formal arguments, on the other hand, the nature of the founding relation may
be of many types: causal, significative, lexical, ideological, etc. This diversity
moreover shows that the conclusion of such an argument cannot simply be
transferred into another context. Since it is qualified, it necessarily remains
more or less particular.

CONCLUSION

It is obvious - and it shows - that all of this still needs to be checked and
refined. Nevertheless, it seems that to argue while speaking corresponds
fairly closely to what L. Apostel calls "consolidation", a procedure which he
characterizes by four features (AposteI1981).
1) The whole text is at stake. This is indeed what happens with
expansion-condensation couples.
2) We are dealing with a process. I have stressed the importance of
transformational strength in discursive activity.
3) The consolidation activity is finalized. The entire argumentative
aspect of arguments of this type depends on this.
4) Finally, this activity is guided by the very thing that it makes
possible. This is what I have called the construction of a fibered
space.

BmLIOGRAPHY
Apostel, L. (1981): Refiexions sur la tMorie de l'action dialectique: implication et
signification, Communication & Cognition. 14(4),285-342.
Benveniste. E. (1966): Problemes de linguistique generale. Paris. NRF.
Borel. M.-J .• Grize. I.-B .• Mieville. D. (1983): Essai de /ogique nature/Ie. Berne.
Frankfurt am Main, New York, P. Lang.
Gonseth. F. (1973): Qu'est-ce que la logique? Paris. Hermann.
48 JEAN-BLAISE GRIZE

Grize, I.-B. (Ed.) (1984): Semiologie du raisonnement. Berne, Frankfurt am Main,

New York, P. Lang.
Lukasiewicz, I. (1957): Aristotle's Syllogistic from the Standpoint of Modern Formal
Logic. Oxford.
Meyer, M. (1979): Dialectique, rhetorique, hermeneutique et questionnement, Revue
Internationale de Philosophie, 127-128, 145-177.
Mieville, D. (1984): Un developpement des systemes logiques de S. LeSniewski. Berne,
Frankfurt am Main, New York, P. Lang.
Perelman, Ch. (1977): The Realm of Rhetoric. Paris, Vrin.
 PIERRE OLERON

ORGANIZATION AND ARTICULATION OF VERBAL

EXCHANGES: QUESTION-RESPONSE EXCHANGES
IN POLEMICAL CONTEXTS

I.INTRODUCfION

In this contribution, we are concerned with verbal exchanges, that is situa-

tions in which several speakers intervene and their remarks are produced
alternately.
A great amount of time is devoted to these exchanges in our society. From
the moment that humans had a flexible and rich enough language at their
disposal, they surely began to dialogue and to debate. Literary forms, like
plays or written dialogues produced by certain authors or philosophers (plato
being, from this point of view, the most famous) are constituted on the basis
of such exchanges. But the media (which have reinforced the public character
of the word by providing it with an audience which is incommensurable with
that allowed by direct contact) have increased the number of situations in
which politicians, writers, artists, researchers, technicians, etc. are questioned
by journalists and/or the public or called upon to debate with each other. This
is the case for radio and television as well as for the written press. An
inventory of the time devoted in one day to this would result in a con-
siderable number of hours, and, for newspapers and magazines, to a non-
negligible printed surface.
It rests with sociologists to describe this situation with exactness and to
determine the reasons for such an expansion - or inflation. It is clear that
exchanges in which numerous intervening participants debate, in which turns
at speaking are relatively brief and alternating, have a pedagogical quality,
where communicating knowledge is concerned, which is superior to the
monological didactic paper. Debates between intervening participants who
defend opposing views very closely resemble sports events of which the
public is traditionally fond - especially when political stars are involved. A
trustworthy study (but, for that very reason, arduous) would perhaps show
that, in this case, the public tries also (which, theoretically, is the goal of
these exchanges) to clarify its decision with a view to a political choice, to
social or economic options, or even to options of an ethical order.

49
50 PIERRE OLERON

Our goal is to investigate the manner in which verbal exchanges are

organized and articulated and to propose a few elements for response. It
must be pointed out that this concerns a problem which is approached
relatively little in classical studies of argumentation. As we have already
noted (Oleron 1984b), those studies have mostly turned on the nature and
organization of arguments developed by one orator rather than on that of
arguments developed by orators in conflict. The counter-argument is not
mentioned in the index of the now classic New Rhetoric by Perelman and
Olbrechts-Tyteca (1970) and the references to refutation are very few. Now, a
current, and, as we have just said, sociologically important reality such as this
cannot reasonably be omitted from studies, especially as its analysis may
very well enrich and refine the knowledge collected by the analysis of more
traditional forms of argumentation.
We have investigated (Oleron, 1984b) the possible contributions to such a
subject which might be afforded by the study of conversation and of discur-
sive (or narrative) organization. Like verbal exchanges, discourse brings
complex sequences of statements into play; and conversation, for its part, is
made up of alternating exchanges. Furthermore, both of them are today the
objects of a literature which cannot be ignored. But it seemed to us that the
information collected on these subjects was not applicable literally to the
exchanges which we are now considering and that, at best, the proposed
frameworks would have had to be transposed and adapted.
In that article, we had only considered polemical exchanges. Here, we will
deal essentially with them also. Other types of exchanges exist (like those
mentioned above) which are articulated around the diffusion of knowledge,
and in which there is the problem of the articulation between question and
answer or of the alternating interventions of various specialists in order to
deal with different facets of a subject. However, we intend to take argumenta-
tion as a privileged object, and it is the polemical exchanges which provide
the typical illustrations.
In order to try to reduce the heterogeneity of the views which intervene in
debates between, let us say, persons of similar status (even if the rules of
order and the intervention of a game leader contribute to reducing this
heterogeneity), it seemed pertinent to restrict ourselves to situations of the
question-answer type. Indeed, the statute of these exchanges implies a priori
stronger constraints than the "open" situations and, consequently, the analysis
of the relationships between the views should be facilitated.
What is presented here is but an outline of the treatment of the subject. We
have based ourselves on the elements of a corpus.! These, however, have not
 VERBAL EXCHANGES 51

been elaborated systematically, but rather in a manner which must be

qualified as impressionistic, aiming to suggest a few directions and
frameworks to clarify later in order that they be applied systematically.

ll. THE DUAL ARTICULATION OF EXCHANGE

As Perelman put it very clearly, argumentation aims at obtaining an effect
upon an audience. We have emphasized this point ourselves (Oleron, 1983),
because it leads us to connect argumentation with techniques of influence
which in turn allows for the clarification of its finalities and mechanisms.
In polemical exchanges, the effect on the listener aimed at is primordial. In
the first place, for each participant, it is a matter of convincing the audience
of the cogency of his arguments and positions and of the weakness of those
of his adversary. This conviction is the condition of various actions which
make up a long list (for example, in the political sphere, in voting in one way
or another, in the adhesion to a party or to a campaign committee, in
participating in a demonstration, or in giving financial support). On a more
speculative level, it is a matter of the appreciation or depreciation of an
individual, of a group, of the confidence to grant their views, of their moral or
ethical qualities, of the truth or probability of their affirmations. Finally, one
should not forget the confmnation of status (authority, competence, power of
conviction) of the speaker with regard to the public for which stardom is an
almost obligatory intermediary for the development of beliefs and opinions.
In order to clarify and abbreviate our writing, we will suggest the use of a
notation proposed elsewhere (Oleron, 1984a). Suppose I to be the person who
holds forth with the initial view and pI to be that view; R will be the person
who responds to this view and pR his own view. The fundamental diagram
which is the basis for this notation consists in considering pI as a starting
point. We thus do not investigate what was apt to precede it or even to have
provoked it. This diagram is determined by methodological grounds. It is
indeed applicable to polemical exchanges in which an affirmation naturally
begets its refutation or a counter-affirmation. It is applicable as well and in
pertinent fashion to exchanges of the question-answer type.
Nevertheless, like all diagrams, this one simplifies. Even when it is a
matter of question-answer pairs (except for the first of these), each one is
preceded by others, and for each pair, the contents of pI and pR are in-
fluenced by the previous statements (and, naturally, by the events, objects or
situations to which the exchanges refer). A thorough analysis should take this
complexity into account. Let it be noted, however, that the notation can be
52 PIERRE OLl~RON

adapted to such an analysis. A series of pairs may be designated by pI-pR,

p'I-p'R, etc., and, when other participants take over, by pI-pR, pI'-pR', etc.
The problem which we must examine may be presented in the following
manner: the exchange starts with a pI; it goes on with a pR; we will inves-
tigate the relationship linking these two views.
It appears, at the outset, that this relationship is not simple. Indeed, the
situation brings in two types of constraints simultaneously:
1) pR must answer the finality which has just been evoked: to be
such that it is liable to exercise an influence on the audience;
2) pR must be coherent with pI, since it appears, in the exchange, as
an answer to pI.
If we put ourselves on the level of the skill which the polemicist is called
upon to implement, it can, in a parallel manner, be analyzed in two com-
ponents:
1) to be capable of producing views which answer the concern of
persuading, i.e. which constitute declarations favorable to the
polemicist's arguments and/or unfavorable to the opposing
arguments;
2) to know how to articulate his view with respect to pI in such a
way that it appears called forth or determined by it, even in a
quasi-necessary manner.
We must take notice of these two components or rather, in this case, the
procedures which mobilize them. Finality and mechanism are closely woven
together. Ideally, the play of mechanism only obeys an intrinsic determinism.
Thus, in terms of a psychological and elementary mechanism, pI may be
considered a stimulus and pR a reaction to this stimulus. And, in fact, pR is
set off by pI; in situations considered without pI, there is no pR, and if there
is pI, the absence of pR is a breaking of the rules of the game and an
exclusion of R from that game (which does not eliminate the possibility of a
refusal to answer, for this type of refusal is also an answer, generally
motivated in various ways; cf. supra).
However, pR is only partially determined by pI. For a given pI, several pR
are possible and the goal pursued, the effect to be produced, and, of course,
the talent of R are what led to a selection among them (yet another type of
determinism). The orator has a message to communicate on the chosen
themes. More precisely, he has a storehouse of messages at his disposal in
which the pR which will be introduced as an answer to pI is found. This
 VERBAL EXCHANGES 53

situation is even in play when true association, the taking up again of a word,
the evocation of a word closely connected with a word from pI set off pR.
Association is exploited, not suffered; it is integrated into the procedure.
The storehouse of messages can become the object of an inductive study.
On the basis of a given orator's productions, a list of messages can be
established and even the frequency with which each of them is produced can
be determined. Of course, such a list is subject to variations according to
events and various aspects of situations extrinsic and/or intrinsic to the
exchange situation, as well as according to individual personalities. (This
development and the role of the influencing variables may also be studied in
an inductive manner.)
The plurality of messages in the storehouse does not at all exclude the
possibility of regularity in the production of pR (and of pI) and even of a play
of quasi-automatisms. The limited character of the storehouse and its
dependence with respect to identifiable variables should allow for a certain
amount of precision. With certain orators, given the expression of certain pI,
the probability of such or such pR should be assessable, at least ap-
proximately.

m. THE GLOBAL ORGANIZATION OF EXCHANGES

1. The unity and distribution of parts
We will mention only as a reminder the fact that exchanges taken as a whole
answer to a principle of unity: place, time, characters, that duration, defined
by a timetable, is limited and that the whole is divided into parts (themes and
sub-themes) which are dealt with successively. In this perspective, a plan can
be located which is sometimes explicitly announced at the outset by the game
leader. This plan corresponds, in any case, to a program defined on the basis
of variables like the competence of R, his specialization, elements of current
events, etc. There is nothing original in this, compared to didactic exposi-
tions. Nevertheless, exchanges include an element of liveliness which
motivates their choice by the organizers and the broadcasting organs and
which leads to breaks with a canonic order - improvisations, returns back-
ward. Without the disconnected quality of informal conversational ex-
changes, they do retain certain of their characteristics.
54 PIERRE OUiRON

2. Dynamic structure
Verbal exchanges, like conversations, are characterized by exchanges of
roles: intervening participants taking turns at speaking, alternating in the roles
of speaker and listener. A first characteristic which is quantitative and is
immediately apparent to observation concerns the frequency of these
alternations. When things unfold canonically, i.e. when to each pI cor-
responds a pR, this frequency is reduced to the number of each of these
(which are, by definition, quantitatively equal). Relating to a determinate
duration, it is a matter of the density of alternations. This density may vary
considerably according to situations (here, broadcasts) and, in the case of a
same situation (one broadcast under the same title), according to the interven-
ing participants. If we disregard speed of delivery (which is nonetheless not a
negligible variable) these variations are essentially due to the duration of each
intervention. A low frequency of alternation corresponds to longer turns at
speaking: he who has the floor keeps it longer. The opposite is true when the
frequency is high.
These quantitative characteristics and variations reflect the underlying
mechanisms determining the dynamics of the exchanges. It is not necessary
here to recall known notions. The main point is that control of the floor is an
objective. When several speakers are together, they are also in competition
and conflict. The situations considered here are not of the inconsiderate type
in which the winner is he who is able to speak the loudest for the longest time
and without pausing, which would allow the other to step in and establish
himself in tum. But this eventuality is not excluded, even if its manifestations
are a bit more subtle (as the tactics of insertion into discussion and the
maintaining of the floor are more subtle in informal conversational ex-
changes). Relations of power between speakers are at play. Much could be
said on this point. Let us note simply that the questioner is endowed with
power by the fact that he is supposed to thus direct the conversation (cf.
Owsley and Scotton, 1984), but let it also be noted that when he who is
questioned exercises power (in the case of the politician with his authority
and stature), the scales often tilt in his favor in reality.
To remain with the idea of the density of exchanges, it may be remarked
that we are in the presence of two types of factors:

1. Acceleration/actors in exchanges. The rules of the game include imposing

a relatively rapid rhythm to exchanges. This rule is sometimes explicitly
recalled by the game leader. It corresponds to the concern of garnering the
 VERBAL EXCHANGES 55

pleas me of a public which delights (or is thought to delight) in a rapid rhythm

that increases the density of exchanges, as in boxing matches. The game
leader and the I's who, theoretically are concerted with him, endeavor to
abide by this rule by increasing their interventions. There is another concern
in the same vein: the tactic of harassment that certain I's utilize. To intervene
when R has the floor is a way of preventing him from pursuing his develop-
ment and possibly, even with an occasional intervention (which is not always
a question, but often an affirmation), a way of steering him toward a less
favorable stance. Furthermore, (and here we return to the level of power), this
type of intervention suggests a certain fragility in R who, to the extent that he
reacts to the interruption and follows the interrupter on his turf, does not
demonstrate the ascendancy and authority that his status implies.

A rhetorical element comes into the picture when I (or any other intervening
participant hostile to R) justifies his interruption by some declaration like
"Such a view is inadmissible" or "I cannot allow such an affirmation or such
an accusation". It appears determined by passion, conviction, such an intense
concern for the truth that it cannot allow a view contrary to it to not be
immediately countered...

2. The participants are concerned to express themselves in a sufficiently long

and detailed manner. This essentially concerns, under the circumstances, R's
(the pI's being, by principle or by nature, briet), since in the case of
politicians, they have messages to communicate, as we have recalled; this
leads them to try to occupy a sufficient enough speaking time in order that
they be allowed to set forth a maximum number of messages with sufficient
levels of development so as to have them apprehended and accepted by the
audience.
These two factors are at odds. The unfolding of exchanges is marked by
this conflict which contains vicissitudes revealing the dominance or efface-
ment of one or the other participant. The I's tend to start their intervention
once again or to produce a new pI when a break occurs in the unfolding of pR
or there occurs a point calling for or allowing the introduction of a new pI.
On his side, R utilizes various classic procedures allowing him to continue
the development in which he is involved. Certain procedures are mechanical,
like the technique of "smothering": preventing I from completely producing
his intervention by continuing to develop one's own view. Others pertain to
discursive technique. Having allowed pI to finish, R claims the necessity of
continuing to respond (to finish responding) to a question previously posed,
56 PIERRE OLERON

thus deferring the examination of pI until a later moment in the debate. This
may be accompanied by references to norms: the right to express oneself
completely on the point one was asked to deal with, the condemnation of an I
who interferes with the normal unfolding of the debate, preventing one from
dealing with an important point, the lack of consideration for a guest or for a
person who is not of the I's orientation ... This kind of behavior typifies, let
us say, an extreme R, but one represented by certain very real characters and
which are more or less similar to certain others. The existence of notable
differences between R's must be remarked. Certain ones lend themselves
more willingly to the game of interruptions and agree to react to most of the
pI's. Global attitudes underlie these variations and analyzing them could
dissociate the aspects concerning the personalities of the intervening
participants from the aspects corresponding to the choice of a role to play,
even those concerning different conceptions of what exchanges are - and
perhaps, even, of what relations between individuals are... not to forget
intellectual characteristics like the sharing of one's attention between one's
own view and that of others, and the plasticity in the articulation of the latter.
These are problems which call for specific analyses which we merely point
out here.

IV. STATUTE AND MODALITIES OF pI'S

The structuring of exchanges depends on the nature of the pI's which not
only intervene, as we have seen, like "launchers" [diclencheursJ of pR's, but
also contribute to determining their content. It is logical to investigate their
nature in order to understand their influence on this structuring.
The exchanges under consideration here are, theoretically and from the
formal point of view, of the question-answer type. pI is thus a question - still
theoretically - for observation shows, as we shall see, that this is not always
the case. Not going beyond the case where pI actually has the form of a
question, it would be as well to define the actual statute of the view expressed
in this form. Classical studies on the social rules of conversational exchanges
have familiarized us with the idea that a question may be hidden under
formulations which do not directly express the point about which the speaker
wishes to be informed. One must delve deeper. The relationship between
question and answer here is not simple and univocal. Simplicity and
univocity characterize questions whose finality is authentically informative,
with answers which are situated in a closed storehouse - for example, a
registry office questionnaire, a tax declaration, a curriculum vitae, a lest, or,
 VERBAL EXCHANGES 57

in daily life, a request for the time, directions, or the price of a good... In
many other cases, the gmmmatical identity (like the interrogative form of the
verb, the question mark in writing) hides a variety of aspects and functions.
Analyses of them pertain to specific studies which it is out of the question to
approach here. Only a few points will be recalled that help in apprehending
the structure of exchanges.
When exchanges involve individuals whose relationship is characterized
by polarity, those exchanges are rarely neutral and purely informative. This is
the case with politicians, all representatives of tendencies, doctrines,
interpretations which are in conflict with others; one is for or against them or
the groups or ideas or values that they defend, just as they are themselves for
certain of these and against others. This polarity orients their views and
determines a selection within the framework of the storehouse alluded to
above, but it orients the views which are addressed to them as well. The
public complexion which media rebroadcasting confers upon these exchanges
only amplifies these aspects.
This holds true for questions. In debates where speakers who are at polar
opposites intervene, speakers who are of the same level and function (two
politicians, for example), the finality of a question posed by one or the other
of them is practically never informative. I does not seek to inform himself (in
general, he knows the answer), nor does he seek to inform the audience. On
the contrary, for this would run counter to his objective and would favor the
communication of the arguments of his adversary. The question is a move
made, as in tennis or chess, and the goal is to inconvenience the other, to put
him in an awkward situation from which it is hoped he will not escape or will
escape with difficulty and hence a point be scored against him.
In the exchanges studied here, where I is a journalist and R is a politician,
one expects that the questions would have an informative finality. Actually,
such questions are posed, but the participating journalists are not inves-
tigators whose essential aim is to enlighten the public as to facts, opinions,
programs, reactions to events or declarations. More often than not, they
themselves have opinions certified by their attachment to the media to which
they habitually offer their contribution. Thus their questions often have the
same finality as those of politicians: to inconvenience the questioned and, if
possible, to make him lose a point in the exchange.
This is not the general rule. Certain journalists are specialists in a technical
area (the economy, for example), others are of the same orientation as the
politician questioned and the finality of their questions may actually be
informative or play the role of an investment. 2 In any case, the spectacle
58 PIERRE OLERON

component which enters into these exchanges encourages the expression of

conflicts and the production of questions which appear, in addition, to be
challenges apt to maintain the attention of the audience - and to maintain the
statutes in a system of stardom (involving the two faced off participants).
Thus, even the fonn of a question may hide polemical and aggressive
intentions. In the actual unfolding of exchanges, pI's which are no longer
formally questions but rather affirmations may be moreover pointed out.
Certain affrrmations are not an absolute break with the production of
questions. Thus, a question may be preceded by expository elements
concerning the present situation, the past, R's views or procedures, someone
else's views or procedures, etc. This exposition may be considered to be an
accompaniment or a natural introduction to a question, a procedure facilitat-
ing its presentation. Thus, there is an equivalence between: "What do you
think of Mr. X's statement according to which... ?" and "Mr. X stated that...
What do you think of this statement?" It is understood that the expository part
does not exclude various possible angles to the presentation of things and that
it may contribute to the determination of pRo
On the other hand, affrrmative pI's have a less obvious status. What
happens, for example, when I takes the floor again after pR in order to
declare that this is not an answer to his question? This reply (noted as p'I) is
an affirmation. It is not by nature necessarily polemical. In a sequence of
pl-pR whose finality is didactic, I may legitimately declare that he has not
understood, that he needs more complete explanations, clarification on a
detail, etc. But in our exchanges, this reply is often polemical in that a tactic
used by R often consists in side-stepping at least part of the answer. It can be
considered that I merely prolongs his initial intention in this case which was
to refuse to accept pR because a non-answer is a way of maintaining and
prolonging the initial pI. But even though this is valid on the level of form, it
does not exclude the polemical intention and the implicit accusation brought
against R of a lack of sincerity and of respect for the rules of the game - even
if these rules are formal principles that everyone knows are largely there in
order to be circumvented.

v. STATUS AND MODALlTIES OFpR'S

pR is a reaction to pI. It comprises two components which were distinguished
above: 1) the response itself, articulated in accordance with the content of pI;
2) the use of speech to deliver a message, the utilization of pI more or less
articulated upon it and the answer to it. It is fitting to examine both of them
 VERBAL EXCHANGES 59

while not forgetting that the rule of coherence of an expressed view implies
the existence of links between them.
Beforehand, it is fitting to reserve a place for non-answers which constitute
a separate category of reactions.

1.lVon-responses
The rules of the game of verbal exchanges imply that R is required to react
before a pI which interpellates him (which is the case for a question, but also
for any affirmation which runs counter to his positions and constitutes an
attack against his person or his group). Silence would be tantamount to the
loss of a point to the adversary or, worse yet, the loss of "face".
(Abandonment, i.e. leaving the exchange situation, physical exiting from the
"stage" can be, on the other hand, a means of protest with real scope,
although it must be submitted to a different evaluation, but which, in any
case, comes up more often than not to react to a mode of debate conduct, to
the impossibility of answering, or, in public meeting situation, to an
audience's reactions and/or attitudes.)
What we call "non-response" is not silence, but rather an actually produced
pRo We must distinguish between two categories. The first includes explicit
declarations which make known, unequivocally, that R will not answer. The
second concerns pR's that R presents as answers to pI, but whose meshing
with the latter is contested by I, possibly by the game leader, or, in certain
cases, by the audience.

A. Refusals to answer. The refusal to answer (in order that it not be confused
with the loss of a point) is normally accompanied by a justification through
which R makes known the reasons for his not answering. In the framework of
actual exchanges, this justification is generally brief. One could comment
upon it at greater length in order to show some of the presuppositions that are
not at all or not completely mentioned by R. Justifications are of several
types which are not necessarily exclusive.

1. The excuse of non-competence or of non-information. R declares himself to

not be competent or informed concerning the point to which the pI pertains.
Such a reaction occurs especially in technical areas where R can legitimately
invoke this excuse or else occurs in relation to recent or confidential events or
statements of which he can, with all appearance of probability, affirm that he
has no knowledge.
60 PIERRE OLERON

2. The charge of non-pertinence. In these cases, not only does or may R

declare that he will not answer, but his reaction appears to be an explicit or
implicit criticism of pI and of I himself. The question asked is not pertinent:
this is a way of accusing I of not respecting the rules of verbal exchanges,
whether it be a matter of general rules of conversation, rules specific to the
situation in which exchanges take place, or more general rules of an ethical
nature or of the nature of conventions which concern relations between men,
their responsibilities, the obligations that these responsibilities imply, etc.
We should distinguish between: a) The charge of non-authenticity.
According to R, the question is not really a question. I, or even any informed
person, the audience, the public in general, knows the answer. For example,
R has made numerous statements on a given subject and his position is
common knowledge. I's information or the information of a larger circle
introduces more than a nuance to this situation. On a theoretical level, in
accordance with Searle's principle of sincerity, a question is sincere when the
questioner does not know the answer. But that applies to rules for exchanges
which are, let us say, private: between interlocutors without witnesses. In
situations where the exchanges are public, the requirement of sincerity upon I
is less obvious: he may be considered the spokesperson for an uninformed
public which he, in away, incarnates. Thus the charge of non-authenticity
seems more valid if it aims at form: rather than to question (which implies
ignorance on his part), I should request that R express himself for the public's
benefit. Only if the public has every chance of being informed is the charge
formulated by R truly justified.

b) The charge of impropriety. The refusal to answer is justified by a variety

of reasons for which it appears difficult to anticipate an exhaustive list. Here
are a few examples of it:

1. In response to a question posed concerning the disposition, intentions,

plans of a third party, X (a head of state, or government, a president or leader
of a party, of a group, etc.), the curt reaction of R consists in saying: "Ask
him yourself!" It can be assumed that the subjects in the question pertain to
X's "privative domain" to which he alone has direct access. R's answer could
only be hypothetical or probable. R may refuse the change in register
required by a question concerning a fact with only one answer (what made up
X's mind, what he thinks, what he plans, etc.) but which can legitimately
only be expressed in conjectural terms. And if X is a close acquaintance of
R's, the latter's refusal can be justified by ethical reasons: to answer would
 VERBAL EXCHANGES 61

be contrary to the discretion implied by the intimacy of a third party and the
trust associated with it.

2. R may declare that to answer would run counter to norms, would be

improper or ill-timed (which is a way of putting I under accusation) for
example, because it would jeopardize the dignity of the person concerned in
the question, the respect associated with his functions, the sincerity in his
words, his loyalty of action, etc.

3. If the question concerns a decision or a choice by R which is outside of his

direct control ("Would you accept to be President X's prime minister?"), then
R can justify his refusal by this situation ("It is up to the President to choose
his prime minister." "One is never a candidate for the position of prime
minister.")

4. If the question relates to a state which is unreal or not topical ("If, in an

election, you had to choose between X and Y, for whom would you vote?") R
may back up his refusal by the lack of topicality or the unreality of the
situation alluded to.

5. In response to a question posed concerning some aspect of the present

situation, R may justify his refusal to answer by declaring that these are
secondary, minor, even contemptible aspects (e.g. problems of tactics or of
electoral alliances), while the importance of other problems (the state of the
economy, the future of the country) should lead I to make them the object of
his questions. (Which is a way of acting upon the course of the debate by
trying to inflect it toward subjects which R wishes to treat.)

B. Answers/non-answers. When R refuses to answer (which we have just

examined), the situation is clear, even if the justifications he offers may be
contested. On the other hand, it happens that, in reaction to pI, R may hold
forth at some great length and that the quality of such an answer to I is not
entirely obvious. It happens also that the audience feels this, and that I, or
some other intervening participant (broadcast organizers have even imagined
how to interpellate the guest by means of synthetic voice) express this quite
crudely, the most direct way consisting in saying "You are not answering the
question!" "We are questioning you on a specific point and you are speaking
of something else!" Here, we enter into situations difficult to analyze and
material for controversy and debate. Thus, a less demanding, less aggressive,
62 PIERRE O~RON

more accommodating I with respect to R may declare himself satisfied or let

it be known, by his silence, that pR constitutes a pertinent answer.
Before a challenge to his statement, R has several possible attitudes at his
disposal: 1) to admit that this statement indeed does not constitute an answer,
but shift the burden of responsibility onto pI - a question which cannot have
an answer. This brings us back to the situation in A2 above; 2) to affirm that
he has, on the contrary, answered the question - a simple affmnation or one
accompanied by an argument justifying it. This situation has no originality
compared to the one which, in a general manner, we will now examine, in
which pR is articulated with pI in a way which we must attempt to clarify.
Indeed, either R answers I by simply maintaining his view by affirming its
validity, or he demonstrates, by arguments, the mode of articulation linking
pIandpR.

VI. THE pI-pR ARTICULATION

The themes and views relating to a "same" subject define complex concep-
tual networks. So that the articulation between pI and pR may take numerous
forms which, in a more or less clever and a more or less convincing manner, I
and especially R exploit. The mode of articulation is situated between two
extremes which constitute, in away, its upper and lower limits. The upper
limit is made up of answers which are strictly fit together with questions: the
case we have discussed above. The lower limit would correspond to the
production of pR's which are completely foreign to the question posed. This
extreme case can only be imagined based on an artificial situation mentioned
elsewhere (Oleron, 1984b) in which pR's would be picked at random from a
sampling representing all of the themes possible and thus having every
chance of ending up with no logical relation whatsoever with pI.
Certain pR's observed are situated at the upper limit. None, obviously
correspond to the lower limit, but a large proportion is situated between the
two. Certain ones are treated as non-answers by I, or apprehended so in a
more or less confused manner by the audience (cf. supra). When this is not
the case, the situation is nonetheless far from clear due to the fact that the
modes of articulation between pI's and pR's do not correspond to strictly
determined frameworks, and because it is consequently difficult to situate pR
on the scale defined by the two limits mentioned with any precision.
On the level of tactics, R's move, which gives the impression that he is
answering when he is not really, is a sign of skill. It is comparable to the
ducking or dodging action of a boxer or fencer. These two athletes
 VERBAL EXCHANGES 63

demonstrate mastery of their art by knowing how to dodge. The same is true
for a speaker in a debate. But points are not scored on the basis of dodges, but
on that of "touches" and punches which actually reach the opponent. Whence
the importance for R to unite positive elements (positive from his point of
view), i.e. elements of his own message, with criticism of his opponent in the
very framework of his answer to I.
The fact of comprising various degrees or various forms of freedom
characterizes the relationship between pI's and pR's. This is the opposite of
the relationship between answers that fit together with the question. It is a
freedom which allows R not to get closed into a framework that I might like
to impose upon him and to introduce elements of his own message into his
answer. The manners liable to ensure this freedom are several and we will not
claim to propose an inventory or a systematization of them here. We will
only mention three around which it appears possible to group statements
covering a great diversity of contents.

1. The change in level

The change in level will be considered on three scales: abstract/concrete,
emotional, axiological (reference made to values).

a) Abstract/concrete. This scale allows us to illustrate the notions of level and

change. It is a scale familiar to common sense and widely used, at least in the
form of dichotomies. In fact, it is a scale which considers the
abstract/concrete character as much as the particular/general character of
things. Any statement can be placed, in at least a plausible and approximate
manner (and, in case one wants a more objective assessment, by having
recourse to judges), at a certain level of abstraction and generality. One can
speak of a change in level if when pI is situated at level N, pR does not
remain at this level, but rather evokes more abstract or more concrete
representations.
Let us take an example. Consider the question (PI):
"Why have you recently co-signed a bill in favor of reinstating the death penalty?"

and the answer (pR):

"Two murders of children have recently taken place in my district. They provoked a
strong reaction in the population."

pI relates to a concrete and particular event: R 's signature, on an ap-

64 PIERRE OLE-RON

proximately stated date, of a bill of law. pR as well concerns concrete and

particular events which are localized in time. Both question and answer can
be considered to be situated at the same level. However, R develops his
answer and completes it by the following p'R:
"Every man who kills must expect to be killed in turn."

Now, a general principle is evoked and from this point of view, p'R is
situated at a higher level than pIon the scale. The question concerning a
particular fact has become an occasion to present a philosophical justification
of the attitude with regard to capital punishment. (A reference to this attitude
not being excluded, at the implicit level, from the question.)
(It would be easy to find other examples in which in response to a general
question about the justification for capital punishment, answers will be given
which evoke particular cases of murder or, in an inverse direction, legal
errors committed against "guilty parties" given the death penalty. This is a
change in level going in the opposite direction from that which was just
illustrated.)

b) Emotional charge. The exploitation of an emotional register is a classic

characteristic of argumentation. Question-answer exchanges of the purely
informative kind exclude this (let it not be forgotten that the emotion
connected to an answer can be a source of information for the questioner),
but it comes into the picture when the exchange aims at or implies an
influence on the listener.
A statement may be emotionally neutral or it may express the speaker's
emotional state or aim at provoking an emotion - indignation, anger,
enthusiasm - in the listener. The change in level derives from the fact that a
pR whose charge of emotion can be considered stronger or weaker than that
of pI corresponds to a neutral or emotionally charged pI. For example, to an
apparently factual question concerning an event, an action, or a plan, R may
answer in an informative manner, but may also emotionally charge his
answer. Thus he might become indignant that he could be asked the question
put to him or express various sentiments with regard to events, persons,
declarations, etc. upon which he is questioned. In the opposite direction from
a dramatized question, he might answer by "calming down" the exchange and
by returning to a cool vision of the matter at hand.

c) Axiological references. Argumentation usually makes use of references to

 VERBAL EXCHANGES 65

values and norms. This allows for either positive or negative justifications
and assessments concerning persons, actions, words, etc.
This situation is comparable to the one we described with the emotional
charge. Moreover, values and norms include emotional components which
are difficult to disregard and which often motivate the references that the
authors make to them. Thus, pI may be neutral and not include any reference
to values or norms. On the other hand, R may answer with a statement which
does mention them or which, without explicitly mentioning them, criticizes
or approves (or refutes). Criticism or approval and justification are but the
application, within the domain of discourse and its objects, of norms and
values which are, for the moment accepted within the circle of speakers and
listeners.
Values are normally bipolar (good/bad, just/unjust, freedom/oppression.
equality/inequality, etc.). The change in level can take place in the shift from
one orientation to another.
Consider the following pI:
"Doesn't your preference for election by majority hinge on the fact that you count on
it to help you win the next elections?"

and the answer (pR):

"We defend the election by majority because it is the only democratic vote."

pI includes a (non-explicit) charge which aims at devalorizing R's behavior

(or that of the group he belongs to): R's positions are determined by self-
interest, ambition, the conquest of power. pR on the other hand, situates his
position on the side of a value which is that of democracy: R fights for the
type of vote being debated as a defender of this value.

2. Exploitation of links between concepts

Any domain which can be dealt with verbally is made up of a plurality of
concepts which are linked in such a way as to form networks of great
complexity, as we have recalled above. It is extremely difficult to reduce this
complexity to a few limited chapter headings. The philosophers who
proposed lists of categories, like Aristotle and Kant, tried to provide a
solution, as, in the same way, but on a more concrete and utilitarian level,
researchers in automated information. In the domain we are considering here,
organization has yet to be done and, again, the inductive process is required
in order to determine what links are most often implemented. By way of
66 PIERRE OllRON

illustration, we will mention a few.

a) Partition of the domain. Whatever its dimensions, every conceptual

domain is divisible into parts. This even holds for a single concept which
always comprises a union of characteristics and attributes. This is all the
more spectacularly (and more frequently) the case with domains in which a
plurality of concepts are articulated. Thus, the economic situation of a
country is subdivided into sub-domains such as the budget balance, the
inflation rate, the foreign trade balance, employment, tax rates, etc.
R's freedom consists in utilizing these sub-domains, i.e. moving from one
to another according to the message he wants to spread, while at the same
time ensuring a certain coherence between his answer and the question, to the
extent that these sub-domains belong to the same domain (in the above
example, to the economy).
Thus an opposition politician to whom it is asked if he does not feel
compelled to recognize the government's success in the area of inflation will
shift his answer into the area of unemployment (which is increasing) or into
that of the total foreign loans contracted (too high in his opinion). He moves
from a sub-domain favorable to his adversary to an unfavorable one while
remaining in the same domain (the economy).

b) Assimilation and differentiation. The relationships between sub-domains

are not just characterized by partition, let us say, of an additive type that we
have just discussed. Relationships of resemblance and difference also come
up which R can exploit.
A classic example of resemblance is that of analogy. The links between
situations which are declared analogous or treated as such are generally
indeterminate. They afford a considerable freedom to he who invokes them
by choosing them from a very open set. The analogy with a past situation is
classic: the precedent always carries considerable weight as theoreticians of
argumentation have noted. Let us say that a politician belonging to a small
party is questioned about the weak support for his party. He evokes an
analogous situation in past years for this same party - a situation which took
a positive turn thanks to the popularity of a leader whose name still carries
much weight. He thus means to demonstrate that a weak situation at a given
moment can be modified overnight, as it happened in the past.

c) Links of cause and effect. Links of causality are important in the ex-
changes considered here, for the questions treated relate to action: a domain
 VERBAL EXCHANGES 67

where such links are often mentioned (the causes for a situation or for events;
the effect of decisions or of steps taken). Furthermore, causality easily leads
to the charge, the attribution of responsibility which, in the area of polemics,
is often invoked. Links of causality must be considered broadly to include
reasons, motives, intentions, etc. which determine action - and may also
justify action or propose a condemnation of it.
The link between cause and effect is generally loose in subjects where the
effects are determined by a plurality of causes and the mechanism uniting
cause and effect is a matter for conjecture. It is also difficult, in these cases,
to predict the consequences which would result from a decision or an
intervention. This is where R's freedom comes from when utilizing this type
of link and all the more so because a report on the origin of the facts con-
sidered is sometimes not demanded by the question itself. R uses it to more
effectively have his argument accepted. The same holds true in the case of
the motives which are supposed to explain the opponent's actions or deci-
sions.

3. Confrontation andfacing offwith the opponent

Polemical exchange is tantamount to a conflict with an opponent against
whom, as we recalled, one must mark points, for example in the political
arena, by bringing into question the competence, or the behavior, of party
representatives or leaders - their long- or short-term objectives, their
programs, their past or present achievements.
R is naturally (one could say "legitimately") led to speak of his opponent
when the question put to him concerns the latter. If the theme of the exchange
is focussed upon the opponent, this is an occasion for R to attack him by
bringing up points not directly pertaining to the question or included in it, but
which, in certain cases, are almost logically connected to it. For example, if
questioned on his hostility toward an individual, on his refusal to consider
him to be a "valid interlocutor", R will give the reasons for his hostility, his
stance; these reasons constitute a critique of the individual, of his actions,
attitudes, declarations. This allows for the communication of the negative
message concerning him. When R is questioned on his opponent's statements
concerning him and the attacks that the latter carries out against him, this is a
situation of the same type. It is an opportunity to use the defense as a counter-
attack.
When the question does not concern the opponent, many possibilities are
left open for introducing it. Thus the angle of history, when the opponent
68 PIERRE OLl~RON

(before a change in regime or majority) occupied the same offices as R (or

members of his party). Questioned on his action in a country with which aid
treaties exist, R will retrace the historical background of the situation. This
might reveal errors committed by the other, the fact that he was less effective
in ensuring the territorial freedom and autonomy of the country in question.
Similarly, when questioned on his meeting with a personage hostile to an
allied country, R might recall that he had been received officially by one of
his predecessors. Or, on another point, R might recall that his objectives are
the same as those of his opponent (which should have the effect of defusing
the critiques coming from this direction), but that he realizes them faster
and/or more efficiently than him.
History may be used not only in a descriptive manner, but as the basis for a
causal interpretation. The responsibility for a negative aspect of the present
economic situation falls upon the opponent who, because he was a leader in
the past and did not pursue a policy which would have avoided this situation
(this is the "heritage" theme, as it has been dubbed in recent debates).
Comparison and antithesis are of what could be termed normal usage.
During an exposition by R of what he wants or of what he is accomplishing,
he readily introduces points on the basis of which he can show opposition to
his adversary as well as his lesser quality or lesser efficiency ("We are
defending public schools. X and Y want to break them down!").

It should be noted that the rubrics discussed in this section are not ex-
clusive. An exchange can be dealt with within several of them. For example,
the mark of an opposition to an adversary can be made by invoking a value or
a norm. Historical causality is an "intellectual" connection exploited on the
level of opposition of actions and successes, etc. The pluridimensionality of
the "space of exchanges" constitutes an additional difficulty for analysis, but
it does not furnish the material for a theoretical objection since the "space of
referents", i.e. the realities to which the exchanges refer, is itself multidimen-
sional.
The statute of the dimensions remains to be clarified and the dimensions
which can be isolated are not necessarily situated on the same level. For
example, those considered in 3. have a more direct relationship than others to
the finalities of the polemical exchanges and may be considered to play a
mobilizing role (cf. the distinction between sub-registers of components and
of actualization, Oleron, 1984b) This is a distinction which the theory of
argumentation. and, in general, the whole theory of action, implies.
 VERBAL EXCHANGES 69
VII. CONCLUSION

We will not repeat once again that the elements for analysis proposed in this
contribution are an outline which calls for numerous expansions, as much
from the inventory point of view as from that of systematization. But to work
in the direction proposed is a manner of trying to introduce rigorous elements
in an area which escapes the rigor of logical models but in which all is
nevertheless not nebulous and fluid or impressionistic and subjective. This is
in conformity with Perelman's efforts to characterize and illustrate the modes
of rationality peculiar to argumentation.
One can hardly challenge the existence of a rationality underlying verbal
exchanges. Even if, particularly in polemics, these exchanges manifest the
play of automatisms, cliches, repetitions, mobilization of the irrational, even
bad faith, and even if their effectiveness on the level of action can be
questioned (not, however, irremediably), they are acts of intelligence. Our
knowledge of them should widen and, we could say, "disenclave" the
classical representation of intelligence which psychologists construct and in
which the incorporation to the social and to the verbal is overly neglected.

NOTES
1 We have based ourselves on samplings of radio programs, principally: Le club de la
presse (Europe 1), Le Grand jury (R.T .L.) and Face au public (France Inter) in which
politicians are questioned by journalists and/or debate with them. The material limits
of this contribution did not permit the inclusion of the specimens recorded in order to
illustrate the analyses. In the case of those we did cite as examples, we have remained
faithful to their mood and general meaning.
2 When the listeners intervene, if their anonymity is preserved, the questions they ask
also suggest a polarity and intentions that are not purely informative.

BIBUOGRAPHY
Oleron, P. (1983): L' argumentation. ColI. Que sais-je? Paris, PUF.
OlelOn, P. (1984a): Elements pour une analyse de l'argumentation poIemique.
Colloque Association pour la Recherche Cognitive, Les modes de raisonnement,
Orsay, 25-27 April, pp. 390-405.
Oleron, P. (1984b): Sur les echanges poIemiques et Ie probleme des macrostructures
du langage. Bulletin de Psychologie, 38, 1-12.
Owlsey, H.H. and Scotton, C.M. (1984): The conversational expression of power by
television interviewer. Journal ofSocial Psychology, 123,261-271.
Perelman, Chai'm and Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1970): Traite de I' argumentation, Ed. de
l'Universite de BruxelIes, Bruxelles.
 JEAN-CLAUDE ANSCOMBRE AND OSWALD DUCROT

ARGUMENTATIVITY AND INFORMATIVITY*

Modern science is constituted by substitut-

ing... an Archimedean world of geometry
which has become considered as real, for the
qualitative world, or (which amounts to the
same thing) by substituting a universe of
measurement and precision for the world of
the more or less, which is that of our daily
life. Indeed such a substitution excludes from
the Universe anything which cannot be
submitted to exact measurement...
(A. Koyre, Etudes d' histoire de la pensee
scientijique).

INTRODUCTION

Studies in the new rhetoric have accustomed us to minimizing the role played
in argumentation by facts and deduction from facts. More precisely,
C. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca have pointed out the many inter-
ferences that exist between this factual or objective basis (in the usual sense
of the term "objective") and the intersubjective relationships that the speaker
establishes with his audience.
Moving further in this direction, intersubjective relationships could be
claimed to be not only parallel to but the very foundation of apparently
objective data. As far as we are concerned however, our research on argumen-
tation, carried out from a different point of view (i.e. that of linguistics),
shows a similar evolution. Investigating the argumentative role played by the
linguistic rendition of facts, we no longer distinguish the facts themselves
from this rendition.
The aim of the present article is to describe this evolution and its theoreti-
cal implications.
Indeed, we think that four stages can be distinguished in our study of
argumentation. The rrrst consisted in considering language and argumentation
as being entirely separate, in accordance with a prominent rhetorical position.

* Translated by Jean-Claude Anscombre.

71
72 JEAN-CLAUDE ANSCOMBRE AND OSWALD DUCROT

During the second stage, inspired by analytical philosophy, argumentation

(while remaining outside language) appeared to rely on some basic semantic
properties of utterances: mainly, the distinction between asserted and
presupposed contents. In a third approach, we noticed that inside the very
structure of sentences, there exist strictly argumentative operators. We were
thus led to include independent argumentative values within the meaning of
sentences, alongside descriptive values. Such was the idea that we wished to
emphasize in 'our book Argumentation in language (1983). In the fourth
approach, our aim is to defend a more radical position, derived from the
systematic use of the notion of topos. The "facts" "described" by sentences
no longer seem to be more than the mere crystallization of argumentative
dynamics.
We will now present each of these four stages in detail, and show the
different descriptions they imply for similar linguistic phenomena.

1. RADICAL DESCRWfIVISM

In the first stage of argumentative theory, the linguistic structure of an

utterance was not related to its argumentative use. In order to represent the
argumentative sequences in discourse, it must be assumed that they rely not
on the utterances but rather on the facts referred to by these utterances. In a
discursive sequence, an utterance U leads to a conclusion C because U points
out a fact F; and because in addition certain rules shared by the speakers
allow them to believe that C is the case on the basis of F. In numerous cases
(analyzed in particular by the new rhetoric), it is not F which leads to C but
the fact that the speaker's intention is to bring out F by uttering U. In such a
configuration, what is the role of language? It is twofold. On the one hand,
the capacity for U to bring out F depends at least partially on the linguistic
structure of the sentence P expressed by U. Note, however, that this first
contribution of linguistic structure to argumentation is not, strictly speaking,
argumentative in nature. It is the mere consequence of the power of words to
refer to facts. On the other hand, language has a capacity to tell when a
sequence is argumentative to the extent that connectives (such as therefore.
consequently,for) can be found which indicate, when occurring between two
utterances, that the facts referred to by one imply the acceptance of the
validity of those referred to by the other.
The only valid argument against such an approach (let it be called radical
descriptivism), strictly speaking, would be drawn from a sentential analysis
of utterances. Such an analysis should be able to show (as we will do later),
 ARGUMENTATIVITY AND INFORMATIVITY 73

that at the abstract level of sentences, some information is given on the

argumentative use of their occurrences (i.e. the utterances). But such
considerations alone did not force us to tum away from radical descriptivism.
The study of connectives was the clinching argument. We realized that
particles like but and even, traditionally analyzed as introducing relations
between facts, have an argumentative value just like the words generally
described as being the very basis of reasoning. Even a conjunction as
apparently objective as and shows specific argumentative constraints of use:
it cannot occur, for instance (without emphasizing a feeling of strangeness)
between two utterances with opposite objectives. 1 For example, an utterance
like:
Go see that movie: it is poorly directed and very well acted.
Sounds odd under normal circumstances, but but would fit perfectly.
Now it happens that such connectives are very commonly used in all types
of discourse. It follows that argumentation, far from being a case by case
phenomenon limited to a peculiar form of intellectual activity, is a permanent
feature in the use of language. This certainly does not prove that argumenta-
tion is to be integrated into the description of any sentence, but calls for such
a hypothesis. It would lead to a more homogeneous description of what is
inside sentences and what is between them.
The following two examples will show the strictly linguistic implications
of the approach meant by our first stage of reflection upon argumentation. A
semantic description of French should be able to account for the difference
between "little" (Fr. peu) and "a little" (Fr. un peu); for example between:
(1) Peter has worked little.
and:
(2) Peter has worked a little.
This difference explains the ironic value of the sequence "Peter has worked
little: thus he might pass his exam" while it remains completely natural to
draw the same conclusion from (2). To account for this phenomenon, we
must assume that (1) and (2) bring out different facts (if we claim that
argumentation is based solely on facts). A possibility is to claim (as has been
done before) that "little" and "a little" refer to different quantities ("little"
would be less than "a little"). Thus at a semantic level, the linguistic contrast
between these two adverbs is reduced to a purely factual one between two
quantities. Since the aim of this article is to no way polemic but rather to
bring out the theoretical networks underlying each of the stages involved, we
74 JEAN-CLAUDE ANSCOMBRE AND OSWALD DUCROT

will not enter to a discussion about such a description of "little" and "a little".
We prefer to bring in another couple of examples meant to reveal another
aspect of the linguistic semantics imposed by "radical descriptivism".
Consider the following:
(3) Peter is as tall as Mary.
(4) Peter is the same height as Mary.
How can it be accounted for the differences between these two utterances?
For they notably diverge as regards their argumentative potentialities in
discourse. For example:
(5) Peter is not really tall for his age: he is as tall as Mary.
seems problematic (unless "as" is read as rectifying a "more", and then is - or
could be - followed by a "no more") compared to:
(6) Peter is not really tall for his age: he is the same height as Mary.
which carries no rectifying intention. If argumentative dynamics relies on the
facts referred to by utterances, then we have no alternative but to postulate
that (3) and (4) do not refer to the same facts. From this point of view, a
possible solution would be to assign contrasting descriptive values to the
expressions. "To be the same height as" would refer to numerical equiv-
alence, and "to be as tall as" to a quantative relation similar to what is called
"greater than or equal to" in mathematics. Used as an argument, (3) would
then not exclude a situation in which Peter is taller than Mary: hence the
impossibility of (5).
Let us merely mention one theoretical consequence of this kind of
hypotheses. They make it necessary to introduce something similar to the
Laws of discourse - if only to explain why, in a multitude of contexts, and
from an informative viewpoint, "as ... as" means equality. It is usual for
example, to conclude that Peter and Mary are approximately the same height
on the basis of (3) (otherwise, why else would we speak of a comparison of
equivalence?). A solution frequently used by radical descriptivism is to
assume that communication and information are governed by such a law of
discourse (namely our Law of Exhaustivity'l), which requires that the
maximum amount of information be given regarding the topic. Uttering (3) in
a situation where Peter is known to be taller than Mary (even though such a
situation would not entail the falsity of (3» would be to transgress this law.
The use of "as ... as" therefore implies an equality of height between Peter and
Mary.
 ARGUMENTATIVITY AND INFORMA TIVITY 75

Let us summarize the main arguments involved in radical descriptivism:

a) Argumentative sequences in discourse are based on the facts referred to
by the utterances.
b) The linguistic structures expressed by utterances ("sentences" in our
terminology) have the description of facts as their basic semantic role. From
this point of view, sentences ascribed to utterances with an obvious quantita-
tive interpretation provide the prototype of semantic structure of language.
c) The information provided by utterances is derived on the one hand from
the semantic value of sentences (which is informative), and on the other hand
through the application to that value of laws of discourse governing the
transmission of information. We stress this last specification, for we now
appeal to laws of discourse that are formulated in terms of argumentation
rather than information (see for example our Law of Weakness 3 or the Law of
Exhaustivity, in their present form)).

2. PRESUPPOSmONAL DESCRIPTIVISM

We will not go into too much detail for the second stage since it is only, all
things considered, a kind of extension of the first. The claim that argumenta-
tive sequences are strictly of factual origin remains. But they are no longer
based on all the facts referred to by utterances: they only take some of them
into consideration. This selection among facts is made on the basis of the
linguistic properties of sentences. Taking inspiration from the philosophy of
language, we will for instance split the semantic value of utterances into an
asserted value (or assertion) and a presupposed value (or presupposition).
Hence, the information in the utterance can be asserted or presupposed. It
will then be postulated that argumentative sequences, like all sequences,
hinge only on presupposed values. If we assume that assertion and presupposi-
tion correspond to two specific attitudes in the speaker as regards the
information provided, the second stage then implies a connection between
argumentations and illocutionary attitudes.
The examples of the preceding paragraph can be dealt with in such a
framework; in order to distinguish "little" from "a little", they will be
described as ascribing different values of assertion and presupposition to the
utterances in which they occur. Thus:
(1) Peter has worked little.
would have the presupposition "Peter has worked" and the assertion "The
quantity of work Peter has put out is low", which is an analysis in keeping
76 JEAN-CLAUDE ANSCOMBRE AND OSWALD DUCROT

with the usual criteria for presupposition_ Similarly, it will be postulated for:
(2) Peter has worked a little.
the assertion "Peter has put out some quantity of work", and the presupposi-
tion "in case some work has been put out, the quantity is low". Since
argumentation relies only on the assertion, it is clear that the conclusions
drawn from (1) only involve the low amount of work put out, while those
drawn from (2) only bring out the existence of some work.
The advantage of this solution over the one given at the first stage is that it
evades the assumption of a quantitative difference between "little" and "a
little", while accounting in some degree for their contrastive argumentative
potentialities.
The second example, "as ... as" can be dealt with in a similar manner, by
ascribing to:
(3) Peter is as tall as Mary.
the presupposition "Peter's height ~ Mary's height", and the assertion
"Peter's height = Mary's height".4 On the contrary:
(4) Peter is the same height as Mary.
would consist in the sole assertion "Peter's height = Mary's height". As
above, such a solution accounts for argumentative data: (3) only allows us to
draw conclusions from Peter's tallness (since the assertion brings out the
possibility of Peter's being taller); while the equivalence asserted in (4) is
compatible with any conclusion depending on what is known or believed
about Mary's height. This in no way prevents (3) from involving the same
indication of equivalence as (4), which is obtained by combining both the
assertion and the presupposition. The cleverness - or the trick - of such a
technique is fairly obvious. The argumentative effects are accounted for on
the basis of the asserted indication of the possibility of Peter being taller. But
to take the informative value into account, this indication is discarded by
means of the presupposition.
What are the differences between these two stages? At the level of
discourse, we find in both cases the claim that argumentation proceeds from
fact to fact and consists in particular in drawing conclusions from facts. The
second stage diverges from the first in that not all the facts referred to are
involved in the argument, but only some of them, namely those which are
meant to be asserted within the linguistic structure of the sentence. Thus the
second stage assigns a decisive role in argumentation to the linguistic
 ARGUMENTATIVITY ANDINFORMATIVITY 77

structure, since it tells us which facts are and which are not argumentatively
relevant. That is, the choice of one linguistic expression over another (for
example "little" rather than "a little") entails the simultaneous selection
(based on the same facts) of one type of conclusive objective over another. If
at this second stage, argumentation is bound to linguistic structures, it is so by
virtue of very general properties (the assertion/presupposition distinction and
its role in the sequencing of utterances), and not because of a specifically
argumentative property that would be an inherent semantic feature in the
sentences.

3. ARGUMENTATION AS A COMPONENT OF MEANING

We will now outline the third stage, which corresponds principally to the
research collected in L' argumentation dans la langue. On thinking it over, we
now consider it more justified as a transition towards the fourth stage than as
an improvement over the second one. Nevertheless, it allows us to evade
some of the fallacies involved in the solutions considered in the preceding
section.
For instance, these solutions consisted in introducing, for the sake of
agreement with empirical data, presuppositions which would sometimes meet
no real independent justification. Of course, in the above mentioned ex-
amples with "little", the presupposition postulated meets the usual criteria
(the interrogative and the negative are presupposition preserving). But the
problem is more complex in the case of "a little" and "as ... as" (and the same
holds for other examples not examined here). We had for example ascribed
to:
(2) Peter has worked a little.
the presupposition, due to "a little", "if some work has been put out, the
quantity is low". Now this component of meaning is certainly not apparent in
(2), which may be meant for an addressee unaware of Peter's work. If we
take such a component of meaning for granted, we must postulate it: it is then
natural to consider it as a presupposition, since it apparently comes out in the
question "Has Peter worked a little?". Strictly speaking, we cannot claim that
this component is found both in the statement and in the question. All that
may be said is that if it is assumed to be brought in by the statement, it is also
found in the interrogation, and must then be granted the status of a presupposi-
tion. This ad hoc approach at least provides a rationale for looking into other
solutions.
78 JEAN-CLAUDE ANSCOMBRE AND OSWALD DUCROT

Let us suppose nevertheless that such a presupposition is granted. Another

problem then arises related to an ambiguity in the definition of asserted and
presupposed content. Under closer examination, these definitions, though
looking factual, are only a way of disguising argumentative values. Let us
take the example of "little" once again. To define its asserted content, we had
to appeal to the notion of "low quantity" (cf. for (1) the assertion "the
quantity of work put out is low"). What might "low" mean here? The only
possible explanation (that is one which would not introduce the fuzziness of
"low" into the theory) appears to be the following. At the level of the
sentence, a low quantity is one inferior to some limit whose existence (but
not whose nature) the sentence ensures. The nature of this limit is specified,
at the level of the utterance, by the context: it may be an expected, hoped-for
quantity, or a quantity considered as normal. By saying that "little" sets such
an upper bound, we seemingly account for the fact that a conclusion based on
the importance of this quantity cannot be drawn from the quantity referred to
in the statement. (1) cannot lead to conclusions based on Peter's work, since
(1) brings in the existence of an upper bound to that work, without mention-
ing a lower bound. In fact, such an explanation is a mere illusion. First, it
gives no account for:
(1') Peter has worked rather little.
which must meet the same argumentative constraints as (1). Of course, (1,)
sets an upper bound just like (1). But to the extent that "rather little" refers to
a greater quantity than that brought in by "little" in the same context, it sets a
lower bound as well. In case the explanation given for "little" were correct,
(1') should be argumentatively ambiguous, depending on whether the lower
or the upper bound is involved. This is obviously not the case: (1') leads to
the sole conclusions based on the insufficiency of Peter's work.
The difficulty seems even greater. If (1) precludes a certain type of
conclusions, it is not because the quantity referred to is below some limit, but
because it is brought in by the utterance from the viewpoint of this limit. Be
the selected item "little" or "a little", in either case owing to this selection, a
viewpoint that lessens the quantity referred to is taken up. And the argumenta-
tive constraints derive from the adoption of this viewpoint. This is the notion
that our third stage attempted to construct.
In order to give an adequate semantic description of "as ... as", we claimed
that utterances like:
(3) Peter is as tall as Mary.
 ARGUMENTATIVITY AND INFORMATIVITY 79

bring in, at the very level of the sentence, two semantic components: a factual
one and an argumentative one. Factually, (3) brings up the equivalence of
Peter and Mary's height. In this, the utterance is analogous to:
(4) Peter is the same height as Mary.
But in addition, (3) entails argumentative directives: the equivalence of
heights calls for the same type of conclusions that would be drawn from
"Peter is tall". 5
We will deal with the case of "little" and "a little" in a very similar
fashion. From a factual point of view, (1) and (2) are perfectly synonymous.
That is, they both refer to a quantity which, in the meaning of the sentence, is
ascribed to the same parameter and thus meant to be interpreted in the same
way in the utterances. In a situation where "to work little" would mean "to
work for one hour", in that same situation (and factually speaking), "to work
a little" would also mean "to work for one hour". The difference between the
two lexical items lies only at the argumentative level. (1) must be used to
draw the type of conclusion which "Peter has not worked" would lead to,
while (2) would argumentatively parallel "Peter has worked".
The comparison between the second and the third stages may be outlined
as follows. Both stages have in common that the utterance meaning involves
factual indications which are determined by a factual component of the
sentence meaning. They also both support the claim that the argumentative
dynamics lie, at least partially, upon this factual component inherent in
sentence meaning. On the other hand, the second and third stage differ in two
respects. First, strictly speaking, only the third brings argumentative values
into the semantic structure. Moreover, the second only brought out that the
semantic structure of the sentence entailed the impossibility of some
argumentative structures. The third goes further: it states that at least some
sentences (e.g. those with "little", "a little", "as ... as") not only can exclude
certain argumentative structures, but must also include others. They demand
that their utterances must also be used argumentatively and in a given
direction.

4. RADICAL ARGUMENTATIVISM

We will now outline the position that we are presently attempting to

elaborate. Although it implicitly underlied certain chapters of
L' argumentation dans la langue, especially the last one, this position requires
that we revise some of the formulations - and assumptions - made in this
80 JEAN-CLAUDE ANSCOMBRE AND OSWALD DUCROT

book. To be sure, the third stage is based on theoretical positions that provide
useful tools for detailed analyses. 6 But they underlie an image of language
which we do not consider to be linguistically adequate, even if corresponds
fairly well to a common viewpoint about language.
For example, the third stage preserves the idea that argumentative dis-
course is based on facts which are referred to as necessarily bringing in other
facts (or belief in other facts). This is because of the nature of the facts. On
this view, the intellectual process governing argumentative discourse would
be logical or empirical deduction. For example, that of a detective who
deduces that someone used a gun because there are fingerprints on it. In our
opinion, it is on the contrary a matter of the process that consists in taking
aspirin for a headache. In doing so, we merely apply a rule - that aspirin
cures headache - without trying to find out the exact relationship between the
physiology of the headache and the chemistry of aspirin. In a more general
way, we will say that the discursive sequence leading from an utterance-
argument to an utterance-conclusion always involves the application of
general principles which we call topoi (pace Aristotle). If we conclude
utterance B from utterance A, it is not because A refers to a fact F, and B to a
fact G, and that referring to F necessarily brings G in. It is because A brings
in F in a way that justifies the application of a topos (or a series of topoi)
leading to an utterance B which appears to be a linguistic rendition of G. For
us, the meaning of a sentence is the set of topoi whose application is said to
be valid when uttered. To choose to utter, in a given situation, one sentence
rather than another is to choose to apply certain topoi rather than others in
this situation. Here is another formulation: the semantic value of sentences
consists in allowing and focussing on facts from an argumentative viewpoint.
To choose to describe an object as expensive and not cheap is not to provide
some information on its price, but to choose to apply topoi regarding
expensiveness rather than cheapness. For example, "The less expensive it is,
the better deal it is", as opposed to "The more expensive a thing is, the less a
good deal it is". Through this rough formulation of two specific topoi, we
bring in a general hypothesis which in our opinion, is fundamental: a topos
consists of a correspondence between two non-numerical gradations, even
though some interpretations consist in mapping familiar numerical scales
onto these gradations. For instance, such a notion as cost is not primarily
numerical, even if it is usually interpreted as an amount of money.
 ARGUMENTATIVITY AND INFORMA TIVITY 81

G"2

Our present conception of argumentative discourse thus implies that there

are, at the deep level of language (i.e. at sentence level) directives having to
do with the topoi to be used in a given utterance.
More generally, we describe the linguistic predicates (e.g. the verb to
work") as bundles of topoi. To understand the word "to work" is to think it
possible, in a certain field of activity, to build up a gradation Go defined
through its correspondences with a series of other gradations G;, G;,,,.G~.
Each of these correspondences (Go' (G;), Go' G,),,,., (Go' G~) is a topos
Tl' TZ,,,.,Tn • Go being the gradation of work, G; may be for example that of
success, G; that of merit, G~ that of fatigue.
A first comment: each of the gradations G;, G;, ... G~ is itself in correspon-
dence with a series of other gradations G"p G"z,"" G'~. A sort of topical
field is then substituted for the usual lexical field.
Second remark: our diagram must read with a structuralist perspective in
mind: each of its summits has value only in relation to others. One does not
start by setting the gradation of work", and then the correspondence with the
gradations of "merit" and "fatigue". The gradation of "work" is intrinsically
made up, via the topoi, of its relations with other gradations. In other words,
to claim that Peter has worked more than John would be tantamount to
committing oneself to the fact that Peter's work (all other things being equal)
is more tiresome, successful or meritful than that of John.
Third remark: the above diagram is, of course, ultra-simplified, mainly in
82 JEAN-CLAUDE ANSCOMBRE AND OSWALD DUCROT

that it does not show that each summit may itself be reached by a multitude
of topoi. The word "work" may be understood without assuming it is the only
source of success.
A final remark: we in no way claim that all individuals of the same
linguistic community share the same topical field, nor even that a given
individual always uses the same one.
We will re-examin the examples in the preceding paragraph from within
this new framework. It will be remembered that in order to describe "little"
and "a little" at the second stage, we had to appeal to the notion of low
quantity considered as a factual data. Having noted the basically argumenta-
tive nature of the concept of lowness, we had to give up this notion at the
third stage. We substituted a purely factual parameter common to both "little"
and "a little" for this concept, which had to support contrastive argumentative
orientations. The relevance of such a parameter is what is brought into
question in the fourth stage. What might the notion of low quantity mean?
This is indeed a valid question: the fact that "low quantity" is a commonly
used expression (whose directives for use are provided by language) does not
entail any a priori status of a concept valid for a linguistic description with
scientific objectives in mind. To show what kind of objective we are aiming
at, we will analyze (1) and (2) as follows. (2) will be described by assigning
to the expressed sentence the set of topoi involved in the predicate "to work",
i.e. ''The more work there is, the more y". Thus, amongst other properties, the
operator is topoi preserving when applied to a predicate. The sentence
therefore stipulates that when uttering (2), a selection will have to be made
between these topoi, and a conclusion like "He is tired" or "He is meritful" -
or conclusions drawn from them - will have to be considered. We have
frequently referred to this selection of topoi as argumentative orientation.
But, besides argumentative orientation, the sentence expressed by (2)
involves other directives relating to its argumentative force. That is, it
locates, for example, Peter's work at the bottom of the gradation Go of work.
In our structuralist perspective, such a force simply means that from ut-
terances like (2), the only conclusions that can be drawn are related to an
equally low position on the gradation Gi put into correspondence with Go in
the selected topos. (2) could then be followed by "We must give him a little
something", but not by "He deserves a big reward". Unless some extra
argument is brought in, such as "The weather is unbearably hot", which
would then allow for "moving upwards" in the gradation G~.
The case of "little" is more complex and has to appeal to two more notions.
The first - often referred to in our research - is that of polyphony.7 The
 ARGUMENTATIVITY AND INFORM ATIVITY 83

second is that of converse topos which we will roughly define. Suppose a

topos (+x, +y), which we call a direct topos. It cannot be brought in without
at the same time assuming another topos - the converse topos (-x, -y); the
converse topos "The less work there is, the less fatigue there is" is closely
related to the direct topos "The more work there is, the more fatigue there is".
The former also sets out correspondences between gradations involved in the
direct topos.
Let us now return to (1) and the description of "little". We will say that the
sentence underlying (1) stipulates that is occurrences bring in two utterers.
The viewpoint of VI could be roughly paraphrased by (2). He thus applies a
topos like "The more work there is, the more y", thus locating Peter's work in
the lower zone of the Go gradation of work. The speaker S of (I), considering
the location of Peter's work in the gradation, is then led to apply an argumen-
tative law (namely our Law of Weakness): the fact that S only considers
arguments thought to be weak arguments in favor of a given conclusion
amounts arguing strongly for the opposite conclusion. This amounts to S's
bringing in and even sharing the viewpoint of an other utterer V 2 who would
no longer call for a direct topos, but a converse one "The less work there is,
the less y". To the extent that S shares V 2's viewpoint in this crystallized
debate, (1) must lead to a conclusion called forth by the converse topos. We
thus explain that (1) is argumentatively parallel with "Peter has not worked",
while at the same time allowing for the validity of VI'S viewpoint, that is,
some work has been done.
Let us go to our second example - that of "as ... as", dealt with in the
utterance:
(3) Peter is as tall as Mary.
On the one hand, the difficulty of this structure is due to the fact that it seems
to bring out some sort of symmetry between Peter and Mary. On the other
hand, it simultaneously involves a dissymmetry that shows up in discursive
sequences. These sequences can only be based on Peter's height, not on
Mary's. At the third stage, and in order to account for this two-fold nature,
we have assigned the symmetry to the informative level (equivalence of
heights), and the dissymmetry to the argumentative one. We now consider
this separation as some sort of a compromise. In our present conception, its
main advantage, beyond its explicative value, lies in bringing in the notion of
argumentativity in a field where informativity ruled as master. In fact, we
intend to go much further. What would make that the informative component
of our description appears to be convincing is that in uttering (3), the
84 JEAN-CLAUDE ANSCOMBRE AND OSWALD DUCROT

speakers are generally thinking of a numerical comparison of heights. In fact,

the apparent value of a quantitative equivalence is not related to the "as ... as"
structure of (3), but to the adjective "tall", or rather to a specific use of it.
Such a value seems less obvious if "tall" refers to a moral or historical value,
and totally fades away if "nice", "hospitable", "clever", etc. are substituted
for "tall". It so happens that pedagogical grammars usually take, as examples
of comparison of equivalence,s adjectives suggesting a quantitative interpreta-
tion, whereas such adjectives ("tall", "old", "heavy", "long", etc.) are in no
way prototypical. The position taken in the third stage then makes it neces-
sary to claim that most of the uses of comparison of equivalence depend on a
numerical metaphor: we analyze niceness, cleverness, etc. as if they could be
quantified.
Our attitude is just the opposite. We would like to propose a non-quantita-
tive general description of "as ... as" - a description whose quantitative
interpretation would only be possible and not basic. For us, the sentence
expressed by (3) requires that in all the topoi (Go' G~), (Go' G;), ... , (Go' G~)
brought in by the predicate "tall", Peter and Mary be located at the same
degree of the initial gradation Go. This description stipulates that, mutatis
mutandis, uttering (3) amounts to granting that the same conclusions can be
drawn from either the location of Peter or that of Mary on the gradation Go.
We thus account for the symmetrical aspect of the comparative structure. In
particular, this symmetry can be seen as a numerical equality by simply
mapping a quantitative scale onto Go. The dissymmetrical aspect depends on
another directive involved in the sentence: when uttering (3), we perform an
act of argumentation that must consist in applying the (direct) topos selected
to Peter and not to Mary. This is what was roughly formulated in terms of (3)
having the same argumentative objectives as "Peter is tall"9.
In view of these examples, the difference between the third and fourth
stage may be summarized as follows. In the third stage, the function of the
argumentative operators was to introduce argumentativity into the semantic
structure of the sentence. This had two consequences:
1) That there can be sentences without argumentative value (those where
such operators do not occur).
2) That the sentences with operators may show argumentative components
(brought in by the operator) along with informative components involved in
the initial sentence to which the operator was applied.
In the fourth stage, on the contrary, argumentative operators do not
introduce argumentativity: it is already there in the initial sentences, by
means of the topoi which constitute the meaning of the predicates. The more
 ARGUMENTATIVTIY AND INFORMATIVITY 85

restricted role of the operators is to specify the way the topoi must apply.
Should direct or converse topoi or both be selected? What argumentative
force will the utterance have? etc.
Within such a framework, and if we extend this argument to its logical
conclusion, it should be claimed that there are no informative values at
sentence level. Not only would there be no purely informative sentences, but
there would not even be any informative component in the sentence meaning.
This does not mean that there are no informative uses of sentences. But it
does in fact mean that informative-like uses are derived from a deeper
component which is purely argumentative. They result from a utilitarian use
of language, a certain rationalizing ideology (Benveniste called it
"logicizing") which is hidden in the utterances and which can only hide by
granting to words an intrinsic power to represent things. The gradation Go
which, in our opinion, is involved in any linguistic predicate, thus tends to be
viewed as a measurement of reality: work, niceness, intelligence, etc., could
be quantified.
It will doubtless be objected that such things as numbers and measure-
ments are, indeed, found in natural languages: there are nouns for numbers
and units of measurement. The solution which we are presently considering is
the following: numerical indications are operators, but contrary to the other
operators mentioned here, they do not give argumentative results when
applied. Of course, they also apply to basic sentences involving argumenta-
tive values. A sentence like "Peter has worked for three hours" comes from
the application of an operator to an initial sentence "Peter has worked", just
like "Peter has worked a little". But the operators examined in this article
differ from the numerical operators. The latter cancel the constraints involved
in the initial sentence with regard to the use of topoi: whereas the former re-
enforce, invert or attenuate them. In this respect, numerical operators look
more objective - or less argumentative - than the other operators. They open
up potentialities that argumentative operators constrain.
To examplify this idea, let us compare:
(7) Sue has some children.
and
(8) Sue has two children.
A relevant fact for the description of this comparison is the following. Let us
imagine a speaker unaware of whether two or three children are required to
be granted some family subsidy. He could normally say: "Sue has two
86 JEAN-CLAUDE ANSCOMBRE AND OSWALD DUCROT

children. I think she can get the family subsidy" as well as "Sue has two
children. I'm not sure she can get the family subsidy." He might also state:
"Sue has some children. I think she can get the family subsidy". But it would
sound bizarre to say: "Sue has some children. I don't think she can get the
family subsidy" - a statement which would require a "but". As French "des",
"some" thus demands that only a direct topos ''The more children one has,
the more y" be applied, while "two" simultaneously allows for the use of the
direct topos and its converse.
This example illustrates the manner in which we are attempting to deal
with quantitative operators and more generally, apparently objective sen-
tences. Far from being a primitive fact, this "objectivity" would only be the
result of a cancellation of argumentative constraints - a cancellation which,
while leaving all the argumentative objectives open, generates the illusion
that none exist. The informative aspect would therefore be only a by-product.

NOTES
1 Cf. on this point A. Ibrahim: "Y-a-t-il deux manieres de dire la meme chose", La
nouvelle revue du Caire (1978), No.2.
2 Already fonnulated in O. Ducrot: "Peu et un peu", 1970.
3 The fonnulation will be found in Anscombre-Ducrot, 1983.
4 Here we are following a suggestion by R. Zuber.
S In this paper, we only consider the case in which the comparative structure occurs
with Peter as its topic. When it occurs with Mary as its topic, the equivalence of
heights leads to a conclusion which could be drawn from "Mary is not tall".
6 See for example O. Ducrot et al. Les mots du discours, 1980.
7 On this notion, see O. Ducrot: Le dire et Ie dit, fmal chapter.
s This is particularly obvious in all the works with a pedagogical vocation, and is not
limited to grade-school grammars. As an example, here are the adjectives used to
illustrate the comparative degree in the opuscu1es of the Que sais-je? series devoted to
specific languages: B. Pottier, Grammaire de I'espagno/: "aimable", "grand";
A. Tellier, Grammaire de L'anglais: "grand"; D.J. Veyrenc, Grammaire du chinois:
"grand", "cher"; P. Guiraud, La syntaxe du fraru;ais: "rouge", "vite"; G. Giraud,
Grammaire du grec: "grand", "bon"; J. Allieres, Les basques: "vieux", "bon";
J. Varenne, Grammaire du sanskrit: "bon", "lourd", "petit". There is an exception: in
his Physiologie de la languefraru;aise, G. Galichet takes "courageux" as the prototype
of scalar adjectives.
9 In the case where Mary is the topic (case which is not examined in this paper), the
sentence then stipulates that in the utterance, the sole converse topoi is to be applied to
Mary.
 ARGUMENTATIVITY AND INFORMATIVITY 87

BffiUOGRAPHY
Anscombre, J.C. (1973): "Meme Ie roi de France est sage", Communications, 20,
p.40-82.
Anscombre, IC. (1975): "n etait une fois une princesse aussi belle que bonne",
Semantikos, 1, 1, p. 1-28.
Anscombre, J.C. (1976): "n etait une fois une princesse aussi belle que bonne",
Semantikos 1, 2, p. 1-26.
Anscombre, J.C. (1984): "Argumentation et topoi", in Argumentation et valeurs,
Actes du 5e colloque d'Albi, p. 45-70.
Anscombre, IC., Ducrot, O. (1977): "Deux mais en franyais?" Lingua, 43, p. 23-40.
Anscombre, J.C., Ducrot, O. (1983): L' argumentation dans la langue, Ed. Mardaga,
Bruxelles.
Ducrot, O. (1970): "Peu et un peu", Cahiers de iexicologie p. 21-52.
Ducrot, O. (1973): La preuve et Ie dire, Marne, Paris, 1973.
Ducrot, O. (1982): "Note sur l'argumentation", Cahiers de linguistique fr~aise, 4,
p.143-153.
Ducrot, O. (1985): Le dire et Ie dit, Ed. de Minuit, Paris.
Ducrot, O. et al. (1980): Les mots du discours, Ed. de Minuit, Paris.
Perelman, C., Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1970): Traite de l'argumentation, Ed. de
l'Universite de Bruxelles, Bruxelles.
 JUDITH SCHLANGER

SAYING AND KNOWING

There are intellectual posltIons to which we cling without ever having

decided about them. The question of non verbal thought seems to be one of
those. Opinions are strongly divided about it, still there seems to be no real
debate; convictions are expressed, but they fail to come to grip each with the
other. This does not prevent the discussion from going on, as various
polemical episodes keep reappearing, each of them stressing a different
aspect. This kind of ever-conflicting situation, where opinions are strongly
divided - there exists a non verbal thought, all thinking is necessarily verbal
- keeps bringing forth new conflictual episodes.
A good classical example of such an episode is the polemical reaction of
Galton - a hundred years ago - to Max Milller's theory on mythological
thought. Max Milller, one might remember, explains mythology through
language, through the very fabric of language: there is a correlation between
verbal units and mythological entities, and, more broadly, between the shape
and structure of mythical thinking and its verbal dimension. In a way, he sees
the mythological imagination as a mode or a state - something like a solid
state - of linguistic reality.
Galton is violently opposed to such a view, which explains a whole series
of phenomena as by-products of language. His point is not mythological
thinking as such. What he cannot accept is the primary role ascribed to the
substance of language. Galton is convinced of the existence of what he calls
"thought without words"; for him, this is not a marginal phenomenon, but on
the contrary a central device in our intellectual make-up. For instance, he
understands the workings of memory through the pattern of composite
pictures, or superposed photographs, on which he spent a few years' work. In
order to isolate physical types, Galton used to take several successive pictures
on the same photographical plate; and this provides him with a model for the
production of general ideas: a general concept is a set of memories mixed in a
kind of fuzzy superposition, in such a way as to relate to all their individual
components without being identical to any of them. This is a mechanistic and
spatial representation of the working of our mind, and indeed Galton explains
mental creation along the same lines: when ideas are waiting in the anteroom

89
90 JUDITH SCHLANGER

of consciousness, they join together in different kinds of association, and

some of these associations become eventually steady.
It is quite clear that if Galton understands mental activity as the interplay
of images, which associate, overlap, get nearer and farther one from the other
inside some mental space, then he cannot accept Max Milller's view of
language as a fundamental factor in the constitution of thought; and more
specifically, in the case of myth, the view of language as the substance and
contents of mythology.
Let us leave now this particular example, and look at the more general
claim. Nobody denies that the major part of our thinking activity is verbal
and discursive: but some people insist that there also exists, along discursive
thinking, a wordless cerebral activity that is a thought of its kind as well. A
good example for this stand is Einstein, who used to be quite ironical about
people who believe that one thinks only with words. It is of course a fact that
in many domains - such as music, architecture, and others -, abstract activity
is essentially non verbal. What is at stake is not that there exists a non verbal
activity that is abstract, productive, important. What is at stake is whether
such a non verbal activity has an intellectual cognitive function. If we bypass
the classical although provocative question of the nature of invention in the
domain of pure mathematics (is it as such a cognitive construct?), the issue
concerns non verbal thought and its relation to knowledge: does this non
verbal dimension pertain to knowledge, and how? In a marginal way, or as a
main element? At the level of basic intuitions, of heuristics, of clarification
and control? The question is not whether non verbal thinking exists at all, but
how it relates to knowledge.
Let us look at what the intuitions on both sides imply. Among those who
stress the non verbal, the non conceptual, dimensions of thought and
understanding, some consider this non verbal dimension as being articulate,
and others consider it as mute.
The non verbal aspect of thought is articulate when thought is seen as a
specific space for syntactic operations. Herbert Simon's heuristic procedures,
and generally speaking the whole range of problem-solving, imply that what
takes place mentally is shaped by a kind of language, which includes a syntax
and entails communication: and that this language is non verbal. Rudolf
Arnheim's thesis on "visual thinking" is even more spatial, in the way it
stresses the cognitive function of perception, which generates images and
forms, symbols and abstraction. In Arnheim's view, the visual medium
fulfills all the intellectual functions that are usually ascribed to the verbal
medium; so that the verbal medium, far from being essential to the activity of
 SAYING AND KNOWING 91

thinking, plays but an auxiliary role. This brings forward the notion of a non
discursive abstraction, a conceptless abstract thought If verbal thinking is
understood as an articulate operating behavior, what comes into focus is the
notion of abstraction.
On the other hand, if one states that the non verbal aspect of thought is not
articulate but mute, and cannot be put directly into words, them what comes
into focus is the notion of intuition. The name of Bergson, and the tradition it
symbolizes, can be useful here as kind of shorthand. If the intuitive core of
philosophical vision goes much deeper than language, then the formulation of
this vision will be its clothing, or its make-up. A deep intuition has to be
formulated, expressed, expanded: this is part of the social constraints of
communication; but it leaves us on the surface, and leads us no further.
Besides, verbal clothing itself is said to be insufficient, ineffective, inade-
quate. There are different ways of being dissatisfied with language, especially
with natural language. It can be for 'baconian' reasons, because it interferes
too much since its grid is too compelling; or, for the opposite reason, because
it is amorphous and fuzzy. Some physicists consider conceptual language as a
"semantic mud" that sticks to theoretical conceptualisation and weighs on it.
Anyway, whether language is taken to task for being too interfering or for
being too vague, it would clearly be a good thing, in order to think rigorously,
to bypass its muddle - especially through formalisation. On one side, an
essentially non verbal theoretical intuition gets poorer and distorted as soon
as it is put into words; and on the other side, the right way to deal with a
theory is to overcome verbal fuzzyness through formalisation. In between,
words disturb.
Let us now look at the other side, to those who stress that language, far
from being a secondary substance that dims the sharpnes and rigour of
thinking, is indeed the very medium of thought. They too speak from
different points of view, and from various domains.
One way of taking into account the verbal nature and texture of thought, is
to acknowledge the weight of language in the shaping of reality. This is the
perspective of linguistic relativism: language shapes and interprets the world,
and to belong to a linguistic community is to share its interpretation of reality
as invisibly self-evident. Since meaning is accessible only through a linguis-
tic community, the plural situation is a "natural" one, and everybody's
outlook is necessarily partial. One recognizes here Sapir's and Whorf's
perspective, and also, with a somewhat different inflexion, Trier's and
Weisgerber's. Where Sapir and Whorf stress syntax as the grid of perception
and conceptualisation, Trier and Weingerber, through their theory of
92 JUDITH SCHLANGER

semantic fields, consider uppermost the lexicon, the network of relationships

between terms, and the overwhelming strength of the context. By identifying
the linguistic community of the mothertongue with the historical community
of the national language, Trier and Weisgerber belong to the humboldtian
romantic tradition.
It is clear that this approach links very strongly the mental and verbal
realms; but it does not pertain specifically to knowledge, inasmuch as
abstract knowledge constitutes a special enterprise with a specific aim.
Cassirer - heir to Humboldt as much as to Kant - is more directly concerned
with the intellectual function of language as "middle world". The fact that he
speaks about language in general, and not about the special strictures of the
mothertongue, enables him to say that our abstract conceptual language
shapes and builds from within the world we can know, which is by definition
a construct.
Another example of this intellectualist approach, which links the percep-
tion of reality to verbal conceptualisation, can be found in Koyre's work, as
well as in the relativistic history of science that stems from him. Although it
may seem somewhat unusual to consider this history of science as a decision
about the importance of language for knowledge, one can show that it
emphasizes the scope of conceptual language in several ways. Since this
history of science is and claims to be a history of scientific thought, it is
mainly the study of conceptions, discussions, theoretical representations, the
study of the whole intellectual framework of scientific development. It
stresses the semantic dimensions of scientific activity at the cultural level,
where it is necessarily concept bound, and therefore word-ladden. And since
hypotheses and theoretical representations have changed all along, they are to
be understood through their historical determinations. One can show,
especially when reaching back into the past, how a theoretical universe is
linked to past mental and intellectual frameworks. In this connection,
scientific thought is seen through its context, through the whole horizon of
intellectual discourse at a given time.
Through numerous monographical studies and methodological essays, this
relativist history of science has mainly focused on the historical and cultural
dimension of scientific theories. By so doing, it has partially abolished the
positivist distinction between the scientific venture and the other intellectual
ventures whose aim is knowledge. Once they are considered as conceptual
works, Galileo's or Kepler's conceptions become part of the conceptual
works of their time, as discursive texts dealing with ideas, or, to quote
Rousseau's expression, "des ouvrages de raisonnement". What may put them
 SAYING AND KNOWING 93

apart does not appear at this level, where the history of scientific thought is
studied as an aspect or a mode of intellectual history. What all intellectual
enterprises have in common is the need for conceptualisation and formula-
tion. They all have to go through the verbal substance of thought.
Let us go back to non verbal abstract activity and the question of its
intellectual cognitive function. What is at stake here is the nature and scope
of intellectual knowledge. It seems clear that the non verbal can fulfill some
intellectual functions, but not all of them. There is definitely room for a non
verbal abstraction and a non verbal intuition, but conception has to be verbal.
And this is the point where knowing, as an intellectual activity and as the
general venture of thought, is directly linked to language. At this level,
language is more than the medium of conceptualisation: it is coextensive to
the intellectual and cultural range of knowledge. I want now to underline
briefly some aspects of this speculative function of conceptuallanguge.
a) If it is to be relevant to intellectual knowledge, conceptualisation has to
relate to some problematic concern. It usually relates to an acknowledged
problematic frame, the normal frame of debates in such a field at this time.
Sometimes, conceptualisation is linked to a conceptual displacement, as the
established problematic is challenged or even rejected. Whatever the case,
relevant intellectual activity is related to a problematic field, that gives any
particular piece of reasoning its meaning and its scope. Outside of a
problematic frame, be it an established one or a new one struggling for
recognition, a conceptual utterance cannot be relevant to knowledge, since it
is, properly speaking, meaningless. One of the disquieting limits of intellec-
tual heuristics is precisely the question of meaninglessness. Any intellectual
problematic brings forth immediately the sharpness of thinking into the
texture of past problematics, of cultural memory, and of the history of
meaning. One reason that makes it difficult to say that non verbal activity
pertains directly to intellectual knowledge, is not only that the medium of
reflection is verbal, but also, and more importantly, that the odds of
know ledge are semantic.
b) An idea focuses on a term, or on a set of terms. Those are often loaded
terms, loaded by their present rational success in a given domain, or by the
historical inheritance of their previous uses. Terms have, among other aspects
and characteristics, a heuristic dimension. They enable us to point out
something that has not yet be conceived, and has therefore neither place nor
name. A new conception can take shape along such verbal schemes, borrow
them or move them. If we could not borrow terms and notions, and tranfer
partial languages from one domain to another, we could not conceive
94 JUDITH SCHLANGER

something that would be different, which means that we could not think. At
this level, it is difficult to see how what is non verbal, what is basically
foreign to language, can enable us to explore thought and move on. The point
is not only that discursivity needs terms, which is a technical necessity; it
goes deeper, as any displacemennt of meaning is related to the historical and
cultural accumulation of past meanings. In other words, it is possible to say
new things intelligently because others have already spoken. What is at stake
in this relationship between new meanings and previous words is the
historical essence of thought.
c) Conceptualisation is a process, and this discursive process is in itself an
intellectual reflexive dimension. A new theoretical outlook does not turn up
as an intuitive gift, instantaneous and complete, which only needs to be put
into words in order to become the lineary exposition of an intellectual work.
A new thought thinks itself through its own development. Through the ways
and means of the discursive exposition, through adjustments and modifica-
tions, even through the constraints of genre and mode, the intellectual process
unfolds, changing some of its proportions or accentuations - and this
discursive process is fundamental to any theoretical intuition. On the non
verbal side can be found a strategy of means, such as, for instance, the trials
and errors of problem-solving; but what happens in the process of semantic
abstraction goes much further: it does really affect and shape the organisation
and significance of what is being thought. Therefore the discursive develop-
ment of thought, and the formulation of thought, is not a technical but an
intellectual dimension of thought.
If a real discussion on the verbal and the non verbal nature of thought is to
take place, it has first of all to take into account the strength and scope of
language. I have just underlined some aspects of conceptual language:
problematics as a necessary frame of relevance, the fruitfulness of loaded and
borrowed terms, the fruitful adjustments of discursivity as a process. This all
points to what makes knowledge intellectually meaningful. Can something
meaningless be relevant to knowledge? This starts another discussion, about
knowledge: is it essentially intellectual or not?
 LAMBROS COULOUBARITSIS

DIALECfIC, RHETORIC AND CRITIQUE IN ARISTOTLE

The term "dialectic" is one of those words which philosophers have not
stopped making use of since Antiquity, enriching it with such a variety of
meanings that today, when we go to use it, we are deeply troubled. In
Aristotelian terminology, it has become a plurivocal or equivocal term, a
pollacMs legomenon. It is henceforth easy to understand that at the moment
when contemporary philosophy undertook a spectacular return to Aristotelian
methodology, it was very scrupulous in its use of it. These scruples are most
clearly exemplified by Charm Perelman who, when he introduced the "new
rhetoric" with L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, preferred to eliminate it from the theory
of argumentation. 1 Moreover, it is in this context that argumentation subse-
quently developed, claiming, as it did, to go beyond the field of rhetoric.
Now, it is not without interest to remark that there is a certain hesitation in
Perelman himself at that time: shortly before, in a lecture, he notes the
existence of a "dialectical argumentation" and deems "philosophical dialogue
par excellence to be dialectical" in that philosophical method cannot be
founded upon intuitions and evidences considered to be irrefragable but
rather upon conceptions generally considered to be granted and which are
confronted and contrasted with each other.2 Furthermore, by basing himself
upon Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations, where Aristotle distinguishes
various types of speeches - didactic, dialectical, critical and eristic - without
referring to rhetoric (cf. 1. 165b.1-5), Perelman supports the expression
"dialectical argumentation". Paradoxically, three years later, in The New
Rhetoric,3 this text by Aristotle no longer.appears. In its place, there emerges
a critique of "the very spirit in which Antiquity busied itself with dialectic
and rhetoric". Referring principally to Aristotle, Perelman explains that:
Dialectical reasoning is considered as running parallel with analytic reasoning, but
treating of that which is probable instead of dealing with propositions which are
necessary. The very notion that dialectic concerns opinions, i.e. theses which are
adhered to with variable intensity, is not exploited. One might think that the status of
that which is subject to opinion is impersonal and that opinions are not relative to the
minds which adhere to them. On the contrary, this idea of adherence and of the minds
to which a discourse is addressed is essential in all the ancient theories of rhetoric.

95
96 LAMBROS COULOUBARITSIS

Our "rapprochement" with the latter aims at emphasizing the fact that it is in
terms of an audience that an argumentation develops; the study of the
opinionable, as described in the Topics, will have a place in this framework.4
In thus shifting the Aristotelian view of dialectic toward a rhetorical context
in which the "opinionable" would have a place, Perelman ensures the theory
of argumentation of the destiny recognized for it today. All the same,
something seems to remain in the shadows of this development: what
Perelman reveals as being an "impersonal opinionable" of dialectic and
which he avoids examining thoroughly by not pursuing further a confronta-
tion between dialectic and rhetoric in Aristotle. Now, when we know, on the
other hand, that philosophical argumentation in Aristotle cannot be related
back to rhetoric discourse, whereas on the contrary it seems bound to critical
discourse (1tEtpacrtt1CJl) whose theory is established precisely in the
Sophistical Refutations which The New Rhetoric disregards,S we may well
wonder if the salvaging of dialectical argumentation by the new rhetoric does
not, in some way, obliterate something important in Aristotelian dialectic.
In order to answer such a question, it seems indispensable to clarify the
relationships between dialectic, rhetoric and critique in Aristotle. It is to this
preliminary task that we shall devote the lines which follow.

2. THE PRIMACY OF DIALECTIC

While it is true that the first lines of the Rhetoric establish a correspondence
between dialectic and rhetoric, as if these two disciplines were convertible
one into another,6 in the remainder of this text, Aristotle emphasizes that
rhetoric is only a part (~6ptov) of dialectic (1.2. 1356a.30-31). In other
words, the close relation between these two technai and methodoi, even their
resemblance (cf. 1356a.31), does not imply any identity, but only common
points which safeguard their profound difference. Aristotle, moreover,
establishes these points from the very beginning of his study of rhetoric.
It indeed appears that these two disciplines pertain to questions which do
not concern a specific science (one which is founded on a particular genre
peculiar to it and studied by specialists), but are on the contrary accessible to
all men (I.1.1354a.1-3; 2.1356a.31-33). It must be stressed that it is this
possibility for all men to participate in these two different types of activity
that explains their relationship, and not so much the existence of a common
domain, since dialectic's field is more extensive than that of rhetoric. Thus,
their resemblance may be summed up in this statement of Aristotle: "to a
 DIALECTIC, RHETORIC AND CRITIQUE IN ARISTOTLE 97

certain extent all men attempt to discuss statements and to maintain them, to
defend themselves and to attack others. Now, the majority of people do this
either at random or with a familiarity arising from habit." (1354a.4-7) Under
these conditions, it is obvious that if dialectic and rhetoric can be produced
by familiarity, it may be possible to discover the cause with a view to raising
them to the rank of coherent technai (l354a.6ss). This is the delicate task that
the Stagirite ascribed to himself and whose results, as we know, are con-
signed to the two series of treatises which are, on the one hand, the First
Analytics, the Topics, and the Sophistical Refutations, and, on the other, the
Rhetoric. No confusion may be made between them.
In the well-known Sophistical Refutations, Aristotle asks for our indul-
gence for the gaps that we might discover in his way of establishing dialectic:
in this area, nothing precise had been written before him. This was not the
case for rhetoric since the rhetorics of his day were the inheritors of a long
tradition which explains why this art had attained "a certain amplitude"
(34.183b.33-36; 184a.7-b8). The importance of this affirmation increases by
the fact that Aristotle himself immediately recognizes that even in the area of
rhetoric, inadequacies persisted since rhetorical art was taught less than were
the recipes of this art (l84a.lft). In his Rhetoric, he specifies that those who
in his day busied themselves with the technique of discourse were mostly
preoccupied with exterior problems aimed at influencing the judge (by pity,
anger, the passions of the soul, etc.), and made no use of enthymemes which
constitute, in the syllogistic mode, the rhetorical proofs and demonstrations
(1354a.ll-18 and 1355a.2-8). In actuality, dialectical syllogism and
enthymeme are indeed Aristotle's discoveries: they constitute the specificity
of his dialectic and of his rhetoric as well. Moreover, he hastens to emphasize
that the study of syllogism belongs to dialectic: to all dialectic or to a part of
it. So that he who masters the syllogism and who establishes the origin and
the manner of its production "will also be best skilled in the enthymeme,
when he has further learned what his subject matter is and in what respects it
differs from the logical syllogism." (1355a.8-14) In other words, for
Aristotle, the syllogism constitutes the condition sine qua non enabling
empirical rhetoric to transform itself into a technique or an authentic techne.
That is why, at the end of the Sophistical Refutations, when he stresses the
originality of his procedure, he refers to the syllogism: "regarding reasoning
we had absolutely no earlier work to quote but were for a long time laboring
at tentative researches." (34.184b.1-3) Henceforth the question which is
posed is that of knowing what certifies the difference between dialectic and
rhetoric in spite of this deep relationship in the order, on the one hand, of the
98 LAMBROS COULOUBARITSIS

concern of every man about the examination and justification of an argument

or the fact of defending oneself or of accusing someone, and, on the other
hand, of the implementation of a circumstanced reasoning.
In reality, even in the usage he establishes for the syllogistic mode, the
Stagirite does not appear to accept a strict identity between dialectic and
rhetoric. To the extent that rhetoric, for him, constitutes a part of dialectic, he
speaks in reference to the latter about syllogism and induction,' and with
regard to rhetoric, or enthymeme and example.8 Without going into details
here about a question which touches upon the very application which
Aristotle assigns the syllogistic mode, we may nevertheless note that while
every enthymeme is a syllogism (dialectical), every syllogism (whether
dialectical or otherwise) is not an enthymeme. By the same token, while
every example approximates induction, the reverse is not obvious, since
induction implies the constitution of a universal from particular cases,
whereas the example implies the relation between similar cases of which one
is more well-known.9 In other words, rhetoric's mode of unfolding is less far-
reaching than that of dialectic, or, in any case, it is other with regard to
occasionally comparable facts. Their difference is not so much inscribed in
their reciprocal intention, as takes place in their relation to the sophistical,10
but mther in two different manners, two possibilities or potentials (aUV~tc;)
for discovering the means of arriving at a judgment (Kplcnc;), starting with
premises which, while not being true (contrary to scientific demonstration),
are nonetheless probable (~oo~a.) (I.1355b.8-21; cf. 1355a.14-18;
1357a.7-21).11 From this point of view, two important elements emerge in
order to assure rhetoric's specificity: the orator's effort to be as persuasive as
possible (a<;wmO"toc;) and the discovery of persuasive reasons (m~a.vov)
for each thing.
According to the first of these elements, the rhetorical discourse is seen as
being founded on enthymemes and on the use of examples; the two other
founding dimensions being the data which is liable to reinforce the listener's
adhesion: the character of the orator and the dispositions which he succeeds
in instilling in the listener. When he inspires confidence by his honesty, the
orator's character often turns out to be the main factor (KUptrota:t''lv)
contributing to making the persuasive acceptable. But the frame of mind in
which the listener finds himself is no less important, for judgments are not
considered in the same way from the perspective of sorrow or of joy, of
friendship or of hatred (2.1356a.1-19; b.18-25). This double subjectivity in
the order of rhetorical activity is the one upon which Aristotle's predecessors
based themselves. But Aristotle takes it up and even develops it, in Book II,
 DIALECTIC, RHETORIC AND CRITIQUE IN ARISTOTLE 99

along the lines of a systematic view founded on psychological analyses

whose value cannot be underestimated. Nevertheless, this essential element
of rhetoric must not occult the other aspect which constitutes the Stagirite's
originality: the formation of enthymemes and the use of examples are directly
articulated with the second element which concerns the valorization of
persuasive reasons for each thing, in other words, the ability to bring out "the
persuasive arguments suitable to the case in question" (1356a.19-20; cf.
1355b.25-34). Here the Stagirite succeeds in broadening reason's area of
activity by penetrating contingent action's own particular field which is
irreducible, according to him to scientific knowledge and demonstration.
As it is already stressed in the Topics, the rhetor is he who is capable of
considering what is persuasive in each thing and of neglecting nothing in this
matter (VI.12.149b.26-27). When the notion that rhetoric's goal is judgment
is associated with this (Rhetoric, II.1.1377b.20-21), one may deduce, along
with Aristotle, that the use of persuasive discourses concerns judgment
(II.18.1391b.7). Of course, in his opinion, not just any judgments are
involved, but all those which concern the fact of counselling and dissuading,
of lauding and blaming, of accusing and defending. In short, it is a matter of
judgments belonging to the three types of discourse that he reserves for
rhetoric: the deliberative, the judiciary. and the epidictic (Rhetoric, 1.3). It is
thus in these areas that it is fitting to bring out enthymemes and examples in
order to establish what is persuasive with a view to giving rise to a favorable
judgment in the audience with respect to what is sought by the speaker. In
this, the rhetoric's own particular domain is expressedly circumscribed: it is
more concerned with questions which are of the particular domain of action.
Now, if we bring this remark together with those we have reserved for the
dispositions of the audience and for the speaker's character, we discover that
the two elements which confer upon rhetoric its specificity are not independ-
ent from praxis. This authorizes Aristotle to affirm that rhetoric is "an
offshoot of dialectic and also of ethical studies [... which] may fairly be
called political" (1.2.1356a.20-27). And when he takes up this very assertion
further on, it is in order to say that if there is a tendency to convert dialectic,
as well as rhetoric, into sciences, then the more we persist in this vein, and
"the more we try to refashion dialectic as well as rhetoric, we are led towards
sciences dealing with definite subjects and not only with discourse"
(1359b.12-18). This is why he insists directly on the fact that the field of
rhetoric is indeed that of politics in which action is central (4. 1359b.8ss.;
2.1358a.1-9). This means that even if some necessary propositions serving as
premises for syllogisms can be brought out in rhetoric, the fact that it pertains
100 LAMBROS COULOUBARITSIS

to questions concerning action, in which contingency reigns, clearly shows

that more often than not the premises of enthymemes will have the character
of probability (2, 1357a.22-23). All of these particulars, to which could be
added others,12 sufficiently demonstrate that for Aristotle, a radical difference
between dialectic and rhetoric exists. Rhetoric is that part of dialectic which
applies principally to the domain of a particular type of action in which
deliberative, epidictic and legal discourses reign. In this domain rhetoric
could never claim to establish a scientific knowledge unless it lost is very
essence and its ability to simultaneously take care of several areas of action.
Besides, as we have seen, it is through this claim to some universality that
rhetoric is most connected to dialectic from which it borrows its syllogistic
status which confers upon it a hold in an area which, at frrst sight, escapes
reason and which, in any case is irreducible to scientific knowledge. So that it
would seem that the implication of rhetoric in the domain of action, through
which it ensures its difference from dialectic, subverted, so to speak, its strict
adherence to dialectic.
This remark, which is enough to arouse caution when comparing dialectic
and rhetoric in Aristotle, allows us nonetheless to understand why these two
processes often give the impression of being identical. It is that, by its very
essence, Aristotelian dialectic takes the interrogative form in that it supposes
a choice between opposite views on a problemP Now, because contingency
reigns in the domain of action - the prakton being possibly other than it is
(ev&XOJ,1£YOY liAA,ro; EXEt) - this domain appears favorable to this type of
discourse. When we speak, moreover, of action in this sense, it is not only a
matter of action with an ethical character, but of any type of activity where a
choice is involved, as for example in medicine or in strategy.14 In this
domain, the peculiar elements of rhetoric (the effort exerted by the speaker in
order to be as persuasive as possible, or the discovery of persuasive reasons)
may have a fertile application. But in a general way, and following a
typological approach on which Aristotle thrives, rhetoric appears to be a sort
of dialectic for all of the areas where the agent attempts to establish a
judgment through the use of persuasive discourse, which seems to be the case
for all of the areas where the deliberative, epidictic and legal genres can be
taken into consideration. It is in terms of this type of relation that the Stagirite
ventures to speak of an antistrophical relationship between dialectic and
rhetoric (Rhetoric 1.1.1354a.I). Now, this limitation upon the relationship
between dialectic and rhetoric signifies that areas which are irreducible to
rhetoric exist, while at the same time inferring, the extent that it is interroga-
tive, an action of dialectic. It is thus, for example, that the problem of
 DIALECTIC, RHETORIC AND CRITIQUE IN ARISTOTLE 101

knowing whether a single or a multiplicity of principles exists in Phys. I, 2

extends beyond the domain of action and thus cannot, according to Aristotle,
belong to rhetoric - otherwise the whole of his thought would be a sort of
rhetoric. This means that for him, dialectic is coextensive not only with a
multiplicity of functions and parts, one of which is constituted by rhetoric,
but also, for this very reason, with its primacy with regard to rhetoric. This
primacy indeed seems to constitute a crucial point in Aristotle's project: it
alone can explain, on the one hand, the fact that rhetoric is qualified as a part
of dialectic and that its modes of unfolding (enthymeme and example) belong
to dialectical syllogism and induction, and, on the other hand, the fact that
dialectic fulfills an important role in his thought in areas over which rhetoric
has no hold.
To conclude this fIrst part of our study, let us return to the point which
brings dialectic and rhetoric together the most: the common use they have of
a certain number of topoi, even if rhetoric makes use of a particular type of
syllogism - enthymemes - which often unfold in an elliptical manner
(assuming the major premise), and even if it limits itself to precise types of
discourse (deliberative, epidictic and legal) (I, 2, 1356a.26ss). These so-
called commonplaces (KOtVa) pertain to specifically different disciplines:
law, physics, politic, etc. For example, says Aristotle, from the topos "more
or less", a rhetorical enthymeme may be established as easily as a dialectical
syllogism concerning these respective disciplines which, nevertheless, differ
specifically without this preventing other syllogisms from being established -
syllogisms which are more specific for each of them and irreducible to each
other. Hence, it follows that the mastery of commonplaces will make no one
competent in a given area, while the knowledge of premises peculiar to a
genre is such that the better the choice will be as a science distinct from
rhetoric and dialectic is developed. For, the Stagirite states, "if one succeeds
in stating the required principles, one's science would be no longer dialectic
or rhetoric, but the science to which the principles thus discovered belong."
(1358a.25). In other words, dialectic and rhetoric, applied to a specific
science, may come to repudiate themselves for the benefit of this very
science, on the condition that its principles be established.
To be sure, Aristotle does not say at this precise point in the text (which is
connected to another passage to which we have alluded earlier [cf.
4.1359b.8-16]) how this conversion of endoxa into principles themselves can
come about. And this silence seems to us to favor all sorts of misunderstand-
ings and confusions. But the goal of his exposition here, it must be stressed,
is not at all to indicate the modalities of this possible conversion, which
102 LAMBROSCOULOUBARnS~

belongs, in fact, to the delicate problematic of he establishment of principles;

it is rather to emphasize the contrast which exists between, on the one hand,
the particular disciplins with their own principles, and, on the other hand, the
use of dialectic and of rhetoric which, by the commonplaces they use, may
pertain to these disciplines without claiming to compete with the competence
of those that possess them scientifically. By means of this contrast, Aristotle
brings out the decisive importance (for rhetoric as well as for dialectic) of the
commonplaces which confer precisely upon each of them their extensive and
quasi-universal claim. This importance springs expressedly from what
Aristotle says when he takes up the study of these topoi in the Rhetoric after
having dealt with the essential elements of the rhetorical art (enthymemes,
examples, three types of rhetorical discourses, character of the speaker, and
dispositions of the audience): "Each of the main divisions of oratory has [...J
its own distinct purpose. With regard to each division, we have noted the
accepted views and propositions upon which we may base our arguments -
for political, for ceremonial, and for forensic speaking. We have further
determined completely by what means speeches may be invested with the
required moral character. We are now to proceed to discuss the arguments
common to all oratory." (11.18. 1391b.22--27). These topoi, which are
common to the three types of rhetorical discourses, are also, for the most part,
the commonplaces of dialectic, thus turning rhetoric over as part of dialectic.
In order to better discern this kind of subordination of rhetoric to dialectic, it
is fitting to study another part of dialectic which is different from rhetoric:
that of critique (1t£lpaO"tl1CTl).

3. DIALECTICAL PROOF

Aristotle uses several terms whose specifications are not always very clear, in
order to take "critical" discourse into account: peirastike, exetastike, kritike,
elenchos, epitimesis, etc. Since our study only aims at bringing out the
generic character of dialectic with regard to rhetoric as well as to critique, the
nuances between these various terms matter little. Among the various modes
of critique, the only one which it would seem imperative to dismiss is
apparent critique which unfolds during sophistic debates, and which the
Stagirite calls agonistike, its syllogistic articulation being eristic. For the
difference between authentic critique and the latter lies in the very intention
of the critique's agent. IS So that, one is compelled to conclude that for
Aristotle, sophistic critique only aims at an apparent wisdom, while authentic
critique leads to the clarification of the debate with a view to knowledge. But
 DIALECTIC, RHETORIC AND CRITIQUE IN ARISTOTLE 103

here again it does not seem that its position is monolithic since critique may
lead to a general knowledge, a sort of general culture, or to a more precise
knowledge on the order of general principles. The fIrst type of knowledge is
that of the learned man «(, 1t£1tO,tB£UIl£VO<;), the second, that of the
philosopher (0 <ptAOcrO<pO<;). Let us take a closer look at these types of
knowledge and the critique that accompanies each, starting with the frrst.
In the Protagoras (312b), Plato had already noted that one may acquire an
art not only in the capacity of a professional, like a demiurge, but also in
order to become learned (btl 1tO,tBefq.). Aristotle goes further, since he
considers that a learned man may acquire a set of knowledge, thus moving
freely from one domain to another, and reach an ability to judge (KptV£tv)
which is no less important than that of the specialists (Pol. III.l1.1282a.2-7).
This is why, in another passage, he specifies that "every systematic research,
the humblest and the noblest alike, seems to admit of two kinds of
profIciency; one of which may be properly called scientific knowledge of the
subject, while the other is a kind of educational acquaintance with it. For an
educated man should be able to form a fair off-hand judgment as the
goodness or badness of the method used by a professor in his exposition."16
To which he immediately adds that a man thus considered as a learned man is
such especially because he is considered to be able, in away, to pass
judgment about everything (1t£p\ 1tw'tCJ)v Kpt'ttKOV), while the specialist
only is considered so for a well-defined area (De part. animo 1.1.639a.l-1O).
In short, culture in the Aristotelian sense implies not only an extensive
knowledge, but also and especially the possibility of judging and criticizing.
The learned man is he who can, on his own merit and thanks to the extent of
his knowledge, evaluate a situation or a thing, criticize and decide. But while
this point of view opens important horizons on the ethical and political levels
where this requirement seems to be the very condition of a democratic
system,11 it nevertheless also bears witness to the opening ihto a more
systematic knowledge in which it becomes a matter of taking a poSItion with
respect to a given episterne and a given techne. However, in this domain, the
ability to criticize does not necessarily and without further ado signify the
ability to carry out just any critique. Aristotle calls the particular type of
critique periastike which, while it is the critique of the specialist, may also be
that of a man capable of handling, in a scientifIc manner - and no longer in
his capacity as a learned man -, a more universal knowledge. This type of
critique belongs to the dialectician as well as to the philosopher. It is what
leads to wisdom (cro<ptO,) and constitutes the goal of the philosopher.ls
In an important passage of the Metaphysics (Gamma, 2) which we have
104 LAMBROSCOULOUB~ffi

studied in more detail elsewhere,19 Aristotle says that dialectic is a testing

procedure (7t£tpacntK1l) upon all problems (1t£Ptov), that philosophy
establishes a positive knowledge ("(VroptO'ttK'l), while sophistry is not a real
wisdom but only an apparent one (l004b.17-26). In the Sophistical Refuta-
tions, he specifies that critique is a part of the dialectic (8.169b.25), that it is
a certain dialectic (5uXAeK'ttK'l) tta) which does not consider he who knows
but rather he who claims to know, while sophistry implements apparent
arguments concerning things (1tpaYJ.ux) of which dialectic is critical
(1t£tpacntJcri') (11.171b.4-9).
Looking closely, one remarks that in the Metaphysics, sophistry is
understood from the perspective of its claim to establishing a knowledge
positively - whether particular or universal -, while in the Sophistic Refuta-
tions, it is seen rather as its critical aim. This is why at the end of Sophistical
Refutations, Aristotle notes that the relationship between sophistry and
dialectic forces him to not limit the dialectic to the sole power of testing
(7t£tpav), but to also grant it the function of defending a given thesis based
on statements having the most possible value (Evoo!;Otatc.ov)20
(34.183a.36-b.6). However, whether it be a question of critique or defense,
Aristotelian dialectic manifests itself according to circumstances along an
interrogative and refutative mode.21 In other words, it is a matter of overtak-
ing, in a critical manner, the opposite argument to the one posited at the
outset (in the case of a test) or opposite to the one attempting to contradict
our argument (in the case of a defense).22 This refutative ability of dialectic in
fact ensures it of many possibilities: in particular that of not limiting itself to
a particular genre and therefore to make claim to a sort of universality. After
all, as we recall, it is in this that rhetoric also belongs to dialectic. But it is
also in this claim to universality that the learned man acquires the status of a
man capable of examining without Aristotle ever attributing to him the
quality of dialectician. This is because critique (1t£tpacnt~) can be applied
without one's possessing the knowledge of the rules which subtend it not the
science of such or such specific thing. Being the science of no specific thing,
critique concerns all things, due in particular to the fact that the arts and
sciences use principles and commonplaces (KOtva) (cf. Soph. Ref.
11.172a.21-30; Anal. post. 1.10-11). Henceforth, Aristotle is more easily
understood when he remarks that
"everyone, including the unscientific, makes some kind of use of dialectic and the art
of critic; for all, up to a certain point, attempt to test those who profess knowledge.
Now this is where the common principles come in; for they know these of themselves
just as well as the scientists, even though their expression of them seems to be very
 DIALECTIC, RHETORIC AND CRITIQUE IN ARISTOTLE 105

inaccurate. Thus they all practice refutation; for they perform unmethodically
(Cl-tEXVroc;) the task which dialectic performs methodically (£vtExvroc;), and the man
who carries out an examination by means of an art of reasoning is a dialectician."
(11.172a.30-36).

In other words, the critique which accompanies the discourse of men,

whether they be unscientific or learned men, is generally carried out without
art, while that of the dialectician makes use of rules and of a precise and
circumstanced method. The only common element between these types of
critique is that as critique, they take commonplaces into consideration.
Outside of this factor, which in a certain sense also joins these two parts of
dialectic of critique and rhetoric, the critique carried out according to
dialectic art (Evtexv~) presents more possibilities and may claim to a major
role in the institution of principles of knowledge - of a different knowledge
than that of the learned man. In a more concrete manner, this signifies that
only this part of dialectic, which the Stagirite calls peirastike, may examine
(e~eta.~etv) problems with a view to establishing knowledge through later,
more properly scientific, research. This is a point which we have also
discussed elsewhere,23 and which dispenses us from coming back to it here.
We will also conclude our study of this critical part of dialectic by clarifying
the difference between rhetoric and critique. In order to do this, we will draw
our attention to two of Aristotle's analyses: one concerns the refutation that
relies on the "consequent" and which has a parallel in rhetoric; the other is
related, more strictly speaking, to the institution of principles of the real and
unfolds outside of any analogy with rhetoric.
The refutation resting on the "consequent", Aristotle tells us in the
Sophistical Rejutations,24 takes place due to our considering the relation of
the consequence to be convertible: noting that when A is, B also necessarily
is, one deduces that when B is, A also necessarily is. Now, such a presupposi-
tion creates at least three levels of error: that of opinion which derives from
sense-perception, that of rhetoric and that of science. In the first case, one
may mistake gall and honey by the fact that they are yellowish, or one may
sometimes deduce that it has rained from the fact that the earth is drenched.
But, Aristotle states clearly, these relationships are not necessary one. It is the
same in rhetoric concerning proofs from signs (Kata to <J1lJl£lov). It is the
case, for example, of the person who wishes to prove that a certain man is an
adulterer by taking into account the consequences of that way of life - the
fact of dressing himself elaborately or of wandering at night. Now, this
implies no necessity since there are many people to whom these characteris-
tics apply without their behavior being adulterous for all that. Finally, in the
106 LAMBROS COULOUBARITSIS

case of philosophy or of science, the use of such an argument founded on

consequences may be encountered with Melissus, for example, when he
deduces the infmite (lX1tEtpov) and thus eternal character of the universe
basing himself on the fact, on the one hand, that the universe has not come
into being, in that nothing is created from non-being, and, on the other hand,
that all that has come into being has a beginning. Now, the universe has not
come into being, therefore the universe has no beginning (it is infinite and
thus eternal). Aristotle responds to this type of syllogism by saying that the
consequence is not necessary, for "even if what has come into being always
has a beginning, anything that has a beginning need not have come to be, any
more than it follows that a man who is hot must be in a fever because a man
who is in a fever is hot" (5.167b.18-20). Melissus therefore does not discern
that the conversion of a universal affIrmative proposition ("what has come
into being always has a beginning") provides an afftrmative particular
("something having a beginning has come into being") and in no way an
affIrmative universal ("everything that has a beginning has come into
being").25
The critique of Melissus is indeed founded on rule which belong to
syllogistic art. The refutation of his doctrine seen, under the circumstances, as
an endoxon (a statement containing some consideration in that it was
advanced by a man showing consideration [~vOO~Ot]),26 takes into account
neither the particular audience, nor the character of the person examining, but
rather a well-defined logical model. On the contrary, in the above case about
the adulterous man, there is ambiguity, for if it is true that dialectic's
belonging to the rhetorical art immediately renders null and void the argu-
ment based on consequences, nevertheless the rhetor, in his effort to accuse
or to blame someone, could utilize it by dissimulating its logical status; the
delicate task of refuting it falls to the defense. In other words, the context in
which appear these two types of refutation (which nonetheless depend on an
analogous logical error) ensures them of another value. This is because in the
case of rhetoric, where a given action is at stake, the confrontation between
opposite theses can come about in many distinct manners depending on the
intentions inspiring the participants,27 while in the case of philosophical or
scientific critique, the intention seems to be subordinated to the very problem
at hand and to the logic that sustains it. This seems to us to be the difference
which, in Aristotle, makes necessary the distinction between two parts of
dialectic: rhetoric and critique. In order to well understand the speciftcity of
critique (1tEtP(l(TtlKT)), it is fttting to take up an even clearer example in
which the rhetorical effect is eclipsed in favor of the internal strength of the
 DIALECTIC. RHETORIC AND CRITIQUE IN ARISTOTLE 107

philosophical reflection.
When Aristotle poses an aporia, he considers it not to be enough, in order
to resolve it, to take into account what has been said about it. One must also
take into account what was not said, what could have or could still be said.
Based on this principle, one can form various endoxa in order to undertake a
refutation. 28 This, in fact, means that every philosophical quest supposes the
consideration of all the possibilities concerning the matter at hand, that is, the
aporia being discussed. This process had already had a first expression in
Plato's Parmenides in which he studies the One from the perspective of all
possibilities, and thereby constitutes the nine hypotheses of the One.29 In
Aristotle, this procedure finds an application fairly quickly in the quest for
happiness and in the search for the number of principles of becoming. We
will take up this second example here. 30
Indeed, to consider all the possibilities that exist for the number of
principles means, by Aristotle's reckoning, that the possibilities are: one or
many; if there is one, it will be mobile or immobile; if there are several, they
will befinite or infinite in number. Considering the opinions advanced by the
philosophers of his time, he tags the various doctrines to each of these
possibilities which he refutes one by one and coming to the conclusion that
the number of principles must be finite. A [mal critique, addressed to
Empedocles, allows him to conclude that the number of principles must be
greater than two and less than four. 31 The refutative analysis thus leads the
Stagirite to dismiss a set of possibilities. This analysis is dialectical or, more
precisely, "critical" (1retp(l<rn~). However, the question of the ultimate
choice between two or three principles remains open - so much so that, on
this subject, Aristotle speaks of a "great aporia" (a7topt(lv EX£l 7tOAJ.:Tlv)
(Phys. I.6.189b.27-29). This means that the dialectical procedure, thanks to
which Aristotle reaches this result, this possibility of a choice between two or
three principles, is insufficient to deciding as to the exact number of these
principles. That is why the Stagirite undertakes another study whose proce-
dure is constructive, that is, which establishes a positive knowledge
()'VCOPl<rnlCT)) which is the essence of the philosophical procedure.32 This
latter leads to the thesis that holds the principles to be two (matter and form)
or three (matter, form, and privation) according to whether one conceives of a
static point of view or one of becoming.33 But whatever the result of this
analysis may be, it is certain that neither this philosophical procedure nor the
critical one which precedes it has anything to do with rhetoric. For their aim
is the institution of principles, whatever they be, on the basis of a reflection
on all the possibilities for considering a given problem.
108 LAMBROS COULOUBARITSIS

4. CONCLUSION

By way of a very provisional conclusion, we can say that, in Aristotle,

dialectic goes beyond the field of rhetoric, being that the latter is only a part
of dialectic, with respect to another part which is accorded to critique, strictly
speaking. The privilege of taking part in philosophical reflection and in all
knowledge of a principial order in order to constitute a moment of the
aporetic method34 falls to this second part of dialectic. This explains why in
his Metaphysics, Aristotle compares philosophical and critical (1t£tpacm.~)
procedures and passes over in silence any reference to rhetoric which appears
as a dialectic belonging to the peculiar domain of action.
Now, when we compare this view with that which captivated Perelman in
1955 concerning dialectic, we remark that he contrasts critical and dialectical
dialogue. While he justly discerns that critical dialogue puts the examination
of an argument into play in order to show its incompatibility with other
arguments granted by the speaker, he adds that "the dialogue ceases to be
critical and becomes dialectical, thus acquiring a constructive philosophical
interest when, beyond the internal coherence of their discourse, interlocutors
try to agree on what they consider to be true, or at least on the opinions which
they recognize as being the most certain. The search for truth, as Plato
conceived it, becomes, in Aristotle, an argumentation based on propositions
that are not necessarily, but generally granted and whose conclusions are not
obvious either, but consistent with common opinion." 35 In fact, by making
dialectic a constructive discourse (the Platonic point of view), even though it
is only a refutative procedure in Aristotle, and by reducing Aristotelian
argumentation moreover to the taking up of common opinion, Perelman
leaves the very specificity of Aristotelian dialectic in obscurity where it
concerns science and philosophy. That is to say that when it finds its raison
d' etre in the necessity of envisaging a problem according to all its pos-
sibilities, in order to go beyond the opinions that are enunciated on its sub-
ject. 36 Henceforth, one is compelled to wonder if, by instituting a "new
rhetoric" instead of a "new dialectic", Perelman does not merely develop the
rhetorical side of Aristotelian dialectic by obscuring, so to speak, another, no
less fertile, aspect: that which its "critical" part conceals.37

NOTES
1 Ch. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, La nouvelle rhetorique. Traite de
I' argumentation, Vol. I, Paris, 1958, pp. 1-13, esp. pp. 6-8.
 DIALECTIC, RHETORIC AND CRITIQUE IN ARISTOTLE 109

2 Ch. Perelman, "La methode dialectique et Ie role de l'interlocuteur dans Ie

dialogue", Entretiens philosophiques d'Athenes, Athens, 1955, pp. 179-183.
3 And when it does appear, it does so in an altogether different context.
4 The New Rhetoric, p.7.
5 This absence is already significant on its own, and allows us to understand, at least
partially, the orientation that the "new rhetoric" takes: dissimulating, as we shall see,
the critical part of the Aristotelian dialectic.
6 Once again the use of the term antistrophos registers a distance in the correspon-
dence (Rhet. I.1.1354a.l) - which is limited, as we shall see, to the syllogistic
character of rhetoric and by which Aristotle's rhetoric ensures its difference with the
preceding rhetorics.
7 Cf. Top. I.12.105a.l0-19. See also our study "Y a-t-il une intuition des principes
chez Aristote", Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 133-134, 1980, pp. 440-471.
8 Rhet.,I.2.1356a.34-b27.
9 Ibid., 1357b.26-36.
10 On this question, Aristotle sometimes speaks of a difference governed by
proairesis.
11 On the meaning to assign to the endoxon, see our study "Dialectique et philosopbie
chez Aristote", nlAoaoqnll, 8-9, 1978-1979, pp. 229-256, 231-232, where we speak
of a "statement containing some value" or of a "generally accepted consideration".
12 On this question, see Pierre Hadot, "Philosophie, Dialectique, Rhetorique dans
l'antiquite", Studia Philosophica, 39, 1980, pp. 139-166, 140-146, who nonetheless
loses sight, as moreover most interpreters of Aristotle do, of the "critical" aspect of
dialectic.
13 Cf. our study "Dialectique et philosophie chez Aristote", cited above, pp. 231-235.
14 See our study "Le probleme de la proairesis chez Aristote", Annales de l'Institut de
Philosophie de l'UL.B., 1972, pp. 7-50.
1S On the matter of agonistike see in particular Top. Vn.5.
16 The importance of the learned man was first noted by P. Aubeneque, Le probleme
de l' etre chez Aristote, Paris, 1962, Ch. Ill. As far as the limits of this interpretation,
see our article "Dialectique et Philosophie chez Aristote", op. cit., pp. 238 ff.
17 Reported thus in the Politique.
18 Cf. our study "Sophisma et Philosophia chez Aristote", Annales de l'Institut de
Philosophie de l' U L.B., 1978, pp. 7-38.
19 See our article "Dialectique et philosophie chez Aristote", op. cit., pp. 231 ff.,
where an analysis of the meaning and scope of this essential passage from Aristotle
will be found.
20 See N°. 11 below.
21 Here it is a matter of a crucial point in Aristotelian dialectic: which we have
established in our "Dialectique et philosophie chez Aristote", op. cit.
n Indeed, we cannot lose sight of the fact that, for Aristotle, refutation is an inference
which is contradictory to the beginning argument (Ref. Soph. 2.165a.38ff.;
6.168a.36ff.; 1O.171a.195, etc.).
23 See again "Dialectique et philosophie chez Aristote", op. cit.
24 Here we are paraphrasing the passage between 167b.1 and b.20.
2S Cf. J. Tricot, In ref. soph. (J. Vrin), p. 20 n.2.
26 Top.I.l.100b.21-23.
110 LAMBROSCOULOUB~~

27 I here paraphrase Ch. Perelman, "La methode dialectique et Ie role de

l'interlocuteur dans Ie dialogue", op. cit., p. 181.
28 On this subject, see how he emphasizes his aporetic method in Metaph. B .1.
29 Cf. E. Berti, "Aristote et la methode dialectique du Parminide de Platon", Revue
InternaliofllJle de Philosophie, 133-134, 1980.
30 Cf. L' avenement de la science physique. Essai sur la Physique d' Aristote, Brussels,
1980, pp. 131 ff., where we develop this problem in a more detailed manner.
31 Ibid., pp. 139 ff.
32 This study begins in Phys. 1.7, along the lines of an analysis of general becoming
and ends in the institution of the principles of becoming according to the ousia. See
our book, cited above, pp. 154ff.
33 Ibid., pp. 191 ff.
34 See our study "Dialectique et philo sophie chez Aristote", op. cit., pp. 243 ff.
35 Ch. Perelman, "La methode dialectique et Ie role de l'interlocuteur dans Ie
dialogue", op. cit., p. 181.
36 Even if this knowledge established by the critique of preceding opinions and by the
implementation of new methodological data appears retrospectively to be a new
"opinion".
37 It is moreover significant that while histories of rhetoric are prevalent today, the
history of dialectic is still neglected - in particular with regard to its critical aspect and
its dogmatization repeated by various philosophical currents.
 MICHEL MEYER

TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF RHETORIC

1. THE CRISIS OF LOGOS: ARISTOTLE AND DESCARTES

Aristotle was the ftrst thinker to propose a codification of Western rationality.

It is true that Plato, against whom he nevertheless reacted, preceded him on
certain points. The predicative theory of judgement gives form to the
proposition, while scientiftc and dialectic syllogistic are the modes of
production of propositions. The well-known principle of non-contradiction,
which is the key of all argument and of all possible discursivity is found at
the foundation of logos. How can such a principle be demonstrated without
putting it into practice? Aristotle is without ambiguity: such a justiftcation
cannot be furnished without begging the question, for logical demonstration
rests on non-contradiction. Thus we have recourse to dialectic: Aristotle will
validate his supreme principle by means of a hypothesis which brings to mind
Descartes' "Evil Genius" in that he imagines someone contradicting his
principle. If this principle cannot be justified directly, it can at least be
established indirectly by refuting all possible refutations. The proof ad
absurdum is an example of good dialectical argument in that, through
propositional complementarity, by eliminating one of the branches of the
alternative A or non-A, the opposite term necessarily remains. Here we ftnd
verified that cherished idea of Aristotle's, in which the dialectic can, in some
way, be the foundation of the scientific ideal of necessity. According to
Aristotle, he who opposes the principle of non-contradiction is in a bad
position precisely because he practices what he expressly rejects. By
contradicting, he gives credit to non-contradiction with which, moreover, he
wants nothing to do. The contradiction of the principle of non-contradiction
being an untenable position, the principle in question triumphs by evicting
the adversary.
One could believe this to be the case at least on a first reading. How could
Aristotle's imaginary contradictor be really troubled by his own incoherence
given what he affirms about coherence: an affirmation which perpetuates
itself as soon as it destroys itself? Propositional logic finds itself once again
bereft of foundation. For we must see that Aristotle wished to impose a
certain vision of discourse and of reason which we now know was to

111
112 MICHEL MEYER

determine the history of thought up to the present by making judgement the

minimal unity, i.e. the measure and the bearer of truth.
The principle of non-contradiction does not just refer to the principle of
identity. It also defines the cardinal form of logos as proposition, i.e. as a
compound containing a subject and a category-attribute. It would be wrong to
see in this principle merely a condition for the existence of logos; it is in fact
much more than that. It characterizes the very structure of propositional
discursivity and rationality. Let us examine this more closely. If we affirm
something, say B, and can state something else, something different from B
to the point of opposition, say non-B, we obtain a real discourse which
implies, of course, the ability to utter more than a single and same thing.
Therefore, B as well as non-B must be possible. But this will only be the case
if a same subjacent reality is postulated for B and non-B of which it will be
said that it is B or non-B. The subject will be called A, and B as well as non-
B will become categories: the identity (thUS the permanence) of A will imply
that B and non-B may be said to be in a relation of successive identification
with respect to A. A cannot simultaneously be Band non-B if we want A to
remain what it is, that is, A. At this point, predication refers to the identity of
the subject: predicates and subjects are hardly conceivable without one
another. Thanks to this, it can now be maintained without difficulty that
contrary assertions are possible if they relate to a subject for which they are
the categorization determining it as the subject that it is. By introducing the
concept of subject, discourse as a plurality of different and opposed proposi-
tions may henceforth be understood without any difficulty. And, as Aristotle
was to explain to us in his theory of syllogism, thanks to the implementation
of non-contradiction, propositional logos is able to generate propositions
indefinitely.
Nevertheless, we stumble against this principle as against something
obvious. Propositionalism may be contested at its very roots by the
philosophical skepticism incarnated in the incoherent contradictor that
Aristotle imagines. How are we to face this "Evil Genius" who distills the
poison of unsurpassable doubt? How are we to accept the very idea of the
ultimate evidence of the first principles of propositionalism? These two
questions are, in these very terms, those of Descartes. Descartes is always
imagined to be a radical breaker of the tradition that preceded him and as
explicitly opposing Aristotle. He is indeed so in regard to syllogistic, but the
principles of syllogistic inevitably escape syllogistic because of the inevitable
regression ad infinitum that would otherwise result from it. As for the break:
which Descartes introduces, it is perhaps less total than Cartesian doubt
 TOWARD AN ANTIIROPOLOGY OF RHETORIC 113

would give us to think. What Descartes obviously wants to institute is a

foundation of propositional order incarnated in the deductive rationality both
of discourse and of mathematics. Since evidence and its corresponding
intuition sustain propositionalism, he must show why it is evident that
evidence must impose itself as such. We know that the Cartesian thought is
circular. Descartes puts into practice the logos which he wishes to found. He
nevertheless gives something like a second life back to propositionalism at
the dawn of modem times, that is, at a time which requires exactly the type of
adaptation with which he inflects rationality. I will explain. The primacy of
consciousness, which is affirmed in the famous cogito, has another function
than the one that we usually accord to it. We usually associate Descartes with
idealism and the birth of the subject. This is all quite true, but is not all. What
does this famous birth of the subject really mean? Is the subject as a founda-
tion not to be found in jUdgement? Why this anthropological shift? With its
automatic syllogisms, the Aristotelian machinery could not integrate the idea
of a general mathematization of nature which was echoed by the new science.
But it is legitimate to wonder how the unity of Reason could be assured, for
all that, by the concept of man as a foundation.
The mathematization of logos is not the only thing that must become
conceivable according to Descartes. There is also an increased rhetoricization
of discourse which acts as a counterbalance to mathematization and which
can only kill the scientificity of syllogism which was used by the Scholastics
to say everything and anything. Scientific syllogism in Aristotle is opposed to
rhetorical practice, thanks notably to ontology. Indeed, when judgement says
that a certain A is B, it affirms what A is; and it is because it is necessarily
this and nothing else that there is scientific syllogism. The ontological
requirement is determinant for the scientificity of syllogism. It is henceforth
understood that with univocity and plurivocity of being to found constraining
or to explain the non-constraining character of an argument, the philosopher
feels discomfort at facing the necessities of modem science which are not on
the order of simple formal logic. But behind the movement of the Renais-
sance there is more than a requestioning of empty formalism and of the
syllogistic ontology inherited from Aristotle put in the service of theological
conceptions of the cosmos. In the background, there is a realization that
because everything may be expressed and rejected on opposite grounds, the
famous constraining of argument is lost. Non-contradiction is not enough to
materialize truth which pertains to another level of research (mathematical
and observational perhaps, but certainly not formal, thus ontological in the
way the Greeks and the thinkers of the Middle Ages understood it). What is
114 MICHEL MEYER

therefore needed is another substance-foundation than the one that syllogistic

sees in subjects of judgement and their purely rhetorical ontological relations.
The word is out: once constraining is abandoned, logos is no more than
rhetoric and this is exactly what is reproached of scholasticism. Moreover,
there is a whole resurgence of rhetoric in the Renaissance. Foucault has
reminded us of the extent to which similarity and resemblance dominated the
intellectual processes of the sixteenth century. Descartes was to seek a new
substance-subject in order to put an end to the rhetoricization of logos and to
give a foundation for that mathematicization of the cosmos which he was to
pursue. With resemblance and analogy everything is in everything, every-
thing has a relationship with everything, everything - thus its contrary - can
be said. It is bothersome that no answer is excluded because if a question is
asked - an alternative - we should be able to eliminate one term of this
alternative in order to give the other term as the answer. Henceforth a
question cannot really be resolved; it will be indefmitely arguable if not
indefinitely argued. Let it be noted that this destiny is inscribed, independent
of the quolibet practiced in the medieval university, in Aristotelian syllogistic
itself. "Aristotle's efforts to establish a theory of science evince [...J more
than one difficulty on the essential points. There is a difficulty, first of all,
with the very notion of science and with the distinction between science and
dialectic: in the Topics, the two disciplines are both contrasted and linked,
especially as to the knowledge of principles. And when in the Analytics
Aristotle returns to this question of principles, he returns also, more or less
explicitly, to dialectical processes, thus attempting, over and against his own
very clear declarations, to found the necessary upon the probable." (J .M. Le
Blond, Logique et methode chez Aristote, p. 147, Vrin, Paris, 3rd ed., 1973).
This separation may well be necessary with Aristotle, it is nonetheless
impossible and contamination between the two is inevitable.
Descartes will thus combat the rhetoricization of logos, that is, quite
simply, the, fact that questions perpetuate themselves in their answers which
thus only appear to be solutions. Whence the problem of determining what a
solution is: this will become the Discourse on the Method. Against a certain
ontology, a new logic, a new Organon must be set up and founded.
In order to locate the model of the out-of-the-question (i.e. the answer)
when everything now constitutes question (a situation which Descartes sums
up for us in his radical doubt and the motivations he provides for it), an
answer is necessary which by expressing this universal problematization will
suppress it at the same time. This, we know, will be the cogito. The affirma-
tion of the primacy of consciousness, of the "I am thinking", is the position of
 TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF RHETORIC 115

an out-of-the-question liable to resolve all debates, all possible questions - an

Archimedian fulcrum which will allow one to decide whether an answer is an
answer or not. Rhetorical errancy and soft humanism are finished: here is the
die-hard [pure et dure], thus, the scientistic version of Reason which grants
the thinking substance its full role. How will the cogito as unquestionable
answer found the unity of the new rationality? Through reflexivity, through
transference of property, the substance that I am will be the foundation of all
substantification, of any subject of judgement, and, finally, of causality itself.
What else does Descartes say in the Third Meditation? "For example, I think
that a stone is a substance, or is a thing capable of existing independently,
and I also think that I am a substance. Admittedly I conceive of myself as a
thing that thinks and is not extended, whereas I conceive of a stone as a thing
that is extended and does not think, so that the two conceptions differ
enormously; but they seem to agree with respect to the classification
"substance". Again, I perceive that I now exist, and remember that I have
existed for some time; moreover, I have various thoughts which I can count;
it is in these ways that I acquire the ideas of duration and number which I can
then transfer to other things." (Descartes, Meditations of First Philosophy,
transl. John Cottingham, pp. 30-31.)
This text is of cardinal importance because it illustrates, better than any
other text, the essence of philosophical reasoning: I am a subject, a substance;
there are therefore subjects and substances which correspond to what I can
conceive (clearly and distinctly), such as myself. I am the model of the
answer because the I am is that which conditions all other answers, and so on.
The answer is deduced each time from its reflexive thematicization which is
autonomized by applying it to something else. Such is the meaning of the
Cartesian foundation in the principle of reflexivity. This primacy given to
anthropological substance restores to inference all of its force by transform-
ing it in the most radical manner of all. From syllogistic, it will become
causal. Mechanism is born. It too will become generalized into ontology.
How is this movement to be understood? If I can say B from A as non-B,
then A is identified by an alternative: since it is itself problematical, nothing
stops us from saying non-A. The identity of A then indeed creates a problem
and no wave of an ontological wand over a possible arrangement of the
meanings of being, aimed at making opposites non-contradictory, will change
anything whatsoever as to the reality of things. On the other hand, if I can
form the idea of an unquestionable principle, I will have restored to the idea
of subject all its force, and judgement - the proposition - will once again
have become possible. I will be able to conclude that A is B. A therefore B.
116 MICHEL MEYER

Here, the model of the subject of judgement is substance. The inference

clutches to a relation of substances - whence mechanism. What is causality if
not the fact that A entails B unwaveringly and not non-B?
The certainty of such a shift is reaffirmed and founded in the cogito. The
cogito is indeed the birth certificate of the causality principle. The experience
that the subject has of its own deducibility, caused by the objectivity of the
concept of subject which authorizes it to call itself a thinking substance, is the
source of all future experience which can therefore only be causal.

2. THE DEATH OF THE SUBJECT AND THE BIRTH OF MODERNITY

It is the same with subjects as it is with the rest: excess is always harmful [Ie
trop nuit en tout]. With Descartes and his successors, the subject is seen as
granting subjectivity a founding, constitutive, and (as Kant would say)
transcendental role. What did Descartes accomplish in thus doing other than
prevent rhetoric from encroaching upon the entire logos? When 1 say that he
sought an answer to every possible question, one must not for an instant think
that there is any concern with questioning in Descartes. On the contrary, all
he wants is to put a stop to the rhetoricization which consists in questioning
without ever being able to answer once and for all. Causality is solution and it
is also science. This is sufficient to suppress interrogativity, which is
considered a failure of the mind. Besides, what is doubt but an assertive mode
of our thinking process? When 1 say to myself "I doubt", Descartes states, I
cannot but conclude that 1 am. It is not because 1 doubt that I am, it is because
1 can say the one that 1 can affirm the other. We never stop affirming - even
when we doubt. We do not really question, unless we make a rhetoric of
assertivity out of this "questioning", in which case doubt would merely be the
rhetorical question referring to the preliminary assertion that 1 think - the
supreme condition of all possible assertivity. Thus no matter what may be
said, we always fall back on the subject and its absolute identity: 1 can say
that I am no matter what problem is posed. The subject prohibits all questions
by being a priori the ultimate answer before any question is even asked. It is
truly that A which subtends B as non-B, the opposite. No other subject has
this force, for all can be denied with the exception of the fact that 1 am, for if
1 deny, I still think. Every question is necessarily rhetorical in that the subject
renders any debate, for which it is not a priori the judge, impossible. By
anticipation concerning the very nature of the question asked, the subject
literally has the answer to everything. The subject is that authority of
automatic closure of logos upon itself. Judgement ensures its perenniality as
 TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF RHETORIC 117

absolute model. Once we realize that the Aristotelian subject does not prevent
dialectic opposition which can, furthermore, disguise itself in syllogisms Gust
like any proposition), we understand the deep significance of the
anthropological redefinition of the subject, i.e. of the recentering of
propositionalism in the classical age. If A is a real subject in a proposition
like "A is B", it excludes its opposability which must confirm its identity.
Now, according to Descartes, only the thinking subject possesses this
property since it maintains itself through all negation. On the other hand,
nothing prevents a judgement from being handed down upon rhetoricization
with the possibility of having non-A with B like A with non-B as well as with
B. The subject loses its identity through opposable predication and is no
longer really the subject. The Aristotelian subject gives no guarantee of the
power to face the rhetoricization of reason, especially as Aristotle accords
acceptance to rhetoric and recognizes its right to use syllogism. As judging is
nothing other than judging of the permanence of the subject beyond all
possible discussion on the SUbject, the rhetoricization of logos destroys the
idea of subject in its very function. Through the primacy of consciousness, of
its necessity and, in general, of the transference through reflexivity of the
concept of substance, the subject, born of the thinking subject, once again
becomes possible. This subject is then the concept which restores validity to
the proposition in which the out-of-question identity of this subject must be
ensured.
But the centuries passed, exhausting more and more the resources of
Cartesianism. In the nineteenth century, under the critiques of Marx,
Nietzsche, Freud, and Darwin, the anthropological primacy collapsed,
plunging thought into the confusion of the "trace" and the "lack" whose
stigmata contemporary thought still bears in the depths of its irrationalism.
How could the shock of History thus break the well-rounded closure of
propositional logos? All contradictions are reducible if the locking
mechanism is automatic: is not man as a foundation the identical mainstay of
any contradictority that may arise? In fact, if it is not recognized that the
change must always be integrated from the reduction of permanency which
establishes its authority upon this historical becoming, it will not be under-
stood that even though it is closed, the Cartesian model had to, in the end,
renounce its theoretically indefinite perpetuation. The latter rests upon the
nature of the Ego which effects the closure of logos. The Ego is thus the
rhetorical authority through which rhetoric repudiates itself. This may seem a
curious remark at fIrst reading. It must be reread and pondered. It means that
the Ego functions by closing logos upon itself because it has an answer for
118 MICHEL MEYER

everything, for every question. This implies the reducibility of all contradic-
tions to the identical which absorbs them. But the Ego cannot admit itself to
be a rhetorical authority because it functions the way it does precisely in
order to prevent rhetoric from invading logos in order to establish itself as
out-of-question before all problematization which should be taken into
account as such. The Ego must be able to answer everything. But it can
succeed in doing so only if it evacuates a priori the possibility of having true
questions to which, directly or indirectly it does not have the solution or the
resolution. Every problem encountered must be rhetorical in the sense that
one usually speaks of the rhetorical question: it must be exclusively a purely
formal question in that it refers back to some preliminary assertion which it
vehicles by way of implication. By denying rhetoric, the Ego cannot recog-
nize itself as rhetoric, i.e. as something that turns any new question back
toward an old one to which it already knows the answer. Given a question
that presents an opposition, the Ego that must face this alternative brings it
back, by intuition or deduction, to what it is not: a pre-constituted solution.
This process is well known under the name of rationalization or of that of
derivation. The Ego suppresses the question which was a real question,
resolving it by automatic suppression and thus transforming the dialectical
relation instituted by the confrontation with the newness of the real into an
implicit confirmation of that which is old, while at the same time, the Ego
represses itself in doing so. Rhetoricization consists in displacing real
questions, questions of the real, into questions to which one already has
(intuition) or can recover (deduction) the answer.
In the Ego, the unconscious is problematicity repressed and displaced into
rhetorical problems and denied as such. Irreducible problematicity which
weaves the web of the unconscious, manifests itself by a contradictority
which is reabsorbed, processed, displaced, and rationalized by the Ego in the
relation to the real - a problematicity that has its own sources in addition to
everything that derives from historicization, that is, from temporalization
springing from outer reality which must ceaselessly be refit to its reality
coherence as such. It may come as a surprise to read that reality constitutes
itself rhetorically. This is not the traditionally held image of the real.
Independent from us, solid, invariable, permanent as well as the cause of
many unexpected novelties, the real imposes itself as something that is not of
the rhetorical order. However, this image of reality, which we will not
contest, is not a given, but the result of a process that involves the Ego. The
Ego is confronted with problems, alternatives and contradictions which it
must answer. Opposition only makes sense with respect to answers which are
 TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF RHETORIC 119

already granted, at least some of which are imbedded in the far reaches of
ourselves, doubtlessly to our great relief. The continuity of the world requires
precisely that any new question be reducible to an old one; if not, we will be
confronted with a conflict which/or me is insoluble and the world will appear
shattered [se presentera en rupture]. The continuous identity of reality
therefore me3IlS nothing other than the assimilation of the new - of difference
- to identity (which really is not identity except rhetorically) by means of a
displacement which translates the problematic into the non-problematic, the
unknown into the already known (or the knowable). It is not that we cannot
accept the irreducible newness, but we must always be able to express it in
relation to that which it is not in order to accept it as it is. This supposes a
rhetorical transformation that rationalizes and recovers the opposition,
turning it into a question that the Ego can discuss - a rhetorical question. Let
us understand one another well: if the real can appear to the Ego as it is -
renewed, unexpected, and identical in its solidity outside the subject - it is
because the subject rhetoricizes and rationalizes the information, that is,
coordinates it and, quite simply, names it and thus recognizes it. When we
affirm that reality is constituted rhetorically, it is not a matter of content but
rather of form, of the very possibility of a real which is stable because it is
treated so by the Ego. In order for the real to indeed be the real, this rhetoric
of the subject must be repressed by it. This entails a derhetoricization of
reality which imposes itself in its objective identity. All of this follows from
the fact that we must resolve the problems of existence, life, and survival, and
that this ceaseless questioning of ourselves has to be elaborated collectively
as well as individually, based on the experience of past resolutions, based
upon the quasi-automatic suppression of the destabilization caused by the
problematization of our commerce with the world. This problematization is, I
repeat, not independent of us, for the problem only exists in relation to us.
Once it is evacuated and rhetoricized by the Ego, the solution asserts itself as
being independently valid, without any further reference to the problematic,
i.e. to that which moves us and situates the real in relation to us. If the
conscious Ego is often likened to the act of taking charge of the real, it can
only be so once the relation between them is already played out, when they
can be posited separately. Idealism and empiricism have defined themselves
on the basis of the moment of which we speak, in order to reflect upon the
subject's possibility to leave himself in order to approach the object and
constitute it in its objectivity. Both were destined to fail because they posed a
process-problem based on the results of that process. Thinking only in terms
of results, idealism could no more retrieve the object than empiricism could
120 MICHEL MEYER

the subject Subject and object being separated both for idealism and for
empiricism, the question of the process of knowledge became insoluble. How
could the real emerge from the Ego? How can the real engender its own
perception, thus its own fracture? In short, the implications of the affrrmation
that the Ego integrates the real into its independence are too often forgotten.
And the implications are ideologization as well as all less specific forms of
rationalization by which the reality of the real arises [surgit] while concealing
something from us: an irreducibility that would destabilize us. In order for the
Ego to accept the real as is, its looming appearance [surgissement] must be
rhetoricized - an appearance which introduces difference or alterity: the
question which, in the final analysis, is an "I question myself' [je
m'interroge], since in it I am always in some way put back into question.
Of course, there is still science: one tends to think that by accepting the
newness of experience in its very irreducibility, it states the real non-
rhetorically. Here, once again, one must be careful with respect to inherited
images. A theory is rarely abandoned because of the authority of problems
challenging it. A purely ad hoc process of integration and of partial revision
takes place well before scientists, who have judged a theory irremediable,
decide to abandon it for another. Resistance to problematization is to be
found in science just as it is in the rest of our intellectual pursuits. In order to
save a certain image of the real, science rhetoricizes questions by various
means that range from neglect to conventional explanation through the
declaration of irrelevance and factual minimalization without forgetting the
challenging of factual interpretation which cannot be dissociated from the
latter. Moreover, the Ego also ends up rejecting rationalizations which open
onto incoherence and the inassumable just as it does onto the increasing
impossibility to take into account new realities on the basis of old ones.
The Ego, the subject, is the authority which mediates our corporeality, our
instincts, our problematicity (in the broad sense), and that which is outside
and opposes itself to the free flow of solutions which an inertia of our inner
tendencies would find natural to put into practice. The world is only a
problematizing one because it checks these solutions. The unconscious is
woven with problems because the solution to them is impossible, in considera-
tion of the fact that we are in the midst of things and beings, that life is not
self-evident and that, consequently, the unconscious exists as insurmountable
problematicity. Between this problematicity and that which puts us back into
question from the outside (but in the early times, this in the same thing), there
is the Ego.
The closure of the Ego corresponds to the necessity of facing all
 TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF RHETORIC 121

problematization which emerges both from the depths of our being and from
outside necessities. It is easy to imagine that the equilibrium is fragile and
that any pressure that is too strong from either side could entail breakages. To
avoid this from happening, the Ego closures itself [se cloture], thus managing
to live in a world which seems essentially stable to it. The infinite resolutive
capacity of logos derives from this. But the infinitude of this automatism in
resolution denies itself. Hence, the unconscious is the human condition of
reality. The Ego must repress the part of itself which represses the
problematic - suppressing it and turning it into pat answers. It must be the
answering process and by itself respond to questions which cannot really be
posed. In brief, the Ego is rhetorical in order to combat rhetoric, in order to
provide itself a real. Because this rhetorical component cannot be expressed,
it must be occulted. This explains the repression which splits the subject into
conscious Ego and unconscious Ego. Thus, the Cartesian subject is only a
subject in that it answers all possible questions ahead of time, thus to the
extent that it places itself beyond all debates in the capacity of outside-the-
debate. But the rhetoricization of all new problems in the uninterrupted
continuity of subjectivity is hidden by the apodictic character of the affmna-
tion of this subjectivity. One gets the feeling that science fulfills this rhetori-
cal role while, at the same time, denying it. Consciousness, as it was to define
modem subjectivity, was to allow rhetoric to function without having to be
expressed as such. Once the breaking down of subjectivity as foundation was
consummated in radical problematization, consciousness could not continue
to cover the totality of the subject. And the unconscious emerged as the other
side of the mirror - as negation of consciousness - with all of its rhetorical
properties of condensation and displacement. The resurgence of rhetoric in
the twentieth century has no other origin than the crisis of the subject.
Psychoanalysis was to be the avant-garde of this renewal. It arises when we
become aware of the role played by the rhetorical component of the Ego
which closures its logos. But because it is not the Cartesian master of it, it
cannot help but let this rhetoric appear as what it is. The subject is then
unmasked. Rhetoric will not really be studied for itself until later. Through
recognition of the role of rhetoric, the subject both saves and loses itself. As a
Cartesian subject, the human subject, which is foundational, is dead; but, as
an open articulation of the problematic, the subject can be understood to be at
the crux of a new anthropology, even though the very problematic which
concerns it cannot be thought of as such, precisely because there is no
problematology as yet. Rhetoric remains understood under the definition
which Plato and Aristotle, then Perelman, preserved for it, i.e. , the contradic-
122 MICHEL MEYER

tority of propositions and not as a referral to a question which alone allows us

to apprehend why, and in relation to what, opposition is possible.
The defundamentalization of the subject defines post-modernity in all its
aspects. It means that man is no longer Descartes' and Kant's "pure subject"
in relation to which it is always something else. Vanity according to Thack-
eray, or consciousness in the world according to Sartre: to be what one is not,
and to not be what one is. Far from being able to resolve everything yet, the
subject thus becomes, in tum, a problem (A and non-A) like anything else.
Empiricism has taken over man who is like any object: the human sciences
have become possible. But the bell tolls also for the pre-eminence of moral
values which are rooted in man. Barbarity is not far off. But let us not
misinterpret Nietzsche and Heidegger. What it is necessary to see clearly is
that the problematization of the subject cannot be conceived as such, as long
as we remain within the propositional model of logos, though it be without
foundation. Utilitarianism, Darwinism, and pragmatism will be seen as
sufficient and will "validate" such a logos which no longer maintains itself
except by its tradition and efficacy. The problematic will be the inexpressible
destiny of this logos, but this logos which only knows the positivity of the
assertorial, or more precisely, can express and state only this positivity, even
if it realizes that there are hollows in this cracked positivity. Henceforth, the
problematization which affects the out-of-the-question which we were will
still be thought according to propositional rationality which, for want of a
foundation, cannot but open onto irrationalism. Heidegger, like Wittgenstein,
will speak of silence. Sartre will continue to stake everything on conscious-
ness and the cogito, but would be forced to insert alterity into the very
definition he gives; this would lead him to the analysis of what he calls "bad
faith". Derrida will treat man as a trace - but a trace of what? The ascendancy
of the Cartesian subject and of the propositional model thus endures through
its very negation. As for Lacan, he will make the subject the empty compart-
ment in the network of signifiers - a lack which is never filled. Derrida calls
it dif!erance, for this discrepancy of the self with itself is the essence of the
subject. Structuralism encloses the subject in a network of which it is no
longer the master: a Borgesian labyrinth in which it is lost and indefinitely
searches for itself as a consciousness (a consciousness being, of course,
consciousness of itself and not unconscious) - it is fundamentally its own
mirror. It was, one should say more precisely, and all this is what these
authors remind us. Man cannot be any of this any more, but what he is cannot
be uttered, since he is what he is not - he is to the extent that he is always
something other than himself. The irreversible course of time in which man is
 TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF RHETORIC 123

projected, transcendence, all of these words hide poorly (behind their

manifest truth) what they borrow from a past whose supercession can only be
conceived in terms that prevent this supercession from taking place. We
indeed remain within a mode of thought that we would like to evacuate but
cannot. Problematicity is not approached otherwise than by alterity, contradic-
tion, and the temporality which maintains the oppositions without in-
coherency, as the formulation of the principle of non-contradiction indicates.
The time and the cult of tradition, which cannot but must be superceded
[indepassable mais a depasser), are thus found at the base of Heideggerian
philosophy. But propositionalism, which denies interrogativity, is poorly
equipped for apprehending it without distorting the new reality which it aims
at conceptualizing. It brings it back to what existed but from which it
nonetheless differs and assigns it a minus sign: A and non-A. Everything and
its opposite, thus the absurd. Deprived of all foundation, even our existence is
absurd. We have no ultimate reason to do one thing instead of its opposite.
But all discourse on existence is also absurd - an absurdity which, of course,
has been reinforced by the two World Wars which are the cause of Europe's
decline. Everything in art - from literature to music - vehicles this idea of the
lost identity of the stable and indubitable point of departure: the source of
values, meaning and ethics. The hidden order of art (to take up the title of
Ehrenzweig's book) is a chaos which is organized and mastered thanks to a
greater abstraction and figuration. It is the image of the modem world which
has seen the ancient one collapse and fragmentation creep in where continuity
once reigned. Our Peloponnesian Wars will have led us to the same abyss:
there was once Rome as there is now America. Literature, music, and
painting, to name only these, have expressed that death of the subject.
The subject plays an essential role in literature: it gives to the narrative its
unity - a sense, a direction which ties a beginning to an end; it totalizes a
narration, it is the for whom and the to whom of the text. Once deprived of
this fundamental role, subjects differ chapter after chapter. We see privileged
points of view disappear and characters abound in epics that aim at
reconstituting lost unity as in Joyce's Ulysses or today's South American
novels. Meaning will henceforth be a problem since there is no overarching
subject for the narrative. The narrative thus fragments, becoming more
abstract and enigmatic in relation to a real which conserves, in spite of it all, a
certain stability since we - each and everyone of us - are its subject. But the
subject that I am is also my neighbor, and the I, by dint of being everyone, is
no longer but a "man without qualities", a quotidian Ulysses whose only
adventure is everyone's non-adventure, an aseptized and organized universe,
124 MICHEL MEYER

more anonymous than ever. It is at this stage that literary criticism joins the
Marxist criticism of the dehumanized and atomized world which mechanizes
the subject. Work, once liberating for the protestantism of the individual
entrepreneur, becomes enslaving, once again, when the enterprise grows,
becomes capitalized and hierarchical by means of the factory.
Through increased abstraction and the loss of stable and unique meaning,
fiction, as in the nouveau roman, becomes non-story and becomes more and
more problematized. In this, it reflects a relationship to the real which is
perceived more and more problematically, thus throwing into question the
possibility of apprehending it as such. The very resources of discourse
undergo the ordeal. The language of fiction changes into the object of fiction
itself because the rhetoric of the real asserts itself as rhetoric. It is a matter of
maintaining the identity of the real through all oppositions that signify
difference, change, and non-identity. A non-identity which is thought (of)
rhetorically and is reabsorbed since difference is purely rhetorical: it
expresses what is non-identical by presenting it metaphorically as identity.
Rhetoric maintains the identity of the real by virtue of fiction. The work of art
in general - aesthetics - could well be a response to the need to cultivate a
rhetorical relationship with reality in order, precisely, to preserve its meaning
as externalized and identical. By its rhetorical structure, the Ego fulfills this
role, even when it is a producer and consumer of ideology.
The problematization that was to affect discourse reflexively, without yet
being able to understand itself as such, was to have as its effect the opening
of modem culture to a plurality of meanings. Shattered identity must re-
establish itself rhetorically, that is, as I have suggested, by the work of art, by
form and by symbolization. Through the rhetoricization of the real (which
grows quite generally so that reality in its very nature is maintained), the
rhetorical component will assert and reveal itself in its role. The real which
presents itself as rhetorical product discloses its imaginary and fictive unity
which only the symbolic allows us to apprehend. Here is indeed an image
which suits a broken real. But the closure of logos, finally representing what
it is, unable to continue repressing itself in a putative opening which would
ensure, as if by magic, the eternal continuity of the world, this identity of the
world detaches itself from reality in order that it be instituted on the rhetorical
level as a figurative identity. Reality is restored. This discrepancy, or
difference, becomes the literality of the logos that states the real which is the
same thing as the impossibility of stating the real in its own essential unity -
in its evident unity. Literality is then itself the fiction of this logos. One
cannot express things as they are without invoking what they are not.
 TOWARD AN ANTIIROPOLOGY OF RHETORIC 125

Heidegger very rightly stated this, thus bearing witness to the concern of
maintaining a certain logos - be it poetic, but never interrogative, and
reflexively so - allowing man to grant himself a sense of the lost identity
elsewhere. The world according to Being and Time is made up of sign
referrals, directions for use which solidify as soon as they point out things.
Identity as image, as figure, as sign, as fiction with respect to a real identity
(therefore unconscious of being an identity) is still reality in its irreducible
form - with, as its keystone, a rhetoric whose forgetting is finally forgotten
[dont I' oubli est enfin oublie1 but whose interrogative nature remains
unthinkable. The literal non-identity of the world would be dreadful if it
could not be re-established at another level. And the price to be paid is this
level of rhetoricization which the entirety of twentieth century thought - from
Heidegger to Perelman - has circumscribed in a multiplicity of ways. The
breakage of the world - its fragmentation - is thinkable thanks to this: the
meaning we can see in the loss of meaning will constitute its explication in
the discourse that expresses the real as broken. Contradiction? No, metaphor
- the supercession of fragmentation in its articulation. We of course know
that when a Joyce, for example, speaks of everyday existence like a mythical
epic, he immediately raises the question of whether it is so because he
considers it impossible or if, on the contrary, he demands that we see life for
what it is: a heroic adventure for each of us, but banal for everyone else. It is
a bit like the cinematographer who films scenes of violence which we cannot
decide whether he is condemning or praising. To speak is indeed to evoke a
question, an alternative, by means of the answer which alone is delivered to
us. "Under the short story and the chronicle, behind the blurry or brutal
visions which form an unfinished whole, something of a mystery which
remains an enigma imposes itself whose secret must not be provided by the
organizer of these estrangements [itrangements]: at the same time as the
novel becomes a difficult reality, it becomes a myth." R.M. Alreres,
Metamorphoses du roman, p. 133, Albin Michel, Paris, 1966). Here, the
unified and coherent expression of the fragmentary along with the reflection
of this discourse on itself is the proof of this rhetorical and mythical rees-
tablishment of the whole.
Abstract art is thus the most realistic (art) there is: it makes sense of the
nonsense by giving it a form, an appearance. The unity of Gestalten is
displaced outside the literality of works, therefore outside of that to which
they refer. One must search and search elsewhere. This is what a symbolic
system, which signifies literally nothing, forces us to do. Discontinuity results
from the fragmentation of the literal and the figurative into a quest which is
126 MICHEL MEYER

split off from the unity by rhetoric. "Discontinuity summons the notion of a
world whose order is either absent or invisible", writes Ralph Heyndels in La
Pensee fragmentee (Bruxelles: Mardaga, p. 22) - an alternative, a problem
which may be summed up in the fact that a Gestalt is literally asked as the
rhetorical and subjacent figure behind this discontinuity. The entirety of art
becomes enigmatic by allowing itself to be apprehended as rhetorical or
formal: what it represents (because it is represented) is not expressed but
suggested, evoked, dispersed in a whole that literality can only announce.
From the expressed, we move to the expression. The subject will be found
everywhere - in the intentionality of language acts as well as in rhetoric in
the broad sense - because, no longer "pure" as in Kant, subjectivity can
finally be empirical, thus circumscribable. But subjectivity, which associates
subjectively and sometimes with arbitrariness, is to be found especially in the
receiver of works which no longer can have decipherable interpretations
without an active intervention on his part. A hermeneutic act always results
when something in the work abruptly confronts the receiver with the
necessity of an interpretative demand. This receiver, reader, or listener must
answer concerning the unity or the Gestalt of the work of which he has
become the depositary. The whole so-called School of Reception (Jauss, Iser)
has shown this, but by emphasizing one aspect which should be, nevertheless,
correlated with Deconstruction (Derrida) which has tried to show how all
works deconstruct their unity by moving all the literal of its expression
toward the impossibility of expressing itself as work. The text is thus a
plurality of intertexts. Deconstructivism loses sight of the receiver's role and
reception loses sight of the reflexivity of rhetoric that finally expresses and
signifies itself at the outcome of its autonomization. But the process at the
base is the same: radical problematization which both removes us from the
real and puts us back into question in the evidence of what we are with
respect to the world, and, consequently, by this questioning, refers us to a
multiplicity of possibilities. These possibilities, being enigmatic as they
express literally something other than what they express, demand answers
from those to whom they are intended: the audience. The work questions us
even more, presents more of a problem, because it refers more to its
problematicity, because it has rhetoric as its theme. "The novel itself, in its
most recent forms, no longer attempts to represent a reality outside the work,
but rather to lay bare the powers of writing as an operation upon language."
(p. Van Rossum-Guyon, Critique du roman, p. 28, Gallimard, 1970).
Because of this very fact, enigmaticity arises (it is indissoluble from the
deconstruction of every answer about the meaning of the text), leaving us
 TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF RHETORIC 127

with problematicity alone.

The combination of these complementary aspects has become a fact in
fiction itself, but not in theory which is still behind the times. Calvino, for
example, in his novel, If on a winter night a traveler, presents a narration
which is built on the introduction of the reader which disorients, breaks, and
reorients the story. The book in the book and the reader in the book blend
together. Moreover, Kafka already in the famous text of Parables brings to
light the arising of rhetoric and what it implies for the apprehension of the
signified.
"Were you to conform to symbols you would yourself become symbol and
thus liberate yourself from your daily woes. Another might say: I wager that
there's a symbol in that, too. The first responds: you would win. The second
says: Yes, but sadly only symbolically. The first: No. In reality. For symboli-
cally, you have lost."
Similarly, in The Test, we encounter the allegory of all literary modernity:
the servant who gets hired because he cannot answer (because he does not
even understand them) the employer's questions. It is of course the reader-
the servant of literature - who can no longer pose the question about meaning
and find an answer outside of this question. By understanding that the answer
is the question itself, he passes his test as reader. He has understood that what
was to be understood was problematicity itself as the one and only answer.
But without a problematology that can express the problematic without
reabsorbing it into the assertorial which abolishes it, the servant's answer is
absurd and comprehension falls back on unavoidable incomprehension.

Generally, the problematization of the subject is also equivalent to that of the

reader, the spectator, and the listener. "The claim of melody to represent the
conscious Gestalt of music is seriously challenged in favor of a more
profound meaning. Serialization discards every remnant of an identical
sequence and systematically attacks every vestige of a surface Gestalt. [...]
The identity of temporal sequence as the principle of an acoustic Gestalt is
paralleled in vision by the identity of spatial distribution. It is difficult to
recognize an object if it is shown upside down, almost impossible if the
spatial relationships between its elements are scrambled up. But this is
precisely what happens in Picasso's portraits and in his arbitrary conglomera-
tions of the human figure. I have argued that a total syncretistic vision that is
undifferentiated in the arrangement of the details could transcend the chaotic
impression and recognize the likeness and the inviolate wholeness of the
human body." (A. Ehrenzweig, The Hidden Order of Art).
128 MICHEL MEYER

The literal, the appearance, that which shows itself the most directly, leads
us to proceed further, demanding an interpretation because enigmaticity is
this demand. The figurative of the literal is the articulation of a question and
of an answer. Identity is the figurative: a question which is expressed in the
fact of saying and which, for that reason, is never said (literally). Gestalten
are no longer constituted but rather to be constituted. He who receives the
artistic message knows full well that it is, as the term goes, "auto-referential"
and that the gap it produces in relation to our references is meant to put us
back into question. Thus the receiver becomes the producer of meaning -
even of textuality - because he will have to structure it in its subjacent unity
which is figured in and by the text. Because the work responds by question-
ing (questioning its own meaning) and because the nature of a question is to
refer to several possibilities for answering, the plurality of interpretations
follows in entirely legitimate fashion. One could even say that if the meaning
- in its unicity - still makes sense as a notion for the subject who receives the
work, it is as question. Meaning as question is the answer to the question of
the meaning insofar as the text always solicits its reader by a figurative
demand. The content (thus the answer) varies; an answer which is all the
more figurative because the text is literally enigmatic. The reader, the
listener, the spectator are the respondents, just as an audience responds by
agreement or disagreement

3. FROM PROPOSmONAUST IRRATIONAUSM

TO PROBLEMATOLOGICAL RATIONAUTY

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Western reason was shaken in its most
solid foundations. In the final analysis, Descartes had given it the grounding
that Aristotle had failed to find. Cartesian thought was nevertheless to repeat
the circularity of the Aristotelian foundation. Reason could make reason of
everything except of the fact that it must make reason of everything. What
was to become of rationality once its initial weakness was perceived? It
would become increasingly technical: since global rationality is impossible,
there only remain partial and analytic rationalities adapted to limited ends
even though these are often very complex. Adaptation to these ends was to be
the byword of this Western rationality, impregnated as it was with the
paradox of its existence beyond its successes. For analytic reason may well
be efficient (since it is centered on discrete and circumscribed objectives), it
is no less paradoxical in its very foundation. For the very reason that it is
partial, partial rationality which expresses Western rationality is no longer
 TOWARD AN ANTIIROPOLOGY OF RHETORIC 129

capable of calling it Reason at large. It nevertheless imposes itself as the

rationality which prevails universally. Through the impossibility of being the
rationality, partial rationalities are globally irrational. We have a model of
rationality which is entirely fragmented and pragmatic and which, through its
universalization, is credited with something that it cannot be. How could a
reason which is no longer but partial become accepted as global without there
being contradiction? Science and technology merge here at the heart of this
analytic reason which is both impossible and terribly efficient: impossible as
model and practical as directions for use. Reason collapses, a certain
humanism disappears. We have moved from the man-subject to the man-
object along with all the disastrous moral consequences which derive from it.
Analytic reason is theoretical, and cynical or instrumental reason is practical.

Is it, as some claim, a legacy of positivism from the beginning of the century?
From the moment that discourse can only gloss endlessly upon the impos-
sibility of all discourse, discursivity, through the reflection of its own
fundamental problematicity escapes its former coherence for want of
problematological discourse. Not only can it no longer be resolved, but it
cannot be expressed. The propositional model is in-different to this move
from the answer to the problematic. The silence in the last aphorism in
Wittgenstein's Tractatus, like that associated with Being through the silent
and attentive listening that it demands, according to Heidegger, points to the
horizon. Thought, deprived of the possibility of resolving the questions it
poses, cannot answer this challenge otherwise than by the impossibility of
answering. This is nihilism.
The other path has consisted in taking science as the resolutive model.
Science resolves all questions without necessitating an anthropological
foundation. This is positivism. Philosophy must not only study science, but
also become science. If nihilism is contradictory in the very terms by which it
must be formulated, logical empiricism - which is neither empirically
founded nor logically valid - bears testimony to an identical self-defeating
discourse. These two moments could not survive as such. But responding to
an insurmountable crisis of propositional rationality, they displaced them-
selves in other forms while maintaining, nevertheless, their own "principles."
The two reactions to the radical problematization of Western thought
proceed from a process perpetuated in contemporary reflection .- always with
the same blinding. The death of the subject - which closely follows the death
of God, as we know - is not conceived of in terms of problematization since
only propositionalism is available. Propositional ism knows neither answer
130 MICHEL MEYER

nor question but only the proposition, even when it questions or answers,
which are two modalities distinguishable for it only by the psychological and
intellectual activity which is implemented in it. For nihilism, answering has
become impossible, while for positivism only science possesses efficacy in
answering. These two conceptions will face off throughout the century. But
what must be noted, instead, is that the fate always reserved for propositional
logos continues to be decided on its own basis, without our feeling obliged to
conceptualize the interrogativity of logos, thus to radically change what
Western tradition has conceived as logos. Problematicization is not ap-
prehended in itself but rather through the propositionalist prism along with
the correlative question: can we still put forth propositions? Some answer no,
others answer yes, by accepting efficacity, technical operatory, analytic and
scientific reason. This very vision of what answering means has not been put
into question in itself. This conception results from the disappearance of the
pre-existing framework and of the limited headlong flight which a science
with ungeneralizable mechanisms offers up very reassuringly in that its
operationality rests on the partial and concentrated areas of the realms of
masterable objects. All of this perhaps explains why the thought that issued
from nihilism has hardly advanced any more than that born of analytic reason
and logical empiricism. The fact that man ceases being what he was and
institutes himself in a discrepancy with himself, in the non-identity with self,
appears in different forms in structuralism, with Foucault, Derrida, Lacan,
and even with Sartre. When Sartre speaks of the for-itself as being that which
it is not and as not being what it is, with "bad faith" as this very alterity in the
tissue of consciousness, it is difficult to identify consciousness in its tradi-
tional Cartesian texture. We could expound on the flight into history and into
literature in order to face the impossibility of maintaining a non-absurd
discourse upon the absurdity of existence. Western reason, Foucault says,
owes its putative universality solely to the exclusion of all transgression:
madness, the prison and sexuality each illustrate the cracks in this rationality
which universalizes at little cost without being able to explain or at least
which remains silent about what constitutes its margins. These areas, which
classical reason was unable to integrate, should give birth to a new anthropol-
ogy. The discrepancy with self in time is already to be found in Heidegger
where the accent is on temporality which re-establishes non-identity without
contradiction. But it is principally with Derrida and Lacan that this dis-
crepancy can be discerned the best. With Derrida, it is differance, but above
all absent presence (A and non-A); with Lacan, it is desire without saturation,
thus a unconscious semiotized by the discrepancy without any identity
 TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF RHETORIC 131

possible of the signifier and of that to which it refers.

It could have therefore been hoped that the death of the subject as the death
of the out-of-the-question which decides beforehand about all possible
resolutions (making questioning rhetorical and propositionally redundant
with respect to the assertability of the subject by itself) would, by undermin-
ing this assertability, open the way for a problematology, thus for a non-
propositional rhetoric in which the a priori would cease to be rediscovered.
What is found according to propositionalism, is determined a priori. Mter
all, if the out-of-the-question (the human subject in question) problematizes
itself, and becomes in tum the subject of an alternative (A and non-A), one
might hope that the foundation (with the help of problematization) would
allow the latter to express itself in its very fundamentality. Nothing of the sort
took place. The alternative and alternative couples have been integrated into
more or less classical relationships (such as NA, BIB, etc.) which struc-
turalism, from Levi-Strauss to Greimas, has delighted in [etre friandJ without
really going beyond. However, the fact that man happens to be in question by
ceasing to be out-of-the-question (which coincided with his general study and
his multiple expression at numerous levels) should have alerted us to the
presuppositions of the binary mechanism [de couplage]. Indeed, far from
constituting an "epistemological break", the semioticization of human reality
is part of a continuous evolutionary mechanism of inference whose
problematological nature can no longer be doubted. What does it mean to
infer? Aristotle expressed it well: produce a discourse from something other
than what was supposed at the outset (First Analytics, I. l.24b. 18-22).
Without such a difference between conclusion and point of departure, there is
no inference. For if the conclusion, which is offered as the resolution of a
question, is contained in the out-of-the-question, it cannot really be main-
tained that anything whatsoever has been resolved. The essential difference to
be respected so that in the final analysis there is a logos is what I call the
problematological difference which demarcates questions from answers. It is
the necessary and sufficient condition for there to be a solution and
knowledge of the solution. For Aristotle, the vicious circle is a simple
propositional matter, a link between propositions, a link which is not
explained except, precisely, in circular fashion. Or, through the opposition of
the known and the unknown, it is psychological: by moving in circles, one
does not progress. And at the same time, it is necessary (as Stuart Mill would
say against Aristotle's logic in the name of those very principles) that the
conclusion be "contained" in the premises. In reality, the difference between
the out-of-the-question and the question helps to establish the answer, and it
132 MICHEL MEYER

is truly in problematological terms that the inferential discourse fmds the

justification of its validity, of its fecundity, and, consequently, of its exist-
ence. Moreover, like any discourse, the inference answers a question one has
in mind, a question which is brought up by what one says as well as by the
fact that one says it.
But as soon as it was born, deduction lost the sense of its origins. As an
establishing of problematological difference, it is nevertheless nothing more
than the resolution of one question mediated through another to which there
is already an answer. Put in very general terms, the answer is arrived at
through a question of which it is not the solution. Otherwise, we would of
course have a circle. We will have B rather than non-B because we have A
(rather than non-A) at the beginning. This is the model of causal argument:
with the out-of-the-question A, can one make a decision on the question B? If
A is the subject and it is in question in turn, there is an Nnon-A, B/non-B
relationship. A signifying B is at best an indication for concluding B, but
nothing excludes the possibility that non-A be associated with B (or with
non-B) as well. All of this has become problematical, but it will not be said:
rather, we will prefer to specify that A is the sign of B and that A and B have
a relation of significance between them. This is the sole propositionalist
manner of facing the loss of constraint. To speak: regarding man of signifier
and signified allows us to grasp the fact that man can be other (A and non-A)
and that at the most, we can detect signs of what he is and no longer describe
him with the unshakable Cartesian certainty of yesterday (i.e. exclude one of
the possibilities, A or non-A). An inference, however, has never been more
than a question that is resolved on the basis of another one, thus an answer
that serves to resolve another question than the one to which it refers directly.
The doubling of the literal and the figurative indeed constitutes an inference
dependent on the reader. Rhetoric and argumentation merge in the underlying
problematological mechanism which makes of each of them an inference.
Man, who in structuralism works his way into the gap opened between
signifiers and signified, is thus the sign of his inadequacy to himself - his
truth and his non-truth. This means simply that he is problematized by
problematization (the signifier) of the real (the signified), i.e. that the two no
longer adhere but arbitrarily, as Saussure might have said. By this charac-
terization, man is put into an alternative: he was A; now, because he is no
longer the indisputable subject he was before, he can be non-A. He is
rhetoricized. But for us this means, at a deeper level, that he is problematized.
Rhetoricization is indeed that which prepares his problematological concep-
tualization. For it is important to grasp that the birth of Man, like his death,
 TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF RHETORIC 133

only constitutes a breakage by virtue of the very terms that are put to use.
What could be more disruptive than a beginning or an end? But all of this
takes place on a canvas of negation of questioning. By introducing strict
causality, the classical mechanism needed man or even God as a sup-
port/mainstay. When this causality disappears, (amongst other reasons
because it is incapable of covering the entire modem and contemporary
explanatory field), Man-foundation disappears in the wake of God's disap-
pearance. Inference becomes flexible to the point that it ends up reflexively
integrating the initial problematization upon which it rests. Failing to refer to
types of problematics which inference resolves differently for different
historical periods, it will appear to us that there are successive moments
considered autonomous, distinct, fragmentary whereas they have a hand in
the laws of questioning as these unfold historically. Man-foundation no
longer has a raison d' etre when rationality becomes rhetoricized. As a result
of a greater problematization. The closing of logos then passes through the
thematicization of the field of argumentation. This closure thus becomes a
rhetoric of reason, an ideologization which says itself [qui se dit].
Closure may then be perceived as unmasked on the individual
(psychoanalysis) as well as on the collective (Marxism) level. But in thus
doing, these "new rhetorics" reveal themselves immediately for what they
are: guarantors of the closure of propositional logos. These guarantors are
themselves closed rhetorically which is something that Popper denounced
with regard to psychoanalysis and the ideological analysis of ideology, that is
Marxism as well. The function of the rhetoricization of logos is to preserve
the resolutive automatism of the latter. This in tum maintains the sophistic
role of rhetoric which allows it to reduce any question to an "already there"
answer. The fracture caused by the radical problematization of the last
century is thus swallowed up in a purely rhetorical non-identity. It is perhaps
to this phenomenon that we owe the survival of propositional logos. In spite
of this, this logos cannot perpetuate itself, for a rhetoric which expresses
itself as such may very well be also propositionalized (which circularizes the
"solution''), it nevertheless reveals the essential fracture of which this logos
suffers. Unmasked closure can only make reason, in spite of its denials, take
the alternative to logos that is expressed inside logos into account. This forces
reason to change itself in order to think itself through alternatives
(alternatives which would no longer be some proposition existing before all
question) this is to say that it is important to be atile to assume interrogativity
as such from itself. Explaining, unveiling and autonomizing itself, rhetoric
appears to fictively restore identity and, at the same time, to rip logos from its
134 MICHEL MEYER

heretofore inexpressible closure. This is an insoluble contradiction for the

breakage cannot simultaneously be said and denied constantly by this
expression. This explains the illusory and precarious character of the
rhetoricization of propositional logos, especially since this rhetoricization
proceeds, moreover, according to the same propositional order which leads
questions back to preliminary assertions. Henceforth, the rhetoric which
develops in this logos can only be auto-confirmed as propositional and not
integrate the opposition, the alternative in what it implements in a
problematic way. The rhetoric of propositional logos checks this logos at the
very moment and place which put the logos into question while cancelling it
(the logos). Rhetoricizing logos can, in any case, dispense with the
anthropological foundation born of mechanistic causality; it has been doing
this since the beginning of the century. In order for the rationality of logos to
survive this rhetoricization without perpetuating today's irrationalism, logos
must become interrogative so that it can express its own problematization
and, consequently, all other problematizations. What this rhetoricization
shows is precisely the original flaw in propositional logos with its closures
revealing themselves for what they are: rhetorical illusions which are merely
sophistic, an identity of purely fictive reason which gives our rationality over
to the chaos of unreason under the pretense of being capable of assimilating
everything. The identity of Western reason implies the abandonment of
propositionalism which has run its course in spite of its many avatars. On the
other hand, remaining in an unchanged framework, we have no choice but to
take note of the break - the breaks - which are, when all is said and done,
nothing more than the problematological expressions of repressed historicity.
If the anthropological moment is made absolute, outside of a wider historical
context, the end of this moment will be the end of reason. This is exactly
what Foucault's epistemology of the break [coupure] implies. With the death
of man-foundation disappears a form of [la] rationality, but not rationality at
large which changes appearance to allow man to not play the role of God any
longer and to retrieve a perhaps more human location to redefine. If one
considers the defundarnentalization of the subject as an end, one can but fall
into pure nihilism or positivist illusion.

4. FROM ANTHROPOLOGY TO ETHICS

The death of man, rigorously understood as the death of man-foundation, was

to be nothing less than the announcement of the moral decline of the West
whose political aspects were to be concretized, at least in Europe, by the two
 TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF RHETORIC 135

World Wars. From the moment one ceases to treat the other as subject, the
way to barbarianism is opened. Instrumentality in human relations has, of
course, less terrible manifestations, but it is never but the consequence of the
generalization of an exchange economy in which one gives only in order to
receive and in which it is enough that taking advantage of the other be
rational. Valueless and idealless materialism has thus been able to implant
itself in other cultures, like in Japan, without really upsetting existing values,
to the extent that, with us, there was nothing which could have contradicted
anything whatsoever. On the other hand, other societies - like a certain Islam
of today - which are both more fragile and more archaic in many respects,
have preferred to reject the West. Perhaps the most appalling spectacle is that
of our own dissolution and of ,a progression in cynicism with its cohort of
sophists. Rhetorical awareness derives from a need for closure in broken
logos. In this perspective, rhetoric swallows all opposition; it is assimilated
into the sophistic by this function of automaticization of the resolutive. If, on
the other hand, it is realized that rhetoric is in the service of insurmountable
questions per se, automatism is broken and propositional logos becomes a
true answer [repondre]. Sophist thought is spineless [moUe] and will fail to
convince when it comes time to erect a rampart to protect the highest values
like the rights of Man. Under these conditions, how will we defend the
dignity of the human being who is scoffed at in so many areas in the name of
sacrifices imposed by History and its radiant future. Have we, in the end,
nothing other than a hazy and empty thought (attended, it is true, by a
thousand rhetorical devices) to set over against historicism which indeed
appears to represent the last substantial anthropology? On the other hand,
how is one to accept such a conception of man which reduces him to a mere
instrument at the service of a destiny which inevitably swallows him up? A
rhetorical anthropology founds the right of the other to throw any answer
back into question. It not only gives him eo ipso the right to free expression,
to difference, it also confers upon him the freedom to put it into practice.
Because each of us is both the questioner and the respondent, the respon-
sibility which compels us to justify ourselves in consideration of these
fundamental rights proceeds from their very exercise. And because this
practice is ours as well as that of the other, the universality which respects the
problematicity of the other will ensue necessarily.
136 MICHEL MEYER

BIBUOGRAPHY
Grize, J.B. (1982): De la logique a l' argumentation, Droz, Geneva.
Heyndels, R. (1985): La penseefragmentee, Mardaga, Brussels.
Janicaud, D. (1985): La puissance du rationnel, Gallimard, Paris.
Meyer, M. (1979): Decouverte etjustification en science, Klincksieck, Paris.
Meyer, M. (1983): Meaning and Reading, Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Meyer, M. (1985): "Pour une rhetorique de la raison", Revue Internationale de
Philosophie, No. 155, fasc.4, Langage, argumentation et pedagogie.
Meyer, M. (1986): De la problematologie, Mardaga, Brussels.
Meyer, M. (1988): "The Interrogative Theory of Meaning and Reference" in
Questions and Questioning, M. Meyer ed., De Gruyter, BerlinlNew York.
Perelman, Chaiin (1977): The Realm ofRhetoric, Vrin, Paris.
 PAULRICOEUR

RHETORIC - POETICS - HERMENEUTICS

The following study arises from a lecture given in 1970 at the Institut des
Hautes Etudes in Belgium in the presence and under the presidency of
Professor Perelman. This lecture having never been published, it is an honor
to be invited by his friends and disciples to join in the homage to the man
who for several decades was the master philosopher of Brussels.
The difficulty in the theme submitted here for investigation results from
the tendency of the three disciplines of the title to overlap with one another to
the point that they let themselves be led on by their totalizing aims at
covering the entire terrain. What terrain? That of discourse, articulated in
configurations with more extended meaning than the sentence. By this
restrictive clause, I wish to situate these three disciplines at a higher level
than that of the theory of discourse considered within the limits of the
sentence. At this level of simplicity, the definition of discourse is not the
object of my investigation, even though it constitutes its presupposition. I ask
that the reader grant (in accordance with Benveniste and Jakobson, Austin
and Searle) that the first unit of meaning in discourse is not the sign under the
lexical form of the word, but rather the sentence, i.e. a complex unit which
coordinates a predicate on a logical subject (or, using P. Strawson's
categories, which unites an act of characterization by a predicate and an act
of identification by positing a subject). Thus taken into employ in its basic
units, language may be defined by the phrase: someone says something to
someone about something. Someone speaks - a speaker makes something
happen, that is, an utterance, a speech-act whose illocutionary force adheres
to precise constitutive rules which alternately make of it a statement, an
order, a promise, etc. Something about something: this relationship defines
the statement as such, by uniting a meaning to a reference. To someone: the
word addressed by the speaker to the interlocutor turns the statement into a
communicated message. It falls to a philosophy of language to distinguish
within these coordinated functions the three major mediations which make it
so that language is not unto itself its own end: lhe mediation between man
and world, the mediation between man and another man, the mediation
between man and himself.

137
138 PAULRICOEUR

It is upon this common background of discourse, understood as a unit

whose meaning is found on the level of the sentence that the three disciplines
whose rival and complementary aims we will now compare stand out.
Through them, discourse takes on its properly discursive meaning, that is, an
articulation by means of units of meaning which are more vast than the
sentence. The typology that we will try to institute is irreducible to that
proposed by Austin and Searle: indeed, a typology of speech-acts in terms of
the illocutionary force of utterances becomes established at the sentence level
of discourse. Thus a new type of typology superimposes itself upon those of
speech-acts, a typology of properly discursive, that is hyperphrastic, usage of
discourse.

1. RHETORIC

Rhetoric is the oldest discipline of the discursive usage of language. It was

born in Sicily in the 6th century before our era. Furthermore, throughout his
work and right up to its most compact expression under the title The Realm of
Rhetoric, Professor Perelman took rhetoric for his guide in the exploration of
philosophical discourse itself.
A few major features characterize rhetoric. The frrst of these defines the
center from which the aforementioned realm unfolds. When it comes time to
assess the ambition of rhetoric to cover the entire field of the discursive use
of language, this frrst feature should not be lost sight of. What defmes
rhetoric first is certain typical situations of discourse. Aristotle defmes three
which regulate the three genres of the deliberative, the judiciary and the
epideictic. Three locations are thus designated: the assembly, the tribunal,
and commemorative gatherings. Specific audiences thus constitute the
privileged addressees of the art of rhetoric. They have in common the rivalry
between opposite discourses between which it is important to choose. In
every case, the idea is to get one judgment to prevail over another. In each of
the named situations, a controversy calls forth the cutting edge of decision.
One can speak in a broad sense of litigation or of a trial even in the epideictic
genre.
The second criterium of the art of rhetoric consists in the role played by
argumentation, i.e. a mode of demonstration situated half-way between the
constraint of the necessary and the arbitrariness of contingency. Between the
proof and the sophism there reigns the probable argument whose theory
Aristotle inscribed in dialectic, thus making of rhetoric the "antistrophe" , that
is, the rejoinder of dialectic. It is precisely in the three aforementioned typical
 RHETORIC - POETICS - HERMENEUTICS 139

situations that it behoves us to isolate a reasonable discourse, half-way

between the demonstrative discourse and the violence hidden in the purely
seductive discourse. One can already see how argumentation may conquer,
step by step, the entire field of practical reason (where the preferable calls for
deliberation, whether it is a matter of ethics, law, or politics), and - we shall
see this later, when rhetoric is carried to its limits - the entire field of
philosophy as well.
However, a third feature tempers the ambition to prematurely amplify the
field of rhetoric: the orientation toward the listener is not at all abandoned by
the argumentative regimen of discourse; the aim of argumentation remains
persuasion. In this sense, rhetoric can be defined as a technique of persuasive
discourse. The art of rhetoric is an art of operative [agissant] discourse. The
speaker aspires to conquer the assent of his audience and, if the situation is
appropriate, to incite that audience to act in the desired manner. In this sense,
rhetoric is illocutionary and perlocutionary at the same time.
But how does one persuade? A last feature helps us to state precisely the
contours of the art of rhetoric surprised at the "seat" from which it radiates.
The speaker's orientation toward the audience implies that he begins with
conventional ideas that he shares with it. In this, argumentation hardly has
any creative function: it transfers the agreement granted to premises onto
conclusions. All of the intermediary techniques (which, moreover, can be
very complex and refined) remain a function of the real or presumed
agreement of the audience.
Finally, we must say a word about elocution and style to which the
modems have had far too great a tendency to reduce rhetoric. We cannot
disregard them, however, precisely because of the orientation toward the
listener. The figures of style, turns of phrase and tropes, extend the art of
persuasion into an art of pleasing even when they are in the service of
argumentation and do not sink into simple ornamentation.
This description of the seat of rhetoric readily reveals its ambiguity.
Rhetoric has never ceased to oscillate between a threat of a fall from grace
and the totalizing claim in pursuance of which it aspires to equal philosophy.
Let us begin with the threat of the fall from grace: all of the features that
we have just described indicate that in discourse, there is a certain vul-
nerability and a propensity toward pathology. The shift from dialectic to
sophistry delineates, in Plato's eyes, the most important tendency of rhetoric.
From the art of persuasion, one moves without transition to the art of deceit.
The preliminary agreement upon acknowledged ideas shifts to the triviality of
prejudice; from the art of pleasing, one moves to that of seducing which is
140 PAULRICOEUR

none other than the violence of discourse.

Political discourse is assuredly the most inclined to these perversions.
What is called ideology is a form of rhetoric. But it must be said of ideology
what is said of rhetoric: it is the best and the worst. The best the whole set of
symbols, beliefs, and representations which, by way of acknowledged ideas,
ensures the identity of a group (nation, people, party, etc.). In this sense,
ideology is the discourse itself of the imaginary constitution of society. But
this is the same discourse that takes a turn toward perversion as soon as it
loses contact with the first account made concerning founding events and
becomes a discourse justifying the established order. We are not far from the
function of dissimulation and illusion which Marx denounced. It is thus that
ideological discourse illustrates the decadent path of the art of rhetoric: from
the repetition of the first foundation to justifying rationalizations, then to
mendacious falsification.
However rhetoric has two tendencies: that of perversion and that of
sublimation. It is upon the latter that the totalizing claim of rhetoric asserts
itself. Rhetoric stakes its all on the art of argumentation, along the lines of the
probable, unrestricted by the social constraints heretofore described.
The supersession of what we have named the typical situations (with their
specific audiences) occurs in two stages. In the first stage, the whole human
order can be annexed by the rhetorical field in that what is considered
ordinary language is nothing but the functioning of natural languages in
ordinary situations of conversation; now, conversation puts particular
interests into play - particular interests really being those passions to which
Aristotle devoted book two of his Rhetoric. Thus, rhetoric becomes the art of
"human, all too human" discourse. But this is not all: rhetoric may claim the
whole of philosophy for its magistery. We need only consider the status of
frrst propositions in all philosophies: being hypothetically undemonstrable,
they can only proceed from a weighing up of the opinions of the most
competent, thus aligning themselves under the banner of the probable and of
argumentation. This is what Professor Perelman maintained throughout his
work. For him, the three fields of rhetoric, argumentation and frrst philosophy
intersect
I cannot say that this pretension to all-inclusiveness is illegitimate, and
even less can I say that it is refutable. I simply want to stress two points: first,
that it seems to me that rhetoric can free itself entirely neither from typical
situations which isolate its generative seat, nor from the intention which
defines its finality. Concerning the initial situation, it must not be forgotten
that rhetoric has claimed the right to command the public use of the word in
 RHETORIC - POETICS - HERMENEUTICS 141

the typical situations described by the political, legal, and the festive
assemblies. In relation to these audiences, that of the philosopher, by
Perelman's own admission, can only be a universal audience, i.e. virtually all
of humanity, or, at the least, its competent and reasonable representatives. It
is to be feared that this extrapolation beyond typical situations corresponds to
a radical change in the discursive realm. As for the finality of persuasion, it
cannot be sublimated to the point of fusion with the disinterest of authentic
philosophical discussion either. Indeed, I am not naive enough to believe that
philosophers free themselves not only from the constraints but also from the
pathology which infects our debates. It remains that the aim of philosophical
discussion, in its most honest forms which prevail in the typical situations
described above (if it is equal to what we have called the universal audience),
transcends the art of persuasion and of pleasing.
This is why it is necessary to consider other constitutional seats of
discourse, other arts of composition and other aims of discursive language. l

2. POETICS

If we do not confine ourselves to opposing rhetoric and poetics (in the sense
of writing with rhythm and versification), it may appear difficult to distin-
guish between the two disciplines. If we return once again to Aristotle,
poiesis means production or manufacturing of discourse. Now, is not rhetoric
also an art of composing discourse, thus a pOiesis? Furthermore, when
Aristotle considers the coherence which renders the plot of the tragic, comic,
or epic poem intelligible, is he not saying that the assembly or juxtaposition
(sustasis) of actions must satisfy verisimilitude and necessity (Poetics
1154a.33-36)? Even more surprisingly, does he not say that in pursuance of
the meaning of the probable and the necessary, poetry teaches universals and
thus proves to be more philosophical and of a more elevated character than
history (1451b.5)? There can be no doubt then that poetics and rhetoric
intersect in the region of what is probable.
But if they thus intersect, it is because they come from different origins
and make their way toward different goals.
The initial place from which poetry radiates is, according to Aristotle, the
fable or the plot which the poet invents when he borrows the material for his
episodes from traditional narratives. The poet is an artisan not only of words
and sentences, but of plots which are fables or fables which are plots. The
localization of this nucleus - which I call the initial site of diffusion or of
extrapolation of the poetic mode - is of the utmost importance for the
142 PAUL RICOEUR

confrontation which follows. At fIrst glance, this site is very restricted, since
it only covers the epic, the tragedy, and the comedy. But it is precisely this
initial reference which allows the opposition between the poetic act and the
rhetorical act. The poetic act is the invention of a fable-plot; the rhetorical
act, an elaboration of arguments. Indeed, there is poetry in rhetoric to the
extent that "finding" an argument (euresis in Book One of The Rhetoric) is
the same as a true invention. And there is rhetoric in poetry to the extent that,
for every plot, one can fInd a corresponding theme or thought (dianoia is
Aristotle's expression). But the accent does not fall in the same place: the
poet does not argue, stricto sensu, even if his characters argue; argument only
serves to reveal the character in that he contributes to the progress of the plot.
And the rhetorician does not create any plot or fable even if a narrative
element is incorporated into the presentation of the case. Argumentation
remains fundamentally dependent upon the logic of the probable, i.e. of the
dialectic in the Aristotelian (and not in the Platonic or Hegelian) sense, and of
the topic, i.e. of the theory of "loci" or topoi which are schemes of conven-
tional ideas appropriated to typical situations. On the other hand, the
invention of the fable-plot remains fundamentally an imaginative reconstruc-
tion of the fIeld of human action - an imagination or reconstruction to which
Aristotle applies the term mimesis, i.e. creative imitation. Unfortunately, a
long, hostile tradition has led us to think of imitation as a copy or a replica of
the identical. And thus we understand nothing in the crucial declaration of
Aristotle's Poetics according to which the epic, the tragedy, and the comedy
are imitations of human action. However, precisely because mimesis is not a
copy but rather a reconstruction through creative imagination, Aristotle does
not contradict himself. He explains himself perfectly when he defines
mimesis by emplotment, and the plot itself as "the arrangement (sustasis) of
incidents" (Poetics. chapter VI).
What then is the initial nucleus of poetics? It is the relation between
poiesis, muthos and mimesis, in other words, it is the relation
"production/fable/plot!creative imitation". As creative act, poetry imitates to
the exact degree that it engenders a muthos or a fable-plot. It is this invention
of a muthos which must be opposed to argumentation, insofar as it is the
generating nucleus of rhetoric. Whereas the ambitions of rhetoric fInd their
limit in its attention to the listener and its respect for conventional ideas,
poetics points to the breach of newness that the creative imagination opens in
this fIeld.
The other differences between the two disciplines issue from the last one. I
have characterized rhetoric not only by its method (argumentation) but also
 RHETORIC - POETICS - HERMENEUTICS 143

by its relation to typical situations and by its persuasive aim. On these two
points, poetics differs. The epic or tragic poem's audience is brought together
by the recitation or by the theatrical representation. It is a people, no longer in
their role as arbiters of rival discourses, but as people offered to the cathartic
process exercised by the poem. Catharsis must be understood as an equiv-
alent of medical purging and of religious purification: a clarification carried
out by intelligent participation in the muthos of the poem. Catharsis must,
finally, be opposed to persuasion. Contrary to all seduction or flattery, it
consists in the imaginative reconstruction of the two basic emotions by which
we participate in any great deed: fear and pity. Fear and pity are in turn
metaphorized, in a way, by this imaginative reconstruction in which, thanks
to muthos, the creative imitation of human action consists.
Thus understood, poetics too has its seat of diffusion: the
poiesis/muthos/mimesis nucleus. From this center, it can radiate and cover the
same field as rhetoric. In the political domain, while ideology bears the stamp
of rhetoric, utopia bears that of poetics to the extent that utopia is nothing
other than the invention of a social fable capable, it is believed, to "change
life". And philosophy? Is it not also born under the sun of poetics? Does not
Hegel himself say that philosophical and religious discourses have the same
content and differ only as the concept differs from representation
(Vorstellung), a prisoner, as it is, of narration and of symbolism? Does not
Professor Perelman vindicate me just a little bit in the "Analogy and
Metaphor" chapter of The Realm of Rhetoric? Speaking of the creative aspect
connected to analogy, the model, and the metaphor, he concludes in these
terms: "[ ... ] philosophical thought, incapable of empirical verification,
develops by an argumentation that aims to have certain analogies and
metaphors accepted as central elements in a world view." (125)
Conversion of the imaginary is the central aim of poetics. With it, poetics
stirs up the sedimented universe of conventional ideas which are the premises
of rhetorical argumentation. At the same time, this same break-through of the
imaginary shakes up the order of persuasion, from the moment that it is less a
matter of settling a controversy than of generating a new conviction.
Henceforth, the limit of poetics is, as Hegel knew, the powerlessness of
representation to equal the concept.
144 PAUL RICOEUR

3. HERMENEUTICS

What is the initial seat of foundation and dispersion of our third discipline? I
will start with the definition of hermeneutics as an art of interpreting texts.
Indeed, a special art is required as soon as the geographical, historical,
cultural distance which separates the text from the reader gives rise to a
situation of misunderstanding which can only be overcome in a plural
reading, that is, a multivocal interpretation. Under this fundamental condi-
tion, interpretation - the central theme of hermeneutics - is seen to be a
theory of multiple meaning.
I will take up a few points concerning this initial insertion. First, why the
insistence on the notion of text or of the written work? Is there not a com-
prehension problem in conversation, in the oral exchange of the word? Is
there not misunderstanding and incomprehension in what claims to be
dialogue? Most certainly. But the face to face presence of interlocutors
allows the play of question and answer to gradually rectify mutual understand-
ing. With regard to this play of question and answer, a case can be made for a
hermeneutics of conversation. But that would only be a pre-hermeneutics in
that the oral exchange of the word does not reveal a difficulty that only
writing gives rise to, that is, severed from its speaker, the meaning of
discourse no longer coincides with the latter's intention. Henceforth, what the
author wanted to say and what the text signifies undergo separate destinies.
The text, which according to Plato's Phaedra is a sort of orphan, has lost its
defensor which was its father, to confront alone the adventure of reception
and reading. With regard to this situation, Dilthey, one of hermeneutics'
theoreticians, wisely proposed reserving the term of interpretation for the
comprehension of works whose discourse is fixed by writing or deposited in
monuments of culture which lend to meaning the support of a sort of
inscription.
And now, what text? It is here that, if it must be distinguished from that of
rhetoric or poetics, the originary place [lieu originaire] of the work of
interpretation must be recognized. Three places have successively stood out.
First, in our judeo-Christian culture, there was the canon of the Biblical text.
This origin [lieu] is so decisive that many readers are tempted to identify
hermeneutics with Biblical exegesis. This identification is not quite true, even
in this limited framework [Le. the Bible], because exegesis consists in the
interpretation of a well-defined text, whereas hermeneutics is that of a
secondary discourse concerning the rules of interpretation. Nevertheless, this
first identification of the originary place of hermeneutics is not without
 RHETORIC - POETICS - HERMENEUTICS 145

reason or effects. Our concept of "figure", as Auerbach analyzed it in his

famous article, "Figura", remains largely tributary of the first Christian
hermeneutics, applied to the reinterpretation of the events, characters, and
institutions of the Hebraic Bible in the terms of the proclamation of the New
Alliance. Then, the complicated edifice of the four meanings of the Scripture
was developed with the Greek Fathers and the entirety of medieval her-
meneutics. Four meanings which are four levels of reading: literal or
historical, tropological or ethical, allegorical or symbolic, anagogic or
mystical. Finally, for the moderns, a new biblical hermeneutics issued from
the incorporation of classical philological sciences and ancient exegesis. It is
at this stage that exegesis rose to its authentic hermeneutical level, that is, to
the task of transferring the core of meaning that the texts took on with respect
to a cultural situation, which has ceased to be ours, into a modern cultural
situation. Here, we are beginning to see the outlines of a problematic not
specific to Biblical or even, generally, religious texts: the struggle, as I
described earlier, against misunderstanding born of cultural distance.
Henceforth, to interpret is to translate a signification from one cultural
context to another according to a putative rule of equivalence of meaning. It
is at this point that Biblical hermeneutics merges with the two other
modalities of hermeneutics. Indeed, already in the Renaissance, and espe-
cially from the seventeenth century onwards, philology of classical texts
constituted a second field of interpretation autonomous from the former one.
Here, as in the former, the restitution of meaning revealed itself to be a
promotion of meaning, a transfer, or, as I have just said, a translation in spite
of, or even in favor of, the temporal or cultural distance. The problematic
common to exegesis and philology proceeds from this special relationship
between text and context in which the text can reputedly decontextualize
itself, that is, free itself from its initial context in order to recontextualize
itself in a new cultural situation, while preserving a presumed semantic
identity. The hermeneutic task consists, then, in approaching this presumed
semantic identity equipped solely with the resources of decontextualization
and recontextualization of meaning. Translation, in the broad sense of the
term, serves as model for this precarious operation. Recognition of the third
seat of hermeneutics is an opportunity to better understand what this opera-
tion consists of. We now are dealing with legal hermeneutics. A legal text is
never without a process of interpretation - jurisprudence - which innovates
within the lacunae of written law and especially in new situations not
anticipated by the legislator. Jurisprudence thus provides the model of an
innovation which is at the same time a tradition. It happens that Professor
146 PAULRICOEUR

Perelman is one of the most remarkable theoreticians of the relationship

between law and jurisprudence. Now, the recognition of this third hermeneuti-
cal seat is the opportunity also for an enrichment of the concept of interpreta-
tion such as it has been instituted in the two previous seats. Jurisprudence
shows that cultural and temporal distance is not only an abyss to be bridged,
but a medium to pass through. All interpretation is a reinterpretation constitut-
ing a living tradition. No transference, no translation without a tradition, that
is, a community of interpretation.
Such being the three-fold origin of the hermeneutical discipline, what
relationship does it have with the two other disciplines? Once again, the
phenomena ranging from encroachment and overlapping to a claim of all-
inclusiveness come up for examination. Compared to rhetoric, hermeneutics
also possesses argumentative phases in that it must always explain more for
the purpose of understanding better, and also in that it behoves it to settle
rival interpretations, and even rival traditions. But its argumentative phases
remain a subset of a more vast project which is certainly not that of recreating
a situation of univocity by thus settling in favor of a privileged interpretation.
The example of the four meanings of the Scripture is, in this respect, very
instructive; and, before the latter, the wise decision of the early Christian
church to allow the four Gospels, whose differences in intention and
organization are obvious, to subsist side by side. Faced with this hermeneuti-
cal freedom, one could say that the task of an art of interpretation, compared
to one of argumentation, is less to win acceptance for one opinion over
another than it is to allow a text to signify as much as it can, not to signify
one thing rather than another, but to "signify more", and thus to make us
"think more" according to Kant's expression in the Critique of Judgment
(mehr zu denken). In this respect, hermeneutics (whose project, I have said, is
less to persuade than to open the imagination) seems to me closer to poetics
than to rhetoric. It too calls upon the productive imagination in its demand for
a surplus of meaning. Moreover, this demand is inseparable from the work of
translation, of transfer, which is linked to the recontextualization of a
meaning transmitted from one cultural space to another. But then, why not
say that hermeneutics and poetics are interchangeable?
This too may be said inasmuch as the problem of semantic innovation, as I
liked to say in The Rule of Metaphor, is at the core of both of them. The
initial difference must, however, be stressed between the applications of this
semantic innovation in hermeneutics and its applications in poetry. I will
reveal this difference in the very heart of poetry.
Aristotle's insistence on identifyingpoiesis with the assembly or juxtaposi-
 RHETORIC - POETICS - HERMENEUTICS 147

tion of the fable-plot should be recalled. The work of innovation thus resides
inside the unity of discourse which makes up the plot. Moreover, even though
poiesis was defined as mimesis of action, Aristotle will no longer make any
use of the notion of mimesis, as if it were enough to disconnect the imaginary
space of the fable from the real space of human action. It is not a real action
that you see there, the poetician suggests, but only a simulacrum of action.
This disjunctive, rather than referential, use of mimesis is so characteristic of
poetics that it is this sense which has prevailed in contemporary poetics
where the structural aspect of muthos has been retained while the referential
aspect of fiction has been abandoned. Against structural poetics, it is this
challenge that hermeneutics takes up. I would like to state that the function of
interpretation is not only to have a text signify something else or even signify
everything it can and signify always something more (to take up the expres-
sions already used), but its function is to unfold what I now call the world of
the text.
I readily admit that this task is not the one which romantic hermeneutics,
from Schleiermacher to Dilthey, liked to emphasize. For them, it was a matter
of reactualizing inspired subjectivity hidden behind the text in order to make
themselves contemporary with that subjectivity and to equal it. That path is
today closed. And it became so precisely by the consideration of the text as
an autonomous space of meaning and by the application of structural analysis
in this purely textual sense. But the alternative does not lie with a
psychologizing hermeneutics or with a structural or structuralist poetics. If
the back door of the text is closed, that is, the side of its author's biography,
the front door, if I may say so (i.e., the side of the world which it discloses),
is open.
I am well aware of the difficulties in this argument which I defended in
The Rule of Metaphor. Nevertheless, I maintain that the power of reference is
not an exclusive feature of descriptive discourse. Poetic works point to a
world as well. If this argument appears difficult to defend, it is because the
referential function of the poetic work is more complex than that of descrip-
tive discourse, and even, in a sense, quite paradoxical. Indeed, the poetic
work only unfolds a world under the condition that the reference of descrip-
tive discourse be deferred. The poetic work's power of reference then appears
as a secondary reference by means of the deferral of the primary reference of
discourse. The poetic reference may thus be characterized, as Jakobson has
said, as an undoubled [dedoubtee] reference. There is some truth in the
widely accepted thesis in literary criticism that in poetry, language only has a
relationship to itself. By deepening the abyss that separates signs from things,
148 PAUL RICOEUR

poetic language celebrates itself. It is for this reason that poetry is commonly
held to be a discourse without reference. The thesis that I am maintaining
here does not negate the preceding one, but rather is based upon it. It posits
that the deferral of the reference (as defined by the norms of descriptive
discourse) is the negative condition for a more fundamental mode of
reference to be brought out.
It will still be objected that the world of the text is yet a function of the
text, its signified, or, in Benveniste's words, its intente. However, the
hermeneutic moment is the work of thought by which the world of the text
faces what we conventionally call reality in order to redescribe it. This
confrontation may range from denial or even destruction (which is still a
relation to the world) to the metamorphosis and the transfiguration of the real.
It is here as it is with models in science whose ultimate function is to
redescribe the initial explanandum. This poetic equivalent of redescription is
the positive mimesis which is lacking in a purely structural theory of poetic
discourse. The impact between the world of the text and, simply, the world,
within the space of reading, is the ultimate stake of the productive imagina-
tion. It engenders what I would dare to call the productive reference proper to
fiction.
It is with this task in mind that hermeneutics can, in turn, erect a totalizing,
or even totalitarian, claim. Wherever meaning constitutes itself within a
tradition and demands a translation, interpretation is at work. Wherever
interpretation is at work, a semantic innovation is at stake. And wherever we
begin to "think more", a new world is both discovered and invented. But this
totalizing claim must, in its tum, be subjected to the trial of criticism.
Hermeneutics only has to be brought back to the center from which its claim
arose, that is, the foundation-bearing [[andateurs] texts of a living tradition.
Now, the relation between a culture and its textual origins falls under another
sort of criticism: the criticism of ideologies, illustrated by the Frankfurt
School and its successors, K.O. Apel and J. Habermas. What hermeneutics
tends to be unaware of is the more fundamental relationship between
language, work, and power. For hermeneutics, it is as if language were an
origin without origin.
This criticism of hermeneutics at its very source becomes, at the same
time, the condition by which the rights of the two other disciplines are
recognized. We have seen that these disciplines radiate from different seats.
In conclusion, it seems to me that one must leave each of these three
disciplines undisturbed in their three respective birthplaces which are
irreducible one to another. And there is no super-discipline which would
 RHETORIC - POETICS - HERMENEUTICS 149

totalize the whole field covered by rhetoric, poetics, and hermeneutics.

Lacking this impossible totalization, one can only locate the noticeable points
of intersection between the three disciplines. But each discipline speaks for
itself. Rhetoric remains the art of arguing with a view to persuading an
audience that one opinion is preferable to its rival. Poetics remains the art of
constructing plots with a view to broadening the individual and collective
imaginary. Hermeneutics remains the art of interpreting texts within a context
which is distinct from that of the author and from that of the texts' original
audience with a view to discovering new dimensions to reality. Arguing,
fashioning [configurer], redescribing: such are the three major operations
whose respective totalizing aims render mutually exclusive, but the finiteness
of whose original sites condemns to complementarity.

NOTE
1 In The Realm of Rhetoric, Perelman affords a place to modalities of argumentation
which confme to what I will later call poetics: the analogy, the model, and the
metaphor. He also affords a place to interpretative procedures which pertain to what
will later be held to be an illustration of the discipline of hermeneutics.
 MICHEL BEAUJOUR

RHETORIC AND LITERATURE

In the context of an homage to the memory of Chai'm Perelman, it is doubt-

less legitimate to assume from the outset that the reader has a good
knowledge of the structural and historical aspects of rhetoric. I will therefore
not insist on the complexities which lay hidden under the word rhetoric, nor
on the series of circumstances and ideological slippages which, following the
Renaissance, led to the reduction of these complexities to a single "office":
lexis-elocutio, that is, "style" or, more strictly speaking, tropes and figures,
reduced in tum to the metaphor-metonymy binomial, then, fmally, to the
presumed metaphoricity of all discourse. This progressive shrinking and
dispersion of rhetoric are of great importance in the history of modem
Western culture, particularly if one considers their relation to the advent of
literature: we will take the concept of rhetoric in its widest definition - the
one established in Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian. By stressing the dialecti-
cal topics of inventio and argumentation in general, the work of (Ch.)
Perelman and (L.) Olbrechts-Tyteca forcefully contributed to re-establishing
a balanced picture, especially in French-speaking countries where such a
reorientation was urgently needed. Some recent works (Harry Caplan, Paolo
Rossi, Frances Yates, etc.) have also restored to the realm of rhetoric the lost
province of memory, particularly in its relations to invention, so that one may
now speak of rhetoric without fear of the terrible misunderstandings that still
prevailed in recent times when French-speakers were rediscovering
"rhetoric" through Du Marsais and Fontanier, and even Jakobson and Lacan.
My intention is not to show that any text in natural language (in reality,
any speech act) is liable to a rhetorical analysis just because one can detect in
it more or less well-formed arguments and make out figures of language and
thought. Such an approach, which is indeed that of a part of rhetorically-
based criticism, is bound to succeed: either it deals with texts - in particular,
those currently called literary texts - written in the West during the long
period when rhetoric was assiduously taught, or it analyzes modem texts
produced after the decline of that teaching, or again it approaches exotic texts
which escaped the influence of greco-latin rhetoric. Like grammar, rhetoric
is, on the face of it, nothing more than the description of universally prevalent
discursive practices to which neither the Greeks, nor the Romans, nor their

151
152 MICHEL BEAUJOUR

cultural heirs have sole rights. To be sure, the creation of rhetorical art (like
that of grammatical or logical art) is the result of circumstances peculiar to
ancient Greek society and culture, and of the role played there by eloquence
and the elaboration of mental tools oriented toward the analysis of language,
thought and power in the context of a limited democracy. But this history is
too well-known for us to dwell on it. It behoves us to stress, however, that the
elaboration of a technique and the institutionalization of a rhetorical paideia
bring about, at least in certain conventional contexts, a noticeable transforma-
tion in the wild rhetoric which is revealed in the analysis of any speech act. In
social circumstances that demand the production of "eloquent" discourses or
texts, the use of arguments and figures (to restrict ourselves to essentials) is
itself conventionalized and aestheticized. Thus it is with rhetorical art as it is
with the other arts through which a human techne is analyzed, codified, and
stylized: from that moment forth, the wish for efficiency is no longer
separable from aesthetic judgements. An efficient speech can acquire an
additional value, that of being beautiful.
Experts (and all those who have a background in rhetoric are experts to
some degree) know how to assess the effects of a discourse. They are also
capable of analyzing it technically. In the rhetorical regimen, the production
and judgment (if not, always the reception) of a discourse, are thus founded
on a learned ability: each orator is a critic, and vice versa. And this technique
is the prerogative of a whole class (or at least some members of that class), of
a milieu which cultivates the eloquent word. This word is thus not first and
foremost an individual gift, although inequality of talent is a recognized fact
which rhetorical art must, as far as is possible, remedy. If the practice of
language arts is an instrument of power within this dominant class, it is also
apt to procure aesthetic satisfactions which certain individuals cultivate
assiduously and with delight. The same would be true, mutatis mutandis,
within medieval clericature, among learned gentlemen in the classical age,
and right up to the late constitution of a literary profession in the West (when
typography finally makes the book an object of wide consumption), and of a
literature that will claim a status distinct from the practical and usual arts of
language.
This is to say that rhetoric precedes literature in all senses of the verb. It
precedes it historically (if it is true that literature as such is a recent institu-
tion), but it precedes it ontogenetically to the extent that rhetorical appren-
ticeship was shared by the whole class of those who, by their social position,
were apt, before the advent of literature, to become orators or poet'!; at diverse
degrees of amateurism, that is, producers of texts (which were not purely
 RHETORIC AND UTERATURE 153

functional) meant to transcend the pragmatic situations which were thought

to have given rise to them. Moreover, rhetorical paideia informs these texts at
all levels. This training involves not only a deliberate and formalized
implementation of topics and arguments and a "stylistic" choice marked by
certain school conventions (to which can be connected diverse ideological
conventions), but it requires above all that the text be functional and that it
contain obvious pragmatic features: the texts can never own up to being
gratuitous. They carry over from rhetoric a persuasive or at least didactic aim
and a regard for the collectivity. Moreover, in the rhetorical regimen, the
addresser of the text is in a sense always more than a simple individual: the
whole culture - at least in the dominant version - is inscribed in the choice of
premisses, topics, examples; and individual enunciation, which actualizes
culture, also serves to perpetuate and to reinforce it.
This is why modern ideologies concerning literature are such obstinate
obstacles to our comprehension of the relationships which existed once
between rhetoric (as paideia, art and matrix) and the production of elaborated
texts. This should not be surprising since the advent of literature in the West
(generally agreed to be situated around the 18th century) is concomitant with
the gradual marginalization of the rhetorical institution inherited from the
Ancients. To be sure, hostility toward rhetoric which, particularly in France,
characterizes modernity, does not ipso facto lead to the disappearance of an
art of speaking and of writing: our whole teaching of the Humanities attests
to this. But, barring some exceptions (and these exceptions concern above all
the "philosophical" genre as well as the scholarly discourses derived from the
formal school essay), there is nowadays a wide gap between scholarly
practices and that which is conventionally called literature, if only because
the most visible part of literature - fiction - does not issue from models
generally practiced in the school curriculum, and for good reason. The
reasons for the divorce are indeed deeper. They seem to me to proceed from a
dichotomy between what is public and teachable, on the one hand (Le. culture
in the anthropological sense: knowledge, conventions, collective values, law,
history, communication, etc.), and, on the other, what is private and in-
dividual (one's own body, pleasure, the imaginary, idiolect, personal history,
the unconscious). The latter, according to our dominant ideology, are
conquered, are recovered from or against "commonplaces", received ideas,
and the transmission of power and culture in general. If literature's authen-
ticity, in its most quintessentially "literary" sector, be it the "novel" or
"poetry", results from a struggle carried out by means of and on the field of
writing, with the aim of bringing forth a truth - or at least a significance as
154 MICHEL BEAUJOUR

free as possible from determinations and values heterogeneous to the

individual project, then it follows that all rhetoric (which is, after all, only the
cultural imperative specified in the domain of textual production) must be
dismissed, denied, repressed, within modern literature, unless it is imple-
mented with irony, parody, or paradox, in order to produce idiosyncratic
effects.
Indeed, rhetoric has never been a teaching of empty forms, or simple
procedures to follow in order to discover the means of persuasion inherent in
any given case. On the contrary, persuasion (which some have occasionally
attempted to expel from rhetoric, either to turn it into a technique of the well-
said and of the well-written, or, interestingly, to make it a "theory of the
operations of verbal workings ... whose object is the constitution of works of
which language is the element"l), persuasion, then implies operations - of
invention, disposition, style - as well as contents, since it is performed in a
specific cultural context and it appeals to a particular audience. 2 After all, as
Perelman stressed many times, the speaker must choose theses accepted by
his audience as the premisses for his own argument. This is to say that all
persuasion requires a fairly analytical knowledge of opinion, and this
knowledge appears indispensable in any cases where the speaker is not
complicit with his audience: it is a matter of bringing out beliefs and values
of which the addressees are not always clearly conscious themselves. As
Perelman points out:
Among the points of agreement from which the speaker draws the starting point for
his discourse, it is important to distinguish those which bear upon reality (i.e. facts,
truths, and presumptions) from those which bear on the preferable (i.e. values,
hierarchies, and the loci of the preferable).3

From that moment on, all Western literature, or at least older literature
(which, following Marc Fumaroli and Renaissance humanists, I would prefer
to call res literariif'), with its philosophical (ethical, political, etc.), cos-
mographical, historical, even rhetorical works as well as its epics, drama,
novels, and lyrical poems, appears every bit as much a receptacle of topoi (of
reality and of the preferable, amongst others) as it is the result of using those
topoi; both a treasure and the modalities of exploiting it to various ends, the
least of which is not the increasing of capital for its investment into sectors
which, at a given period and in a given genre, appear to be the most likely to
procure dividends, i.e. heretofore unknown combinations. Rhetoric is also the
locus of its dilapidation, even its devaluation through repetition, pedagogical
usage, and loss of functionality. Since the Renaissance, the West has not
 RHETORIC AND UTERATURE 155

ceased being concerned about this erosion, which seems to lead to psittacism,
to inflation, and to scarcity, to which it ceaselessly searches for a remedy: the
most radical of which consists in getting rid of rhetoric and reducing
literature to that which is uttered in anguish, verging on the ineffable and the
incommunicable.
The great cultural break, after which literature triumphs as value, and
which according to Paul Benichou's phrase "consecrates the writer", is
framed by a "before" in which all things literary of the past constituted a
virtual treasure of invention that any writer could take advantage of, and an
"after" in which each text claims either an auto-referential self-sufficiency or
at least a reference, limited to the author and to the world as he "perceives" it,
which would in principle exclude all the commonplaces which have gained
authority by their ancientness and their frequent usage. From then on, in
genres elevated to the status of "literature", invention ceases to be methodical
research, ceases to be a regulated and systematic hunt through loci, and
becomes a fortuitous encounter or an epiphany of the unprecedented in the
course of an existential quest pursued at the risk of aphasia, endless repeti-
tion, exhaustion and madness: pathological states whose stigmata become
emblematic of an agon by means of which the writer attains the authenticity
of transgressor and outcast, whose paradoxical status is opposed to that of
men of letters, servile piece-workers whose facileness is at the cost of
bondage to the rhetorical system, to commonplaces, to the copia and to
copying. Henceforth, "true" literature distinguishes itself from the false by an
"anxiety of influence" (Harold Bloom), by concerns about originality, even
by a denial of intertexts and of topical matrices.
Assuredly, "true literature" is only a narrow sector of literary production
(that which is marked out, roughly speaking, by the various "French avant-
gardes"), and it alone is radically affected by the historical break indicated
above: perhaps one should reserve the word literature for it, despite the
anathemas and sarcasms which - from symbolism to the present - French
avant-garde movements have rained upon the putative referent of this word,
doomed from the start to misunderstanding and polemics. The vast remaining
sector could conveniently be referred to as letters. But post-rhetorical anxiety
has even spread to users of proven formulae, to those scribblers or ecrivants
(Roland Barthes) who, knowing nothing of the traditional procedures of
rhetorical invention, are presently incapable of recognizing their own
practices as bastardized variations thereof, and glory in the unparalleled
difficulties encountered in their own "creation". Just as in the time of
Aristotle, "the art which imitates by means of words only, whether in prose or
156 MICHEL BEAUJOUR

verse, whether in one meter or a mixture of meters, this art is without a name
to this day" ,S there is no longer a common name for the mass of writings,
contemporaneous with literature, which are still produced according to a
rhetorical or pararhetorical procedure: journalism, essay writing, political
science, philosophy, sociology, psychology, etc. There are as many names as
there are "disciplines" or opinions: fragmentation and specialization in the
field of writing are distinctive features of the post-rhetorical regime. They
seem inseparable from the evolution of culture in an advanced capitalist,
technological and democratic society.
The historical advent of literature has thus institutionalized, down to the
taxonomy of letters, an obvious break with rhetoric and topics. Moreover,
literature founds its ideology upon this break, which it enjoys acting out
repeatedly. By attempting to exorcise rhetoric and imitation, post-romantic
poetics eventually parody or repress them in favor of new skills whose
dominant characteristic is the promotion of the individual singularity:
peculiarity of subjective source (imagination, anamnesis, unconscious, etc.),
individuality of the "gaze" turned upon the empirical world. Or else, along
the lines of a more daring (but half-conscious) manoeuvre, rhetoric is
subjected to modifications whose principal effect is to foreground (a
hyperbole of the laying bare of devices so dear to the Russian formalists) the
functioning of a disjectum membrum - invention, disposition, style, memory,
even elocution - of the art which used to stipulate the procedures to follow in
the elaboration of a text, without appearing as such in the finished work. This
promotion of the fore-text (Jean Bellemin-Noel) is what I have called neoteny
elsewhere. It is a ''regressive'' phenomenon which confers an unfinished,
rough, premature physiognomy upon certain characteristic works of moder-
nity.6 This is to say that repressed and diverted as it is from its persuasive
function, reduced as it is to bare fragments, rhetoric sometimes returns in
unexpected ways: it figures, paradoxically, in Mallarme's "disparition
elocutoire" by which invention's lineaments represent themselves, as it often
happens in "self-portraits".
The promotion of a putative ''poetic thought" in "images" may also be
mentioned. It is distinct from and contrasts with logical thought. Figuration
(as in Freudian oneirology) plays the role of local generator, while the figures
of thought (irony, allegory, hyperbole, etc.) supposedly substitute themselves
for the processes of invention in order to engender the great syntagmatic of
the poetic text, unless the places and images of memoria become in turn the
matrix of texts which unfold the genesis of the writing subject or that of his
culture.
 RHETORIC AND LITERATURE 157

It would be easy to multiply the variants and thus saturate the field of
modem poetics which would then appear like a set of metamorphic versions
of classical rhetoric. After all, these variants have a common characteristic
already mentioned above: the forgetting or the refusal of persuasion, a refusal
that may go as far as to invert the ideology according to which true literature,
far from having a persuasive function, is not even communicative in its
unpower [impouvoir), unless it becomes an inaugural break from all theses
accepted by the public which, in tum, would lead to failure and reprobation.
But, once again, an obvious fact must be insisted upon. When the various
avant-gardes proclaim their aversion for rhetoric, and their aversion is shared
by most literate people, and when, consequently, the old works produced in
the rhetorical regimen cease to be read spontaneously and become a corpus
for university specialists, at that very moment a great portion of the literary
production remains persuasive, shifts to the topics of the preferable, of the
honorable, or of the useful, refers to concrete (fidelity, loyalty, solidarity,
honor) or abstract Uustice, truthfulness, etc.) values and to their opposites.
The modem rhetorician (whether he be a historian of this art or one who
strives to renew it) may know that many contemporary "essays" are of the
legal, deliberative or epidictic (in all senses of the term) type, but the authors
no longer do?
It is doubtless not coincidental that this "forgetting" of rhetoric - a
forgetting that affects even the practitioners of genres which traditionally
resorted to argumentation and aimed at persuasion - is accompanied by a
challenge to author and authority. Indeed, classical rhetoric is perceived as
the matrix of a redundant and impersonal discourse that is destined to
ostentatious psittacism (now modernity, as Jean Paulhan perceived so well,
only feels at ease in terror, in distrust or abdication before "language": the
writer must be compromised by what he writes or else he is but a man of
letters), and at the same time felt as the poorly disguised exercise of an
authority which horrifies. Rhetorical discourse authorizes itself by its own
skillfulness, but it also exercises an impersonal and diffuse authority: a class
authority, an ideological authority which stems precisely from the recourse to
topics and authorities. This authority transcends each particular utterance and
each author presents himself to his audience as mandated or "covered" by a
truth established by the best minds of the past to whom the best minds of the
present and of the future will have to adhere in tum. It is thus legitimate to
wonder whether rhetoric, in spite of the imputations of frivolity and even of
perversity which have weighed for a long time upon the art of arguing
indifferently the pro and the contra, is not irremediably condemned in the
158 MICHEL BEAUJOUR

practice of an elitist literature which has come to consider the contra as well
as the pro as the sides of a self-same reaffmnation of outdated and iniquitous
values, of a self-same reiteration of "commonplaces" which should really be
subjected to doubt and deconstructed in order to make them own up to their
participation in an ideology or even a Western onto theology of which rhetoric
would never be more than a "technological" fall-out. It is possible.
The examination of the contemporary literary sectors where rhetoric has
obviously prospered, at the cost of occasionally abjuring its name, seems to
confmn this analysis a contrario: those sectors are situated in authoritarian
and even totalitarian ideological contexts. Thus the "roman a these" and
socialist realism.s Let us frrst consider the latter whose definition is inscribed
in the charter of the Union of Soviet Writers:
Socialist realism is the fundamental method of Soviet literature and literary criticism.
It demands of the artist a true and historically concrete representation of reality in its
revolutionary development. The true and the historically concrete in the artistic
representation of reality must be combined with the task of reforming the ideas of the
workers and of educating them in the spirit of socialism.

It is readily apparent that the task of persuasion (reform, education) is

subordinated to a truth (the knowledge of reality in its revolutionary develop-
ment) and entrusted to a truthful representation, i.e. one in accordance with
the laws of Marxism-Leninism. But what is most important to note here is
that art (and in particular mimetic art which utilizes a "positive hero" as a
vector of the perlocutory force of the message) is conceived as a persuasion
toward good and is opposed in all respects to "art for art's sake" taken to be
the dominant theory in the bourgeois regimen. That such a poetics now seems
disgraceful should not mask the evidence that it is in conformity, mutatis
mutandis, with the declared or implicit principles which have guided the
production of the majority of literary texts from Antiquity to modernity and
that, by its reduction of the adversarial dialogism inherent in ancient rhetoric,
it is inscribed in the direct filiation of Christian eloquence.
As for the "roman a these", I will comment here on the explicit epigraphs
of Susan Suleiman's Authoritarian Fictions. 9 Maurice Banes claimed a
universal authority: "Literature, such as the masters have understood it, is an
interpretation of life. It eliminates in order to prove". If to prove is a bit
strong (there is confusion between apodictic logic and persuasive argumenta-
tion), the rhetorical filiation remains fairly clear. Paul Nizan makes no bones
about it: "All literature is propaganda [... J. For us, art is that which renders
propaganda efficient, that which is capable of moving men in the very
 RHETORIC AND LITERATURE 159

direction we wish". The rhetorical tenninology is totally transfonned, but the

substance remains. Eloquence is truly "that which is capable of moving men
in the very direction we wish". As for the word propaganda, deliberately
incongruous in the context of a poetics, it designates quite simply persuasion
exercised by a power, be it only that of a revolutionary party. Moreover, the
word is part of an enthymeme such as: "If all literature is propaganda, why
should we communists be denied the right to do as everyone else?" To be
sure, if the premise is correct ... But Aristotle would not contest the statement
that "art is [ ... ] that which renders propaganda (persuasion) efficient".
Unfortunately, here, art no longer altogether signifies techne, but rather "that
which gets something across", the sugar coating on the pill, that which is not
the ideological message itself reduced to its essential conceptual fonn. And
this ornament includes ... the narrative, the characters, the dialogues, etc., in
short all of that which, for Aristotle the poetician, constitutes an epic poem, a
drama (or a novel). Here finally is Roland Barthes reflecting in uncharacteris-
tic fashion and not without naivete upon the decline of the oeuvre athese.
Then there is the modem question: why is there not (at least it seems to me) why is
there no longer any art of persuasion - or of intellectual imagination? Why are we so
cumbersome, so indifferent to mobilizing the narrative or the image? Don't we see
that, as mediocre as they might be artistically, works of fiction nevertheless are best at
shaking up political opinion?

One would think that he had never been "Brechtian", that he had never read
Aragon or Nizan and that he knows nothing about socialist realism. To be
sure, he addresses "us", the leftist, non-communist intellectuals whose desire
to persuade is a bit reluctant about the concessions that must be made in order
to acquire fictive authority. And yet, we could do better (than Stil's novels or
Vailland's plays?): if mediocre oeuvres a these persuade, then what might
they do if they were good? But what is a "good" roman athese?
Barthes' questions, like Barres' and Nizan's enthymeme and the argument
of socialist realism, derive from a massive confusion which I have done
nothing up until now to remove because it is too crucial for one to even think
about undertaking its critique in a parenthetical clause. A secular and
fundamental confusion which encumbers and nourishes Western reflection on
letters, particularly since the rise of literature to the pinnacle of literary
production. Now, this confusion was first avoided by Aristotle at a time
when, it is true, the corpus to be considered was still thin and genres were
apparently poorly established. One could do worse than to return briefly to
his writings in order to get things straight.
160 MICHEL BEAUJOUR

Let us first recall pro forma that Aristotle wrote a Poetics and a Rhetoric
separately and that they refer one to the other.l0 The Rhetoric is the theory of
persuasive practice, while the Poetics treats the production of poetic works
(essentially epic poems and dramas, then, incidentally, a great number of
other diverse "genres" which, as we have said before, have not yet been given
any collective name).l1
According to the Poetics, the poem has two essential aspects: the represen-
tation of human actions (mimesis) and the modelling plot (muthos).12 Certain
poems are recounted by a narrator who is present in his narration and who
may (or may not) make his characters speak; others, like the dramatic genres,
"represent human actions but do not utilize narration" (1449b, ch. 6). As
everyone knows, Aristotle justifies the existence of poetry by the pleasure of
representation (mimesis) which is, moreover, a common effect of several arts
(painting, sculpture, music, dance, etc.). The specificity of poetic art results
precisely from the representation of human actions by the construction of a
well-formed plot which is carried out by characters.
As such, mimesis and muthos have nothing to do with persuasion as far as
Aristotle is concerned. Tragedy may well act upon the spectator's emotions,
but it does so by provoking terror and pity, then purging the passions,
whereas persuasion excites the emotions of the audience in order to instigate
an action or at least create a disposition for action (perelman). But, very early
in the Poetics (1448b, ch. 4), Aristotle introduces the idea that, from the
outset, poets, according to the greater or lesser seriousness of their nature,
constructed either noble deeds accomplished by good men (hymns, encomia,
then epic poems and tragedies) or low actions ascribed to inferior characters
(satire, comedy, burlesque). It is easy to see that this ethical, social and
formal bipartition intersects the one which, in rhetoric, separates the encomia
from the vituperation. In other words, if mimesis and muthos are in principle
neutral, and are only justified by the pure pleasure procured from the
representation of actions and a well-made plot (without moral incidence),13
this relative gratuity, or rather the function of ontological clarification and
psychological purification attributed to the poem, risks turning surreptitiously
into an educative function if the poem also presents dazzling examples of the
best and of the worst as regards human actions and characters. 14
Yet, if there still prevails a certain ambiguity as to the relation between
mimetic poetry and the teaching of virtue, Aristotle's Poetics takes care not
to subordinate poetry to persuasion. On the other hand (but this is an aspect
internal to mimesis), the persuasive discourses of characters fall under the
jurisdiction of rhetoric. That is why Aristotle's Rhetoric, like so many others
 RHETORIC AND UTERATURE 161

subsequent to it, seeks examples of eloquence in the epic poem and the
drama.
The statuts of plot and of narration remain to be examined as such. There
thus exist works (said to be poetic) in which persuasion (either global or
intradiegetic) is subordinated to the mimetic dominant In such a work the
characters, even the narrator, may well construct their discourses with a view
to persuasion by mobilizing all the resources of the rhetorical arsenal, yet
their action does not, for all that, become a simple vector of persuasion
between the addresser and the addressee of the text as a whole. For, though
muthos might be a likely blueprint as well as a model, one cannot concede to
Barres that it "eliminates in order to prove". It eliminates - in a pinch - in
order to incite emotions and to procure the pleasure of (re)cognition which
constitutes the specific benefit of good mimesis.
But all "narratives" are not found in works with a poetic dominant. And it
is for this reason that an almost inextricable confusion has become es-
tablished over the centuries in which poetics and rhetoric were mingled. It
will be recalled that in the Rhetoric (I ii 7-8, 1356 a and b), Aristotle states
the following:
Thus it appears that Rhetoric is as it were an offshoot of Dialectic and of the science
of Ethics, which may be reasonably called Politics. [ ... ] For, as we said at the outset,
Rhetoric is a sort of division or likeness of Dialectic, since neither of them is a science
that deals with the nature of any definite subject, but they are merely faculties of
furnishing arguments.

But - (and here we come to the heart of the matter) for purposes of demonstration,
real or apparent, just as Dialectic possesses two modes of argument, induction and the
syllogism, real or apparent, the same is the case in Rhetoric [ ... ]. Accordingly I call an
enthymeme a rhetorical syllogism, and an example rhetorical induction. Now all
orators produce belief by employing as proofs either examples or enthymemes and
nothing else [... ].

Here, we will deal with the example which is "a sort of induction", a "relation
[.•. J of part to part, of like to like, when both come under the same genus, but
one of them is better known than the other" (I.ii.19-1357b). Thus, "to prove
that Dionysus is aiming at a tyranny, because he asks for a bodyguard, one
might say that Pisistratus before him and Theagenes of Megara did the same,
and when they obtained what they asked for made themselves tyrants" (ibid.).
Here, the examples are reduced to minimal narratives, liable to be developed
and detailed according to the aimed-for contexts and audiences. The impor-
tant thing is that, as regards persuasion, historically these "anecdotes" serve
162 MICHEL BEAUJOUR

to establish a maxim like: "he who wants to tyrannize tries to protect

himself'. Narration serves persuasion: the adversary may denounce the
fragility of the induction or bring in counter-examples, but the aim is extra-
textual.
In works whose dominant is non-poetic in the Aristotelian sense, the
presence of a plot or of an exemplary narrative has indeed worried modem
theoreticians, especially those who, knowing virtually nothing about rhetoric,
tend to reduce the literary thing to "poetry", no matter what definition they
propose for this "function". One may indeed mistrust theories which, among
uses of language, oppose a poetic (or aesthetic) pole and a communicative (or
even persuasive) pole in order to measure the degrees of "literarity" or
"poeticity" according to a more or less marked domination of the poetic
function, or inversely, that of the communicative function. With certain
modernists, poeticity may moreover be measured by the degree to which a
text displays its self-production at the expense of meaning and mimesis. This
seductive opposition (which is perhaps reducible to an imaginary opposition
between that which is clear and that which is obscure) can at most serve to
divide the space of modem literature. One can in no way agree that it delimits
an outside and an inside of the "literary thing" because such an opposition
would end up excluding the majority of the argumentative or systematic 15
texts in which the function of persuasive communication dominates.
The narration-plot (muthos) may thus have two very different types of
relation to rhetoric: it will sometimes have a dominant function and will
strive principally to be mimetic-poetic, in which case persuasion appears only
in a subordinate role in which it can even engender an argumentative
"polyphony" which no intratextual authority may totalize or resolve; or
muthos will have the subordinate role of example in a text with a persuasive
dominant where it must lead to a unequivocal conclusion (since it serves as
an argument) which is often made explicit by an intratextual authority clearly
marked as such: it is for this purpose that the moral of a fable, the use of
maxims, the commentary of an author or of a "positive hero"16 may serve.
In principle, then, two great literary types exist. 17 According to the periods
and the ideological and social contexts, one or the other type enjoys greater
prestige among those who have the power to constitute the literary canon and
to pronounce judgement on the "literarity" of new productions. For example,
in the eyes of the learned of the period studied by Marc Fumaroli
(1550-1650), eloquence and the argumentative genres prevail over the
mimetic-poetic genres, while, inversely, the establishment of literature
increasingly favored poetics-mimetics. Genres with an argumentative
 RHETORIC AND UTERATURE 163

dominant thus tend to be excluded from "literature" in which certain texts are
only tolerated by virtue of their being well-written, obscure or picturesque
aberrations.
It nonetheless seems that this tendency has recently been inverted, at least
in France, due to the favor from which the "human sciences" and historiog-
raphy have benefited. This is a promotion which entails a widening of the
"literary" canon: the rhetoricaVargumentative works of the past (philosophy,
history, or natural sciences) may henceforth be read not only as archives of
somewhat outdated "facts" and "ideas", but especially as systematic texts
whose epistemology or argumentative structure are intrinsically linked to the
more or less conscious and conventional implementation of tropes and
figures. From the research of Bachelard and Canguilhem to Foucault's
archeology (which circumscribe the probability of an episterne through its
major arguments and tropes) even to the work of a Derrida (who divulges a
latent metaphysics in figures) a vast movement on the margins of scholarly
and explicit rhetorical research undertaken independently by Perelman and a
few Anglo-Saxon researchers contributes to the promotion of an attentive yet,
at the same time, loose reading of the neglected areas of the rhetorico-
argumentative archive. Meanwhile, contemporary argumentative texts which
thoroughly exploit, against "positivism", the sophistic fallacies, the
"liberties" of the rhetorico-poetic lexis and aU the ambiguities of the prob-
able, the possible, increasingly acknowledge themselves to be "literary". This
displacement is accompanied by a decline in the poetic-mimetic productions
known as avant-garde. But this is perhaps a local mutation, particular to the
French culture, whose weight and significance within Western "literature"
remains to be evaluated and whose epistemological and socio-cultural
determinations do not yet appear to us clearly. Let us merely note that
rhetoric - like sophistics - enjoys renewed favor in historical and theoretical
research and a new audience among writers who have discovered it to be a
powerful means of undermining and eluding the monumentality of systematic
philosophy and of challenging the metaphysics of representation, a genus of
which mimesis and poetic expressivity are the species. But if it is so that
mimesis and expression are henceforth the objects of a disfavor and a
desperate undermining effort on the theoretical level, what then is the status
of "poetry"?
We will henceforth no longer take poetry in the Aristotelian sense of epic
and dramatic mimesis, since this role has been assumed in a large part by the
"novel" and the audio-visual media. But instead, we will take it in the sense,
which in Aristotle and in all the great traditional Western poetics is marginal,
164 MICHEL BEAUJOUR

of lyricism (expressive "song"), or else, in accordance with an ideology

issuing from the encounter between esoteric symbolism and Heidegger, in
that of an unveiling of being in language. It is legitimate to wonder, for the
time being, how such a "poetry" which is in principle equally hostile to
mimesis and to rhetoric situates itself in the Aristotelian bipartition and if its
skewed position does not threaten the symmetry of the model sketched
above.
But before we reach that stage, let us recall that the dominant of pre-
modern poetry itself was not exclusively mimetic and that an important
fraction of lyrical poetry (so-called for its relationship to a musical accom-
paniment) is in fact produced by the elaboration of locutionary and illocution-
ary acts (request, interrogation, threat, encomium, deploration, refusal, wish,
etc.) which are placed - fictively or not - in conventional socio-cultural
contexts. Now, already with Aristotle (Poetics, 1451a, chap.8), these speech
acts were claimed by rhetoric which has since passed them on to pragmatics.
This kind of poetry thus falls essentially in the rhetorical sphere. It adds
specific traits (meter, diverse forms) to a sometimes schematic and often
fallacious argumentation. It is thus its "poetic" usage of lexis which, accord-
ing to Aristotle and numerous epigones, forces this type of discourse to swing
toward nonsense, i.e. toward a confusion of the argument and a
"defunctionaiization" of the speech act (Rhetoric, 1404a, m, i, 9). Neverthe-
less, this rhetorical poetry presents itself as a fictive persuasion or dissuasion
which, with the help of enthymemes and examples, aims either at an
inscribed addressee or at the addresser himself who is then supposed to
soliloquize, deliberate or meditate in his heart of hearts.
Lyrical poetry may well be a "second rhetoric": its status, like that of any
meditative-deliberative soliloquy, is nonetheless ambiguous. Romantic
ideologemes (self-expression, imagination, "objective correlative" of
emotion) attempted to legitimize this pseudo-rhetorical non-narration and to
carve for it a domain between mimesis and argumentation. That attempt ends
up in a generalized subversion of rhetoric and mimesis: its vicissitudes
delimit the poetic history of modernity. Moreover, the reading strategy which
contemporary criticism designates by the pejorative term of rationalization,
and which consists in searching for the "meaning" of a text by reducing it
either to a mimesis (which the texts prevents from taking in spite of the
suggestive enticements that it furnishes) or to a persuasive argument turns out
to be too generalized a phenomenon for it to simply be chalked up to
stupidity; and, inversely, modernist confusion is too ideological and too
overdetermined by an intense will to not fall back into the double rut of
 RHETORIC AND liTERATURE 165

mimesis-narration and formal argument for us not to suspect (a suspicion

confmned by the massive production and consumption of mimetic and
argumentative works which are marginal to modernism) that the Aristotelian
bipartition remains solidly anchored at the heart of our culture. This biparti-
tion informs the "horizons of expectation" of the naive reader (who
"understands nothing about modernism") as well as those of the modernist
writer and reader, at least when the lauer, giving themselves over to a
reprehensible listlessness, seek that "pleasure of the text" which Roland
Barthes rehabilitated to a certain extent while at the same time opposing and
subordinating it to the jouissance which texts appearing to be insoluble
enigmas or flagrant nonsense would procure as they resist argumentative-
mimetic reduction. The bracketing - or at least the bringing into question - of
meaning, which focuses attention on the materiality of writing and defers sine
die access to the mimetic or argumentative signified also draws attention to
the "work of the signifier" even in old texts that are totally alien to moder-
nism: this is a modem variant of rhetoric in which invention is conflated with
elocutio. Nevertheless, there is an advantage with this telescoping (which
produces a partial rhetoric) in that it renders the relative autonomy of lexis in
relation to mimetic or argumentative intentionality manifesL Traditional
rhetoric only accomplished this revelation timidly, due to its own ontological
and practical overdeterminations. In Aristotle, the caution against excesses in
"poetic style" and against its tendency to degenerate into nonsense aims to
limit this autonomy: traditional rhetoric is as much a means of controlling
rambling words and their constitutive elements as it is a means of facilitating
their arrangement for argumentative and mimetic purposes.
"Rhetoric", as we stated at the outset, is everywhere. It is in argumentation
and in the refusal to argue, in the literary utterance and in its enunciation, in
tropes and figures, in the fact that the writer wants to have his opinion shared
and in the fact that his characters, if there are any, implore, threaten, deplore
and manipulate each other. But many aspects of the text, and especially those
of the mimetic/narrative text, remain foreign to rhetoric. As such, their
narratology as well as their dramaturgy dominate persuasion which in turn
becomes a pertinent element of the text, but one subordinated to muthos
whose principal function is to procure a particular pleasure which is adminis-
tered as much by "suspense" as by the alternating excitement and calming of
the emotions. And if these emotions and suspense have been set into motion
for specifically persuasive reasons, the argumentative structure underlying
the muthos - which thus appears as a simple inductive example - must be
sought. To be sure, the difference may appear minimal, even specious, but,
166 MICHEL BEAUJOUR

all things considered, it allows one to bracket or resolve a whole series of

problems in which modem criticism (at least criticism that stands outside the
semiotic sphere) has been steeped and which all pertain to the extension,
utility and purity of the literary thing. The answer depends on which side the
texts are on. On the rhetorical side, they may be asked (with all the cir-
cumstantial and contextual implications) to plead a case, or, paradoxically,
they may be asked to tum against persuasion and expose the strings of
argumentation, the scheming of figures and tropes, the loci of memory, i.e.
the matrix of the argumentative text. And on the mimetic/narrative side,
reversals (peripetiae) and emotions procured by human actions - noble or not
- may be expected of them, unless, paradoxically, the undoing of muthos is
exposed, the abulia, the degeneration, or the vanishing of the protagonist, the
breaking down of the narration or of the drama is performed. Other options
will occur, depending on whether certain elements are moved from one side
to another. Rhetoric will always thrive on this, but perhaps, in the long run,
literature will not.
It is necessary, in conclusion, to stress the fact that rhetoric is not - as it is
all too often believed - a "critical method" among others. Were it one, it
would be reduced to description, taxonomy and history. To be sure, it is
useful to analyze arguments, periodic sentences, figures and tropes, to find
out what sorts of "rhetoric" prevailed at a given moment and which ideologi-
cal tendencies were connected to them. As long as this task continues to
appear in the eyes of some as somewhat esoteric and picky, it will have to
struggle to impose its legitimacy. Inversely, rhetoric is not a global theory of
the literary thing. We now know that the drama, the narrative, and, in part,
lyricism escape its jurisdiction. Different from modem criticism which is
essentially analytical, rhetoric remains, virtually, a theory of the production
of argumentative texts and of that which is argumentative in poetic-mimetic
texts. It will become so fully, once again, thanks to the work of Perelman and
of a few others. True, it has been scattered into a thousand dispersed practices
which have, on the face of it, little to do with literature. But this is precisely
rhetoric's strength, for it constitutes a resource - even a challenge - to that
which today endangers literature, namely the relative decline of letters within
an audio-visual mass culture. Let it be noted that this decline threatens, first
and foremost, the future of argumentation, since the functions of the narrative
and of the mimetic drama have been taken over by the cinema and by
television; those of lyrical poetry, by rock music and video. It seems to me
that the resurgence of the rhetoric of language must be interpreted as a
profound reaction (but faintly-perceived as such) to the dealphabetization of
 RHETORIC AND UfERATURE 167

the West, rather than as the creation of an additional specialization in the

realm of literary studies.
Thus perceived, the return to rhetoric invites us not only to take up the
archive once again in its relation to the media and the mental tools available
to each epoch, but especially to redefine the literary thing at a moment when
it risks - in spite of libraries and data banks - becoming shortly a dead letter.
Let us finally note, not without anticipated nostalgia, that a new rhetoric will
surely develop upon the ruins of the literature which made us what we are.
For if rhetoric preceded literature, it will, for symmetrical reasons, neces-
sarily survive it in a post-literary culture.

NOTES
1 Jean-Louis Galay, Philosophie et invention textuelle, Paris, Klincksieck, 1977, p.
25. Here, oeuvre refers to the making of the end-product: ouvrage.
2 Perelman, as we know, added the idea that "discourse addressed to the universal
audience aims to convince" to classical theory. The Rhetorical Realm, Paris, Vrin,
1977, p. 31.
3 Perelman, op. cit., p. 37.
4 Marc Fumaroli, L' age de I' eloquence, Geneve, Droz, 1980, pp. 17-2fl,.
S Aristotle, Poetics ...
6 Michel Beaujour, Miroirs d'encre, rhetorique de I'autoportrait, Paris, Seuil, 1980,
p.I25.
7 Chaim Perelman, The Rhetorical Realm, op.cit., p. 83: "Epideictic discourse
nonnally derives from the edifying genre, for it is less concerned with bringing about
immediate action than with creating a readiness for action which waits for the
appropriate moment [... ]. Thus it is that all practical philosophy derives from the
epideictic geme."
8 Cf. Susan Suleiman's excellent study, Authoritarian Fictions: The Ideological
Novel as a Literary Genre, New York, Columbia University Press, 1983, and Rufus
W. Mathewson, Jr., The Positive Hero in Russian Literature, New York, Columbia
University Press, 1958.
9 Suleiman stresses that numerous practitioners of this geme denied that they
practiced it. A "roman a these" is that of an ideological adversary.
10 The Rhetoric of course refers also to the Organon, to the Poetics and generally to
the Ethics.
11 The Poetics' orientation allows us, without stretching the point, to anachronisti-
cally extend its sphere to the novel and the narrative cinema.
12 I am borrowing the model concept (modelling system) anachronistically from Iouri
Lotman (La structure du tate artistique, Paris, Gallimard, 1973) in order to stress that
Aristotelian muthos is not a simple "slice" of life or a segment of action but, on the
contrary, the poet's active structuring of the mimetic material.
13 The Rhetoric (1371b) and the Poetics (1448b) indicate that the arts of imitation
procure the dual pleasure of wonderment and of discovery: the imitated thing itself
168 MICHEL BEAUJOUR

does not procure these pleasures, but "the recognition that the imitation and the
imitated thing are identical in such a manner that we learn something." Pleasure of re-
cognition or of pre-cognition by which we learn to either "see" better or to see into the
future [prevoir). This is the educative pleasure peculiar to the drama, the epic poem
and fiction. These pleasures are analogous to those obtained from the metaphor: a
delayed pleasure derived from a difference which is then resolved in a resemblance.
Thus the metaphor can represent a sort of "microcosm" of mimesis. This is what
Derrida seems to be suggesting in a striking aside: ''now, if metaphor (or mimesis in
general) aims at an effect of knowledge ... ". "La mythologie blanche" in Marges de la
philosophie, Paris, Minuit, 1972, p.294.
14 We know that for the Greeks, the poet (Homer in particular) was a (good or bad)
educator, and that epic and tragic poetry was constantly exploited by educators (the
Sophists, for example) who found in them examples of virtue (arete).
15 Karlheinz Stierle, "L'histoire comme exemple, l'exemple comme histoire",
Poetique 10, 1972, pp.176-195.
16 Historiography may, alternately, according to ideologies and contexts, belong to
one or the other type of narration.
17 It would be good for the reader to refer to the introduction to Wilbur S. Howell's
book, Poetic, Rhetoric and Logic, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1975.
 OUVIER REBOUL

THE FIGURE AND THE ARGUMENT

Can a figure of rhetoric be an argument? Can it be an element of argumenta-

tion? In order to provide an answer, let us begin by defining what is under-
stood by "figure of rhetoric".
A figure, in general, is a stylistic procedure, i.e. a manner of expression
which is both free and codified.
The figure is free in the sense that one does not have to have recourse to it
in order to communicate: "For France is not alone! She is not alone! She is
not alone!" (de Gaulle, address of 18 June 1940). To be sure, the author had
no need of this repetition in order to make himself understood.
The figure is codified because each figure constitutes a known structure
which is transferable to other contents: the metaphor, the allegory. Thus,
whoever is a bit knowledgeable (or a little pedantic) will recognize de
Gaulle's figure for an epanalepse.
To say that a figure is rhetorical is not a pleonasm, for a figure may only be
poetic; and rhetoric and poetry are not the same thing, and do not have the
same functions or instruments. If we refer to the great tradition going back to
Aristotle, we may say that the essence of rhetoric is persuasion through
discourse. A figure is thus not necessarily rhetorical and it is only so to the
extent that it contributes to persuading. Thus, de Gaulle affirmed that "France
is not alone" three times undoubtedly to express a pathetic tension contribut-
ing to ethos (character which the orator must take on) and to pathos (action
upon the audience's affectivity). As soon as it is rhetorical, the figure
contributes to argumentation. It is clearly in this manner that the authors of
The New Rhetoric understood it - those authors who strove to derive, and
almost deduce, every known figure from a certain type of argument. Thus,
repetition (cf. p. 504) would be the figure of sincerity, being connected to the
argument of dissociation; the procedures of discourse are distinguished from
spontaneity of discourse. In brief, in our example, de Gaulle's repetition
would be a procedure meant to convince: a procedure which discourse is not.
The consequence: a figure appearing as such, as purely gratuitous, is one
which has missed its target, which prompts its audience to say: that is
misplaced poetry (or humor)! The successful figure, on the other

169
170 OUVIER REBOUL

hand, appears "natural", i.e. the most normal in the argumentative situation
and context, the one in the absence of which one would think something had
been lost. In brief, instead of seeing the figure as a "deviation" or expression,
extrinsic to thought, it is made an element of thought, a means of fmding and
proving, even if what it finds and proves is never more than probable. Just as
is probable everything that results from argumentation. That is, in the end,
almost everything.
Now, this functional theory of the figure perhaps omits an essential
element - I mean to say, pleasure. The pleasure which may derive from
emotional disturbance or, on the contrary, from laughter, but which in any
case constitutes a specific element of persuasion. In terms of this, there exists
either a "well-placed" poetry or a "well-placed" humor. Olbrechts-Tyteca's
The Comic of Discourse seems to me to correct what was too intellectualist in
the theory, at least as regards laughter, by showing us the pleasure it may
procure.
Based on these remarks, I will attempt to answer the three following
questions in order of increasing difficulty. First, in what ways do figures
facilitate argumentation? Second, can the figure itself constitute an argu-
ment? Third, is not the argument itself a figure, more or less?

1. FIGURES OF WORDS AND FIGURES OF MEANING

I will classify the figures in the most traditional manner, which at least has
the advantage of being clear: figures of words, meaning, construction and
thought.
Figures of words (or metaplasms) seem limited to poetry or else to the
comical. Nevertheless, they must indeed play an argumentative role since the
most rationalistic philosophers do not hesitate to use them, starting with
Plato's paronomase: soma. sema. The force of expression results from the
rhythmic repetition: - , - , as well as from the repetition of all the
phonemes, except for 0 and e. The proof is in the fact that one need only to
translate - "the body is a tomb" - in order for this force to disappear;
however, the power of metaphor remains.
In this type of figure, everything happens as if - an "as if' which quite
exactly constitutes the figure - the arbitrariness of the sign were abolished, as
if the sequence of phonemes responded to a sequence of thoughts to which it
brought an added measure of proof, all the stronger for its unexpectedness.
One may object that this example is unconvincing, that a pun can only be the
argument of the simple-minded. Is this so certain?
 mE FIGURE AND mE ARGUMENT 171

Let us consider a figure as common as the derivation: "Brittany to the

Bretons". It creates, at the outset, a feeling of legitimate belonging, along
with a dissociation: that of the exclusion of non-Bretons or of fIrst-generation
Bretons. But the figure only works by virtue of an initial consensus, or at
least the existence of a problem. "Berry to the Berrichons", rather than
convincing, would be ridiculous.
Yet another example, and a much more serious one: that of etymology,
which holds an eminent place in our culture and which, as an argument, is
nevertheless of the same type and level. Hence, the etymology of "figure"
could evoke a face - a face in the anonymity of the text -, or else, it could
evoke fIction (fingere), or, better yet, a fIctitious face, a mask. This etymol-
ogy has been played upon for all times - this etymology which is, moreover,
whimsical, since figura, a technical term from Latin rhetoric, is but a tracing
of the Greek schema which does not at all evoke masks or faces! Indeed,
whether the etymology is exact or whimsical has little importance, for a word
only has meaning in a given synchrony, and its signifIcance in another
language (e.g. ancient Greek) does not in the least authorize a modifIcation of
its defInition in ours.
And yet, we have no hesitation in referring to etymology as to a choice
argument; and when I say "we", I am thinking in particular of philosophers
who do not hesitate to postulate an original language in which words would
have an authentic meaning which it would suffice to retrieve in order to
know. Thus, Heidegger, at almost every page ... Gilbert Dispaux (1984, p.
86), on this matter, cites Freud's opponents who claimed to refute him by
arguing with the "etymological sense" of hysteria (derived from the Greek
hystera, uterus), only to conclude that hysteria could "by defInition" only be
a woman's illness! Etymology may be interesting, but, as an argument, it is
nothing more than a cultural pun, a fIgure of words that is blind to itself as
such.
Figures of meaning, or tropes, appear more pertinent, closer to the
technique of argumentation itself. Metaphors, metonymies, synecdoches,
oxymorons, hyperboles, etc. consist in the use of a term with a meaning that
it does not usually have and which provokes a tension within the discourse.
Here, I limit myself to the example of the metonymy.
The metonymy consists in indicating a thing by another which is usually
associated with it: "the throne and the altar", "the sword and the aspergil-
lum". Its argumentative power is above all that of naming which emphasizes
one aspect of the thing to the detriment of others. Thus, "the throne and the
altar" is a valorizing metonymy, while "the sword and the aspergillum" is a
172 OUVIER REBOUL

depreciatory one that reduces the army to the practice of extermination and
that of the church to superstition. But, in any case, we associate one reality
with another by playing on the feeling of familiarity that creates often that of
evidence. Most symbols - cross, crescent, crown, tricolor - are on the order
of the metonymy. And, metonymy may be considered to be a condensed
argument that plays on the symbolic link.
Figure of familiarity? It may, however, happen that the metonymy is new,
surprising, in the sense that Ricoeur speaks of the "metaphore vive". "There
are no Pyrenees any more", declared for the first time (in 1659?), must have
produced this effect of surprise. "Pyrenees" is a metonymy for "border", with
the connotation of a dangerous, hostile and almost insurmountable mountain
range; there is, in addition, a metalepse, for the "there are no more" evokes
the power of kings, capable of moving mountains. A living metonymy, for it
tacitly introduces a new symbol, "the plain", that evokes peaceful communica-
tion. But it is a symbol that the audience could nonetheless decipher.
Familiarity, newness: like all figures of meaning, the metonymy oscillates
between two rocks: the enigma and the cliche. A metaphor like "that fox", a
synechoche like "a hundred heads to feed", a metonymy like "his hearth", are
codified to the point that they are no longer figures. Their force of persuasion
is only that of naming with all its reductiveness. To the contrary, a new figure
is often enigmatic; its strength thus comes from the fact that it forces one
away - if only for an instant - from received ideas. Every true figure of
meaning keeps to the center in this tension between the mystery of the
enigma and the familiarity of the clicM.

2. FIGURES OF CONSTRUCTION AND FIGURES OF THOUGHT

Figures of construction concern the structure of the sentence or the sequenc-

ing of sentences. Let us cite the ellipse, repetition, inversion, antithesis, etc.
Here, once again, I will limit myself to one example, the chiasmus, which
combines the antithesis and inversion (after Fontanier, Perelman calls it
"reversion"). The chiasmus reinforces the antithesis by reversing the order of
the repeated terms: XY -YX. Thus the two last lines of Comeille' s quatrain on
Richelieu:
Whether one speaks badly or well of the famous cardinal,
Neither my prose nor my verse will ever speak a word:
He has done me too much good that I would speak badly of him,
He has done me too much evil that I would speak well of him.
 TIlE FIGURE AND TIlE ARGUMENT 173

Here, the chiasmus appears to be the development of a dilemma - whether I

speak: well or badly of him, it will be unjust in both cases - the conclusion
being: I am thus right in not saying anything. The perfect chiasmus seems
thus to render the argument irrefutable. The chiasmus in thus in the service of
what Perelman designates as a quasi-logical argumentation. Logical, because
it seems to rest on an ineluctable alternative each term of which ends up in
the same conclusion "to say nothing". Quasi, because in fact the alternative is
not one: between "to speak: well" and "to speak: badly", there are indifferent
and nuanced things one can say. Moreover, this is exactly what Comeille
does! His chiasmus is inserted in a preterition by saying that he will say
nothing about Richelieu, he does speak: of him and expresses the essential.
The chiasmus, moreover, possesses another function related to what
Perelman calls dissociation. Such as the famous chiasmus of Karl Marx. He
speaks thus, against Feuerbach:
To the contrary of German philosophy which goes from heaven to earth, it is from
earth to heaven that we climb here [... J. It is not consciousness that determines life,
but life that determines consciousness." (German Ideology)

Over and against the illusory couple of German ideology (Term I: earth, life I
Term II: heaven, consciousness), Marx sets the couple which expresses the
real hierarchy by inverting Term I and Term II. The argument's X-shape
seems to provide him with the evidence of necessity. However, we find the
same abuse of logic as in Comeille; indeed, is the alternative (consciousness
determining life or life determining consciousness) really one? It is plausible
that if life determines consciousness, then the latter transforms life, in
response, etc. The chiasmus renders the argument dramatic. Or else comical,
like Marx's answer to Proudhon: "Philosophy of misery or misery of
philosophy?" But it simplifies it to the point of reductiveness.
Figures of thought, of which the most well-known are the allegory and
irony, are characterized by two features. First, they pertain not to a part of the
discourse, but to the discourse as such; a sentence may contain a pun, but it is
the entire sentence or a whole series of sentences that are ironic. Then, they
are liable to multiple readings. A metaphor, ''This chief of State is the
shepherd of this people", has only one sense, the figurative sense. While an
allegory, like the parable of the good shepherd can be read in the literal sense
or in the figurative. Just as an ironic sentence: "You are the phoenix ..... can
be taken to the letter or as an antiphrasis. This double meaning has argumenta-
tive value.
Thus the allegory, like Plato's cavern or the sower of the Gospels, presents
174 OUVIER REBOUL

a coherent narrative which seems self-sufficient. However, the audience is

not satisfied: it suspects that it in fact is being told something else - but what?
To our thinking, far from a clarification, the allegory states a message in
veiled form, and for that very reason, it schemes. It is too often forgotten that
there is a pedagogy of mystery; and this is allegory's force: it urges us to find
out more.
As for irony, its dual meaning explains its impact. Very often, its victim
takes its message to the letter - "You are the phoenix ... " - which makes him
ridiculous before the audience. But it happens that even the audience does not
understand the antiphrasis right away. It is precisely this delay that produces
the finesse of irony, and even its cruelty.
Irony is undoubtedly the figure that adapts itself the easiest to argumenta-
tion; at least that is the sense one gets in reading Perelman. According to him,
let us remember, argumentation knows no contradiction in the narrow sense
of the term. On the other hand, it works on the more nebulous, but more
effective notion of incompatibility. For example, the logical principle of
contradiction does not tell us if one can be (politically) both liberal and
planning-oriented [dirigiste], or both democratic and elitist. Yet we deal with
just this sort of incompatibility every day.
Now, irony, by pretending to take the opponent's discourse to the letter,
shows its deep incompatibility and renders it ridiculous. Thus, Napoleon III
taking in hand the pamphlet that Victor Hugo wrote against him: "Well,
gentlemen, here is Napoleon the Lesser by Victor Hugo the Great. .. ". This
witticism may be decoded in several ways: he does not hurt me, he takes
himself for Napoleon, etc. It was an argument, in any case.
Let us yet mention two figures of thought related to utterances. First, the
apostrophe: it is not the simple fact of addressing someone; writing "Dear
Pierre" or Dear Mr. President" at the top of a letter is neither an apostrophe
nor even a figure. The apostrophe occurs when we pretend to address
someone other than our true audience. Technically, it was, as Quintillian said
(IV.1.63), a figure of legal discourse which consisted in "turning to an other
than the judge", in interpellating the accused himself, or someone absent, or
the nation, or ancestors ... but precisely in order to better impress the judge.
In brief, the apostrophe consists in imagining a fictitious audience in order to
better persuade the real one. Like irony, but in another manner, it reinforces
the link between the speaker and his public.
The chleuasm pertains to the speaker himself. Through this figure, he
pretends to accuse or to denigrate himself in order to better set up the
audience. This form of auto-irony is thus part of ethos. The chleuasm may
 THE RGURE AND THE ARGUMENT 175

consist in going an accusation one better in order both to show its im-
probability and that the accused is not bothered by it (cf. Angenot, p. 277).
But it also has a more general function. This is the case for he who invokes
his own incompetence in order to challenge someone else's competence.
Thus, Sganarelle to Moliere's Don Juan:
As for myself, sir, I have never studied like you, thank God, and no one could boast of
having taught me anything; but with my little sense, my little judgment, I see things
better than all the books ...

The chleuasm of incompetence is far from being inoperable. Let us suppose

that in a debate between philosophers, someone declares, "I, who understand
nothing of philosophy, tell you that. .. ", he will be listened to and it is
probable that his confession of ignorance will elevate him to the status of
arbiter of competences. The force of the argument, the "thank God" of
Sganarelle, comes, on the one hand, from the disdain, sometimes a bit
justifies, toward those who are not specialists, at the risk of losing the
"meaning" and the "judgment", and, on the other hand, from the idea, also
justified, that philosophy (as with any other discipline) is not a game-preserve
for philosophers only, that everyone is concerned by debates between
specialists.

3. THE METAPHOR: A PRIVILEGED CASE

We find this argumentative aspect of figures in the privileged case of the
metaphor to which The New Rhetoric devotes a lengthy study. Like Ricoeur,
the authors view the metaphor as a semantic impertinence contributing to the
poeticization, or at least the increased expressiveness of discourse. But they
analyze the impertinence itself as a condensed analogy, thus as an argument
(cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric m.1O).
To understand it, let us recall that the analogy itself is defined as a
resemblance between two relations: the first of these, the theme, states what
one means or wishes to prove; the second, the phore, states what one says in
order that it may better be expressed or proven. Suppose the proverb, "One
swallow ... "
theme phore
A One good piece of news C One swallow
B does not guarantee happiness (is like) D does not make a summer
176 OUVIER REBOUL

We notice that the phore is in general more concrete, and in any case more
familiar than the theme. And it is the resemblance between the two relations
which allows us to infer the fourth term from the three others; in our proverb,
we prove B given A, C, and D, since the relation between A and B resembles
that between C and D: "one has no right to generalize".
Metaphor occurs when analogy is condensed through the omission of
certain terms. Suppose these three diagrams:

1) Allegory
theme phore
A C One swallow
B D does not make a summer
2) Metaphor in praesentia:
theme phore
A This good piece of news C is but one swallow
B D
3) Metaphor in absentia:
theme phore
A C This swallow
B D
We note that the metaphors are only understood thanks to a code which in
this case is the proverb. Sometimes it is a matter of the linguistic code, when
the metaphors are lexicalized: "this fox", ..this tiger"; or it is a matter of a
cultural code as in: ..this thinking reed", "these paper tigers".
In what respect is the metaphor an argument? The simplest answer consists
in saying that it draws its strength from the analogy that it condenses. Thus, if
I wish to reassure an old person anxious about death, I could tell him that it is
only a kind of sleep, implying the following analogy:

theme phore
A Death C Sleep
B is to life is (like) D is to waking
What is the resemblance between the relations? The normal, natural outcome:
rest, requies. We will notice that the metaphor argues by being reductive; it
reduces the resemblance to an identity by evacuating the difference (the sleep
of death is without dreams and without waking... The metaphor lulls the
 THE FIGURE AND THE ARGUMENT 177

vigilance of the mind to sleep - that's for certain!}.

Certain metaphors are polysemous, on the other hand, and thus orient
argumentation in various directions. Thus Berkeley's ''What an ocean offalse
learning" is open to several readings.

theme phore Relation

A False learning C Ocean
B Scholar D Swimmer Subject
B Truth D Stream Antonym
B Certainty D Terra firma Goal
There is undoubtedly all this in Berkeley's statement, and more!
This analysis allows us to understand that it is most desirable to refute on
metaphor by another one. Thus, to the sleep argument, Hamlet answers,
answers himself: "To die, to sleep! To sleep, perchance to dream ... "
Furthermore, one may counter-argue by awakening a dead metaphor: "I
buy everything at Printemps with my eyes closed" - ''When I open them, I go
to the Louvre". [Les yeux fermes, j'achete tout au Printemps; Quand je les
ouvre, je vais au Louvre.l
Remaining with advertising jingles, let us recall certain ones pertaining to
detergents: "gluttonous enzymes" [les enzymes gloutonsl.

theme phore
A The enzymes (in this detergent) C Gluttons
B absorb dirt (like) D devour
We note that "gluttons" introduces, moreover, a hyperbole: the glutton
devours everything, and could devour even more! Now, the argument was
refuted by playing on the phore, both on the metaphor and on the hyperbole:
the enzymes are so gluttonous that they even devour the material!
It might be thought that the production of metaphor by condensing
analogies is a scholarly and reductive explanation; fundamentally, this is
what Ricoeur says (cf. p. 37). I will respond in two ways: first, thanks to
resemblance, the metaphor lends the power of naming which is the basis of
all argumentation (sleep, thinking reed, paper tigers, ... that thingamajig [ce
machinl, de Gaulle once said at the UNO. It was undoubtedly not his best
expressed statement, but it shows well the power of a word. After this, can
we be content to say that the metaphor draws its strength from the analogy
that it condenses? I think that on this point, Perelman omitted an important
178 OllVIER REBOUL

aspect which is that in general, the metaphor is stronger than the developed
analogy would be - the excess strength coming from the condensation itself
between the theme and the phore. Thus in the witticism quoted by Olbrechts-
Tyteca, "He runs after the witticism [mot d' esprit)" - "I'm betting on the
mind [I' esprit)". No analogical diagram will ever account for the pleasure
one feels and which gives this argument its strength. This pleasure of laughter
and poetic emotion tends to transform resemblance into identity, the "is like"
of analogy into that metaphorical "is" that enriches our vision of a thing by
revealing its resemblance with another (cf. Ricoeur, p. 109). The metaphor is
more than a simple argument by analogy.

4. THE ARGUMENT AS FIGURE

If we recapitulate the results of these analyses, we notice that the figure

maintains two relations with argumentation. First, an extrinsic relationship:
the figure facilitates argumentation, it captures and captivates attention,
produces a memory, adapts the argument to the audience, etc. Then, there is
an intrinsic relationship. The figure inserts itself in the web of argumentation.
A paronomasia like "traduttor, traditor" or "CRS SS", seems to show that the
resemblance between words attests to a relationship between things. A
metaphor is a condensed analogy; irony suggests an argument ad absurdum,
etc.
In reality, these two functions of the figure are inseparable. The essence of
rhetoric is to not distinguish feeling from understanding. This is why a figure
is stronger than the argument it condenses.
Is it possible now to reverse the problem and ask if the argument itself is
not more or less a figure? In the studies on argumentation written in the
manner of or after Perelman, it is practically never a matter of figures. This is
because these studies do not in general turn upon real arguments (like an
election brochure or a sermon by Bossuet), but upon arguments constructed
by the author and for that very reason fictitious, approximate, purified of any
emotional context. Conversely, a work like that of Marc Angenot, which
deals with a corpus of pamphlets, shows that argumentation is indissociable
from the figures it uses.
Why indissociable? In order to answer, let us recall the essential features of
argumentation - those which distinguish it from the logical demonstration.
- First feature: one always argues in terms of a given audience. Examples of
particular audience: youth groups, the Left, peasants; and of specialized
 TIlE FIGURE AND TIlE ARGUMENT 179

audience: a tribunal, a medical board, a synod, etc. For these very reasons,
the premises of argumentation are not logical evidences, nor are they
demonstrated facts, but rather propositions granted by the target auctience.
The notion of objectivity gives way to that of consensus: a durable
agreement of a certain public upon certain fundamental points.
In order to be effective, then, an argumentation must depend on this
consensus. It must take into account the level of the audience and its
expectations as well. Whence the role of figures. Thus the metaphor
"gluttonous enzymes" is a condensed and adapted argument through analogy:
1) to the cultural level of the public at large, and 2) to the consensus of
modem Western public concerning cleanliness and hygiene (cf. Oleron,
1983, pp. 28ft). Similarly, irony reveals an incompatibility (e.g. between the
pretensions of a speaker and his acts) but by relying on the consensus that
qualifies it as such: "What is capitalism? The exploitation of man by man.
And socialism? The opposite." It is self-evident that a Marxist public will
only see in this a bad play on words (on the meaning of "opposite"), while a
non-Marxist public will find in it the condensed expression of an irresistible
argument: you in no way eliminate exploitation, you merely change ex-
ploiters.
- Second feature: argumentation uses natural language. For that very reason,
its terms are often vague or polysemous. Thus, the word "democracy" in a
political or pedagogical debate. Even in a very intense economic debate, it
happens that the word "francs" is used without making clear whether one
is referring to floating [courant] or stable [constant] francs.
Natural language: language that is naturally figured. First of all, because
we use words in a sense which is not always the proper sense; then also, we
do it without saying so, without even saying so to ourselves.
It has happened that I have analyzed an article by an eminent economist in
just such a manner (pascal Salin, Le Monde, 8.vii.80). He asked that the
power of professors be re-established in the university councils. The basis of
the argumentation is the following: university teaching is a product, univer-
sity professors the producers, the students the consumers. The author then
thrashes the current situation in which the product ends up being judged by
the consumers who "by defmition are ignorant of the technical processes by
which the product is manufactured". This argumentation uses a running
metaphor (cf. O. Reboul, 1984, pp. 114ff), but without flagging it, without
even being conscious of it From "professors are like producers", we slide to
180 OUVIER REBOUL

"professors are producers".

- Third feature: the unfolding of an argumentation cannot have the unbend-
ing rigor of a demonstration. If it does, it is only in its negative phases. In
this domain (which, I will recall, is that of life), one can demonstrate that
such or such bill is in conflict with the constitution, but not that a law
would without fail have beneficial effects; one can demonstrate that a
remedy does not cure everyone, but not that it will cure everyone.
Thus the adage "my friend's friends are my friends" resembles mathemati-
cal transitivity: a = b, b = c, therefore a = c. "Resembles" means that it does
not possess, for all that, the logical necessity: one may be hostile to one's
friend's friends, out of jealousy, for example. It is not that the adage is
deceptive, it is rather that it is a sort of argued performative. When it is
invoked, we usually mean this: I would like us to be friends, for in fact, we
have a mutual friend. Figures based on apparent identity are of this type: "a
franc is a franc", "a woman is a woman". They are not evidences (the
predicate does not have the same meaning as the subject), but performatives
in search of a justification in language.
- Fourth feature: argumentation is polemical in its essence. It is always
opposed, at least implicitly, to another argumentation which is liable to
refute it; that of the defense attorney may refute that of the prosecutor, that
of the left, that of the right, etc. May the scope of this affirmation be well
understood.
First of all, polemic does not necessarily signify conflictual. Here once
again, etymology is deceptive. Polemics is not war. It is even exactly the
opposite, since it substitutes a debate for a combat. As long as we keep
talking, we won't kill each other!
Next, to conceive of this polemical situation is not a skeptical attitude like
"one argument is as good as the next". To conceive of it is to recognize that
an argumentation is more or less valid without anyone in particular being
absolutely valid. We can thus show that a cause is good or bad; but, good or
bad, it remains a "cause", i.e. an opinion that matters for a group, which is
not taken for granted, which must be argued.
Here again, the feature inserts itself naturally into argumentation. Irony,
more effectively than weighty and controversial demonstrations, ridicules the
opposing speaker by emphasizing some one of his incompatibilities. The
shortcut of the metaphor is the best argument that one can put forth against
another metaphor. One can break with the argument of the economist, Salin,
 THE HGURE AND THE ARGUMENT 181

by showing that the tenns borrowed from economics, like "producers" and
"consumers", cease to be pertinent in the area of teaching, that his view opens
onto a pedagogy of passivity, etc. But one can also play his game: if students
are consumers, then there are consumer organizations interested in "the
technical processes by which the product is manufactured". This second type
of objection is as effective as the first; perhaps more so.
We may conclude that a figure is an argument as soon as it is impossible to
translate, paraphrase or otherwise express it without weakening it
I can now respond to the three initial questions. Yes, the figure facilitates
argumentation. Yes, it contributes to argumentation. And, these two functions
are almost always indiscernible - this indiscernibility being the very essence
of rhetoric.
Finally, yes, the argument itself may be a figure. More generally, it
possesses the same status of imprecision, intersubjectivity, and polemic as the
figure. It could be said that I am diminishing argumentation, stripping it of
any chance of being logical and objective. I wish, on the contrary, that it seize
this chance when it encounters it. But this is rarely the case. For the domain
of argumentation is that of "life's actions", as Descartes said, a domain in
which we hardly ever have logical evidences and objective certainties at out
disposal, in which most truths are on the order of the probable and in which
objectivity must make way for dialogue. And we dialogue with our whole
being. Whence the figure.

BmLIOGRAPHY
Angenot, Marc (1982): La parole pamphlitaire, Payot.
Aristotle, Rhetoric, Bude, 3 vols.
Dispaux, Gilbert (1984): La logique et Ie quotidien, Minuit.
Fontanier, Pierre (1968): Les figures du discours, Flammarion.
Olbrechts-Tyteca, Lucie (1974): Le comique du discours, University of Brussels.
Oleron, Pierre (1983): L' argumentation, "Que sais-je?", PUF, 1983.
Perelman, Ch. and Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1976): Traite de l' argumentation (The New
Rhetoric), University of Brussels and Vrin.
Quintillian, Institution oratoire, Bude, 7 volumes.
Reboul, Olivier (1984): La rhetorique, "Que sais-je?", PUF.
Reboul, Olivier (1984): Qu' est-ce qu' apprendre?, PUF.
Ricoeur, Paul (1975): The Rule ofMetaphor, Seuil.
 ROMAIN LAUFER

RHETORIC AND POLITICS

Theodorus:VVhatnarnes?
Socrates: Sophist. statesman, philosopher.
(Plato, The Sophist)

In ancient Greece, which is generally considered to be the cradle of our

culture, the expression "rhetoric and politics" meant a debate at the heart of
philosophy - a debate which brought the philosopher and the sophist to grips
with each other, a debate whose stake is the essence of the political. For
common opinion today, the expression "rhetoric and politics" means the
discourse of politicians: their favorite figures are catalogued, the words they
pronounce are counted, sometimes even the way they are affected by the
media is investigated. It is true that between these two periods, the very
notion of rhetoric has evolved to the point that it merits the label of "limited
rhetoric" [rMtorique restreinte].1 As for sophistry, it hardly means but the
condemnation brought against false reasoning any more.
Thus the classical categories seem to have become equally incapable of
apprehending the essence of the political (how can what is henceforth in such
a great part economics be reduced to discourse?), as its most exuberant
manifestations (how to explain by classical rhetoric the generalization of
spectacle politics, of the use of polls, of political marketing?). It is henceforth
preferable to defer to science: economic science, political science, political
sociology, etc. However all this science does not succeed in erasing the
feeling that a crisis affects the very notion of politics, whether it is manifested
by the idea of an end to politics, by that of the politics of the end of the
world, or whether it translates into themes like the end of ideologies
(depoliticization of the masses, the problem of relations between intellectuals
and politics) or the Orwellian question of the meaning of 1984.2
l. We would like to propose that the current debate on the crisis of the
political can be illuminated by the one which in Antiquity opposed
philosophers and sophists.
2. That the modern State is founded on the negation of sophistry, that the
reduced place afforded rhetoric can be understood in particular based on this
a priori position and that the resurgence of concern for rhetoric consecrates
the return of sophistry and thus the crisis of the modern State.
183
184 ROMAIN LAUFER

3. That rhetoric in its broadest defmition allows for a complete understand-

ing of the current practice in the political realm.
Such a program is, to be sure, too vast to be completely dealt with within
the framework of one article. We will thus confine ourselves, after a brief
inquiry into the classical position on the problem of the relations between
rhetoric and politics, to showing how the notion of legitimacy system allows
us to follow the destiny of this question into the modem world. 3

I. THE CLASSICAL POSmON ON THE PROBLEM

The opposition between philosopher and sophist (concerning the relationship

between rhetoric and politics) is not summed up in an opposition between a
politics unaware of rhetoric and a politics reducible to rhetoric. Plato himself
must reserve a space for rhetoric in his politics. As for the sophist, he cannot
avoid taking the presuppositions of all rhetoric into account.

1. Rhetoric in politics
To the sophists who argue freely that rhetoric is the entirety of politics (as it
is the entirety of every matter, moreover), Plato and Aristotle retort that it is
but its auxiliary since politics is defined as a science, "the most authoritative
of the sciences - some science which is pre-eminently a master-craft
[architektonikus]".4
Even though Plato and Aristotle's assessments of rhetoric differ (in one, it
is described as "the power to persuade the crowd and the populace by telling
them stories, instead of instructing them", in the other it is "the most highly
esteemed of the faculties" along with "strategy and domestic economy"),
both agree that it is a technique subordinated to the science of politics.
It could even be stated that rhetoric constitutes, along with violence, one of
the principle means of political action - means which must absolutely remain
subordinated to politics.S The parallel between persuasion and force is
evoked by Aristotle when he says that it is as shameful to not know how to
fight with words as it is to not know how to defend oneself with one's body.6
Thus, it seems that one can sum up the question of the place of rhetoric in
politics for philosophers in two propositions: it is an instrument of political
science; it is an alternative to the other instrument of power - force.
This simple solution supposes that the two proposed distinctions
(power/instrument of power, persuasion/force) be definable with clarity.
Now, Plato must recognize that the regal science which affords access to this
 RHETORIC AND POLfTICS 185

knowledge is not the most widely possessed thing in the world: 7 it will thus
be difficult for him to impose himself in the eyes of the majority of the
population.
Young Socrates: Tell me about them You seem to look upon a strange sight.
Stranger: Yes, strange until recognized! I was actually impressed by them myself at
flrst sight. Coming suddenly on this strange cry of players acting their part in public
life I did not know what to make of them.
Young Socrates: What players can these be?
Stranger: The chief wizards among all the sophists, the chief pundits of the
deceiver's art. Such impersonators are hard to distinguish from the real statesmen and
kings; yet we must distinguish them and thrust them aside if we are to see clearly the
king we are seeking.8

By making rhetoric the entirety of politics, the sophist seals the confusion
between power and its instrument, but also that between force and persua-
sion, with the chance that certain individuals consider persuasion to be a way
of avoiding violence while still others see it as the very manifestation of the
rights of the strongest. The exposition of an argument of this type, moreover,
leads Plato, at the beginning of the Republic to counter it with his vision of
the ideal city. In "The Laws" (which is generally agreed to be a more realistic
description of political functioning), Plato cannot do otherwise than to take
into account the ignorance of the masses and to recommend the use of
rhetoric to make them understand laws by preceding them with a persuasive
discourse: "the prelude".9

2. The presuppositions of all rhetoric

It is not like rhetoric to question its own presuppositions, even if it found it
impossible to produce its effects without what we agree to call "contact of
minds" [contact des esprits]:
Argumentation never takes place in a void; it presupposes a contact of minds between
the speaker and his audience: [ ... ] every society that recognizes the importance of
such contacts strives to organize them and may even make them compulsory [ ... ]
Sunday mass [ ... ] compulsory education [ ... ] the annual meeting of parliamentary
sessions prescribed by the Constitution [ ... ] legal procedure ensures the plaintiff of
the normal unfolding of the trial, even if the adversary is recalcitrant."IO

Thus, behind rhetoric are profiled institutions composed of texts (the Bible,
the Constitution, scholastic texts, codes), of the definition of interlocutors and
that of their meeting places. All of rhetoric thus supposes a "legislation"
186 ROMAIN LAUFER

defining the places, characters and canvasses for the social game rules which
it institutes.
We will consider certain of these presuppositions by distinguishing those
which strictly concern places from those concerning arguments.

a) From the point of view of places

The notion of rhetorical genre as defined by Aristotle may be interpreted as a
form defined by a coherent set of presuppositions. Thus, in the legal genre,
litigants face off before a tribunal about a conflict of law which opposes
them; in the deliberative genre, an individual attempts to counsel another
individual or an assembled group; in the epidictic genre, a speaker expresses
an encomium or a condemnation before an assembly. The rhetorical genres
describe the places for public speech in Athens: from the tribunal to the
Agora.
This description of the rhetorical genres leads us to a question of defini-
tion: does each of these genres belong to political rhetoric? Certain scholars
felt it necessary to dismiss the epidictic genre under the pretext that it did not
suppose the opposition of two arguments. Charm Perelman replied by
showing the fundamental role played by the celebration of values in the life
of all political systems. 11
But if all the rhetorical genres are part of political rhetoric, then the
question remains as to whether it is possible to define a rhetoric which is not
political. Some answer "no", affirming that everything is political. To affirm
the contrary, it is necessary to propose a criterion of demarcation. If the
political is defined as that which pertains to the city, then the non-political
can be defined as that which by right escapes it: private life. Thus the
political/non-political opposition will correspond to the public/private
opposition and non-political rhetoric will concern all the uses of speech
which the city need not know anything about. Hence, the statement
"everything is political" will be tantamount to a reassessment of the
public/private separation.

b) From the point of view of arguments

As the manner in which Plato and Aristotle reserve a place for it at the heart
of politics demonstrates, rhetoric may be inscribed at the heart of a philosophi-
cal conception. It will then take on all the presuppositions of this conception:
specifically, it will be defined by its submission to the science of the political.
It may also appear as the manifestation of a purely sophistic approach. To
clarify how the reference to sophistry constitutes a presupposition for such a
 RHETORIC AND POLmCS 187

rhetoric, it becomes necessary to consider how rhetoric and sophistry are

articulated.
In Gorgias, Plato declares that sophistry is to rhetoric (in the area of
routine and flattery) as legislation is to justice (in the areas of techniques
stricto sensu). It is possible to draw two conclusions from this comparison
beyond the condemnation that it contains of the notions we are concerned
with here: 1) the area of rhetoric and sophistry is that of the legitimacy of
deeds; 2) what opposes rhetoric and sophistry is that the latter mimics and
delineates a system of rules (i.e. legislation, which we can liken to what we
shall call infra by the expression legitimacy system), while the former deals
with the resolution of conflicts of legitimacy in concrete cases. Thus,
paradoxically, it is sophistry which is on the side of the investigation of the
very foundation of the rule system.
But can sophistry and rhetoric be effectively separated?
We have seen how we can speak of a non-sophistical rhetoric; it remains to
be established that there is something in sophistry which escapes rhetoric. It
would seem at frrst glance to not be true, since sophistry appears as an art of
discourse. We cannot, however, forget that there exists a sophistical proposi-
tion which cannot be reduced to a rhetorical proposition: the very proposition
which states that everything is rhetorical.
By this proposition, sophistry mimics the universality and the eternity of
legislation, while rhetoric produces the discourse that expresses it for each
particular occasion (or jUdgment).
The very idea that sophistry mimics legitimate legislation supposes that it
borrows its forms. The hypothesis could be proposed that, from this point of
view, the history of sophistry follows that of philosophy like its shadow.
Barbara Cassin has shown, for example, that the ontological affirmation that
Parmenides imputes to the goddess as soon as she is heard as a discourse, not
as a monstration, leads necessarily to the paradoxical formulations of
Gorgias. 12 She has shown, just as precisely, that Gorgias could not have made
his statement without finding a philosopher to affirm something about being.
Hence, one can deduce that all sophistry supposes a philosophy that precedes
it. 13
What philosophy institutes is the fact that rights and justice can
legitimately be founded on discourse. It is to the sophist to show that if one
bases oneself on discourse, the legitimacy that results is entirely relative to
the effect of this discourse on each individual's opinion. From this, there
results the proposition that rhetoric, when it is attributed to a sophistry,
possesses, as presuppositions, the discursive forms which result from the
188 ROMAIN LAUFER

work of decomposition which that sophistry makes the philosophy it mimics

undergo. 14
It may be objected that such a proposition which makes sophistry a
secondary discourse with respect to a philosophy derives from a conception
of philosophy itself going back to Plato and Aristotle.
This remark should inspire prudence in the interpretation of ancient texts,
but it cannot apply to the study of modem conceptions of rhetoric toward
which we will now tum: the latter are quite obviously situated in the post-
Socratic and post-Aristotelian era.

n. RHETORIC AND POUTICS IN CONTEMPORARY LIBERAL SOCIETIES

Contemporary liberal society can be characterized by three features: the place
of reason, the place of political economy, and the place of law.
While the Greek city gave birth to modem reason, modem reason leant
legitimacy to the contemporary liberal State. Modem reason is post-Car-
tesian. Situated after Aristotle, it no longer loses its time debating with
sophistry: the latter is thought to have been refuted once and for all. Situated
after scholastics, modem reason found in the cogito a means of breaking any
link to rhetoric: since what is well-conceived is stated clearly, it suffices to
start with a clear and distinct idea and to follow the order of reasoning in
order to be perfectly convincing.
With his Discourse on the Method, Descartes had once and for all (and for
everyone, since good sense is the most widely possessed thing in the world)
carried out the program of this rhetoric capable of convincing the gods and of
which Plato conceived the necessity at the very heart of philosophy. is
The very notion of political economy constitutes a Copernican revolution
with respect to the Aristotelian notion of domestic economy (orkos homos).
For Aristotle, domestic economy is dependent on the private sphere and
therefore cannot be the place of politicS. 16 Liberalism realizes the marvel
whereby at the very moment that economy becomes the place of politics par
excellence, it escapes political rhetoric: it escapes rhetoric because it is the
object of a science (political economy) and it escapes politics in the classical
sense because this science deals with private behavior.
Modem reason and political science thus complicate our investigation on
political rhetoric by prohibiting rhetoric and privatizing politics. However,
the notion of "State by right" intervenes to help us. Everything being subject
to the law, it is in the text of the law that we can hope to find the explicit
formulations of the presuppositions of all social action, and, in particular, of
 RHETORIC AND POLIT1CS 189

public rhetoric which is the object of our study. However, we will not
approach law directly, but rather via the notion of legitimacy system.

1. Rhetorical presuppositions in the contemporary liberal system

a) The notion of legitimacy system
Legitimacy can be defined as follows: someone acts and this action turns out
good or it turns out bad. If it turns out good, and no one objects, then there is
nothing to be said. If it turns out bad, this means that someone objects. It is
then necessary to state the reasons for one's deed: the discourse of legitimacy
is found in this statement. If this statement belongs to a coherent discourse,
we can say that a legitimacy system exists.
This notion of a legitimacy system is directly deduced from Max Weber's
proposition according to which there would be but three types of legitimacy:
charismatic legitimacy, traditional legitimacy, and rational legal legitimacy.
The question now arises as to whether this is an exhaustive list in which case
we would be before a presupposition of all rhetoric, even of a theory which
supposed some philosophical point of view, or whether this is a pmgmatic list
subject to variation. We have maintained elsewhere17 that this is a theory by
showing that in order for a legitimacy system to exist, it suffices to have a
cosmology, itself divided in two places, at one's disposal: the place of origin
of legitimate power (e.g. the sacred), and the place of application of this
power (e.g. the profane). Charismatic legitimacy corresponds to the submis-
sion of the profane to the sacred, traditional legitimacy to the submission of
nature to traditional culture, and rational-legal legitimacy supposes the
submission of culture to the laws of nature. With two cosmologies, there are
therefore only three systems as the sacred can not be legitimately subjected to
the profane. Let it be noted that in order to be sensitive to the consequences
of such dichotomies, one must perceive them and thus wear special glasses:
faith allows for the recognition of the presence of the sacred, respect ensures
the status of tradition, science allows for the definition of a nature subjected
to laws worthy of subjecting culture.

b) Legitimacy systems. law and violence

Modernity happened when, at the moment of the French Revolution, a power
founded on God and tradition was substituted by a power founded on reason,
thus on the division between nature and culture. In order for nature to reign
over culture, a science must state the law to which culture must subject itself
in order to conform to nature. Political economy is that science; the right to
190 ROMAIN LAUFER

own property that law.

Let us now consider the interaction which we started to examine earlier,
but left at a critical moment. What happens if he who receives the discourse
of legitimacy is neither convinced nor persuaded? Following Max Weber, the
State has the monopoly of legitimate violence: it follows that the use of force
is prohibited to any other authority. If the conflict persists, it will be brought
before a tribunal where the law will pass judgment. Will its verdict be
accepted? Yes, by virtue of the legal principle that "no one can claim
ignorance of the law" - a principle by virtue of which the State can
legitimately use violence against all those who would be too ignorant or
insufficiently sensible to have knowledge of it. This principle moreover
ensures that since the discourse of legitimacy is at the outset in conformity
with the law, it is usually useless to go before tribunals to practice that legal
rhetoric which the circumstances demand in that case.
This example shows how the existence of a well-developed legitimacy
system ensures submission of political rhetoric (in the sense of public
rhetoric) to a "most authoritative of sciences" (one which includes political
economy), and how, for this authoritative science, rlletoric constitutes an
alternative instrument of power to violence.

c) The rhetorical genres peculiar to the liberal system

The notion of legitimacy system also allows us to define the various
rhetorical genres underlying the liberal system.
First, it is necessary to state clearly that the basis of the liberal system is
the society's separation into two sectors: the private sector in which the laws
of nature reign, and the public sector whose role it is to discover these laws,
to constitute them as laws of society, and to ensure their proper functioning:
the Assembloo discovers and enacts the laws; the government, aided by an
administration, implements them. Three situations result from this:
1. A contractor addresses a consumer (or a supplier) in the language
of the law. (One need not, for example, be familiar with sales
rhetoric: it disappears in the private sphere. Only the elements
which could affect the value of contracts - like violence or fraud
- will figure in a "public" discourse.) In case of conflict, this
gives rise to the legal genre.
2. A politician addresses a group of governors or an assembly of
citizens; the deliberative or epidictic genre is then utilized in what
corresponds to the common notion of political rhetoric.
 RHETORIC AND POLmCS 191

3. As to the dialogue between the legitimate political authorities and

the administrators, it is limited to orders that the latter must
execute without discussion: this is the famous reserve duty.

2. The history of the presupposition of rhetoric in the contemporary liberal

system
The public/private separation constitutes the heart of the legitimacy system of
liberalism. In the French legal system, this is evidenced by the existence of
two orders of specialized jurisdiction. This division of duties requires a
definition of a demarcation criterion: the criterion of administrative law.
According to all accounts, this criterion has known three periods: that of the
principle of public power (1800-1880/1900), that of the principle of Public
Service (1880/1900-1945/60) and, since then, the crisis of the criterion.
The move from one period to the next may be defined as a moment of
crisis between two states of the free market system; the crisis of the criterion
for its part, consecrates the crisis of the system itself. One can show that these
crises correspond to the necessity of accounting for the organizational
phenomenon (or, if you will, the bureaucratic phenomenon) which results
from the growth of businesses and the development of public service. The
very notion of organization is, in fact, antinomic with classical free market
principles in that the latter are composed of the two principles of equality and
freedom.1S
Let it be noted that the legitimacy of an organization supposes the
existence of a discourse such that the interests of the individual, of the
organization and of the society are globally compatible. To such a discourse,
we will give the name administrative language. In order for such a discourse
to be legitimate in the heart of modem society, it must belong to the discourse
of science. That is why it is important to define the epistemology correspond-
ing to each of these stages. It can be shown that these stages correspond to
the logical succession of the modes of legitimization of an action. If the latter
is defined (phenomenologically) as "a change in appearance in that it is
related to a cause", three ways of legitimizing an action may then be
distinguished:

a) Non-pragmatic legitimization
This is a legitimization by means of the cause. If the cause is legitimate, the
action is legitimate. For the system to function, one need only to be able to
isolate the legitimate causes. This is what can be realized by the well-
192 ROMAIN LAUFER

developed legitimacy system defined above. Its corresponding epistemology

is that of Kant. In that epistemology, opinion has no place; rhetoric is
therefore excluded from it. The science corresponding to it is classical
political economy which ignores the notion of organization.

b) Moderate pragmatic legitimization

If confusion settles in between nature and culture, the legitimacy of the cause
can no longer be ensured. There remains the possibility of legitimizing action
by the change in appearance (pragmatism). However, this pragmatism will
be moderate when there is a consensus on the measure of the change. This
corresponds to the positivist epistemology which guarantees unity of measure
by a hypostasis, "God Progress" (Auguste Comte), secularized, if need be, in
the form of the collective conscience (Emile Durkbeim). Positivism supposes
the separation between scientists and the public. The latter being the receiver
of knowledge, he constitutes himself as a tribunal of this knowledge
("tribunal of universal good sense"). Opinion thus has a place in this system
and a rhetoric must correspond to it - a dissymetrical one which characterizes
pedagogy. However, to ensure the reign of rational-legal legitimacy, it is
important to eliminate the term "rhetoric" and substitute for it the notion of a
science of needs: thus, the university professor, the administrative specialist,
the producer in an enterprise will all be precisely defined by their capacity for
knowing the needs of their respective publics and the means of satisfying
them.1 9
Let us remark that positivism supposes the existence of organizations
which it legitimizes. Also that this system can only be maintained by the
belief in progress: the progress of knowledge and the progress resulting from
knowledge.

c) Radical pragmatic legitimization

If the belief in progress ceases and if the consensus on the unity of measure
disappears, there remains but one solution: that of considering the measure of
change in appearance to be an action. Henceforth any measure which has in it
the power of passing itself off as legitimate will indeed be considered as
such. Opinion then reigns over science: this is nothing other than the logic of
sophistry. From the perspective of the form of the science, it corresponds to
the radical confusion of nature and culture, i.e. the reign of the artificial.
Science becomes the science of the artificial, i.e. according to Herbert Simon,
systems analysis. Systems analysis can be defined as the fact of describing a
complex reality with "circles" and "arrows". Thus, this mode of legitimiza-
 RHETORIC AND POLfTICS 193

tion supposes the existence of what we agree to call "complex organizations",

i.e. those which cannot be represented other than by a method of simulation:
systems analysis.
If an action can be considered to be legitimized either by the origin of
power, by its finality, or by its methods, the correspondence between these
three modes of legitimization and the series "Public Power, Public Service,
crisis of the criterion" can be verified. The crisis of legitimacy supposes
legitimization by methods of power. These methods correspond both to
radical pragmatism, and sophistry, and, in the framework of the ideology of
science, to systems analysis.

3. The/orms o/rhetoric
We can now follow the destiny of political rhetoric during the three periods.
To illustrate our argument, it is possible to consider the history of the
institutional status of political parties in France in that they represent, par
excellence, the incarnation of the "taking of sides" [prise de parti] in political
debate.
During the frrst period, there is no legitimate rhetoric either in the private
sector nor in the administration. Tribunals alone know the debates of lawyers,
intended to elucidate the law's truth and to allow State power to be
legitimately exercised upon that which eludes the presupposition which
founds it. Political rhetoric, during elections and voting, is supposed to
engage in conflict only rational individuals for whom the debate represents a
procedure (itself rational) intended to discover the laws of nature. 20
All during the nineteenth century, political parties only have an informal
existence in the country as well as in the assemblies. 21
During the second period, positivistic science allows for the legitimization
of organizational functioning thanks to the recognition of the scientist's or the
specialist's authority. The notion of rhetoric is manifested through the
practice of pedagogy. This holds true for the public services (and, in par-
ticular, that of public instruction) which constitute the locus of an intense
rhetorical activity which obviously has a political significance: the construc-
tion of a national consensus (Emile Durkheim).
In order for pedagogy to be a rhetoric of science conforming to positivism,
the very notion of rhetoric is banished from secondary education where it had
survived until then. At the level of political life, this period corresponds to the
development of organized parties whose propaganda activity is itself
legitimized by the idea that political specialists who constitute the party have
194 ROMAIN LAUFER

the pedagogy of the masses they represent as their role. From a legal point of
view, the first organized parties date from the end of the nineteenth century
and the official recognition of parties in the National Assembly dates from
1910.
As for the private sector, even if firms become big enough that the
positivist administrative language of "scientific management" establishes
itself there, they remain small enough that this management can still be
considered related to the private sphere and thus escapes the definition of
political rhetoric. Let it be noted that law (whether public or private) remains
the place of a public legal rhetoric (while being modified by the theory of
public service or the creation of limited liability companies for example).
The third period consecrates the crisis of law: the crisis of the limit
between public and private. Henceforth, it is impossible to suppose that "no
one is supposed to be ignorant of the law". To hold forth a legitimate
discourse, it becomes impossible to anticipate the law and necessary to
produce a discourse whose legitimacy resides only in the fact that it is
actually accepted. We thus enter into the sophistic logic which consecrates
the development of the "realm of rhetoric".
However, the sophistic rhetoric corresponding to the crisis of legitimacy of
the liberal system must mimic science; for this purpose, it will have systems
analysis at its disposal. This analysis describes the world with "circles" and
"arrows". Each organization (circle) will produce an image of the world
made up of circles and arrows - an image which will constitute the web of its
administrative language (called management). In this image, the
"organization" circle addresses another circle: market or segment of market,
or public or segment of public (often called targets). But since this image of
the world does not possess intrinsic legitimacy, it will be necessary to ensure
that the public considers the organization thus defined as legitimate. And thus
another schematic of circles and arrows will be constructed (marketing
public) which allows the organization to pragmatically ensure its legiti-
macy.22
From the perspective of the institutionalization of parties, this period
corresponds in France both to the recognition of their role by the Constitution
of 1958 and to the development of political marketing. No longer able to be
based on the knowledge of specialists in order to legitimately lend themselves
to pedagogy of the masses, the parties must have recourse to polls to find out
what their electors want and to define a program apt to attract their votes.
Today's return to rhetorical studies corresponds to the crisis of the
legitimacy system which had organized their disappearance. However,
 RHETORIC AND POLmCS 195

modem political rhetoric differs from that which Aristotle described in that it
is linked to the development of the modem "systemic" bureaucracy. If
marketing is the modem (bureaucratic) form of sophistry,23 and if all
sophistry is dependent on the philosophy whose decomposition it mimics, it
is logical to consider that modem rhetoric refers to an epistemology (systems
analysis as the decomposition of Kantian science) where classical rhetoric
referred to an ontology (the enthymeme as the decomposition of the syl-
10gism).24

BY WAY OF CONCLUSION

By basing ourselves on the notion of the State by right, we have limited

ourselves to considering the history of the presuppositions of political
rhetoric from the perspective of what could be called the dominant ideology.
This leaves aside an essential aspect of politics which is sometimes debated
with regard to presuppositions, but not only in that framework. Thus, to
conclude, we will make a few remarks about conflicts of presuppositions:
1. Where do other presuppositions come from: either from traditional and
charismatic legitimacies (e.g. the ultra-royalists of the early nineteenth
century), or from rational-legal legitimacy itself (e.g. Marxism).
2. The presuppositions springing from the rational-legal ties may be
understood as the development of a dialectic between an individualist
argument (symbolized by Adam Smith) which states that legitimate will is
individual will, and a holistic argument (symbolized by Rousseau) which
states that legitimate will is general will. It has been shown that the applica-
tion of the Kojevian notion of "parathetic chatter" [bavardage parathetique]
to the history of ideologies since the end of the eighteenth century allows us
to account for this dialectic in the framework of a theory of argumentation:
each new position being constructed from a process of refutation and
supersession of the preceding positions.25
3. The struggle of presuppositions poses the problem of the choice between
the use of force and the use of rhetoric.
4. Any political strategy relating to the struggle of presuppositions
supposes that one will provide, within one's own presupposition, a representa-
tion of that of one's opponent and of the manner in which these two presup-
positions are articulated. This may take place by means of the play of
oppositions such as appearance/reality, reality/desire, present/future, etc.
5. In terms of these representations, modes of action may be defined: the
use of force (revolution, coup d'etat) in order to impose one's own presup-
196 ROMAIN LAUFER

position, the provisional acceptance of the other's presupposlbon (e.g.

reformism), escape from the political scene in order to establish the model of
the desired presupposition in the local private sector (e.g. the experience of
the utopists), etc.
6. Many characterize the present situation as corresponding to the end of
ideologies, or the end of politics. This corresponds to the exhaustion of the
"parathetic chatter" that is the long debate between individualism and holism,
to the crisis of the public/private border, to the resurgence of sophistry in its
modem (bureaucratic) form: marketing.
To conclude, we may remark that the invasion of the public by the private
is the invasion of the political, in the classical sense, by the economic (oikos
nomos). This invasion seals the crisis of legitimacy of the liberal system and
of the principles upon which it is based. We will recall General de Gaulle's
wilful affirmation: "the Commissariat will follow" [l'intendance suivra]. We
can well imagine the difficulty he would have had in recognizing that
henceforth the Commissariat precedes.

NOTES
1 Gerard Genette, "La rhetorique restreinte", Communication No. 16, 1970.
2 See for example D. Kambouchner et al., "Le retrait du politique", Editions Galilee,
1983, and "Politique Fin de siecle", Traverse, pp. 33-34, January 1985.
3 We would like to thank Charles Leben, Yves Lichtenberger, and Michel Narcy for
their precious advice in the areas of law and political institutions, of the practice of
negotiation and of classical philosophy.
4 Plato, Statesman,259d. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics I.ii.4.
5 Plato, Statesman, 291e
6 Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1355b.
7 Plato, Statesman, 297c, 301e.
8 Statesman 291.c.
9 Plato, Loeb Classical Library, Laws, Book X, n, p. 305.
10 Chaim Perelman, L' Empire Rhetorique, Vrin, p. 23.
11 Chaim Perelman, "Rhetorique et Politique", in Langage et Politique, Ed. Marcel
Granston and Peter Mair, Bruylant, Brussels.
12 Barbara Cassin, "Si Parmenide", Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1980.
13 On the fact that the question of rhetoric is at the heart of the debate between
philosophy and sophistry, see Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric,
Brussels, pp. 35-38.
14 "Rhetoric is the analogue of the dialectic", Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1354a.
15 Plato, Phaedrus, p. 273: on this point about Cartesian thought and its consequences
for the negation of rhetoric, see, for example Charles S. Pierce. "Descartes is the
father of modem philosophy and of the spirit of Cartesianism - what differentiates
him from the scholastics which he displaces may be succinctly formulated as follows:
 RHETORIC AND POLITICS 197

[ ... ] 3) the multifarious argumentation of the Middle Ages is replaced by a series of

inferences which are often dependent upon not very obvious premises." Anticartesian
texts, Aubier. Cartesian concepts are linked to the idea of the world like the written
book in mathematical language.
vn.
16 Aristotle Politics, I, 1.
17 Cf. Romain Laufer and Catherine Paradeise, Le Prince Bureaucrate: Machiavel au
Pays flu Marketing, Flammarion, 1982. To be published in 1989 by Transaction
Books (New Brunswick, USA) under the title "Marketing Democracy: opinion and
media formation."
18 Laufer and Paradeise, op. cit.
19 "Positivism, as it developed in the second half of the nineteenth century, signals the
most marked decline in rhetoric which was eliminated from the French lycee
programs in 1885." Perelman, Le chomp de I' argumentation, Brussels, 1970, p.29.
20 On the history of counting in politics since the French Revolution, see Laufer and
Paradeise, op. cit. "du vote au sondage", pp. 86-114.
21 "In reality, there is no true political party (1815-1875). Even at the heart of the
Parliament, parties are inorganic." FranlrOis Borella, Les Partis politiques en Europe,
Collection Point, Ie Seuil, 1984, p.1l4.
22 Cf. Romain Laufer and Alain Burlaud, Management Public: Gestion et Ugitimite,
Dalloz 1980.
23 Cf. Laufer and Paradeise, op. cit.
U On marketing as rhetoric, see Romain Laufer, "Marketing, Sophistique et
Ugitimite", in Le plaisir de parler: Etudes de sophistique comparee (Actes du
colloque "Qu'est-ce que la sophistique?" Cerisy, 7-17 September 1984. To appear).
2!1 Cf. Laufer and Paradeise, op. cit., pp. 289-345.