A Rhetorical Ecology of Rhetorical Theory: There is No Absolute Truth—and That’s the Truth

Working on the schema for this week provided an opportunity to wrestle with Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s theory of new rhetoric that required us to be inter-textual in our approach, which allowed for increased metacognitive understanding of the progression of rhetoric across both time and culture. What working through Perelamn, Olbrechts-Tyteca, Aristotle, Condit, and the author of Dissoi Logoi has really emphasized for me is Edbauer’s (Rice) rhetorical ecologies. In “Unframing Models of Public Distribution: From Rhetorical Situation to Rhetorical Ecologies, Edbauer “[rethinks] rhetorical publicness as a context of intersection,” and that is exactly what looking at the readings for this week has made me realize: the authors of rhetoric each exist within a fluid, rhetorical ecology, and they are all writing for different audiences and for different purposes that have altered over time and space.

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca were speaking within a particular political and social climate that no longer valued the study of rhetoric. In “The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical Reasoning,” Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca state, “in Europe rhetoric has been reduced to stylistics and literary criticism, becoming merely a part of the study of literature insofar as it was taught at all” (1386). Therefore, their arguments are rooted in validating the study of argumentation. Condit, however, is positioned in a different rhetorical ecology. Where Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca “stood at the threshold [of] a lush, successful, even exuberant era in rhetorical studies,” Condit was writing in the 21st century that has lived through that “exuberant era” (Condit, 97). Therefore, I read Condit’s response to Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca with a more critical perspective.

Condit criticizes Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca for relying on logic and not addressing emotional forms of rhetoric. Condit uses Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s use of the term values against them and states, “We cannot understand human beings so long as we ignore human emotions, or repress emotions by substituting the more lofty-hued term values” (102, emphasis original). However, couldn’t Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca and Condit have had different perspectives on the meaning of this term? Where Condit takes it to be lacking in meaning, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca could have meant it to be fuller in meaning, encompassing emotions that Condit calls for. Either way, Condit is really emphasizing one of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s points (although not realizing or meaning to): rhetoric and argumentation is situated in language and audience.

Condit’s audience has most likely read Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s work (since her article is a direct response to it), but Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca were addressing an audience that was too logical. The theories of rhetoric at Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s time were situated in logic and deductive reasoning, which made it a systematic, scientific set of processes. However, to reach this audience, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca took Aristotle’s advice and positioned their argument so that their audience would have the ability to adhere to it. Aristotle, in Rhetoric, argues that rhetoric is to be directed towards “what seems probable to men of a given type” (183). Therefore, the orator needs to place his (or her) discourse in a way that will be situational to the audience.

What this schema has allowed for me personally is the ability to critically examine the larger conversation of rhetoric and the different interpretations of it. Theories of rhetoric have shifted over time, but there are several intermixing ideas. As seen in Mandy’s and my schema, even though Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca agreed with Aristotle and drew their theory from Aristotle’s understanding of rhetoric, there are several aspects in which they are in opposition. For example, Aristotle argue that men have a natural instinct for what is true; therefore, man is likely to make good at probabilities (180). Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, on the other hand, argue that there is no objective truth, and there is no binary between moral issues of right and wrong. They state, “men and groups of men adhere to opinions of all sorts with a variable intensity,” and that reasonable men can come to disagree and both be right (1376). However, even though Aristotle and Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca disagree on truth, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca tries to revive Aristotle’s emphasis on persuasion, which Condit feels Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca missed major aspects of. All-in-all, these authors (orators/rhetors) are trying to persuade us, and they are all existing in a fluid rhetorical ecology.

Prezi of Schema

Aristotle. “Rhetoric.” The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present.

2^nd ed., edited by Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg, Bedford/St. Martins, 2001, 179-240.

Condit, Celest Michelle. “Chaim Perelman’s Prolegomenon to a New Rhetoric: How Should

We Feel? A Response to Chaim Perelman’s ‘The New Rhetoric’.” Reengaging the Prospects of Rhetoric: Current Conversations and Contemporary Challenges, edited by Mark J. Porrovecchio, Routledge, 2010, 96-111.

Edbauer, Jenny. “Unframing Models of Public Distribution: From Rhetorical Situation to

            Rhetorical Ecologies.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 35.4, 2005

Perelman, Chaim, and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. “The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical

Reasoning.” The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present. 2^nd ed., edited by Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg, Bedford/St. Martins, 2001, 1372-1409.