Implications of Perelman's theory of argumentation for theory of persuasion

Carroll C. Arnold

pp. 37-52

in: James L. Golden, Joseph J. Pilotta (eds), Practical reasoning in human affairs, Berlin, Springer, 1986

Abstract

All who are familiar with the history of Perelman's work know that he and Mme. Olbrechts-Tyteca initially set out to discover the structures, methods, and techniques by which propositions involving values are presented as deserving degrees of reasoned assent by other minds. The product of their study of such structures in hundreds of samples of discourse in "the human sciences, law, and philosophy" was a compendium and interpretation of well over sixty verbal forms used to justify claims as resonable. Their findings were offered to "complete the theory of demonstration … by a theory of argumentation."¹ Their "new rhetoric" was fundamentally a logic of informal reasoning, a "field of study [that]… has lain fallow for centuries."²

Cited authors

Perelman Chaïm