By drawing new distinctions labelled “appeal” and “response” to replace traditional rhetorical modes of written discourse, the essay sketches a new perspective about what philosophers are doing rhetorically in “doing philosophy.” To think of philosophers as simply engaged in argument is an oversimplification and a distortion of what philosophers do. Crucial to doing philosophy are four activities: (1) definition and redefinition of problems and issues that form both the focus of the canonical historical literature of philosophy and what goes on (...) in contemporary philosophy as a discipline, (2) the development and use of formal languages and technical vocabularies to abbreviate and label complexity and to disambiguate and precise distinctions necessary to deal with problems and issues, (3) the development and exploration of argumentative appeals for acceptance or refutation of answers to questions raised by the philosophical problematic, and (4) the development and exploration of explanatory responses to questions raised by the problematic. In so far as these four activities are driven and sanctioned by the current, self-defining philosophical problematic, contemporary philosophy as a body of knowledge is historical, cumulative, and marked by progress, and the doing of philosophy is fundamentally the making of written appeals and responses about its problematic. (shrink)

Cet article présume le grand répandu du scepticisme sophiste par l’intelligentsia d’Athènes de la deuxième moitié du 5e siècle av. J.-C. Suivant la logique de cette supposition, on peut dire que dans l’Epitaphios, Gorgias a prolongé ingénieusement cette sorte de scepticisme à la loi positive et à la justice qu’elle engendre dans la société athénienne de l’époque. L’article maintient que Gorgias a realisé çela en concevant respectivement des faits favorables et défavorables autour de l’équité, de la loi et de la (...) justice dans les périodes de la parole. Ces périodes sont alors arrangées deux par deux par antithèse, de sorte que sa préférence suggérée se voit sans argument. Mais au cas où un argument soit nécessaire, les périodes, selon la façon dont elles sont arrangées, montrent quelle sorte d’argument il faut avoir. L’assistance en s’alignant sur Gorgias dans la parole, donne, probablement de l’expérience accumulée et de la sagesse traditionnelle, la pémisse évidente mais manquante comme l’on fait normalement quand on pense à une action pratique. En mettant ainsi deux prémisses ensemble dans leur pensée, l’assistance arrive à la conclusion qui reproduit l’idée de Gorgias sur la question de la loi et de la justice – c’est-à-dire, que la loi est rigide et que la justice qui s’en sort est avec malignité. De cette manière, l’article conclut que Gorgias a réussi à reproduire chez l’assistance son scepticisme au sujet de la justice. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPolitical rhetoric is underpinned by its relationship to context. Scholars have struggled to articulate this relationship by relying upon an ontological perspective of rhetoric and situation. This paper utilizes a new, problematological philosophy of rhetoric in context that overcomes these limitations. This approach employs a logic of question and answer which articulates the contingency of rhetoric as well as the structuring effects of context, conceived as social distance. This paper makes three conceptual innovations; philosophically redefining the rhetorical situation via a (...) social problematology; developing a relational conception of situation; and originating a rhetorical theory of situatedness. (shrink)

This essay explores Johnstone's idea that "rhetoric is a wedge." In particular, it explores the place of this idea in Johnstone's philosophy of argument, the need to confront this idea with argument, and ways of confronting it with ad rem and ad hominem arguments.