Reason and Argumentation – Philosophy as discourse in Chaïm Perelman
In order to determine the state of philosophical practices, we must take into consideration their objectivable dimensions, by retracing the operations that ensure their construction within the order of discourse. Grounding such discursive understanding of philosophical practices means first of all to explain the apories to which it submits. We can attempt at asking ourselves why such an endeavour that has completely renewed the reading of literary, religious or scientific books, seems so difficult to apply in the case of philosophy. The reason is anything but serendipitous, rather tied to the specificity of philosophy, which, by virtue of its calling, tends to reign over and explain the conditions of its own representation. It rejects therefore any attempt that, from an outside position, may claim the objectivization of its rules of instalment and functioning.
With Chaim Perelman, reason is restored within a pluralistic moral and axiological frame, as historical reason, revealed by philosophy, in a dialectic manner. Therefore, by virtue of the intrinsic and subtle relation between the two, the argumentative reason grounds the philosophy, and the latter formulates but also simultaneously modifies the historical reason.
Keywords: rhetoric, philosophy, philosophical discourse, argumentation, reality, historical reason, neo-rhetoric, argumentative reasoning.
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