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What is Rhetorical Certainty?

par Ferry, Victor
Référence Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric (30 may-2 june 2012: Wilfrid Laurier University)
Publication Non publié, 2012-05

Communication à un colloque

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Résumé :

In a famous passage of his Rhetoric (I, 9, 1368a), Aristotle presents the historical example as an appropriate argument for deliberation: “Examples are most suitable to deliberative speeches; for we judge of future events by divination from past events”. The relevancy of the historical example for civic deliberation is based on the idea, often stated in Aristotle’s Treaties that, most the time, the future resembles the past (II, 21, 1394a; III, 16, 1417b). By establishing an analogy between a past situation and a situation under discussion in the present, deliberating citizens can hope to identify the right course of action. But the idea that history can provide examples helping to remove uncertainty from civic deliberations does not fit well with the very definition of the scope of deliberation. Indeed, to quote Aristotle again, “The subjects of our deliberation are such as seem to present us with alternative possibilities: about things that could not have been, and cannot now or in the future be, other than they are, nobody who takes them to be of this nature wastes his time in deliberation”. It therefore invites us to consider the idea that “often, the future resembles the past” not as a law of history but as the description of a commonplace (in the technical sense of the Topics, ie, a set of pre-critical representations providing a ground for argumentation). In my paper, I will show that behind the issue of the status of the argument by historical example lies the more fundamental issue of the identity of rhetoric. Indeed, our civic life, our educational systems, but also, influential argumentative theories (in particular, the pragma-dialectical theory) lead us to conceive deliberation as a means to achieve an enlightened standpoint that may drive us to the best choice. However, the uncertain nature of most of the subjects on which we deliberate in the public sphere causes us continually having to act despite uncertainty. Thus, if rhetoric, defined as an art of persuasion, seems to be necessary for decisions to be reached, it is also potentially a bad advisor. Through the study of selected historical examples used as arguments in contemporary political discourses (such as the “sputnik moment” used by Barack Obama in his 2011 State of the Union Adress), I will present the close relationship between uncertainty, persuasion and decision. The aim is to understand the kind of “certainties” that can be produced by rhetorical skills.