Chaim Perelman

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SUNY Press, Jan 1, 2003 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 166 pages
This accessible book examines the philosophical foundations of Chaim Perelman's rhetorical theory. In addition to offering a brief biography, it explores Perelman's deep philosophical commitments and his concern for the ways in which the details of actual texts realize those commitments. The authors show that Perelman still reigns supreme when it comes to the elucidation of actual texts. His is a micro-analysis of arguments, one that is endlessly suggestive of ways of analyzing texts at the level of the word and phrase, the arrangement of parts, and the structure of arguments.

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Contents

Perelmans Life and Influence
1
Philosophical Foundations
13
A Theory of the Rhetorical Audience
31
Arguing QuasiLogically
43
Arguing from the Structure of Reality
53
Arguments That Establish the Structure of Reality
65
Rhetoric as a Technique and a Mode of Truth
81
Arrangement as Persuasion
99
The Figures as Argument
115
Presence as Synergy
135
Notes
153
Bibliography
157
Index
165
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About the author (2003)

Alan G. Gross is Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.