Deck 9: Contemporary Rhetoric I: Arguments, Audiences, Advocates

Question 1

What do Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca mean by their concept of the "universal audience," and why is it important to their theory of argument?

Answer 1

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca saw the "universal audience" as a test of arguments that transcended local or personal biases. Their theory of argument was concerned with non-scientific and non-theistic reasoning for values, and thus audience became central. The "universal audience" then was a check for conscientious rhetors to test their arguments beyond the opinions and values of their immediate audience.

Question 2

What, according to Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, are the benefits of argumentation before a single listener?

Answer 2

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca saw the single listener as a practical means for instantiating the universal audience. The single listener reflects how the "universal audience" might respond to an argument.

Question 3

Into what two categories do Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca divide the starting points of argumentation? What specific sources of agreement are placed under each heading?

Answer 3

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca divide their starting points of argumentation into "the real" and "the preferable." The first category is found in what both speaker and audience accept as well-established facts, widely accepted truths, or uncontested presumptions. The second category of "the preferable" consists of commonly held values, and value hierarchies. This concept connects with Aristotle's notion of endoxa.

Question 4

What is the ultimate goal of Habermas' theorizing about communication in the public sphere? What is "communicative action"?

Question 5

In what different ways are the natural and social sciences presented as rhetorical by writers discussed in this chapter?

Question 6

What concern does Dilip Gaonkar raise regarding labels such as "the rhetoric of science"?

Question 7

What do David J. Depew and John Lyne conclude about the current status of the rhetoric of science as a field of study?

Question 8

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca consider self-deliberation a kind of argumentation? Do you agree that you can "reason with yourself"? Is this, as they claim, a particularly reliable way of testing our reasoning?

Question 9

What is your reaction to Jurgen Habermas' search for universal guidelines of conversational practice that might help assure rational and just discourse? Is such a system possible, or is this a utopian dream that does not have any application to the real world of rhetorical interactions?

Question 10

Are you persuaded by the arguments of scientists like Simon, Geertz, McCloskey, and Campbell that the natural and social sciences have a distinctly rhetorical dimension to them? Does such an idea violate your notion of science as objective? Should it?

Question 11

Present at the beginning of the twentieth century, ___________________ was an intellectual effort to bring scientific standards to bear on the resolution of all issues.

Question 12

As opposed to other "Rhetoric of X" fields, David J. Depew and John Lyne describe the ___________________ as a field of study as matured, well established, and can be broken up into sixteen separate genres of rhetorical research.

Question 13

Used in exposing ideologies, ____________________ is the systematic analysis of discourse in order to reveal its hidden assumptions and implications.

Question 14

The ___________________ is Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's imagined audience of highly rational individuals that is used to test the reasonableness of arguments and transcend local and personal biases.

Question 15

For Habermas, ____________________ is the interactive process of critical argumentation which is key to overcoming problems of ideological domination.

Question 16

British philosopher of science _____________________, has called the theory of evolution the "creation myth of our age," and argues that modern science has mythological characteristics in the same manner of history or religion.

Question 17

Perleman and Obrechts-Tyteca divide the starting points of argumentation into two categories; the first category is "the real," which of the following is the second category of starting points that deals with commonly held values and value hierarchies?

A) The moralities
B) The preferable
C) The universal
D) The reasonable

Question 18

Which of the following is not one of the conditions of communicative competence Habermas outlines in order to produce rational communication in the public sphere?

A) The speaker makes a truth claim for a listener
B) The listener critiques the speaker's claim
C) The listener understands and accepts the speaker's intention
D) The speaker adapts to the listener's worldview

Question 19

Which of the following is the rhetorical metaphor Charles Darwin used to communicate his theory of evolution in a more positive light?

A) Divine intervention
B) Logical progression
C) Natural selection
D) Proper advancement

Question 20

Which of the following scholars believes that "we have extended the range of rhetoric to include discourse types … that the ancients would have regarded as falling outside its purview," and that including all symbolic realms within rhetoric is careless?

A) Dilip Gaonkar
B) Jurgen Habermas
C) Deirdre McCloskey
D) Karl Popper

Question 21

Perelman and Obrechts-Tyteca's starting points of argumentation connect with which of the following concepts of Aristotle?

A) Logos
B) Endoxa
C) Fumos
D) Eunoia

Question 22

Which of the following terms do Perelman and Obrechts-Tyteca use to describe the type of audience that can act like a larger audience and test ideas by advancing counterarguments, raising objections, and asking for clarifications?

A) The self as audience
B) The imaginary audience
C) The small group audience
D) The audience of one

Question 23

At the end of the nineteenth century, interest in rhetorical theory was higher than it had been since its inception in ancient Greece.

Question 24

One of the key rhetorical aspects of sciences is that scientists must not only investigate, but also advocate for their findings.

Question 25

Deirdre McCloskey argues that though natural sciences are subject to rhetorical features, the study of economics is not, because it is primarily concerned with mathematics.

Question 26

Habermas believed that no aspect of human endeavor-whether philosophy, science, art, or politics-is rationally pure.

Question 27

Karl Popper's concept of falsifiability states that scientific theories are not so much subject to proof as to being disproven.

Question 28

To support his theory of evolution, Charles Darwin used examples of violence in nature to argue that God allows cruelties because they would eventually lead to more advanced forms of life.

Question 29

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-In Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, an audience of trained specialists in a discipline.

Question 30

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-In Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, emphasizing certain ideas and facts over others, thus encouraging an audience to attend to them.

Question 31

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-In Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, points of agreement between a rhetor and an audience which allow for argumentation to develop.

Question 32

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-In Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, an imagined audience consisting of the whole of mankind, or at least, of all normal, adult persons.

Question 33

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-In Habermas, the interactive process of critical argumentation crucial to overcoming ideological domination.

Question 34

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-In Habermas, a flawed and thus distorting view of reality, of the world, and of people caused by the acceptance of a false ideology.

Question 35

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-In Habermas, rules for using and understanding language rationally.

Question 36

A theory of audience is central to the rhetorical theory of Chaim Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca in their The New Rhetoric. Briefly describe the role played by any three of the audiences they discuss, focusing on the part played by each audience in ensuring that discourse is rational.

Question 37

What do Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca mean by the "universal audience"? What function does this idea have in their theory?

Question 38

Describe Jurgen Habermas' proposal for achieving a rational society free from ideological domination.

Question 39

Describe some of the ways in which the social and natural sciences are rhetorical, according to authors discussed in Chapter Nine.

Question 40

Provide one example of how Charles Darwin acted as a rhetorician in his advocacy of evolution, according to John Campbell.

Question 41

One problem facing modern Western society is its inability to provide a framework for reasoning about questions of value and action. Describe the solution to this problem suggested by Chaim Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca. What is at the heart of their solution? In what ways can their proposal be understood as rhetorical in nature? Is their proposed approach likely to provide a solution to the problem they pose themselves? Does their theory have something to offer by way of providing a means of reasoning reliably about questions of value and action?