DISSOCIATION
1. Dissociation as a fundamental argumentative technique
The concept of dissociation was introduced by Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca. According to them, there are two types of argumentation techniques: “association and dissociation” ([1958], p. 190).
The former of these concerns two or more propositions, that make up an argument, while the latter operates on a single concept.
The technique of dissociation is thus placed on a par with the large and varied set of association techniques, i.e., argument schemes. This shows the importance that Perelman attaches to the concept.
2.Dissociation as a conceptual reorganization
Perelman defines dissociation as the splitting of the meaning of a word or concept, in order to avoid a contradiction.
The meaning of the problematic term T is reformulated as containing an internal contradiction, “an incompatibility”, “an antinomy”, and dissociation is the mechanism by which it can be resolved ([1958], 550-609).
T is split into a term T1 and a term T2, this operation involves a negative evaluation of T1 and a positive evaluation of T2.
Dissociation appears as a kind of “semantic cleansing”, by which an unwanted content or connotation, T1, can be disposed of. The concept of reality can thus be divided, « dissociated », into the pair T1 = appearance vs. T2 = reality, the latter being “the true reality”.
While the primitive status of what is given as the starting point of dissociation is undecided and indeterminate, the dissociation in Terms 1 and 2 will value the aspects corresponding to term 2 and will devalue the aspects that oppose it. Term I, the appearance, in the narrow sense of this word, is only illusion and error.
(Perelman 1977, p. 141)
Dissociation is the key operation for extracting a concept from the ordinary meaning of a word, not for analyzing a concept as a synthesis of two distinct but equally important concepts, see distinguo.
3. Linguistic aspects of dissociation
Reasoning by dissociation is characterized first of all by the opposition between appearance and reality. This can be applied to any notion, by using adjectives such as apparent, illusory on the one hand, real, true on the other. To use an expression such as apparent peace or genuine democracy is to indicate the absence of genuine peace, or the presence of an apparent democracy: one of these adjectives refers to the other. (Id., p. 147)
The linguistic markers of dissociations are very diverse:
A prefix such as pseudo- (pseudo-atheist), quasi– not– the adjective alleged, the use of quotes indicate that we are dealing with the term I, while the capital letter (Being), the definite article (the solution), the adjective unique or true denote a term II. (Id., p. 148)
Other dissociations are stabilized as pairs of antithetical terms or “philosophical pairs” such as “opinion / science; sense knowledge / rational knowledge; body / soul; just / legal, etc.” (Perelman [1958], 563). Some of these dissociated pairs are traditional and constitute the oppositions that generate foundational ideological discourses.
As with all antonymic pairs, one term is linguistically preferred to the other, and this preference can be reversed. The T1 vs. T2 opposition “superficial vs. deep” can be reversed by praising the superficial — “the skin is the deepest thing there is” (Paul Valéry). The pair, “rhetoric, argumentation” can be seen as an « antagonist pair », engaged in permanent revolving evaluations.
4. Dissociation as shielding
Dissociation is a dialogue strategy:
X: — Well old boy, that’s democracy!
Y: — There is democracy and there is democracy.
X seems to have the upper hand in the discussion. Y resists with a typical dissociation that allows him to get rid of the embarrassing democracy proposed by X as a pseudo-democracy. The reply introduces a stasis of definition
Dissociation has a concessive facet. For example, one might assume that some intellectuals would make good businessmen, while conceding that they are only a tiny minority. Dissociation does the same thing, but by completely excluding of the subcategory « intellectual businessmen » from the general category, “intellectuals”:
(1) S1 — When it comes to business, intellectuals are hopeless
S2 — Or they are not really intellectuals.
(2) S1_1 — Germans drink beer.
S2 — Not Hans!
S1_2 — Normal, Hans is not a real German.
In (2) S2 refutes S11 by producing of an opposite case. S12 recognizes that Hans is German and does not drink beer, and maintains his original claim by splitting the category “German” into « true Germans vs. not true Germans ». The modification of the argument may or may not be justified; S1 may have responded:
S1_3 — But Hans is not a real German, he grew up in the United States
– Suppose that Americans drink less beer than Germans. S1_3 introduces a line of justification showing that Hans deviates from the stereotype of the true German.
This new category created by S1_3 is based upon an explicit criterion, that is independent of the current discussion. In the previous dialogue, the only contextually available criterion is « beer drinking ». The word Germans in S1 refers to all Germans; if Germans are redefined as true Germans on the basis of the criterion, “Germans who drink beer”, then the statement S11 is indeed compelling, since “Germans who drink beer” do drink beer.
Category rectification serves to exclude individuals from the category being reanalyzed. In politics, this strategy opposes the, “true Syldavian” as good citizens in order to exclude other citizens as, “bad citizens”. In practice, dissociation transforms a previously necessary and sufficient condition (to be a Syldavian one must be a Syldavian citizen) into a necessary one, « to be a true Syldavian, one must have Syldavian nationality and share our ideology ».
In the following case, “La Réunion” [1], that is “the people living in La Réunion”, is opposed to “the true Réunion”, an ad hoc subcategory of this group.
Roland Sicard (RS) is the host of the television program. Marine Le Pen is the candidate for the National Front (“Front National”, a far-right party) in the 2012 French presidential elections. Gilbert Collard (GC) is a lawyer, president of her support committee.
RS — good morning Gilbert Collard […] er- a word about Marine Le Pen’s trip to La Réunion\ she was heckled, one feels that the National Front candidates are still in a lot of trouble abroad/?
GC — Listen I know La Réunion very well because I was there very often as a lawyer and then in particularly sensitive cases and— there are: uh, two Réunions uh there’s a Réunion which is instrumentalized that organizes the usual reception committee for Marine Le Pen they’re quite insignificant eh\ well and then ther’s the real Réunion made up of men with divergent views of – women with opi – but that’s no more difficult in the overseas departments than in metropolitan France anyway\ no I don’t think what makes it difficult is the instrumentalization of the media hmm […]
TV program [Home Truths] France 2, 08 Feb., 2012.[2]
S. Opposite words; Categorization; Orientation
5. Distinguo and dissociation
According to Perelman, the dissociation technique is, “hardly mentioned by traditional rhetoric, for it is especially important for the analysis of systematic philosophical thought” (1977, p. 139). An example is taken from Kant, for whom natural sciences postulate a universal determinism while morality postulates the freedom of the individual; hence the necessity of dissociating the concept reality, a confused notion, into a phenomenal reality, in which determinism reigns, and a noumenal reality in which the individual can freely choose and act on his decision.
These sub-concepts are in a complementary oppositional relationship, as contradictories. The goal is not to nullify one of these dimensions, as in the case of dissociation.
Ancient rhetoric has the concept of distinguo. The distinguo is an operation of clarification performed on a concept that is considered possibly « confusing ». In order to clarify the concept, the distinguo performs a kind of content analysis, and rearranges the semantic and cognitive content of the word in different subdomains, for example to clearly define the position of the subject of an investigation, as in example (1) (§1)
Such an operation is the basic task of the lexicographer when she decides whether the signifier to be defined has only one meaning, or several related meanings (polysemy), or several unrelated meanings (homonymy). At this point, the operation does not involve any special treatment or evaluation of the relatively independent semantic or cognitive subdomains.
Dissociation goes one step further by deciding that one of these components is to be evaluated positively, the other negatively and considered negligible for the discussion.
[1] The Réunion Island is an overseas French department, East of Madagascar.
[2] TV program Les Quatre Vérités France 2. Feb. 8, 2012.