{"id":14009,"date":"2025-04-12T11:04:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T09:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/?p=14009"},"modified":"2025-10-17T08:49:30","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T06:49:30","slug":"values-new-rhetoric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/values-new-rhetoric\/","title":{"rendered":"Values 1: The New Rhetoric"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: #ff0000;\"><strong>VALUE (1) as the founding concept of THE <em>NEW RHETORIC<br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: #0000ff;\">1. Value as a Unified Field<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>According to the philosophical tradition, questions about<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">the good, the ends, the right, obligation, virtue, moral judgment, aesthetic judgment, the beautiful, truth, and validity (Frankena 1967, p. 229),<\/span><\/p>\n<p>belong to different domains: morality, law, aesthetics, logic, economics, politics, epistemology.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Since the beginning of the twentieth century, these questions have been taken up globally, within the framework of a general theory of values, of distant Platonic ancestry. This \u201cwide-ranging discussion in terms of \u2018value\u2019, \u2018values\u2019, and \u2018valuation\u2019 [then] spread to psychology, the social sciences, the humanities and even to ordinary language\u201d (<em>ibid.<\/em>).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The concept of value was introduced into the contemporary field of argumentation by Perelman &amp; Olbrechts-Tyteca&rsquo;s <em>New Rhetoric<\/em> [1958], in the philosophical line of Dupr\u00e9el (1939) (Dominicy n. d.). It constitutes its permanent foundation, as the introductory chapter of Perelman&rsquo;s <em>\u00ab\u00a0Legal Logic\u00a0\u00bb<\/em> [<em>Logique juridique<\/em>] (1979) entitled \u00ab\u00a0The New Rhetoric and Values\u00a0\u00bb shows.<\/p>\n<p>Perelman&rsquo;s research on value is a perfect example of what a \u00ab\u00a0general theory of values\u00a0\u00bb can be.<br \/>\nThe status of value and the role of values in the New Rhetoric are extensively discussed and illustrated in detail Guerrini 2019, 2022. [1]\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: #0000ff;\"><strong>2. Perelman&rsquo;s Research Program on the Logic of Values<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">1.1 Critique of Positivism<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Perelman presents his discovery of argumentation theory as a step beyond a research program on the \u201clogic of value judgments\u201d (Perelman 1979, \u00a750, p. 101; 1980, p. 457). This latter research led him to the following conclusions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00ab\u00a0There is no logic of value judgments\u00a0\u00bb (ibid.) that would allow their rational organization. This conclusion that is said to be \u00ab\u00a0unexpected\u00a0\u00bb (ibid.).<\/li>\n<li>Contrary to the project of classical philosophy, it is impossible to construct an ontology that would allow a \u201ccalculus of values\u201d that would regulate their hierarchy.<\/li>\n<li>Logical positivism&rsquo;s treatment of values leads to a dead end. It maintains a gap between the values and the facts from which they cannot be derived. The consequence of this separation is that any recourse to values is rejected as irrational.<br \/>\nPerelman argues that the view that value-based action is <em>irrational<\/em> is self-defeating, because it implies that practical reasoning and the entire field of law, both of which are based on values, should be considered irrational, which is <a href=\"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/absurd-eng\/\">absurd<\/a> because unacceptable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Perelman&rsquo;s conclusion is that, because science and logic deal with judgments of truth, they cannot provide the rules for practical reason, which deals with judgments of <em>value<\/em>. This is the basis of Perelman&rsquo;s claim, which reasserts the gap between the rational and the reasonable, between \u201cthe two cultures\u201d, science and the humanities, see <a href=\"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/demonstration-and-argumentation-e\/\">demonstration<\/a>; <a href=\"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/proof-and-the-arts-of-proof-e\/\">proof<\/a>.<br \/>\nContinuing his research program on values, Perelman, in search of other methods capable of accounting for the rational aspect of the use of values, sought other perspectives better suited to this particular subject. He found them in Aristotle&rsquo;s <em>Rhetoric<\/em> and <em>Topics<\/em>, which provide techniques for the empirical study of how individuals justify their reasonable choices. Perelman was then able to redefine his theoretical goal from<span style=\"color: #000000;\"> <em>logic <\/em>to a <em>New Rhetoric<\/em> (<em>ibid<\/em>.). The argumentative-rhetorical method \u200b\u200bseems to be the solution to the failure of the logical and philosophical treatments of values. Pe<\/span>relman consistently rejects the project of classical philosophy to develop a <em>calculus<\/em> of values, since it is not possible to derive a <em>hierarchy<\/em> of values \u200b\u200bfrom an <em>ontology<\/em> of values. In particular,<span style=\"color: #000000;\"> Perelman disagrees with Bentham on the possibility of a calculus of pleasures and pains.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>1.2 <span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The\u00a0 <em>Fact\/Value <\/em>Opposition<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The <em>New Rhetoric<\/em> is thus structured around two questions about values. \u00a0The first one has a logical origin. It concerns value judgments, made about a being or a concrete situation. The second one has a philosophical origin. It concerns substantial values such as the true, the beautiful and the good, which are the most general of all values.<br \/>\nIn the TA, values are defined by the following distinctions and operations, which actually retain much of their positivist origin.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; <\/strong>Facts are necessary and <em>compel<\/em> the mind, whereas values \u200b\u200brequire a commitment [French <em>adh\u00e9rence<\/em> of the mind), see <a href=\"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/argumentation-i-definition\/\">argumentation 1<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211;<\/strong> In practice, however, value judgments and reality judgments are difficult to distinguish. Contextual considerations may be necessary to characterize a judgment as a value judgment: <em>\u00ab\u00a0This is a car\u00a0\u00bb<\/em> may be a factual judgment or a value judgment; <em>\u00ab\u00a0This is a real car\u00a0\u00bb<\/em> is only a value judgment (see Dominicy, n. d., pp. 14-17).<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211;<\/strong> In science, if two truth judgments about a reality are contradictory, one of them is necessarily false (principle of the excluded middle), while two contradictory value judgments about the same object, \u201c<em>This is beautiful! <\/em>vs.<em> This is ugly!<\/em>\u201d, can both be justified by value-based arguments, developed independently of any appeal to reality.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Values and facts exist in separate worlds. Value judgments cannot be derived from nor can they be opposed to factual judgments. Group values \u200b\u200bare acquired through education and language, and they are specifically reinforced in the epidictic genre.<br \/>\nSee <a href=\"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/value-annex\/\">Perelman, value and the epidictic genre.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Values are currently in conflict. Legitimate contradictions between value judgments cannot be resolved by eliminating one of the conflicting values, as one eliminates a false proposition. One can only rank the values (ibid., p. 107).<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Value in the epidictic genre,<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong>1.3 <\/strong><\/span><strong>Agreement<\/strong>: beyond the opposition\u00a0<span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong>Fact\/Value<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>For Perelman, the functioning as arguments of <em>value claims,<\/em> and <em>truth and reality claims <\/em>presupposes the agreement of the participants. The totality of these \u00ab\u00a0preliminary agreements\u00a0\u00bb to the argumentation itself creates an atmosphere of \u00ab\u00a0communion\u00a0\u00bb (p. 74) that allows the harmonious development of the argumentative-rhetorical situation itself.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">We will ask which objects of agreement play a different role in the argumentative process. We think it will be useful, from this point of view, to group these objects into <strong>two categories<\/strong>,<span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\"> one relative to the real, which would include facts, truths and presumptions, the other relative to the preferable, which would contain values, hierarchies and places of the preferable <\/span>(Id., p. 88; <span style=\"background-color: #ff0000;\">emphasis in the text).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The <em>Treatise<\/em> goes on to say that<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">The notion of \u00ab\u00a0fact\u00a0\u00bb is characterized only by the idea that one has of a certain kind of agreement about certain data, those which refer to an objective reality. (Id. p. 89)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>It seems that the opposition fact \/ value is now revived as an opposition between two kinds of agreement. That is, the argumentative process blurs the distinction between values and facts, i.e. it is possible to agree\/disagree about facts as well as agree\/disagree about values.<br \/>\nIndeed, both facts and values can be the focus of a stasis, and both facts and values can be as fixed as facts are supposed to be, and as questionable as values are supposed to be<span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\"> Values and facts are equivalent, when they are defined as <strong>unquestioned realities<\/strong><\/span>. From \u00ab\u00a0<em>truth is not questioned<\/em>\u00a0\u00bb we don&rsquo;t move to \u00ab\u00a0what is not questioned is true\u00a0\u00bb, but to \u00ab\u00a0what is unquestioned has the same value as truth\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n<p>In sum, \u00ab\u00a0the opposition between <em>value judgments<\/em> and <em>factual<\/em> <em>judgments can be maintained <\/em>only as the result of <strong>\u00ab\u00a0precarious agreements\u00a0\u00bb<\/strong> (Perelman &amp; Olbrechts-Tyteca [1958], p. 513), and for special debates.<br \/>\nThis is undoubtedly an\u00a0 accurate observation. \u00ab\u00a0Precarious\u00a0\u00bb suggests a deplorable condition attached to the agreement, which is not the case. Agreements on facts or on value, or on any other possible distinction of this kind can be revoked, depending on the conventions of the group and the justifications given. The occurrence of disagreement is not to be deplored in human groups.<\/p>\n<p>Let&rsquo;s note that the distinction between two objects of agreement, relating respectively to the <em>real and the preferable<\/em>, seems to reintroduce the distinction that has just been absorbed by the notion of agreement. \u00a0The <em>fact\/value, real\/preferable<\/em> dichotomies are the source of the gap between two Perelmanian concepts, \u00ab\u00a0the reasonable\u00a0\u00bb which governs current mundane argumentative practices including law, and \u00ab\u00a0the rational\u00a0\u00bb governing logic and science, see <a href=\"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/demonstration-and-argumentation-e\/\">demonstration<\/a>; <a href=\"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/proof-and-the-arts-of-proof-e\/\">proof<\/a>.<br \/>\nWe won&rsquo;t try to discuss further these issues, which seem to be more related to the ontology of our world, than to the concrete facts envisaged by argumentation studies.<\/p>\n<p>The following section focuses on the \u00ab\u00a0places of the preferable\u00a0\u00bb and their relation to argumentation schemes.<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: #0000ff;\"><strong>3. Do <em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Argument Schemes<\/span><\/em> Apply Specifically to Facts, and <\/strong><\/span><em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Loci <\/strong><\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: #0000ff;\"><strong>to Values?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>According to the <em>Treatise<\/em>, the opposition of values and facts corresponds to the opposition of the argumentative principles that govern them. <span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\">Values are governed by <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">loci<\/span><\/span> <\/strong><\/span>(places, topoi):<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">When it is a question of founding values or hierarchies or reinforcing the intensity of the adhesion they arouse, we can link them to other values or other hierarchies to consolidate them, but we can also have recourse <strong>to premises of a very general order, which we&rsquo;ll call loci, the [t\u00f3poi]<\/strong> from which the Topics, or treatises devoted to dialectical reasoning, derive (p. 112)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The <em>Treatise<\/em> is formal on this point:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">We will call places [Fr. <em>lieux<\/em>] only premises of a general order allowing to found values and hierarchies, and which Aristotle studies among the places of the accident (p. 113)<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>An Unnecessary Distinction<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Given this definition, of the word \u00ab\u00a0place\u00a0\u00bb, we understand that the principles that found, i.e. justify, the factual conclusions <strong>are <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>not<\/em><\/span> called places<\/strong> (loci, t\u00f3poi).<br \/>\nThis is what we actually see in the 3rd part of the <em>Treatise<\/em>. This part, which is the main part of the work, is called<strong> \u00ab\u00a0<span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\">argumentative techniques<\/span>\u00ab\u00a0, <\/strong>and these techniques are also called<strong> \u00ab\u00a0<span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\">argumentative schemes<\/span>\u00ab\u00a0<\/strong> (p. 251).<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">But it is obvious that the schemes, the techniques of association, correspond closely to what the tradition calls \u00ab\u00a0places\u00a0\u00bb; and, incidentally the <em>Treatise<\/em> ratifies this label:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\"><strong>these schemes [can also be considered] as places of argumentation<\/strong> <\/span>(p. 255).<\/p>\n<p>We therefore give up reserving the name of \u201cplace\u201d exclusively for the rules of values. It remains to be seen what the consequences of this terminological reorientation has for the conceptual opposition fact\/value.<span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\"><strong> In every day argument, just as <em>agreement<\/em> can be reached about facts and values, the same kind of <em>argumentative rules<\/em> apply to <span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\">fa<\/span><\/strong><strong>c<\/strong><strong>ts and values.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The following loci are considered to be the \u00ab\u00a0most common\u00a0\u00bb loci (ibid., p. 95):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Quantity<\/em>:<\/strong> \u00ab\u00a0one thing is better than another for quantitative reasons\u201d (<em>id.<\/em>, 85\/115): \u201c<em>the more, the better\u00a0\u00bb<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Quality<\/em><\/strong> is used to challenge <em>quantity<\/em>, that is \u00ab\u00a0the strength of numbers\u00a0\u00bb (<em>id<\/em>., p. 89\/119): \u00ab\u00a0<em>the rarer it is, the more valuable it is\u00a0\u00bb<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Order<\/em><\/strong>: \u00ab\u00a0The loci of order affirm the superiority of the earlier over the later\u00a0\u00bb (<em>id.<\/em>, p. 93\/125).<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Existence<\/em>:<\/strong> \u00ab\u00a0The loci relating to the existent affirm the superiority of that which exists, of the real, over the possible, the contingent, or the impossible\u00a0\u00bb (<em>id<\/em>., p. 94\/126).<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Essence <\/em><\/strong><em>ascribes <\/em>\u00ab\u00a0a higher value to individuals to the extent that they embody [the] essence\u201d (<em>id<\/em>., p. 95\/126), which materializes as a topos \u201cthe closer it is to the origin, to life, to the prototype, the better it is\u00a0\u00bb.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These so-called loci of value correspond to the topoi of the <a href=\"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/accident-e\/\">accident<\/a> in Aristotle&rsquo;s <em>Topics<\/em> (ibid., p. 113). Since the category of accident is not particularly value-bound, we can assume that the topoi of accident are value-bound either.<br \/>\nThe places of the accident, by definition, operate on facts and objects as well as on the field of values. <span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\">Thus, in keeping with tradition the terms, <em>loci<\/em> (<em>topoi<\/em>, <em>place<\/em>) and <em>argument scheme<\/em> can be safely interchanged.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The accident is a kind of predication about an object. Such gradual links can be represented on correlated argumentative scales, see s<a href=\"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/scale-argumentative-scales-laws-of-discourse-e\/\">cale<\/a>; <a href=\"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/topos-in-semantic\/\">topos in semantics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VALUE (1) as the founding concept of THE NEW RHETORIC 1. Value as a Unified Field According to the philosophical tradition, questions about the good, the ends, the right, obligation, virtue, moral judgment, aesthetic judgment, the beautiful, truth, and validity (Frankena 1967, p. 229), belong to different domains: morality, law, aesthetics, logic, economics, politics, epistemology. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dictionary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14009"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14202,"href":"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14009\/revisions\/14202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icar.cnrs.fr\/dicoplantin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}