Law and Rhetoric

Abstract

There are two limitations to the application of Aristotle’s doctrine of rhetoric which he interpreted as the study of persuasive discourse and its modalities. On the one hand, where the admitted thesis is self-evident and imposes upon every attentive mind there is no cause for argumentation. When truth is manifestly clear, when self-evidence leaves no room for willful choice, all rhetoric is superfluous. On the other hand, when the thesis is shown to be arbitrary and there is no reason to favor it, the demand for submission to a constraining power can come about only through brutal force, without any concern for intellectual acceptance. These two extremes are indeed rare; the field of rhetoric is thus immense.¹

To be published in German in the Festschrift Th. Viehweg.