Chaim Perelman
From RhetorClick
Chaïm Perelman (1912-1984) was a Jewish philosopher best known for his book The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (Traité de L'argumentation - La Nouvelle Rhétorique) in 1958 with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. Perelman was a professor of logic and metaphysics at Université Libre in Brussels in 1944 and spent most of his career there. His focus on mathematical logic would later shift to forms of discursive reasoning and notions of justice.
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Biography
Early Life
Perelman's Jewish heritage had a profound impact on his outlook on life and strongly influenced his views on justice, a key to his concept of argumentation and The New Rhetoric. Perelman, experiencing post-World World I Europe, the rise of Hitler, and widespread anti-Semitism, created and lead the Jewish wing of the Belgium resistance movement. The horrors of the Holocaust lead him to publicly announce his devotion to the Jewish notion of justice and cultural Judaism.
Judaism, Justice, and The New Rhetoric
After World War II, Perelman turned to Judaism for a new outlook on justice. Heavily influenced by the Jewish psychologist Henri Baruk, Perelman took in the "Jewish tradition... of justification that avoided dualism and worked to blend love and justice, truth and peace" (Frank 313). The Jewish tradition of justice requires a reason that includes emotion, empathy, and rationality and insists that those who judge should be compassionate.
Drawing inspiration from Talmudic texts, a collection of Jewish laws and traditions, Perelman contrasted Jewish pluralism with the Western notion of dualistic rationality. Perelman believed the Enlightenment rationalists had a limited view of reason and argued against the notion that there must be one answer to a given question. Perelman embraced Talmudic reasoning, which states that "reason is plural, revealing many answers to the same question" (Frank 314).
Article Summaries
Perelman, Chaïm "The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical Reasoning"
Additional Works/Publications
Books
- (1958) The New Rhetoric. ISBN 0268004463
- (1982) The Realm of Rhetoric. ISBN 0268016046
Articles/Essays
Further Readings
Frank, David A. (1997). "New Rhetoric, Judaism, and Post-Enlightenment Thought: The Cultural Origins of Perelmanian Philosophy."
References
External Links
- Adam Kissel's Reading Notes on The New Rhetoric
- "The Jewish Countermodel: Talmudic Argumentation, the New Rhetoric Project, and the Classical Tradition of Rhetoric", article by David A. Frank
- "The Role of Audience in Chaim Perelman's New Rhetoric", article by Richard Long
- "After the New Rhetoric", book review by David A. Frank (reviews Gross and Dearin's Chaim Perelman)
