Russian Judicial Discourse in the Light of the Modern Theory of Argumentation

Abstract

The article discusses the main methods of argumentation in the judicial discourse of two large Russian lawyers of the second half of the 19 th century – A. F. Koni and F. N. Plevako for compliance with the argumentative scheme developed by the Cambridge School (D. Walton and others). The authors believe that, without any reliable theoretical support in connection with the decline of traditional rhetoric, the best jurists intuitively discovered the outlines that later laid the foundation for Ch. Perelman’s rhetoric. First of all, it was a question of quasi-logical arguments and arguments with which either reality is constructed or the subjective position of the person involved in the rhetorical process is affirmed.