{"title":"An incomprehensible rhetoric","authors":"P. Engel","doi":"10.47348/acta/2022/a3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In his pioneering essays on the role of rhetoric in political discourse in South Africa, and in particular within the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Philippe-Joseph Salazar has emphasised the ‘postmodernist’ overtones of these debates. But he has clearly distinguished an Aristotelian line in the use of rhetoric in politics, according to which it ought to promote truth in order to convince, and a Protagorean line, according to which truth is relative and useless. Some commentators on these issues, such as Barbara Cassin, have – without a blink – espoused the postmodernist and Protagorean line. I take their view to be incomprehensible and incoherent. Rhetoric should not be used as a tool to bury truth, but to praise it. So, I prefer to see Salazar more as an Aristotelian than as a Protagorean.","PeriodicalId":90407,"journal":{"name":"Acta juridica (Cape Town, South Africa)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Acta juridica (Cape Town, South Africa)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.47348/acta/2022/a3","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In his pioneering essays on the role of rhetoric in political discourse in South Africa, and in particular within the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Philippe-Joseph Salazar has emphasised the ‘postmodernist’ overtones of these debates. But he has clearly distinguished an Aristotelian line in the use of rhetoric in politics, according to which it ought to promote truth in order to convince, and a Protagorean line, according to which truth is relative and useless. Some commentators on these issues, such as Barbara Cassin, have – without a blink – espoused the postmodernist and Protagorean line. I take their view to be incomprehensible and incoherent. Rhetoric should not be used as a tool to bury truth, but to praise it. So, I prefer to see Salazar more as an Aristotelian than as a Protagorean.
在他关于修辞在南非政治话语中的作用的开创性论文中,特别是在真相与和解委员会中,philip - joseph Salazar强调了这些辩论的“后现代主义”色彩。但是他清楚地区分了亚里士多德在政治中运用修辞学的路线,根据亚里士多德的路线,修辞学应该促进真理,以使人信服,而普罗泰哥的路线,根据他的路线,真理是相对的,无用的。这些问题上的一些评论员,如芭芭拉·卡辛,毫不犹豫地支持后现代主义和普罗泰戈里路线。我认为他们的观点是不可理解和不连贯的。修辞不应该被用作掩盖真理的工具,而应该被用作赞美真理的工具。所以,我更倾向于把萨拉查看作亚里士多德学派而不是普罗泰哥学派。