Rhetoric in philosophy: the new rhetoric 
There is nothing of philosophical interest in a rhetoric that is understood as
an art of expression, whether literary or verbal. Rhetoric, for the proponents
of the new rhetoric, is a practical discipline that aims not at producing a
work of art but at exerting through speech a persuasive action on an audience.


Nature of the new rhetoric 
The new rhetoric is defined as a theory of argumentation that has as its object
the study of discursive techniques that aim to provoke or to increase the
adherence of men's minds to the theses that are presented for their assent.  It
also examines the conditions that allow argumentation to begin and to be
developed, as well as the effects produced by this development.

This definition indicates in what way the new rhetoric continues classical
rhetoric and in what way it differs from it. The new rhetoric continues the
rhetoric of Aristotle insofar as it is aimed at all types of hearers. It
embraces what the ancients termed dialectics (the technique of discussion and
debate by means of questions and answers, dealing especially with matters of 
opinion), which Aristotle analyzed in his Topics; it includes the reasoning
that Aristotle qualified as dialectical, which he distinguished from the
analytical reasoning of formal logic. This theory of argumentation is termed
new rhetoric because Aristotle, although he recognized the relationship between
rhetoric and dialectic, developed only the former in terms of the hearers.

It should be noted, moreover, that the new rhetoric is opposed to the tradition
of modern, purely literary rhetoric, better called stylistic, which reduces
rhetoric to a study of figures of style, because it is not concerned with the
forms of discourse for their ornamental or aesthetic value but solely insofar
as they are means of persuasion and, more especially, means of creating
presence  (i.e., bringing to the mind of the hearer things that are not
immediately present) through the techniques of presentation.

The elaboration of a rhetoric thus conceived has an undeniable philosophical
interest because it constitutes a response to the challenge of Logical
Empiricism. The Logical Empiricists proclaim the irrationality of all judgments
of value i.e., those judgments that relate to the ends of men's actions because
such judgments can be grounded neither in experience nor in calculation,
neither in deduction nor in induction. But it is not clearly necessary,
after discarding the recourse to intuition as an insufficient basis for a
judgment of value, to declare all such judgments equally arbitrary. This
amounts to considering as futile the hopes of philosophers to elaborate a
wisdom that would guide men in their public as well as their private lives.
The alternative offered by the new rhetoric would furnish a complementary
tool to traditional logic, which is limited to the technique of
demonstration, or necessary proof according to the rules of deduction and
induction; it would add the technique of argumentation. This would allow
men not only to verify and to prove their beliefs but also to justify their
decisions and their choices. Thus, the new rhetoric, elaborating a logic
for judgments of value, is indispensable for the analysis of practical
reasoning.



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