D
U N C E RTA I N T Y A N D M O D E R N I T Y: D
W H Y I S I T S O D I F F I C U LT TO P R AC T I C E
R H E TO R I C TO D AY?
LOÏC NICOLAS ISSN 1392-0588 (spausdintas)
ISSN 2335-8769 (internetinis)
Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium http://dx.doi.org/10.7220/2335-8769.66.6
2016. 66
S U M M A RY. This article reveals a new face of the art of rhetoric, which helps to better
understand its profound value, but also its power—and therefore, the passion, envy, and inte-
rest it continues to generate. My purpose is to relate the practice of speech in its argumentative
dimension to the exercise of political freedom. This practice will be seen as a way to free oneself
and awaken one’s conscience by taking the risk of leaving evidence and certainties behind.
Rhetoric is not only the art of speaking well, and speaking eloquently to persuade: it represents,
above all, a certain way of thinking, a journey, a liberating path that we must, I believe, explore
anew.
K E Y WO R D S : rhetoric, argumentation, risks, journey, fuzziness, tools.
For convenience, by intellectual habit or due to a lack of judgment, we often view
rhetorical activity as merely providing information successfully, by means of words
and sentences. We suppose that the intention would be, for an orator, only to com-
municate to his audience about things and the world (i.e., weather, combustion
of hydrocarbons, conception of beauty, etc.), using the ancient technè of rhetoric.
But to reduce rhetoric to a medium to achieve something in words is to ignore
completely what is deeply at play in the space of discourse and argumentation. I
want to propose that the practice of rhetoric, the path (because this is really a path
on which move forward) and the tools it offers, have more thickness, strength, and
value that we often say or admit. Rhetoric helps us deal with the uncertainties and
undefined spaces of life. It is an art of approximation and a skill for the exercise of
political liberty in the flux and fuzziness of life.
For the Belgian philosopher Chaim Perelman (1912–1984), this deep value
of rhetoric explains precisely why some people—dictators and propagandists, for
example—try to make up a sort of rhetorical “counterfeit money,” and spend a
significant energy behaving as if they were arguing according to the rules and codes
of the art of rhetoric. This idea, developed at the end of a lecture delivered in 1959
on the “social frameworks of argumentation,” seeks to contradict the position of
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his colleague, the French sociologist Georges Gurvitch: “I cannot acknowledge,”
explains Perelman, “for any domain except in the field of Revelation—and should
we still argue about the proper interpretation of Revelation—that we can reduce
[the practice of ] argumentation to a mere diffusion of ideas.” Besides, he concedes
that in some cases the effort to argue and to offer proofs about this or that is purely
and simply “a sham” because “the matter is closed” when the orator speaks. There is
in fact nothing to say. Here, the audience is already committed to the “cause”; the
evidence is clear to anyone; there is nothing to explore; criticism is not expected.
However, he adds: “Why should we pretend? The process of argumentation needs
to be of interest and value in many cases, if some people decide to pretend to argue.
It is because a currency is in circulation and has a value that we take the trouble
of making counterfeit money.”1 The practice of argumentation has a deep value
prompting some people to mimic the path it offers and opens, but without really
wanting to take this path and where it may lead.
This paper will proceed in three stages: after a discussion (I) about rhetoric as a
process of discovery and (in my words) a “journey” into uncertainty, we will see (II)
how exploring a fuzzy “space in-between” sets the conditions for a true discovery,
before (III) comparing the mathematical ideal of Modernity with the approximati-
ons of rhetoric and its process.
B E N E F I T S O F T H E J O U R N E Y: O R , R H E TO R I C A S A N A RT O F N AV I G AT I O N
According to Aristotle, “the function of [rhetoric] is not to persuade but to find out
in each case the existing means of persuasion” (Rhetoric, I, 1355b 9–11). Moreover,
the art itself points to “the faculty of discovering the possible means of persuasion
in reference to any subject whatever” (I, 1355b 25). In this sense, the work of an
apprentice of rhetoric is not to learn how to persuade, that is to say, how to produce
some effects with words, sentences, and figures of speech, but how to identify or
discover what can motivate a certain audience to be persuaded by a certain cause or
point of view.
To identify or discover something of this order (as we might do in searching for
treasure), it is necessary to develop the capacity to see beyond that which is directly
seeing – to “look beyond the looking glass,” in a certain sense. Actually, Aristotle
begins his reflection with the fact that some people—some speakers—manage to
persuade without method and without art: either by chance or by habit. Then, he
1
Perelman C. Les cadres sociaux de l’argumentation. (Discussion). Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie,
vol. 26, 1959, 130–131.
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admits that rhetorical ability, like sight, is widespread in humanity and is perhaps
universal. This ability to argue and to persuade comes at first, and precedes the
practice of argumentation itself. But if it is not used, worked, tested, exercised, it
is as if the ability did not really exist. It remains an unexploited ability. In this way
Aristotle’s Rhetoric can be approached as an appeal to convert an ability to see into
an art of seeing well so as to finally “be able to discover the means of persuasion in
reference to any given subject” (I, 1355b 35). Rhetoric is more of an art of seeing
well rather than an art of speaking well.
If rhetoric is this art of seeing well, it is above all a journey that can totally
change our views. And this is not only a figure of speech. The idea of a journey is
essential, and for me categorically in accordance with the Aristotelian tradition. It
describes what happens when we argue, and when we try “to discover the means
of persuasion.” Aristotle is really explicit about it: practicing rhetoric is an oppor-
tunity “to discover” something and not only a means of showing or proving some-
thing that already exists—a treasure does not exist before it was discovered. The
most important thing about this journey is not so much the end point but rather
the course of the journey itself; that is to say, the ideas, problems, questions, diffi-
culties which are discovered along the way of argumentation. To explore this idea,
we can use a maritime metaphor. Rhetoric, in a certain sense, is similar to naviga-
tion. The orator is like a pilot of ancient times, never knowing completely where he
will dock; he drifts and may fail, even though he has a goal, a fixed point in mind,
and he tries “to discover the means of persuasion,” the means to get there, with all
the risks of the journey, to find arguments for his cause.
We must give back to rhetoric all its seriousness and its political value, which its
detractors have always wanted to remove. Rhetoric does not fit in a “vase,” and as
beautiful as its “flowers” (i.e., figures of speech, good words) may be, it cannot be
reduced to their beauty alone, nor to a set of attractive and deceptive appearances.
If rhetoric were only a method for learning to speak, for speaking well, for staging
more beautiful “appearances,” one might ask: Why then is it held in such contempt
and why is it so frequently attacked? We should be perplexed by the fury and viru-
lence it inspires in its detractors. And if rhetoric were just a grotesque and laughable
trap for simpletons, only a way to speak, a medium, then how should we interpret
the incredible energy expended by generations of philosophers, clergymen, and
scholars to dismantle its functioning and its dynamic, and to decry its teaching?
Indeed, that would be very strange. The truth of rhetoric is elsewhere.
I argue here that to practice rhetoric is to learn to mourn illusions and certain-
ties, and to abandon seeing the world of men as totally determined, abandon seeing
it as we have always seen. In this regard, Claire Préaux, a Belgian philologist, per-
fectly summarized the vocation of the ancient technè in her review of a collection
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of papers published by Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca in 1952. Rhe-
toric is neither philosophy, nor a formalized doctrine, or even a set of tips and
tricks; Préaux writes that rhetoric helps those who practice it “to leave behind the
illusory safety of an absolute, to live in the dignity of the obligation to choose, and
to ensure that this choice will not be anarchic.”2 That choice derives its deep value
from the embrace of uncertainty. It is not about compliance with the requirements
of a pure and disembodied reason. Rhetoric invites us to take risks and to travel the
world of words and of possible arguments by adopting an ultimately richer appro-
ach, one that embraces uncertainty and fuzziness.
R E C O G N I Z I N G T H E F U Z Z Y S PAC E I N - B E T W E E N A S A C O N D I T I O N O F T RU E
D I S C OV E RY
Indeed, in the rhetorical journey, we can say that insecurity of meaning, insecurity
of speech (by opposition to the safety of truths and certitudes) is like a “space in-
between” in the cogs and wheels of a mechanism; that is to say, a fuzzy and dark
space, in which it is necessary to grope blindly. If this “space in-between” did not
exist, there would be no need “to discover the means of persuasion.” This discovery
gains all its meaning in the absence of a single place, a single path where eternal
truths can be found, once and for all. Embracing a “space in-between” and its fuz-
ziness forces us to engage with, and to risk choices between, conflicting positions
that could be argued in one way or another. Indeed, they could be argued with the
same force: God exists or God does not exist; this war is just or unjust; this law is
good or bad; this tradition is to be maintained or to be abolished; and so forth. Per-
suasion and creating adherence come at a price: the permanent discomfort of the
rhetorical journey. On this journey, the orator is always obliged to use the means
at hand to craft his arguments—he or she has to tinker, to mend, to adapt his or
her speech to a certain context, and to a certain audience which is always a judge of
his performance. This constant mending indeed symbolizes the rhetorical journey.
Whether to defend a cause or to go against it, rhetorical techniques and rhetorical
proofs are available to make acceptable the positions of all arguments and coun-
ter-arguments. These techniques do not take sides. The human world is open to
2
Préaux C. Review of “Ch. Perelman et L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, Rhétorique et Philosophie. Pour une théorie
de l’argumentation en philosophie”. L’Antiquité classique. vol. 23, issue 2. 1954, 551. See also: Nicolas L.
Exercer et pratiquer la rhétorique dans la tradition humaniste de l’École de Bruxelles: Auguste Baron,
Eugène Dupréel, Chaïm Perelman. Exercices de rhétorique. vol. 5, 2015; <http://rhetorique.revues.org/423>
[2016 09 26].
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multiple possibilities, and therefore, to argumentation and oppositions between
two ideas or more. It is a place of commitment and the exercise of freedom.
In fact, argumentative activity is simultaneously an opportunity (to discover),
and a danger (linked to the commitment of the rhetorical traveler). It can be both
a poison and a remedy; a double-edged sword. The cycle of criticisms and justifi-
cations, included in the argumentative activity, always opens a Pandora’s Box. This
cycle is very destabilizing for a world where order is deemed immutable, closed,
where there is nothing new to discover. Any argumentative approach shows us that
the world is not clear or unambiguous. The rhetorical traveler is forced to commit
himself to particularly uncertain and dangerous paths—always with freedom and
responsibility. On the contrary, when things are self-evident and categorically clear
we cannot expect any new journey. Evidence and certainty are already an achieve-
ment or an ultimate limit, the end of the road! Faced with this, there is nothing
else required except adherence to one truth. Facing this truth, freedom must bow.
There is no need for blind groping. That is why, in a strictly closed world or in
a closed society itself, the exercise of argumentation is still perceived as a threat
because it is precarious and questions the original meanings, values—and someti-
mes without any possible return.
The rhetorical journey leads those who follow it into the unknown. The danger
is in the unpredictable journey, the unpredictable paths that can arise when one
goes in search of arguments and counter-arguments, propositions and answers.
A journey from which the questions, the doubts, the blur of words and concepts
can emerge and grow without any control and limits. It carries with it a set cycle of
matters, reasons, unforeseeable oppositions. It unleashes uncertainty against which
the old certainties, beliefs, and evidence could be totally ineffective. Indeed, expe-
rience tells us that before we go in search of arguments, we always seem to have
perfectly “good” reasons. They seem obvious and appropriate to the situation, the
context, the world. We believe they are self-evident, and there is no reason to ques-
tion further.
Before we concern ourselves with a problem or a question, we often tend to
think there is no problem or question. It is often in the presence of an adversary,
someone who contradicts or interrogates us, or when we find ourselves in front of
a skeptical audience, that we realize there is a lack of evidence for our opinion. This
obliges us to question the justifications for our adherence to a thesis, and to rethink
its implications. When we argue with people who are of the same opinion as us,
when we talk only on “conquered ground,” when we preach to the converted, we
never take any risks: we are in a safe space. No one obliges us to take a step back; no
one asks us to question further and to start the rhetorical journey. There is no need
to take this extra step into the unknown—a step that can present difficulties for our
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deepest beliefs and which can even open us to the ravages of doubt. The discovery
that can arise is indeed linked to an initial “fuzziness” and the risk that it implies:
a risk that can also be an opportunity; the opportunity to stop arguing in a cyclical
manner; an opportunity to regenerate ourselves by engaging with uncertainty.
Those who undertake the work of argumentation, which requires a journey
beyond the limits of evidence, beyond the world of certainties, beyond our intel-
lectual and social comfort zone,3 will always arrive at a point where uncertainty
becomes evident. In fact, any argumentative approach—whatever its motivations,
which may be questionable or harmful, it is a fact—indirectly makes clear that the
world is not transparent, not as transparent as one might have thought or wished
to believe. This approach is indeed to take therisk that meaning could disinte-
grate or darken; a risk that evidence (i.e., clarity) could be checked by doubt and
criticism.
M AT H E M AT I C A L I D E A L O F T H E M O D E R N I T Y A G A I N S T
T H E A P P ROX I M AT I O N S O F R H E TO R I C
However, as Francis Goyet, in his book Les Audaces de la Prudence, published in
2009, has shown, modern rationality—a mechanical rationality—over reached
and tried to remove fuzziness and uncertainty from our human world. From this
springs our complete inability to pursue the rhetorical journey. Modern rationality
has made uncertainty and risk an impractical way, and a place of perpetual fear.
The “prudence” of the Moderns looks like a refusal to take action and to com-
mit oneself. There we are at the opposite end of the Greek phronèsis, which was
a “prudence” engaged in action. For sure, I do not deny that the planning and
construction of a plane, a ship or a nuclear power plant needs to minimize risk and
guarantee certainties. It is difficult to deny that in such cases we need to eliminate
“fuzziness” as much as possible. Indeed, could we accept a life where every instant
was determined by chance, uncertainty, and approximation? Certainly not! We
wish – or we aspire to – follow a path that offers certainty, underpinned by mathe-
matical precision. This precision gives us certainties, and rightly so.
But should the world of humans—the world of politics—be governed by this
same aspiration to remove risk and to remove all fuzziness? Should we, or should
we not, carry out such and such a reform, conclude such and such an agreement,
join a war, or apply a certain sentence for a certain crime? We always need to
3
See: Nicolas L. L’invention de la rhétorique ou la transgression des limites du monde clos. In Nicolas L.,
Hastings M. and Passard C. Paradoxes de la transgression. Paris: CNRS Ed., 2012, 139–154.
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commit ourselves and to take risks. We are no longer in the domain of abstract
objects and concepts. We have left behind the world of mathematical abstractions.
It is no longer a question of the repetition of natural or physical phenomena. We
are in a world of actions and human decisions, no less. We are in the domain of
fast-moving, incessant flux, even confusion.
Modern rationality, because it has rejected the rhetorical path, has taken poli-
tical decision-making—and with it the ship of state—into a world order where
technical techniques have been elevated as the only path to salvation. The act
of deciding is currently completely subject to an implacable mechanism, that of
expertise and, even more so, data-driven expertise. The data of expert discourse are
considered to be “objective.” They are thought to transmit a knowledge of things
that is neutral and disembodied. Data are thought to be able to speak for themsel-
ves, without justifications and without rhetorical proof. Data expertise is supposed
to allow us to totally safeguard our relationship with the world and with the state.
It gives us the complete illusion that the world of men and the big ship of state are
really manageable, controllable, quantifiable, and measurable as well. Therefore,
the quality of decisions, that is to say, risk management depends, first of all, on the
quality of measurements and on the precision of the instruments used to measure.
Here, choice is reduced to a succession of calculations, graphs, and statistics, which
are supposed to make the right choice evident or necessary. The work of the politi-
cian has become that of a manager of everyday issues. He or she must use commu-
nication tools to say what (s)he does and to show that (s)he has done what (s)he
promised. His or her communication must be cool, neutral, and dispassionate.
Let us be clear: the world of the approximate, the fuzzy, the world of the “almost,”
of “more or less”4 has become insufferable for us or, at less, inapprehensible. We
have lost the capacity as well as the creative pleasure of advancing in the partial
dark, in the uncertainty of futures—where rhetoric is essential. We are nowadays
incapable of seeing the advantage of the approximate. This horrifies us because it
is incalculable, unmeasurable. We can appreciate it but we cannot clarify it com-
pletely. This is why we try constantly to frame, quantify, and time the course of
modern life. We try incessantly to remove fuzziness and flux from the uncertainty
that issues from the essence of life. But, in reality, modern life, according to Lucien
Febvre, is nowadays entirely “suffused with mathematics. The actions of daily life
and human constructs carry the mark of this mathematization, even our artistic
joys and our moral life suffer this influence.”5 But there is a political blindness in
4
Koyré A. Du monde de l’à peu près à l’univers de la précision. Critique. vol. 28. 1948, 806–823; Dup-
réel E. Esquisse d’une philosophie des valeurs. Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan, 1939.
5
Febvre L. Le problème de l’incroyance au XVIe siècle. La religion de Rabelais. Paris: Albin Michel, 1942, quoted
by Koyré A. Du monde de l’à peu près à l’univers de la précision. Ibid., 812–813.
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the belief that certain elements of knowledge in the human sphere can be derived
from necessary, quantifiable, and eternal truths. This is a way to open the door for
dogmatism, inhumanity, and violence.
No doubt the modern wish to see clearly and to leave behind the approximate
to enter the world of precision was the fruit of good intentions and noble ideas. The
aim was to respond to the complexity and the needs of modern life. In this case,
we needed (or at least we thought we did) to constitute the problems of humans,
that is to say, the management of the state, as something requiring precision and
certainty. We needed to establish political discourse and decisions as measurable
objects: Objects that we could submit to rules, protocols, and the words of experts.
In such a case, there is no need to be really free. There is no need to be visionary, to
have the ability of seeing well despite the fuzziness. There is no need to show pru-
dence as the Ancients understood it. Indeed, the scrupulous respect for procedures
and expert discourse based on data is seen to be the natural guarantee of rigorous
results and the quality of decisions.
On such a view of rationality, turned as it is towards the domination of nature
by the precision of technology, intuitive groping and feeling has become the enemy.
We can no longer find a place for the sense of precariousness and fragility. Our
rationalist modernity persecutes, without pause, intuitions, as well as the proofs of
rhetoric that are not based on repeatable experiments or on rules-based calculation.
As a consequence, rhetoric—at least as an authentic journey into uncertainty—has
become impossible to imagine and impossible to practice. What advantage, indeed,
could we draw from a rhetoric which does not seek to suppress risk, mistakes or
errors but, on the contrary, tries to help us master them? As Philippe Muray writes
with his characteristic lucidity, our time seeks “to ignore that History [is] a sum
of major errors which we call life. It believes that we can eliminate error without
eliminating life.”6
C O N C LU S I O N
We need to presently reaffirm—against this modern view of things—that each
citizen is able to see our world as a realm of rhetoric. Each citizen is able to under-
take his or her journey into uncertainty. Each citizen is worthy to practice rhetoric
to exercise his or her freedom. Our democracies need to rediscover the value of
choice and doubt, the value of fuzziness and flux.
6
Muray P. Céline. Paris: Gallimard, 2001, 9.
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We have the obligation to relearn a taste for risk and for commitment. This is
our urgent calling: to follow the path of ancient technè. This path is maybe the only
acceptable horizon to give new meaning to our disoriented societies. To transmit
the ancient tools of rhetoric is a way to give citizens the possibility of basing their
choice on conscience and liberty. It is a means of giving them the wherewithal to
put their opinions to the test of the world and of others. The future of our demo-
cracies may depend on our ability to transmit these tools.
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Aristotle. The “Art” of Rhetoric. Ed. and trans. la tradition humaniste de l’École de Bruxelles:
J. H. Freese. Cambridge & London: Harvard Univer- Auguste Baron, Eugène Dupréel, Chaïm Perel-
sity Press & William Heinemann Ltd., 1957. man. Exercices de rhétorique, vol. 5, 2015; <http://
Danblon E. L’Homme rhétorique. Culture, raison, rhetorique.revues.org/423>.
action. Paris: Cerf, 2013. Nicolas L. L’invention de la rhétorique ou la trans-
Detienne M., Vernant J.-P. Les ruses de l’intelligence. gression des limites du monde clos. In Nicolas L.,
La mètis des Grecs. Paris: Flammarion, 1974. Hastings M. and Passard C. Paradoxes de la trans-
Dupréel E. Esquisse d’une philosophie des valeurs. gression. Paris: CNRS Ed., 2012, 139–154.
Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan, 1939. Perelman C. Philosophies premières et philosophie
Febvre L. Le problème de l’incroyance au XVIe siècle. régressive. Rhétoriques. Bruxelles: Ed. de l’Universi-
La religion de Rabelais. Paris: Albin Michel, 1942. té de Bruxelles, 1990, 153–177.
Goyet F. Les Audaces de la prudence. Littérature et Perelman C., Olbrechts-Tyteca L. The New Rhetoric.
politique au XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Paris: Classiques A Treatise on Argumentation. Trans. J. Wilkinson and
Garnier, 2009. P. Weaver. Notre Dame (IN) & London: University
Koyré A. Du monde de l’à peu près à l’univers de la of Notre Dame Press, 1969.
précision. Critique, vol. 28, 1948, 806–823. Préaux C. Review of “Ch. Perelman et L. Olb-
Muray P. Céline. Paris: Gallimard, 2001. rechts-Tyteca. Rhétorique et Philosophie. Pour une
Nicolas L. Discours et liberté. Contribution à l’his- théorie de l’argumentation en philosophie”. L’Antiq-
toire politique de la rhétorique. Paris: Classiques uité classique, vol. 23, issue 2, 1954, 547–551.
Garnier, 2015. Taleb N. N. Antifragile. Things That Gain from Dis-
Nicolas L. Exercer et pratiquer la rhétorique dans order. New York: Random House, 2012.
Loïc Nicolas
N E T I K RU M A S I R M O D E R N Y B Ė : KO D Ė L R E TO R I KO S P R A K T I K A Š I A N D I E N
TO K I A S U N K I ?
S A N T R AU K A . Šis straipsnis atveria naują retorikos veidą ir tai leidžia geriau suprasti ne tik
didžiulę jos vertę, bet ir jėgą, o per tai ir retorikos meno ligi šiol vis dar kurstomą aistrą, pavydą
ir susidomėjimą. Mano siekis yra susieti kalbėjimo kaip argumentavimo praktiką su naudoji-
musi politine laisve. Ši praktika ryškinama kaip būdas išsilaisvinti ir pažadinti savo sąžinę rizi-
kuojant atsisakyti įrodymų ir tikrumų. Retorika – tai ne tik menas kalbėti gerai ir išraiškingai
siekiant įtikinti, tai visų pirma tam tikras būdas mąstyti, netgi kelionė į laisvę vedančiu keliu,
kurį turime, manau, ištirti iš naujo.
R A K TA ŽO D Ž I A I : retorika, argumentacija, rizikos, kelionė, neapibrėžtumas, įrankiai.
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Loïc NICOLAS
