Argumentative Discourse: Towards Theory (for the Release of the First Full-Text Translation of “New Rhetoric” into Russian)

Theoretical search for a universal model of argumentation was explored. This task is noted to be extending nowadays far beyond the scope of polemical practices and acquiring a new dimension in connection with the growing interest of scholars in the social sciences and humanities in communication within the global digital space. This brings up to date the significance of a philosophical-methodological approach making it possible not only to assess the ontological foundations and heuristic potential of existing approaches, but also to understand the reasons why the problem under consideration remains unresolved. It is shown that each of the proposed theoretical models of argumentative discourse, understood as a form of verbal persuasion within communicative interaction, focuses on one of its constituent elements. One of the fundamental reasons for the lack of desired success was justified to be the very nature of argumentation as communicative rationality, in which such diverse intellectual procedures as substantiation (proof) of a point of view and persuasion aimed at achieving its acceptance by the addressee on any other basis exist in an inseparable unity. The intellectual legacy of the founders of neo-rhetoric Ch. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, whose seminal work “The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation” was published in Russia for the first time in a complete translation in 2025, was analyzed. The relevance of the heuristic potential of this work that exerted a significant influence on both Russian and Western scholars, who pursued different approaches to the construction of a theory of argumentation, was revealed.

EDN MGOXSA 

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