Perception or persuasion: rhetorical analysis of prepersuasions

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explain the role of persuasion and what has been called here pre-persuasion in the perception of the world and of ourselves and in philosophical reflections in general, trying to show that, however original one has wanted to consider, throughout of the centuries, the fundamental questions surrounding the ultimate meaning of things, such as: “what is being?”, “what is good?”, or, “what is the truth or the beautiful?”, or yet, “who are we?”, there are always background persuasions that, once made explicit by the rhetorical analysis method, relativize not only the possible answers, but the question itself. This, in turn, reveals the priority of persuasion on the perception and the unconfessed rhetoric of the speeches. The contribution of the present study is to avoid the naivety of objectivism and metaphysics, the claim of the ultima verba and to prevent the illusion of definitive speech, seen, by Perelman, as a pseudo lay form of revelation. The only sacredness admitted and which, therefore, pre-persuades us is, in Perelman's words, that of endless dialogue.