The notion of argumentative arsenal – Rhetorical inventivity in history

Abstract

Since we consider that the notion of a timeless and normative rhetoric is fallacious and, therefore, it is necessary to take into account the socio-historical variations of reasoning-in-discourse and the methods of persuasion, this article analyzes mechanisms that allow passing from one idea to another and of «backing» a thesis in the discourses of a given culture, a specific state of society and a moment in history. The rhetorical analysis, that starts from two observations –the restrictive shortage of preconstructed and of acceptable schemes of demonstration under the superficial abundance of events and the specificity and historical variations of proof and of persuadable–, makes it possible to reduce the diversity of «performances», and the individualities that appropriate them «in situation», to a short arsenal of recurrent argumentative means. In this article, we outline some analyses taken from researches on the history of political ideas. These examples aim to show in context the two characteristics of shortage and specific singularity of modes or logics of reasoning peculiar to specific traditions to which the word «Ideologies» was attached around 1840.