Abstract
Central to Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s philosophical revival of rhetoric and dialectic is the importance given to the temporal character of argumentation. Unlike demonstration, situated within the “empty time” of a single instant, the authors of The New Rhetoric understand argumentation as an action that unfolds within the “full time” of meaningful human life. By taking a broader view of his work beyond The New Rhetoric, I first outline Perelman’s understanding of time and temporality and the challenge that it poses for the study of argumentation. Next, I emphasize the distinction between argumentation’s internal and external temporal structures, and then show how Perelman problematizes a static view of a number of basic argumentative concepts by bringing out their essentially temporal character. Finally, in clarifying what is at stake in Perelman’s account, I conclude by drawing attention to a number of issues in contemporary argumentation studies that may benefit from a reconsideration of Perelman’s analysis of time.
Chapter 2 was originally published as Scott, B. D. Argumentation (2020) 34:25–37. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-019-09493-z.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-019-09493-z
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Scott, B.D. (2022). Argumentation and the Challenge of Time: Perelman, Temporality, and the Future of Argument. In: Tindale, C.W. (eds) Place and Time in Argumentation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19317-0_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19317-0_2
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