Chaim Perelman

Chapter 3: A Theory of the Rhetorical Audience

CHAPTER 3 A Theory of the Rhetorical Audience L ike all rhetorical theorists, from Gorgias on, Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca believe that audience is at the very center of matters rhetorical “since argumentation aims at securing the adherence of those to whom it is addressed, it is, in its entirety, relative to the audience to be influenced ” (19). But Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca differ from their predecessors in that they have a complete theory, a coherent idea of what a rhetorical audience is. This truth about their work has been obscured by a lengthy debate concerning the value of one part of that theory, their concept of the universal audience. It has not been clearly understood that this concept cannot be comprehended if it is isolated from the theory as a whole. In this chapter, we will discuss this theory. We will show that, for Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, all rhetorical audiences, both universal and particular, are constructed, the difference being that in the case of the former, speakers aim at transformation or reinforcement in the areas of fact, truth, and presumption , while in the latter, they aim at transformation or reinforcement in the area of values. What do these categories mean? Together, fact, truth, and presumption constitute what we regard as real. It is a fact that the earth is a planet; it is a truth of Newtonian physics that every action has an equal and opposite reaction ; it is a presumption that the quality of an act reveals the quality of the person. Values embody the preferable, the guidelines for the way we judge ourselves and others. If we are French, for example, we may prefer the abstract values of liberty, equality, and fraternity, as well as the concrete values of things quintessentially French: French cuisine, French philosophy and literature, France itself. Philosophy and science are the paradigm examples of discourses in which facts, truths, and presumptions are central; 32 chaim perelman these are discourses that aim at a universal audience, the imagined community of all rational beings. On the other hand, public address is the paradigm example of discourse focused primarily at values, on the preferable, discourse aimed at an imagined community of particular beings: Americans , the Elks, the elderly. Any discussion of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s view of the rhetorical audience must acknowledge the deeply contested debate concerning the most original of their concepts, the universal audience. John Ray, Henry Johnstone, and Lisa Ede have all mounted arguments against the coherence, and the usefulness of this idea. Ede must stand for the rest when she says that Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca are caught in a trap of their own making, a contradiction between their fundamental belief that any plausible theory of argumentation must assail the idea of self-evidence, and their assertion that “argumentation addressed to the universal audience must convince the reader that the reasons adduced are of a compelling character, that they are self evident, and possess an absolute timeless validity, independent of local or historical contingencies” (32). Indeed, Perelman himself pays tribute to the cogency of such criticisms when he says that “it is the notion of the universal audience which has created the most misunderstandings among my rhetorical readers” (The New Rhetoric, 190). It is our view, however, that Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca use the concept of universal audience consistently , and that it is part of a theoretically coherent concept of audience with considerable potential as a tool for rhetorical criticism. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca believe that all rhetorical audiences are constructed by the speaker. Of course there are real audiences; of course their study poses a genuine problem; but it is a challenge, they feel, beyond the scope of rhetoric: the study of real audiences is the business of experimental psychology. “We shall proceed differently. We seek . . . to characterize the different argumentative structures, the analysis of which must precede all experimental tests of their effectiveness” (9). From this we may infer Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s central tenet that all rhetorical audiences must be constructed by the speaker: “The audience, as visualized by one undertaking to argue, is always a more or less systematized construction” (19). Moreover, this rhetorical audience is always composite: Since real audiences must consist of disparate individuals with differing convictions of differing intensity, and since no algorithm exists that can combine these differences conceptually, the achievement of a synthetic unity must be a consequence of the speaker’s intuition. In their opening remarks—indeed throughout their speeches...