The Promise of Reason

No single work is more responsible for the heightened interest in argumentation and informal reasoningand their relation to ethics and jurisprudence in the late twentieth centurythan Cham Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tytecas monumental study of argumentation, La Nouvelle Rhtorique: Trait de l'Argumentation. Published in 1958 and translated into English as The New Rhetoric in 1969, this influential volume returned the study of reason to classical concepts of rhetoric. In The Promise of Reason: Studies in The New Rhetoric, leading scholars of rhetoric Barbara Warnick, Jeanne Fahnestock, Alan G. Gross, Ray D. Dearin, and James Crosswhite are joined by prominent and emerging European and American scholars from different disciplines to demonstrate the broad scope and continued relevance of The New Rhetoric more than fifty years after its initial publication. Divided into four sectionsConceptual Understandings of The New Rhetoric, Extensions of The New Rhetoric, The Ethical Turn in Perelman and The New Rhetoric, and Uses of The New Rhetoricthis insightful volume covers a wide variety of topics. It includes general assessments of The New Rhetoric and its central concepts, as well as applications of those concepts to innovative areas in which argumentation is being studied, such as scientific reasoning, visual media, and literary texts. Additional essays compare Perelmans ideas with those of other significant thinkers like Kenneth Burke and Richard McKeon, explore his career as a philosopher and activist, and shed new light on Perelman and Olbrechts- Tytecas collaboration. Two contributions present new scholarship based on recent access to letters, interviews, and archival materials housed in the Universit Libre de Bruxelles. Among the volumes unique gifts is a personal memoir from Perelmans daughter, Nomi Perelman Mattis, published here for the first time. The Promise of Reason, expertly compiled and edited by John T. Gage, is the first to investigate the pedagogical implications of Perelman and Olbrechts- Tytecas groundbreaking work and will lead the way to the next generation of argumentation studies.