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New Rhetoric

A Treatise on Argumentation

Chaïm Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca

It is difficult to see how any rhetorician, rhetorical critic, logician interested in verbal logic, or student of either philosophical or popular argument can claim full competence without familiarity with this work. It challenges the orthodoxies of all and suggests fresh modes of inquiry to all.” — The Quarterly Journal of Speech

“An important work representing the recent increase of interest in rhetorical studies among continental scholars. . . . The interest of philosophers of the rank of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca in rhetoric marks a significant break from the influence of Ramus and Descartes upon Western philosophy’s concept of reason and reasoning. An important work, highly recommended.” — Choice

“One of the best features of the book is that the authors have not merely described kinds of argument used in persuasive discourse, but have constantly shown how such arguments can be countered—and not merely by one’s saying ‘but that doesn’t follow logically.’ Even if we abandon the slogan ‘deductive or defective’ we are not required to abandon all criticism of nondeductive arguments. The non-logical has its own logic.” — Mind

“Readers will find this volume a fascinating and firm first step toward the solution of some important philosophical problems.” — Philosophy and Rhetoric

Chaïm Perelman (1912-1984), a Polish-born philosopher of law, studied, taught, and lived most of his life in Brussels. He became the youngest full professor in the history of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where he remained for the rest of his career. He was among the most important argumentation theorists of the twentieth century. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, written with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca in 1958, and translated into English by John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver in 1969, is his chief work. He is also the author of The Realm of Rhetoric (University of Notre Dame Press, 1982).