Reason and Person in Persuasion

Texts on Dialogue and Argumentation

Rafael Jiménez Cataño

• Publisher: EDUSC
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9788883338625
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Estudios de comunicación

This volume brings together articles and conference papers on dialogue, politeness and argumentation, with a philosophical perspective that consists of exploring anthropological perspectives of themes in rhetoric and linguistics, going into the structure of the person behind logical and communicative actsRafael Jiménez Cataño is full professor of the Communication School of the University of the Holy Cross, in Rome. Philosophy doctor, his research in the thematic area of this volume is reflected in the classrooms and in conferences on dialogue, argumentation and rhetoric. He currently heads the project Rhetoric & Anthropology, which he began with colleagues of several countries in 2015.

1. My truth, your truth4

It is always a great disappointment to see that a promising conversation is obstructed because an interlocutor believes that an essential premise for dialogue is lacking. This impasse occurs at times because of a difference between interlocutors that could be described—if we use for each extreme the label that one would put on the other—like that which is between relativism and fundamentalism.5

Although it might well happen that really a fundamentalist and a relativist could have a dialogue, my intention is to analyze those cases in which the interlocutors are neither one thing nor the other, but could appear to be. Here, at the moment, I will start from the perspective of one who could appear to be a fundamentalist.

1. Impulsive realism

Let us contemplate, therefore, the position of one who tries to avoid that people shut him out because his way of expressing himself makes them think that he does not accept pluralism. For this purpose it is useful to know what are the expressions and strategies that are usually taken as characteristics of the non-pluralist. It is also useful to consider the possibility that there really is a certain rigidity, which can be eliminated by a better understanding of what pluralism means, and for this what is needed is to understand pluralism and the reasons for which relativism is possible.

Among the formulas most often used to profess realism we could mention the following: “there is only one truth,” “truth is objective,” “truth is reality,” “this is truth” (while touching a solid object6), “the truth is neither yours nor mine,” “truth is absolute.” In the face of declarations like these, many no longer continue because it seems impossible or useless to speak with a person who expresses himself in this way. The formulas that are usually perceived to be relativist are in great part the reverse of the previous ones: “there are no absolute truths,” “this is my truth,” “this is subjective or psychological or relative.”

In this area, an effective strategy for maintaining dialogue is the understanding of the senses in which it can be said that there is one truth and the senses in which it can be said that there are multiple truths. The greater part of these reflections is dedicated to this understanding, but first I will suggest a few communicative strategies. First of all, how necessary is it that we express our conviction about the uniqueness of the truth, its absolute character, etc.? It is probable that the interlocutor will not notice a lack of pluralism in our conversation if we do not make a profession like one of these. On the other hand, if it is necessary to state one’s position, one does not have to exclude the possibility of accepting a formula that appears relativist. If someone says that something is subjective, we can remember that there are subjective things that are very real, things that are subjective by their own nature. It is frequently said that cold is subjective, or hunger. In effect, without a subject who feels cold there is no cold, but rather low temperature. It is true that we also call low temperature cold, but it is clear that here there are two different things, feeling cold and being cold, the first clearly subjective, the second objective, but easily interpreted in the subjective sense. The same can be said of the adjective “psychological”: if there is no psyche there is no cold or hunger, which does not take away the reality of the hunger I feel. In regard to the things that are declared “relativist,” it is enough to ask oneself if they are not relative in themselves.

2. The truth in plural

In the times in which we live it is not politically correct to bother someone who declares “Allah is one.” For the person who affirms that the truth is one, there is no political correctness: he is a hopeless fundamentalist. Why cause such an ominous name to be placed on oneself? Not because of the annoyance of the accusation but for the interruption of possible dialogue. There are so many non-relativist senses in which it can be said that there are several truths!

The first of these senses—very elemental—is when “truth” is synonymous with “true proposition.” The truth that alkaline metals have an odd number of electrons and the truth that Sri Lanka is in the northern hemisphere are two truths. As can be seen, not all use of the plural of the noun “truth” colors the conversation with relativism. Even in subjects as delicate as the faith this plural is calmly used. One speaks, in effect, of the “truths of the faith.”

This does not deny the uniqueness of the truth. It is a phenomenon caused by the nature of our knowledge and language. We know things through a multiplicity of acts, of various kinds, among which are judgments, which are also multiple and each one of them we express in a proposition.

What I am expounding on has a strategic value, but not only that. It is real: knowledge and language are this way. The strategic rests in appealing to the resources of the interlocutor that can best facilitate comprehension. An adequate knowledge of the strategy will lead us to “regain territory,” which is the same as completing the sense of what we want to say. If we limit ourselves to the affirmation that “there are many truths,” the interlocutor could become convinced of something different from what we want to communicate.

A use of the plural with more relevant consequences than the preceding point is that of substituting truth for its definition. One very classical way to define the truth is that which characterizes it as an “adaequatio rei et intellectus,” that is “correspondence of the thing and the intellect.” The author is Isaac Israeli, Hebrew medical doctor and philosopher from North Africa, from the ninth and tenth centuries. A decisive factor in the good fortune that this definition has had is that Thomas Aquinas cited it and made it his own.7

Therefore, if the truth is the correspondence between the intellect and the thing, it is possible to ask oneself where it is: in the intellect or in the thing? Perhaps the realistic instinct urges some to respond “in the thing,” but the correspondence cannot but be in the intellect, as it is a cognitive reality. In addition, each act of knowledge that can be called true is one correspondence. Here again we have the truth multiplied: there are as many truths as there are correspondences. And again the origin of the plurality is in our way of knowing.

3. The truth possessed

Now comes the most significant thing that I see in this new multiplication, given that the understanding is not something abstract: the plurality of intellects and their individual character. The correspondence of an intellect does not work for someone else: no one can know in my place. Either the correspondence is mine, or I do not know. Calling the ...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• I. THE TRUTH AND ITS FORMULATIONS
• 1. My truth, your truth
• 2. Margins of dialogue
• 3. In defense of microfundamentalism
• 4. The personal of the interpersonal
• 5. The critical value of trust
• 6. Why should I dialogue, if everything is so clear?
• 7. Babel and the rethoric of the redemption
• II. PERSUASION AND PERSON
• 1. Courtesy or the art of translating
• 2. Politeness, because our image is not only image
• 3. A topica between logos and ethos: the evaluation of the capacity to understand as means of argumentation
• 4. Wishful thinking and argumentation through metonymy
• 5. The role of goodwill in conflictive communication
• 6. The uniting value of distance in dialogue
• 7. Resources for managing clichés and similar phenomena
• References