Norms of Rhetorical Culture

Abstract

Rhetoric is widely regarded by both its detractors and advocates as a kind of antithesis to reason. In this book Thomas B. Farrell restores rhetoric as an art of practical reason and enlightened civic participation, grounding it in its classical tradition - particularly in the rhetoric of Aristotle. Farrell also offers a critique of the dominant currents of modern humanist thought, which bear principal responsibility for the disparagement of the rhetorical tradition