Trowing, not Knowing - the Scope of Analytical Rhetoric

by Ottmar Ballweg

Since antiquity, there has been a continous development towards an analytical rhetoric. Charles William Morris's view of semiotic relations can serve as a formal basis for contemporary efforts. It is necessary to expand his restricted model, to be able to access all possible relations between subject, object and sign. This allows its use for the analysis of instances of what Talcott Parsons has called "generalized social communication media" (GSCM). These languages are based on opinion rather than truth, as they fundamentally serve to posit those relations socially, making familiar the unfamiliar. The proposed scheme of analytical rhetoric is a tool for the dis-assembly of GSCM.

 

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