JCR

26 (2003): 163-194

The Jewish Countermodel:

Talmudic Argumentation, the New Rhetoric
Project, and the Classical Tradition of Rhetoric

David A. Frank

Chaim Perelman andLucie Olbrechts- Tyteca 's New Rhetoric Project

(NRP) helped revive the study of rhetoric in the twentieth century. Although
some believe their work is largely a reiteration of Aristotle's rhetoric and
that Perelman owes a significant debt to Aristotle, I present evidence in this
paper that Perelman was quite critical of the Western tradition of philosophy
and of Aristotle's logic and rhetoric. Perelman turned to Jewish thinking
and Talmudic argumentation as a countermodel. Jewish metaphysics,
ontology, epistemology, and argument are the central touchstones of the NKP.
Keywords: Perelman, Judaism, Talmudic argumentation, Aristotle, rhetoric.

C
haim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca are often credited
for the revival of the classical tradition of rhetoric in the
twentieth century. Between 1947 and 1984, Chaim Perelman,
alone and in collaboration with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, developed
the New Rhetoric Project (NRP), which was expressed in a number
of books, articles, and conference papers. The codification of the
project was published in 1958 as Traite de I'argumentation: la nouvelle
rhetorique (known in French speaking countries as Traite)} The Traite
was translated into English in 1969 as The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on
Argumentation and is known in English speaking countries as The New
Rhetoric? Perelman set the agenda for the collaboration, as his solitary
writings on a host of subjects before and during his collaboration with
Olbrechts-Tyteca identified the key problems addressed in the N R P '
The NRP is among the most significant rhetorical theory of
the twentieth century. Brian Vickers judges Perelman and Olbrechts-
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Tyteca's work to be "one of the most influential modern formulations

of rhetorical theory,""* James Crosswhite declares the NRP "the single
most important event in contemporary rhetorical theory,"^ Michael Lefll
writes that the 1970 English translation of Traite was a "bombshell" in
American studies of argumentation and rhetoric.''
Some scholars, however, do not see much originality in the
NRP. Goodrich, in his assessment of Perelman's work, discovers
"little to be gleaned from [the NRP] by way of theoretical novelty;
its contribution in this respect is no greater than that of reiteratingj
with certain reformulations, the familiar problematic and categories ofl
classical Aristotelian rhetoric."'' George Kennedy finds novel thinking ir
the NRP, but agrees with Goodrich's historical placement: "Perelman'i
greatest debt is to Aristotle.,, ."^ I disagree with Goodrich on the value
of the NRP's value and with both writers when they trace its origins tc
the Aristotelian rhetoric and the classical tradition.
My central claim in this article is that Perelman, in collaboratioi]
with Olbrechts-Tyteca, brought Jewish principles of reasoning and £
Talmudic framework of argumentation into the Western tradition o
rhetoric. The novelty and power of the NRP is a function of Perelman';
attempt to assimilate the Jewish and classical traditions. In previouj
work, I have identified a Jewish voice in the NRP, and have arguec
that Perelman sought a "rapprochement" between Jewish and classica
thought.' In retrospect, I believe the case is much stronger that Perelmai
rejected the metaphysical, epistemological, and axiological assumption;
of classical thought, Aristotle's first philosophy, and the Enlightenment
In their place, he set forth a Jewish countermodel, one that offered :
diflFerent expression of philosophy, reason, and argumentation. In short
I believe Goodrich misreads Perelman's NRP as it was far more thai
a mere reiteration of classical Aristotelian thought, and Kennedy has i
backwards, as Aristotle owes a debt to Perelman for broadening the domair
of reason and redeeming his rhetoric, doing so with Jewish thought,

Perelman and Judaism

Religion has played an important role in the major philosophie

of the twentieth century, Catholicism influenced Martin Heidegger'
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philosophy of being and Protestantism affected Hans J. Gadamer's

hermeneutics.'" Chaim Perelman's new rhetoric was, in part, a result
of the fact he was a Jew, a fact that he celebrated. He was an assimilated
Jew who supported Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel, while
remaining a loyal citizen of Belgium. He argued that Jews could maintain
their identity as Jews and remain loyal citizens of Europe. Perelman is
still known in Belgium for his notion of "double fidelity," the belief
that Jews could and should have the capacity for a dual commitment
to Judaism and the nation states in which they resided. This adage was
designed to upend the "dual loyalty" slur, an anti-Semitic slogan meant
to suggest that Jews would betray their home country in favor of their
religion or Israel. His devotion to Judaism was to its humane values and
its use of argument to adjudicate differences of opinion.
As an assimilated Jew writing to a Gentile audience steeped in
the classical tradition, his use ofJudaism as a countermodel was enacted
with subtlety. His experience as a Jew in twentieth-century Europe
taught him that he would need to navigate the perils of assimilation.
These included the dual threats of the destruction of the Jewish identity
and the danger that anti-Semitism might transform Jewish identity into
an exclusive and inward looking sense of self and community. The NRP
was an effort to assimilate and adapt the more humane impulses of
Jewish thought and argument to European classical and Enlightenment
philosophy.
Perelman was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1912. Poland was the
site of a vibrant Jewish community before its destruction during World
War II. His immediate family was not religious, but did embrace Jewish
concerns and Zionism. Perelman's family immigrated to Belgium in
1925 where he resided until his death in 1984."
That Perelman was a Jew was a fact could he could not ignore.
The disease of anti-Semitism, a constant in Europe, broke out into
an epidemic when Hitler and the Nazis seized control of Germany.
Perelman did not see anti-Semitism as free floating or rooted in the
European psyche, rather, he argued that Jews as an "out group" gave
rise to intergroup struggle, which in turn, produced what scholars
now term competitive rather than metaphysical anti-Semitism.'^ The
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Germans invaded Belgium on May 10, 1940. Perelman, because hel

was a Jew, was forced by the Nazis to resign his teaching post at the Freel
University of Brussels. The Nazis sought to "purify" Europe, and createdl
a system designed to rid Europe and Belgium of the Jewish presence. Inl
response, Perelman helped to form the Committee for the Defense of
Jews (CDJ), was arrested and then released by the currency police, anc
engaged in actions designed to save Jewish children and adults.'^ After
the liberation of Belgium on September 3, 1944, Perelman returned tc
the Free University.
The Holocaust, the destruction of Europe, and the failure o^
reason in the face of totalitarian thought were key issues facing Perelma
and other thinkers in the post war setting.'"* Belgium, which had
pre-war Jewish population of 66,000, lost 25,000 to the Holocaust.']
In the aftermath of the war, Europeans sought to develop systems ol
governance that would prevent war, and philosophers, under the auspicea
of UNESCO, gathered to consider the role played by reason in the
totalitarian movements that destroyed Europe and the deaths of sevei
million Jews. Perelman played a major role in this effort as vice-chai
of a committee that sought to establish the philosophical bases of the
United Nations position on human rights.
In the wake of the War, Perelman and his wife supportec
Zionism and the founding of Israel. They made significant efforts t(
find homes for Jews in Palestine and South America, but chose to remait
in Belgium. Perelman found a warm welcome in Israel. He was activ<
in voicing support for Israel during the 1967 war between Israel anc
the surrounding Arab states, made several visits to Israel, knew man]
prominent Israelis, and was at home at Hebrew University, where hi
served as a distinguished visiting lecturer. Hebrew University awardec
him an honorary doctorate in 1980. In his speech at the ceremony ir
which he accepted this award, he traced his intellectual trajectory fron
logical positivism to rhetoric.'^The penultimate sentence of this addres
captured the objective of his scholarly career. A robust view of logic
Perelman declared,
ought to be completed by a theory of argumentatioi
that drawsfrom the dialectical reasoning and rhetoricfror
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Greco-roman antiquity, but also with Talmudic methods

of reasoning. It is to the study of this theory, and its
extensions in all domains that I have dedicated, for
more than twenty years, the majority of my works.'''
Perelman drew this connection looking back on his scholarship.
I doubt he described his theory of argumentation in this manner
when he introduced the NRP in a 1949 lecture at the Institutdes Hautes
Etudes de Belgique.'^Indeed, my reading of Perelman's writings leads
me to concur with Schrieber that Perelman, in the latter years of his
life, engaged in a kind of secular teshuvah, or an explicit return to Judaic
values and principles." One does not see many explicit references to
Jewish thought in Perelman's writings on rhetoric until the 1970s. This
"return" may be due to Perelman's association with Israeli Supreme
Court justice Chaim Cohn and Nathan Rotenstreich, a professor of
philosophy at Hebrew University.^"
In tracing Perelman's teshuvah, it is important to note the
trajectory of his thought. Perelman marked 1929 as the beginning
of his intellectual life. From 1929 to 1947-1948, he was an admitted
logical positivist. He found this intellectual framework troubling as it
could not provide insight into questions of value and justice. Between
1940 and August 1944, Perelman wrote On Justice, which is a careful
study of six standpoints on justice.^' He was not satisfied with the
conclusions he had reached as he did not discover how justice could
be justified. In the post-war period, he embarked on a search, which
Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca joined in 1947, for the grounds of justice. In
particular, he sought for an expression of reason that could join the vita
contemplativa with the vita activa.^^ He believed that reason had been,
in the classical tradition, restricted to the former.
Judaic patterns of reasoning, I believe, served as a counter model
for Perelman in this period, but were submerged. In adapting to his
audience, he made use of classical thought and Aristotle's texts on logic
and rhetoric. Yet, even in this period, Judaism served as a site from which
a critique of classical thought could proceed. In later years, Perelman,
as I will illustrate, was much more explicit in his use of the Jewish
countermodel. A close reading of the NRP reveals that it was founded
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on Perelman's interpretation of Jewish reasoning and argumentation.

I temper this claim with two reservations.
First, Perelman was a free thinker, and an atheist. He drew
from Judaism the values of pluralism, tolerance, community, and the
importance of argument. God or a divine presence did not inform hi
definition of Judaism. There is little question that a belief in the divine
motivated the formation of Judaic thought.^^ In addition, there an
intolerant strains of thought in Judaism, evident, I would argue, in such
movements as Gush Emunim in Israel that do not value pluralism anc
tolerance.^'' Second, those who knew him well did not accuse him of
commanding a deep understanding of the Talmud, and he was selective
in his choice and deployment of Jewish thought. In light of these twc
reservations, the evidence I will present supports the conclusion tha
the NRP rests on Jewish touchstones. Indeed, in the years before hi;
teshuvah, his implicit rejection of the classical tradition, Enlightenmen
thinking, and the critique of Aristotle's rhetoric.in the New Rhetoric
are based on the alternative offered by Judaism.

The Critique of the Classical Tradition in the New Rhetoric

In the aftermath of World War II, many philosophers saw tha

reason had been misused by the totalitarians.^' Logical positivism anc
existentialism, the two prevailing philosophical movements in the post
war setting, were not equipped to prevent the misuse of reason. In searcl
of an answer to the crises of reason, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tytec;
rediscovered Cicero's rhetoric.^'' Cicero's emphasis on rhetoric's rol<
of ensuring justice caught Perelman's attention. However, to persuade
their audience, which consisted of European philosophers well versec
in Continental philosophical writings, an appeal to Cicero or Jewisl
writings would have been far less persuasive than to the authority o
Aristotle. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca and the audience of the Nev
Rhetoric shared a commitment to classical thought, and Aristotle serve<
as a locus because he was, Perelman writes, "considered by everyone
father of modern logic."^'' To achieve their persuasive goal of redeeminj
and broadening the realm of reason, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tytec
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begin with the ancient Greek philosophical tradition and Aristotle's

Topics and Rhetoric. The authors begin here because their audience
could be expected to see the classical tradition as a loci communes and
Aristotle's writings as a locus of agreement.
The first sentence and the exordium of the New Rhetoric
invoke the classical tradition, the ancient Greek rhetoricians, and the
Renaissance against the Enlightenment: "The publication of a treatise
devoted to argumentation and this subject's connection with the ancient
tradition of Greek rhetoric and dialectic constitutes a break with a
concept of reason and reasoning due to Descartes which has set its mark on
Western philosophy for the last three centuries."^^ As an act of rhetoric,
the exordium of the New Rhetoric tooxs Perelman and Olbrecht-Tyteca's
argument in sources of authority accepted by their audience. Indeed, the
exordium the New Rhetoric performs their theory of the argumentative
introduction, in which the rhetorician is to create an "allusion" to a
"common culture" and create the sense that the speaker and audience
have common values."^' To achieve this sense of communion with
their audience, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca call on the authority
of Plato, Aristotle, Quintillion, Augustine, Vico, Whately and other
well-respected thinkers in the classical tradition.
Seeking a foothold for a new and expanded sense of reason in
values and sources shared by the authors and the audience, Perelman
and Olbrechts-Tyteca remind their readers that in antiquity "dialectical
reasoning [was] considered running parallel with analytic reasoning, but
treating of that which is probable instead of dealing with proposition
which are necessary."^" The NRP is an attempt to reformulate the
relationship between analytic and dialectical reasoning in the classical
mode. The invocation of Aristotle as a source of authority on matters
related to logic allows Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca to suggest
that their work is in agreement with the classical tradition. As the
collaborators point out, Aristotle's Rhetoric and Topics define and outline
a form of reasoning from probability and from general opinions, and
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca seize them as a sites of agreement with
their audience. If Aristotle, as the "father" of apodictic logic inflated
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reason to include the probable, then other attempts to do the same

must be justified.
However, the authors were also highly critical of the classical
tradition and of Aristotle's treatment of rhetoric and dialectic. In his
response to Stanley Rosen, which was written a year after the publicatior
of Traite, Perelman noted that what he called "the classical tradition,
starting with Plato and Aristotle, continues with St. Augustine, St
Thomas, Duns Scotus, Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza and is carried
on by empiricism and logical positivism, as it is represented by earl)
Wittgenstein of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus."^^ Perelmar
continued:
the tradition I call classical assigns but little importance
as far as achieving science and contemplation goes
either to practice or to the historical and situated aspect;
of knowledge. . . . This viewpoint is held in commoi
by Plato and Aristotle, as well as by thinkers such a;
Descartes . . . The tradition I call classical include;
all those who believe that by means of self-evidence
intuitions — either rational or empirical — or supernatura
revelation, the human being is capable of acquiring
knowledge of immutable and eternal truths, which an
the perfect . . . reflection of an objective reality . . .^
The classical tradition, Perelman noted, was not open to truths tha
were fluid, partial, and in contradiction.
Perelman would later trace the classical traditions impulses tc
the metaphysics of Parmenides. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca sav
their work as a "break" from the metaphysics of Parmenides and th(
classical tradition. Perelman writes that the birth of Western metaphysic
is to be traced to the great poem of Parmenides, who sets against thi
multiplicity of appearances "an eternal and uniform reality conforminj
to the demands of reason. Parmenides' philosophy takes the form of ai
ontological monism.. ."^^ Parmenides, according to Perelman, "startec
the centuries-old debate . . . which has set philosophy agains
rhetoric. . . ."^''Under the influence of Parmenides, philosophy an<
philosophers in the Western tradition have sought impersonal truth
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condemning rhetoricians for their concern with the vagaries of human

opinion.
Parmenides, Perelman argued, established the metaphysics of
classical thought and the first philosophy of Aristotle and other Greek
thinkers. This metaphysics privileged the vita contemplativa over the
vita activa, a theme developed by Hannah Arendt in the first section of
her The Human Condition?'' Arendt notes that classical thought did not
value noise and speech. Authentic truth and knowledge were timeless
and motionless, discovered in silence and through contemplation. Until
his turn to rhetoric, Perelman adhered to the belief that only the vita
contemplativa could produce true understanding.
Perelman also takes Descartes to task his constricted view of
knowledge. Descartes states: "Whenever two men come to the opposite
decision about the same matter one of them is at least must certainly
be in the wrong, and apparently there is not even one of them who
knows; for if the reasoning of the second was sound and clear he would
be able so to lay it before the other as finally to succeed in convincing
his understanding also."^^ In his critique of Descartes, Perelman argues
that it is possible for two people to disagree and both hold reasonable
positions. This critique evolved from Perelman's belief in the irreducible
pluralism of human existence. He did not extend this belief into the
realm of relativism as he saw values as stronger or weaker dn a given
context. Humans would use argument as tool of reason to judge which
values were strongest.
Similarly, the appropriation of Aristotelian thought is attenuated
by a series of criticisms. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca set forth the
need for a rapprochement between dialectic and rhetoric because
rhetoric had devolved to the study of figures and tropes, and was
equated with sophistry. Dialectic (reason) had become conflated with
apodictic reasoning and elevated as the means of acquiring "immutable
and eternal truths." Although Perelman blamed Ramus for rhetoric's
modern demise, Aristotle shared responsibility for treating rhetoric as
"a technique for use by the common man impatient to arrive rapidly
at conclusions, or to form an opinion, without first of all taking the
trouble of a preliminary serious investigation . . . ."^'^ The authors read
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TVristotle as suggesting that rhetoric is but a technique designed for the

ignorant. Accordingly, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca cite Aristotle';
On Rhetoric at 1357a and distinguish their effort from Aristotle's
declaring, "we have no wish to limit the study of argumentation tc
a public of ignoramuses."^^ Perelman, in another essay, states mort
bluntly: "the contempt habitually shown by philosophers in regard
to rhetoric results from what Aristotle, and those who followed him
elaborated as a technique to persuade primarily an audience of ignoran
people."^' In sharp contrast, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca rescue
rhetoric and the notion of the audience from Aristode and identify
several problems in his treatment of dialectic.
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca argue that the ancients anc
Aristotle failed to develop dialectical premises and reasoning, treatec
dialectical premises as "impersonal," neglected to identify a differen
form of reasoning for dialectical premises, confined reason to inductioi
and deduction, and that Aristotle's loci assumed the properties o
formal logic not the values of situated audiences. When Perelmar
and Olbrechts-Tyteca turned to Aristotle and the classical rhetorician
they discovered that the Ancients had failed to "exploit" dialectica
reasoning.^° Instead, Aristotle and the ancients held that the "status o
that which is subject to opinion" to be "impersonal and that opinion
are not relative to the minds which adhere to them.""" Moreover
Aristotle was "content to locate the difference [between demonstrativ<
and dialectical] in the kind of premises used" and that the "nature o
reasoning in both cases was held to be the same, consisting in drawinj
conclusions from propositions posited as premises.""*^ The dialectic o
the New Rhetoric develops and exploits an approach to reason that was
at best, latent in Aristotelian thought.
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca believed Aristotle based hi
dialectic in predicative logic, which gave the procedure of his dialecti
its form.^^ This logic, according to Perelman, was based on thre
laws of thought: identity (A is A); contradiction (A cannot be botl
B and not-B), and the excluded middle (either A is B or A is not-B)
Propositional logic was designed to elicit general and universal truth
guided by induction, deduction, and the syllogism.'*'* These laws an(
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expressions of logic, which ruled Aristotelian and Western reason, were,

according to Perelman, unduly restricted:
[Sjince the time of Aristotle, logic has confined its
study to deduction and inductive reasoning, as though
any argument differing from these was due to the
variety of its content and not to its form. As a result,
an argument that cannot be reduced to canonical
form is regarded as logically valueless. What then
about reasoning from analogy? What about the a
fortorio argument? Must we, in using such arguments,
always be able to introduce a fictive unexpressed major
premise, so as to make them conform to the syllogism?''^
G.E.R. Lloyd agrees and notes that Aristotle was "chiefly interested in
propositions that express relations of class-inclusion and class-exclusion
between two terms. But he only rarely mentions, and certainly never
deals systematically with, propositions expressing such transitive relations
as, for example, 'greater than', 'equal too' or 'simultaneous with'. . . ." "^
As I will note later, comparative or reasoning from analogy, prominent in
Jewish thought, was the defining logic in the NRP.
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca also observed that Aristotle's
logic features the relationship between the subject and the predicate
and positions the premises of dialectical syllogisms as the properties
of predicates: accident, species, property, definition, and sameness.**^
This logic provides a powerful tool for the evaluation of subjects and
predicates, but failed to account for the differences between the analysis
of predicates and probable opinions. More important, it did not include
human values and the full range of human reason.
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca reoriented Aristotle's dialectic
and shifted the premises of situated reasoning from the propositional
to the axiological. They identified two reasons for this shift. First,
they insisted that they "did not wish to be bound to any particular
metaphysical system," which acceptance ofAristotle's dialectical premises
implied."*^ Second, they wished to exploit the topic of dialectical reasoning
by focusing on the values and the value hierarchies of the audience
rather than on the relationships between subjects and predicates.
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Yet, the criticism of Aristotle's dialectical system was presented as an

elaboration of his loci, for Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca fold the
dialectical premises they identify under Aristotle's category of accident,
illustrating both their tie to and distance from Aristotelian thought anc
the influence of the Jewish countermodel.
The loci offered by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca is critical
to my position that they did far more than reiterate the categories of
classical Aristotelian rhetoric. Although these loci find some hospitality
in classical thought, they embody the New Rhetoric's attempt to free
itself from Aristotelian metaphysics. Two loci, forming a philosophica
pair, serve as the anchors of the NRP: loci of quantity and loci of quality
In turn, this pair "correspond [s] to two human fundamental tendencies
i.e., the classical and the romantic spirit.'"*' Classical tendencies anc
the /oa of quantity celebrate the True, beautiful, good, durable, greatei
in amount, the whole, objectivity, etc. Romantic tendencies and the
loci of quality value the unique, rare, precarious, difficult, original, the
irreparable, etc. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca explain the difference
between the two loci in this manner:
Classical authors tend to utilize a discursive forn
of communication. In contrast. Romantics prefe
discourses which seem most fitting to suggestion
Poetry rather than prose; metaphor which bring;
together domains rather than comparison or allegory
word games which throw limits into disorder; bette
symbolic participation than causal relation; rathe
than the strategic, hypotactic, Greco-Latin phrase
they prefer the paratactic Biblical phrase. Rather thai
naive realism which satisfies reason, their preference i
the supernatural that evokes mystery; rather the bana
which reassures, their preference is for the strang(
which alone has value; rather than the construct
the improvised, rather than the definite, the vague
rather than the stylized, the disordered, rather thai
the precision of the present and the approachable, thi
vaporourness of distance and the fluidity of memories.^
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Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca reveal here a striking conceptualization of

human nature, one that nests antithetical values in the same cosmology.
The NRP was build around an acknowledgement of both the benefits
and dangers of classical and romantic tendencies.
When facing classical tendencies and loci, the NRP was
highly critical of the metaphysical assumptions made by Classic and
Enlightenment philosophers, their definitions of reason and logic, and
their depiction of dialectic and rhetoric. Similarly, when facing Romantic
tendencies and loci, the NRP sounded notes of caution. If classical
metaphysics could be traced to Parmenides and his poem, Perelman and
Olbrechts-Tyteca tie the Romantic to the "Nietzscheian superman and
of the existentialist personality."^' The "unique individual" in the form
of the "Byronic hero" are vivid expressions of the Romantic spirit. If
the purely "rational man would only be an inhuman monster" then the
purely romantic, rejecting discursive rational action and unconstrained by
any version of reason, "often envisions favorably recourse to force."^^
Classical and Romantic loci help ground the NRP's cosmology.
They coexist, and the temptation to extort a reconciliation is resisted
with contextually based argument. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca
riote, ''Loci of quality and loci of quality propose choices to us. They
do not destroy totally what they reject. To whoever admits a locus,
the antithetical locus is not necessary unattractive; onfc of the values in
discussion can be deprecated but it continues to exist. Its subordinate
place must be justified... ."^^ The argumentation situation, a fluid reality
in which the two human tendencies of classicism and romanticism are
intertwined, asks the speaker to make a choice between and among loci.
Indeed, as Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca note, among the
'pioneers of romanticism we find abundant classical loci" and those
kvho defend classical values must, paradoxically, make use of romantic
loci.'^'^ Both are needed by arguers to address situated audiences. Again,
m extorted reconciliation of the two loci is not required, for the arguer
;an and will rank the issues under discussion using values drawn from
:lassical and romantic loci.
With classic and Romantic impulses and loci in place, Perelman
ind Olbrechts-Tyteca set forth four additional loci, which are located
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between the loci of quantity and quality: order, existing, essence, anc
person. These loci are framed and defined by the speaker's choice t
follow a classic or romantic impulse. Thus, the order of a message,
it emanates from classic values, would reflect the structure of classical
thought. Similarly, the loci of quality paired with the loci of existing anc
essence would help an orator define human nature. Here, Perelman and
Olbrechts-Tyteca refer to existentialist philosophy, in which the loci of
quality and existence are paired.
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca locate argument in the space
between the loci of classical and romantic loci, helping us to map anc
position the NRP's cosmology in relation to other rhetorical systems
Although Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca do pay tribute to the classica
tradition and "exploit" what was latent in Aristotlian thought, the NRI
rejects much of classical metaphysics and of Aristotle's treatment
rhetoric and dialectic. Consequently, the NRP should not be classifiec
as a neo-classical system or as Aristotelian as Goodhart and others do.
Because the NRP shares the Enlightenment's faith in humar
reason, some to conclude the project is a reprise of Enlightenmen
thought. However, the NRP is a partial repudiation of Enlightenmen
thinking and of its conflation of formal logic with reason. Perelman anc
Olbrechts-Tyteca expand the definition of reason and logic far beyonc
that offered by Descartes, making their project related to but separat(
from that of the Enlightenment.
Finally, there is a temptation to take seriously Perelman anc
Olbrechts-Tyteca's favorable allusion to the Renaissance and to conclud(
that the NRP's lineage can be traced to the writings of Bruno Latini
Lorenzo Valla, Gianozzo Manetti, Leonardo Bruni, Marsilio Ficino
Pico della Mirandola, and Coluccio Salutati. Yet, Perelman saw tha
in a revolt against scholastic formalism, the Italian Renaissance, an(
in particular, Lorenzo Valla, "gave definite primacy to rhetoric" ove
action.^^ In turn, rhetoric during this period was seen "essentially
an art of expression and, more especially, of literary conventionalize<
expression; it is the art of style."^'' Where classical philosophy gav
primacy to dialectic, and Renaissance thinkers privileged a stylizec
rhetoric, the NRP brought the two into a state of rapprochement.
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What, then, is the lineage of the NRP and where is it located

among other rhetorics? The answer is that Perelman turned to Judaism
as a countermodel to classical thought and Talmudic argumentation as
a remedy to the deficiencies in Aristotle's Rhetoric.

The Jewish Countermodel

As I have noted, the deployment of Judaism and Talmudic

argumentation was implicit during the early years of the NRP and
became more explicit as Perelman entered a period oiteshuvah. There is
no mention of Jews or of the Hebrew culture in the New Rhetoric until
pages 157-158. Nested in the middle of the section titled "modalities in
the expression of thought," Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca illustrate the
use of subordination with several examples, and feature this quotation
from Julian the Apostate, a Roman Emperor who hoped the Jews would
rebuild Jerusalem:
The benevolently forbearing attitude of Julian the
Apostate vis-a-vis the Jews is expressed in these peculiar
terms: "They agree with the Gentiles with the exception
of their belief in one God. That is special to them and
foreign to us. Everything else is common to us both."^'^
They follow this illustration of subordination with a discussion detailing
how the elements of argument are joined. Drawing from Auerbach's
Mimesis, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca juxtapose hypotactic and
paratactic relationships.^^ Hypotactic relationships are characterized
by subordination and precision; paratactic connections are those that
do not subordinate, are less precise, and are loose rather than tight.
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca write:
The hypotactic construction is the argumentative
constructive par excellence. Auerbach considers it
to be characteristic of Greco-Roman literature in
contradistinction to the paratactic construction
favored in Hebrew culture. Hypotaxis . . .
controls the reader, forces him to see particular
relationships, restricts interpretations he may consider
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. . . . Parataxis leaves greater freedom, and does not

appear to wish to impose a particular viewpoint.^'
Given the quest of the NRP to develop a non-compelling system on
reason, it is apparent that Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca here view, an
least indirectly, the Hebrew culture's sense of argument construction to
be closer to their sense of how the elements in an argument ought to be
joined than the model offered by the Greco-Roman tradition.
Twelve years after the publication of the Traite, Perelmar
explicitly juxtaposes the Western philosophical tradition with
Talmudic thought.^" Perelman writes: "For the new rhetoric, however
argumentation has a wider scope of nonformal reasoning that aims a
obtaining or reinforcing the adherence of an audience."""' Accordingly
"the idea of the unicity of truth . . . has disqualified rhetoric in th<
Western philosophical tradition."^^ Yet, there is a countermodel
"Things are very different within a tradition that follows a juridical
rather than a mathematical model. Thus in the tradition of th(
Talmud, for example, it is accepted that opposed positions can b(
equally reasonable; one of them does not have to be right."""^ Here
Perelman illustrates the Jewish countermodel with the famous stor}
of the clash between the two school of biblical thought, Hillel anc
Shammai. These two schools were antagonists. One of the Rabbi
asked heaven which school speaks the truth. A voice answered hin
saying that both schools expressed the "words of the living God."""
The arguments of both Hillel and Shammai were viewed as just, ever
though they were seemingly incompatible.
This is a keystone narrative in the Talmud as it reflects
metaphysics, epistemology, axiology, and set of assumptions abou
argument quite different from those of the Western philosophica
tradition. Unlike classical metaphysics or first philosophies, whicl
Perelman argued, used the vita contemplativa to achieve "immutable an<
eternal truths, which are the perfect reflection of an objective reality,""!
Jewish metaphysics could host multiple and contracting truths. Thj
Hebrew Bible, the "primary source for Jewish philosophical reflection
and metaphysics, sets forth a vision of first principles and foundation
unlike those Perelman detected in the great poem of Parmenides.""* Th
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Hebrew Bible outlines a metaphysics that celebrates freedom, seeks

justice, defies clarity, resists deductive logic and declarative propositions,
embraces contradiction, and uses a paratactic pattern of expression (the
placement of the elements of argument in association rather than in
a direct hierarchy) rather than hypotactic structures (subordination of
one value to another). These touchstones meant that Judaism reversed
the priority given to the vita contcmplativa. The human world, "like the
world of God, is one of action."''^ Jewish metaphysics is intended for
the vita activa, and a life lived in human time, or what Henri Bergson,
another Jewish philosopher who influenced Perelman's philosophy,
termed the "duree" or lived time.
Time, in the Hebrew Bible and in Jewish thought, was in
process. Perelman and other Jewish thinkers saw that the Greeks and
the Western philosophical tradition sought knowledge unaffected by
time and experience.*"^ For Jews, "time was all important. The world
of the [human], like the world of God, is a world of will, and will
involves process, i.e. time."''^ As time unfolds, humans are faced with
a world with mysteries and a God that cannot be fully comprehended.
Here, the search for clarity yields to confusion, one that is built into
the nature of being.
In Jewish metaphysics, the tendency is to place ethics before
ontology, classical metaphysicians reverse the ordfer. The work of
Emmanuel Levinas is often cited as an example of a Jewish inflected
philosophy designed, in part, in opposition to classical thought.^"
Levinas, who developed a philosophical perspective that is emerging as
one of the most important post-Holocaust systems of thought, argues
that the face of the other and the sacredness of alterity must come
before the concerns of ontology and epistemology. Similarly, the need
to articulate a vision of reason that would hold people accountable for
their positions and to others was a critical exigence for Perelman. In
the wake of the Holocaust, Levinas and Perelman searched within the
Western philosophical tradition for the conceptual resources they could
use to build a philosophy of action and ethics. Their search led them to
a dead end, and ultimately, both returned to Judaism for metaphysical
touchstones.
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Reason and logic, located in time, could not be confined tc

three laws of thought (identity, non-contradiction, and the excludec
middle) or to propositional logic and the syllogism. Aristotle insistec
on the use of univocal terms and enforced the laws of contradictior
and the excluded middle.^' In contrast, Handelman writes that "one oi
the major accomplishments of the Rabbis was the creation of anothei
system of relational inference independent of the syllogistic model, anc
hence branded as illogical by those schooled only in Greek thought."''
Talmudic argumentation developed a system of logic and inference tha
could tolerate ambiguous or multiple identities, contradictions, anc
allowed for the possibility of bivalent and multivalent values or entities
This logic was fully revealed in Talmudic argumentation.
Argument in the Talmud moves readily from classical tc
romantic loci and back. Twersky noted that Jewish thinking anc
discourse is a "coincidence of opposites: prophecy and law, charism:
and institution, mood and medium, image and reality, the thought o
eternity and the life of temporality."''^ Stone concurs and observes tha
Jewish thinking is characterized by "paradoxical interdependencies."^
If the Western philosophical tradition falls prey to what Foucault call;
Enlightenment blackmail (the belief that the Enlightenment's definitioi
of reason is absolute, and if reason is not absolute, then there can be n(
reason), then Judaic philosophy and Talmudic argumentation offer ai
alterative that can host more than one definition of reason.
A Jewish reading of the classical tradition suggests the former i
more hospitable to rhetoric than the latter. Susan Handelman writes
"The struggle between philosophy and Greece ended in philosophy'
conquest."''^ In contrast, the Rabbis did not face this struggle as the
bridged rhetoric and philosophy with language and argument in contac
with lived reality. Of course, Handelman may be overstating the cas
as there has been and continues to be a struggle between philosoph
and rhetoric in the Western tradition.''^ Regardless, the consensus o
scholarship does suggest that the Western philosophical tradition ha
been and remains dubious of rhetoric's worth.
In the early stages of the NRP, Perelman developed a metaphysic
designed to sponsor his turn to rhetoric that is strikingly similar
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the characteristics of Jewish metaphysics. Perelman's metaphysics is

developed in elegant detail in a 1949 article published in the Swiss
journal DialecticaP He titled this article "First Philosophies and
Regressive Philosophies." He does not cite Jewish sources, but his notion
of "regressive philosophies" has all the features of Jewish metaphysics.
Perelman traces the emergence of metaphysics to the works ofAristotle:
"The first metaphysicians set forth a particular philosophy of being [etre];
those opposed advocated a different philosophy of being. By expanding
its meaning, Aristotle gave metaphysics its first dialectical movement and
identified it as the study of being as being and ontology. "^^ According
to Perelman,
First philosophies refer to any metaphysics that purports
to determine first principles such as the fundamentals
of being (ontology), of knowledge (epistemology),
or of action (axiology). First philosophies position
first principles as absolute and that they underlie all
philosophical questions. The word first informs the
argumentation used to establish the primacy of first
philosophies. A principle is first when it comes before
all others in a temporal, logical, epistemological or
ontological order; the insistence on this point serves to
emphasize its primacy or axiologic preeminence. That
which is first or basic, that which precedes or presupposes
all the rest, is also first in order of importance.^'
The first principles in first philosophies are absolute and timeless, and
when two systems of first philosophies clash, one must emerge victorious:
The course taken by first philosophies is determined by
a starting point constituted by a necessary reality, a self-
evident concept, or an absolute value before which one
can only yield. Hence, this type of metaphysics relies
on irreducible criteria as the legitimating authority,
which in turn provides the foundation on which we
can construct a progressive philosophy. The history
of thought shows us that first philosophies struggle
constantly against each other, each setting forth its
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own principles, its own criteria that it considers a;

necessary or evident, without regard to the possible
legitimacy of principles established by other firsi
philosophies. Each first philosophy constitutes a threal
for the others. What results is a merciless struggle o
these doctrines of first philosophy; all are incapable
of finding a common language or common criteria.^'
The notion of a regressive philosophy begins with a differen
set of assumptions. First philosophies consider first principles as criteri;
of necessity and "justifies in absolute terms the first truth that one
establishes as the basis of the system. Regressive philosophy consider;
its axioms, its criteria, and its rules as resulting from a factual situation
and it gives them a validity measured by verifiable facts."^
In contrast to first philosophies, regressive philosophy consider
the consequences of facts and experience thereby moving metaphysic
into the domain of action. This is the domain 9f will and choice. }
regressive philosophy relies on experience, experiment, and mistake
for verification of principles. As such, principles are only as strong a
the evidence that supports them. Regressive philosophy assumes chang
and rectification. First philosophy seeks to achieve a static, motionless
univocal, and silent truth.
Perelman's outline of a regressive philosophy was designed t<
addresses the post-war crises of reason. Reason in the time period in whicl
Perelman was writing had been misused by the totalitarian movements
constricted by logical positivism to dealing with empirical question;
and reduced to an expression of solipsism by the existentialists.^^ Unde
the compelling deductive structure of First philosophy, the individu:
is absolved of choice and responsibility. Perelman writes:
In formal logic, a demonstration is either convincin
or it is not, and the liberty of the thinker is outsid
of it. However, the arguments that one employ
in rhetoric influence thought, but never oblig
his agreement. The thinker commits himself b
making a decision. His competence, sincerity
integrity, in a word, his responsibility are at stake.'
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Rhetoric, which Perelman rediscovered after reading Paulhan's Lesfleurs

de tarbes and its appendix containing Latini's rendition of Gicero's De
Oratore, redeemed reason for Perelman.^'* At this point, Perelman had
rediscovered the Western rhetorical situation, and saw the need for a
regressive philosophy that could rectify the troubling patterns in first
philosophy. The characteristics of regressive philosophy are shared by
Jewish thought and Perelman's turn to rhetoric and argument may have
been easier to take given the Jewish preference for argument.

Talmudic Argumentation and the NRP

David Kraemer's The Mind of the Talmud illustrates the

correspondence between Talmudic argumentation and the analysis of
argument in The New RhetoricP Indeed, Kraemer uses The New Rhetoric
to display the characteristics of argument in the Talmud. If the claim
I make here is strong, that Perelman was influenced by Judaism and
argument in the Talmud, then there is an irony in Kraemer's use of
The New Rhetoric to reveal the features of argumentative discourse in
the Talmud. Regardless, in contrast to the aspirations of Greek rhetoric
and argumentation, Kraemer explains how Talmudic argumentation
assumes the ambiguity of truth, and the freedom of the audience to
judge or adhere to a claim.
Talmudic argumentation considers ambiguous truths that may
be at the center of dispute and makes use of a common language, a
tradition of textual interpretation, and a system of authority. As Kraemer
notes, these preconditions encouraged what Perelman and Olbrechts-
Tyteca termed a "contact of minds" between and among those who
argued. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca would completely transform
Aristotle's concept of epideictic to capture these attributes of Talmudic
argumentation, doing so with a stinging critique of Aristotle's failure
to recognize the need for discourse that gives the ground for reasoned
action.^"^ The Talmudic tradition assumed some agreement was needed
before genuine argument could take place.
The markings of Talmudic logic can be seen on the system of
reason developed by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca. The inferential form
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and the most important argumentative technique in the New Rhetoric,

I believe, are drawn from the Jewish tradition. As Handelman notes,
the Rabbis were fully aware of the syllogism and rational thought, but
their definition of reason was expansive and included a system of logic
that featured juxtaposition and analogic thinking. The Rabbis make use
of juxtaposition, refusing to fiise the relations between the components
of argument. Handelman explains that the type of inference I
based on juxtaposition is quite obviously differentl
from the predications of Greek thought. It is relationa
rather than ontological, dealing with proposition;
rather than predicates. In juxtaposition, two entities
are related and applicable to one another, but no
identical. There is similarity within difference
each retaining it own independent identity.^
The NRP uses juxtaposition or comparative reasoning as its logical form
and signaling its importance in their work, Perelman and Olbrechts
Tyteca develop a 27 page rationale for analogic thinking in the Neu
Rhetoric?^ In particular, they praise analogic thinking for its ability tc
promote innovative argument.
In classical thought and logic, the syllogism dictated th<
manner in which a clash between opposites should be resolved. As
have noted above, the syllogism, Aristotle's template of logic, was basec
on deductive logic and forced the elements of argument into a majo
premise and minor premise. The three laws of thought also proscribec
a particular form of reasoning on those engaged in disputes. Identit]
had to be univocal, the law of contradiction ruled, and opposites coulc
not share ground. In contrast, Talmudic argumentation placed th(
elements of argument in relationship and in attenuated hierarchy. It
this system, all the elements and values in an argument might be valuedl
but temporarily placed in a rank order given the context and issuel
facing the community. The argumentative technique used to determin
hierarchies in the Talmud is known as the kal ve-chomer.
Kal ve-chomer deploys juxtaposition, seeking to tease ou
similarities and differences. Handelman, in her comparison of ka
ve-chomer and the syllogism, notes that they are significantly difFeren
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form of reasoning.^' The syllogism, with its deductive format, seeks to

abolish difference, and fold reality into a major premise. In contrast, kal
ve-chomer seeks out "resemblance despite difference (not a collapse of
difference) and leads not to statements of predication, where the coupla
is is, but to inclusion without identity. "^^ The key difference between the
syllogism and kal ve-chomer is that in the latter there is "no cancellation
or substitution of one by the other, nor a postulation of a relation of
identity where the copula is is; the copula copula just as well be and...""
When Jewish and classical thought are compared, many would argue
that this distinction, traced back to the syllogism and kal ve-chomer is
the key. Classical metaphysics and logic seek a univocal expression;
in Jewish metaphysics and reason, there is a regressive spirit in which
multiple truths are acknowledged and juxtaposed. I believe Perelman
transplanted this spirit into the NRP's most prominent expression of
reason, the dissociation of concepts.
The use of dissociation as an argumentative technique is at
the center of what Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca believe is the most
original section of the New Rhetoric?^ Dissociation imports the spirit
kal ve-chomer and avoids the tyranny of the syllogism by placing the
incompatible elements of an argument in human time. In so doing,
dissociation "preserves, at least partially, the incompatible elements."'^
Argument becomes necessary on the plane of action (the site of rhetoric)
Decause incompatibilities can be postponed in time, diluted, or subjected
to compromise. Dissociation can involve "profound change" and
'remodel our conception of reality" by subjecting antimonies to a
reordering.'"* For our purposes, it is instructive to see how Perelman
ised the dissociation of concepts to answer a question Prime Minister
Sen Gurion posed to him in a letter dated July 1958. Ben Gurion had
selected 25 prominent Jews in the Diaspora and 20 in Israel to answer
the question: what is a Jew? Perelman's answer, which is explained in a
10 July 1959 answer to Ben Gurion, was based on the dissociation of
:oncepts. Perelman wrote
As a non-religious Jew, I find it easier, and more
consistent with other civilized people, to dissociate the
two rubrics of "nationality" and "religion." It logically
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follows that this dissociation ought to lead to the

progressive secularization of the State of Israel, in a
manner in which its inhabitants can, if they desire, see alll
that concerns their personal status as uniquely controUedl
by the laws of the State and by the secular authorities.'!
Perelman did, however, recognize the value and importance of thel
religious expression of Judaism:
If one wants the national and religious points of view
to be unified if not coordinated, one must only wait foi
conflicting interpretations to arise. To avoid conflict:
that could be prejudicial to the State of Israel, it woulc
be desirable to create a mixed tribunal, composed fo
judges designated, for example, by the Israeli parliament
the Jewish agency and the Jewish religious influences
This tribunal would decide issues of jurisdiction
This tribunal would be under the jurisdiction of th(
Supreme Court of the State of Israel, which woulc
rule on matters related to the interpretation Israeli law
these rulings would not have religious implications.'
Here, Perelman enacts his view of the dissociation of concepts as th-
antimonies of secularism and religion remain in a relationship tha
is carefully regulated to account for inevitable conflict. The ultimat
judgment, Perelman argued, belonged to the legal system and th'
supreme court of Israel, reflecting his commitment to a legal mean
of managing value conflicts. Perelman's letter illustrates the clos
relationship between his system of thought and Judaism in that he appliec
dissociation of concepts to a problem defying clear resolution. In the nex
section, I conclude by identifying some of the implications of this study

Conclusion

I have offered a reading of Perelman's life as an assimilatei

and secular Jew and suggest how the fact he was a Jew significantl
influenced the NRP. One implication of this reading is that scholat
of rhetoric will need to reconsider describing the NRP as Aristotelian o
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as a reprisal of Greek thought. Perelman did adapt to his audience, one

schooled in the Western philosophical tradition, by referring to Aristotle
and other prominent European thinkers in his readings. However,
I believe he imported a Jewish inflected metaphysics, epistemology,
axiology, and system of argument into a rhetoric with a thin veneer of
classical thought. Perelman was highly critical of the classical tradition
and Aristotle's rhetoric, and could not fully address the crises of reason
with the resources available in the Western philosophical tradition.
At the same time, I offer this implication with some trepidation,
'erelman was called to task by Stanley Rosen for conflating Christian
and Greek reason, and for failing to account for the diverse philosophical
movements in the Western tradition.^'' Handelman, in her Jewish
reading of the Western tradition of philosophy, may also overstate
the difference between classic and Jewish philosophies. Perelman and
Handelman insist that we see the tolerant and expansive sense of reason
in the Jewish tradition, but may miss these traits in the Western cannon.
As post-Shoah scholars ofJewish and Western thotight, I can understand why
they would have a negative view of the European expression of reason.
Although there may be more diversity in the Western tradition
than either Perelman or Handelman are ready to admit, it is clear that
their critique of the Western philosophical and rhetorical is largely sound.
Jewish thought does stand as a countermodel to Greek and Western
patterns of reason. Rhetorical scholars would do well in continuing
to jtixtapose the Western and Jewish traditions in search of what each
can learn from the other. The NRP is a quest to accomplish this task.
A careful reading of Perelman's work suggests that Jewish metaphysics,
bntology, epistemology, and argument are the central touchstones of
^he NRP and that Perelman believed that the Western tradition needed
p e Jewish countermodel to develop a rhetoric necessary for justice in a
Uforld of irreducible pluralism.

DavidA. Frank (Ph.D. 1983 University ofOregon) is Professor ofRhetoric in the Robert D. Clark
fionors College at the University of Oregon, Eugene OR, 97403 <dfrank@uoregon.edu>.
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Notes

'Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, Traite De L'argumentation: La

Nouvelle Rhetorique (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1958).
^Cha'im Pereiman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise
on Argumentation (Notre Dame: [Ind.] University of Notre Dame Press, 1969).
^On Olbrechts-Tyteca's contributions, see Barbara Warnick, "Lucie Olbrechts-
Tyteca's Contribution to the New Rhetoric," Listening to Their Voices: The Rhetorica
Activities ofHistorical Women, ed. Molly Meijer Wertheimer (Columbia, SC: University
of South Carolina Press, 1998) 69-85, Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, "Rencontre Avec La
'?Jaiton(\\xe." Logique et analyse i (1963): 1-15.
••Brian Vickers, "Philosophy: Rhetoric and Philosophy," Oxford
Encyclopedia ofRhetoric, ed. Thomas Sloan (Oxford: Oxford Univeristy Press, 2001) 591
'James Crosswhite, The Rhetoric of Reason: Writing and the Attractions of
^;^W2^«/^ (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996) 35.
''Michael LefF, "Researches Americaines Sur Les Lieux," Lieax Communs,
Topoi, Stereotypes, Cliches, eds. Christian Plantin and Didier Alexandre (Paris: Kim
1994) 510.
^Peter Goodrich, Legal Discourse: Studies in Linguistics, Rhetoric and Legal
Analysis, Language, Discourse, Society (London: Macmillan, 1987) H I .
^George Alexander Kennedy, "Rev. The Realm of Rhetoric," Philosophy
and Rhetoric 17 (1984): 241. On Kennedys assessment of the importance of the
NRP in the Western tradition, see George Alexander Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric
&Its Christian & Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times, 2nd , rev. and
enl. ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).
'David A. Frank, "The New Rhetoric, Judaism, and Post-Enlightenment
Thought: The Cultural Origins of Perelmanian Philosophy," Quarterly fournal
ofSpeech 83 (1997): 311-31, David A. Frank, "Dialectical Rapprochement in the
New Rhetoric," Argumentation and Advocacy 33 (1998): 111-37.
'"Riidiger Safranski, Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998) 272, Jean Grondin, Hans-Georg Gadamer: j
Biography, Yale Studies in Hermeneutics. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003) 25
"Jean-Philippe Schreiber, Chaim Perelman and Double Fidelity, Brussels:!
Martin Buber Institute; Free University of Brussels. Unpublished manuscript. I wil
draw from an English translation of this text, which is in my possession.
'-Chaim Perelman, Le Tribunefuifll Dec 1935.
'^The classic work on the Belgian resistance against the Nazis is Maxime
Sieinhetgs, L'etoile Et Le Fusil, (Bruxelles: Vie ouvriere, 1984). Chaim and Fela Perelma
did not agree with Steinberg's portrayal of their role in the CDJ.
'''Christian Delacampagne, A History of Philosophy in the Twentieth Centur
(Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).
"Dan Mikhman, Belgium and the Holocaust: fews, Belgians, Germans, 2nc
ed. Qerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2000).
 189
SEPTEMBER JEWISH COUNTERMODEL
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"Chaim Perelman, "My Intellectual Itinerary" (Jerusalem: Speech delivered

to the faculty of Hebrew University, 1980).
''Perelman, "My Intellectual Itinerary."
"Cha'im Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric
and Its Applications (Boston: D. Reidel Pub. Co., 1979) 31.
"Schreiber, "Chaim Perelman and Double Fidelity."
^"Schreiber, "Chaim Perelman and Double Fidelity."
-'Chaim Perelman,/?«ft(rf (New York: Random House, 1967).
^^David A. Frank and Michelle K. Bolduc, "From Vita Contemplativa to Vita
Activa: Chai'm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tytcas Rhetorical Turn" Advances in
the History of Rhetoric Forthcoming, 2004.
^'See Suzanne Last Stone. "In Pursuit of the Counter-Text: The Turn to
:he Jewish Legal Model in Contemporary American Legal Theory." Harvard Law
Review 106 (1993): 813-95.
^''See Robert C. Rovvland and David A. Frank, Shared Land/Conflicting
Identity: Trajectories of Israeli and Palestinian Symbol Use, Rhetoric and Public Affairs
ieries (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2002).
^'See Delacampagne, A History of Philosophy in the Twentieth Century.
^'For a description of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's rhetorical turn, see
David A. Frank and Michelle K. Bolduc, "Chaim Perelman's "First Philosophies and
Regressive Philosophy." Commentary and Translation," Philosophy and Rhetoric 16
(2003): 177-207.
^'Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and Its
Applications 56.
^'Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation.
^'Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation.
495-499.
^"Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation 5.
"Chaim Perelman, "Reply to Stanley H. Rosen," Inquiry 2 (1959): 85.
'^Perelman, "Reply to Stanley H. Rosen," 86.
''Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and Its
applications 62.
'^Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and Its
applications 62.
"Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago
ress, 1958).
''Rene Descartes, "Rules for the Direction of the Mind," Great Books of the
Western World, vol. 31 (Chicago: Enclycopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952) 2.
'^Petelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation 1.
'^Perelman and Olbtechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation 5.
"Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and Its
applications 57.
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''"Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation

""Petelman and Olbtechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation
''•^Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and Its
Applications 26.
•"Petelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation
''''Chaim Perelman, An Historical Introduction to Philosophical Thinking
(New York: Random House, 1965) 58.
'"Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and Its
Applications, Chai'm Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric
and Its Applications (Dordrecht, Holland: Boston, 1979) 26-27.
''^G.E.R. Lloyd, Aristotle: The Growth and Structure ofHis Thought (Cambridge
Cambridge University Press, 1968) 121-122.
''''Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation.
''^Petelman and Olbtechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation.
'"Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and It
Applications 158.
'"Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and It
Applications 166.
''Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and It
Applications 161.
"Perelman, The New Rhetoric and The Humanities: Essays On Rhetoric And It
Applications 118, 166.
"Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and It
Applications 163.
'''Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and It
Applications 162.
"Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and It
Applications 3.
"Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and It
Applications 3.
''Petelman and Olbtechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation
"Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1937).
"Perelman and Olbtechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation
'"Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and Ii
Applications 12.
"Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric andIi
Applications 12.
'^Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and 1
Applications 12.
"Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and 1
Applications 12.
 191
SEPTEMBER JEWISH COUNTERMODEL
2003 FRANK

^Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and Its
Applications 12.
"^'Perelman, "Reply to Stanley H. Rosen," 86.
••^Shalom Carmy and David Shatz, "The Bible as a Source for Philosophical
Reflection," History offewish Philosophy, eds. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman
(London ; New York: Routledge, 1997) 3 1 .
''Leon Roth, Is There a Jewish Philosophy? Rethinking Fundamentals (London;
Portland, Or.: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1999) 32.
''Roth, Is There a Jewish Philosophy? Rethinking Fundamentals 62.
'''Roth, Is There a Jewish Philosophy? Rethinking Fundamentals 62.
'"Emmanuel Levinas, Alterity and Transcendence, European Perspectives.
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).
"Susan Handelman, The Slayers of Moses: The Emergence ofRabbinic Interpretation
in the Modem Literary Theory (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982)12-14.
'•^Handelman, The Slayers of Moses: The Emergence of Rabbinic Interpretation
in the Modem Literary Theory 6.
" Isadore Twersky, "The Shulhan 'Aruk: Enduring Code of Jewish Law,"
Thefewish Expression, ed. Judah Goldin (New Haven: Yale U P, 1976) 336.
''' Suzanne Last Stone, "In Pursuit of the Counter-Text: The Turn to the
Jewish Legal Model in Contemporary American Legal Theory," Harvard Law Review
106 (1993): 887.
"Handelman, The Slayers of Moses: The Emergence of Rabbinic Interpretation
in the Modem Literary Theory 11.
"Bruce A. Kimball, Orators dr Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal
Education (New York: Teachers College Columbia University, 1986).
"Chaim Perelman, "Philosophies Premieres Et Philosophie Regressive,"
Dialectica 11 (1949): 175-91. For a commentary on and a translation of this article,
see Frank and Bolduc, "Cha'i'm Perelman's "First Philosophies and Regressive Philosophy."
Commentary and Translation."
'*Frank and Bolduc, "Chai'm Perelman's "First Philosophies and Regressive
Philosophy." Commentary and Translation," 189.
"Frank and Bolduc, "Chaim Perelman's "First Philosophies and Regressive
Philosophy." Commentary and Translation," 190.
^''Frank and Bolduc, "Chai'm Perelman's "First Philosophies and Regressive
Philosophy." Commentary and Translation," 191.
^'Frank and Bolduc, "Chaim Perelman's "First Philosophies and Regressive
Philosophy." Commentary and Translation," 191.
*^See Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2d enl. ed. (New York:
Meridian Books, 1958), Chaim Perelman, "Le libre examen, hier et aujourd'hui,"
Revue de I'Universite de Bruxelles 1 (1949), 39-50; Tonyjudt, Past Imperfect: French
Intellectual, 1944-1956 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).
"Frank and Bolduc, "Chaim Perelman's "First Philosophies and Regressive
Philosophy." Commentary and Translation," 198.
192
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COMMUNICATION AND RELIGION NUMBER

^^Jean Paulhan, Les Fleurs De Tarbes; Ou, La Terreur Dans Les Lettres
(Paris: Gallimard, 1941).
*'David Kraemer, The Mind of the Tahnud (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1990).
*^Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentatio
47-51.
''^Handelman, The Slayers of Moses: The Emergence of Rabbinic Tnterpretatiot
in the Modern Literary Theory 24.
'^Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric andTt
Applicatiotis xvi, Perelman, xvi.
"Harold Zyskind, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on
Rhetoric and Tts Applications, xvi.
'" Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentati
371-98.
"Handelman, The Slayers ofMoses: The Emergence of Rabbinic Tnterpretatiot
in the Modern Literary Theory 52-55.
'•^Handelman, The Slayers of Moses: The Emergence of Rabbinic Tnterpretatiot
in the Modem Literary Theory 54.
'^Handelman, The Slayers of Moses: The Emergence of Rabbinic Tnterpretatiot
in the Modern Literary Theory.
'''Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on
Argumentation 411-50.
"Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on
Argumentation 413.
"•Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on
Argumentation 413.
'•'For Perelman's letter to Ben Gurion, see Schreiber, Chaim Perelman anc
Double Fidelity, 47. (English translation in author's possession).
"Schreiber, Chai'm Perelman and Double Fidelity, 47.
"Stanley H. Rosen, "Thought and Action," Tnquiry 2 (1959): 65-84.

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—. My Intellectual Itinerary. Jerusalem: Speech delivered to the faculty of Hebrew

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