THE NEW RHETORIC, JUDAISM, AND POSTENLIGHTENMENT THOUGHT - THE CULTURAL ORIGINS OF PERELMANIAN PHILOSOPHY

In search of justice, Chain Perelman rediscovered the rhetorical tradi tion and reclaimed his Jewish identity after World War II. As an attem pt to correct misreadings of Perelmanian thought and to situate the Ne w Rhetoric as a response to post-Enlightenment and postmodern culture, I advance two arguments in this essay. First. Perelman's philosophy a nd the New Rhetoric project reflect his Jewish heritage and Talmudic h abits of argument. Second, because Perelmanian philosophy enacts Jewis h and Talmudic thought, the New Rhetoric charts a ''third way'' betwee n Enlightenment metaphysics and the dangers of the more extreme expres sions of postmodernism. The New Rhetoric is much more than a relativis t taxonomy of argument,for it aspires to replace violence. to create h uman community, and most important, to discover and craft justice with a Talmudically influenced system of rhetoric.