CLASSICAL AND "BLACK" RHETORIC: COMMUNICATIVE AND PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE PRINCIPLES

Abstract

Introduction. Hellenistic philosophy and rhetoric laid down the classical principles of the art of dialogue, persuasion and proof, which determined the measure of analytical, logical, dialectical development of the person-speaker, as well as its moral abilities and characteristics too. At the same time, in the Hellenistic time the development of classical rhetoric had already revealed the possible objective and subjective deviations from the normative nature of its principles. One of these deviations was the spread of sophistic rhetoric, which subsequently set the stage for the formation of negatively nihilistic methods of communication and methods of proof. Aims and tasks. The paper studies the principles of the development of classical (Hellenistic) rhetoric and the transformation of these principles in modern “black” rhetoric. Research methods. The theory and method of discourse analysis, the method of comparative analysis, as well as the system-logical, dialectical, analytical, synthetic and structural research methods are used. Research results. The dialectic, which is used for sophistic purposes, by the classical philosophers was considered as the abusing of dialectic and rhetoric. In its nihilistic form, sophistry was reborn into antilogy and eristic, together with rabulistics as its component. The sphere of moral motivation distinguishes the dialectic's man from the sophist one. The dialectician aspires to achieve truth and justice (ethos), while the sophistic rhetorician uses rhetoric against the truth depending on his own useful interest. “Black” rhetoric is regarded as a modified sophistic rhetoric. Discussion. We turn out the gap between the theoretical-humanitarian attitudes of public consciousness (in which normativity is preserved) and social and practical attitudes (which have their own particular and pragmatic logic and goals of rhetoric). Conclusion. As we suppose, the speech communicative sphere’s practices and theoretical rhetoric would remain a contradictory existence. The spread of “black” PR in the public sphere and the demand for its technologically linguistic tools is a special diagnosis of the state of society and public consciousness, and it is useless to overcome it only with moral condemnation and rhetorical enlightenment. Rhetoric in society returns to its classical embodiment – to be not a science, but a method of persuasion that applies to all spheres of activity. Pragmatic social relations require pragmatic ethics and logic, respectively, and sophistic black rhetoric.