Practical reasoning as pedagogy: Chaim Perelman and the reasonable practice of argumentation in the composition classroom

This dissertation argues that teaching and learning effective strategies of argumentation based on the rhetorical theory offered by Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca in their New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation will benefit instructors and students in college composition classrooms. The philosophy of the New Rhetoric derives from Perelman's concern over rhetoric's decline and his disagreement with the Cartesian belief that reasoning about values and beliefs can be premised on appeals to absolute truth. Perelman calls his new rhetoric a theory of “practical reasoning,” and a key element of his rhetoric is the efficacy of appeal to a “universal audience,” a concept which has been widely misunderstood and is discussed in depth in the dissertation. United States Supreme Court decisions provide notable examples of Perelmanian practical reasoning. The dissertation argues that they may be analyzed in the composition classroom, making them effective tools for teaching and learning argumentative strategies that employ Perelmanian “new rhetoric.” The majority and minority opinions associated with the Supreme Court's Romer v. Evans, popularly known as Colorado's Amendment Two, are analyzed using Perelman's argumentative schemes and his definition of universal audience. The dissertation concludes by offering sample methods for introducing Perelmanian rhetoric to students in college composition classrooms.