Marc Angenot: Rhetoric put to the test by the History of Ideas

Abstract

In the interview he gave to Marianne Doury and Théophile Robineau, Marc Angenot discusses the place of rhetoric in his work. Recalling that ancient rhetoric was essentially based on the judicial model, he emphasizes its interest, but also its limitations, in exploring the social discourse he seeks to account for. He takes up its global perspective, mobilizing ethos, pathos and logos, the combined consideration of which is necessary for an understanding of ideas and the way in which they are carried and discussed in society. But he insists on the necessity of taking account of the fact that social discourse is embedded in a more or less long-term history, which is a prerequisite for its intelligibility. Taking social discourse as the object of research also requires us to reconsider the notion of situation as traditionally understood in rhetoric, and to redefine the way we look at the question of persuasion.

Keywords

• discourse analysis
• interdisciplinarity
• rhetoric
• history of ideas
• social discourse