FromVita contemplativa to vitaactiva: Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca's Rhetorical Turn

Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca's Traité de Vargumentation: la nouvelle rhétorique marked a revolution in twentieth-century rhetorical theory. In this essay, we trace Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's turn from logical positivism and the accepted belief that reason's domain was the vita contemplativa to rhetoric and its use as a reason designed for the vita activa. Our effort to tell the story of their rhetorical turn, which took place between 1944 and 1950, is informed by an account of the context in which they considered questions of reason, responsibility, and action in the wake of World War II.