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"The specific role of philosophy is, in effect," Chaim Perelman once wrote, "to propose to humanity objective principles of action that will be valid for the will of all reasonable men."¹Though respecting the contemplative mode of rationality — or what the ancient Greeks termed sophia — Perelman insisted on "the primacy of practical reason" for which the ancient Greek term was phronesis.²The rehabilitation of phronesis, or "practical wisdom" may be said to have constituted both the fundamental aim and the prime achievement of Perelman's professional life. The crucially important first stage of that rehabilitation was the elaboration of the "nouvelle rhétorique" — the "non-formal logic" of choice-making, problem-resolution and decision-making in the sphere primarily of moral and socio-political action. "A general theory of argument," Perelman once observed, 'seems to us to be a prelude to any axiology of action and thought."³

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-4674-3_5

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