Argumentation and Philosophical Clarification.

This article examines the impact of the analysis of the discursive means of obtaining the adherence of minds on the notion of philosophical knowledge. The New Rhetoric is predicated on the proposition that in philosophy, there are only arguments and no ultimate positions. The New Rhetoric attempts to be a Treatise on Argumentation. As such, it is a treatise considering the discursive means of obtaining the adherence of minds. It is an attempt to present modes of the means, and thus it is a logic of argumentation. Argumentation is conceived as a process, the objective of which is an increase of persuasion or adherence. It has its point of departure in a thesis and seeks to bring about the adherence of the mind to this thesis. A separation of data and constructs is not possible. Argumentation, as an activity of a philosopher, is more related to philosophizing than to philosophy as a rounded system. It is an initiation to rationality, and as such, it is again an activity and not a detached formulation of a systematic body of knowledge. Immanuel Kant's distinction between philosophy and philosophizing, along with his emphasis that only philosophizing can be taught, seems to be a possible historical presupposition of the view under consideration.