RAIL

CALL FOR PANELS/PAPERS

“BUILDING CONSENSUS. RHETORIC BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND CONFLICT”

Palermo, 15-18th April 2015

The aim of this conference is to encourage an interdisciplinary investigation of the role of rhetoric and discursive processes in the realization of democracy and its eventual degenerations. In the contemporary debate on this topic, there seems to be a polarization between two different conceptions of democracy: the “deliberative” one and the “agonistic” one. The first one is related to the classical tradition that considers Habermas as its reference point. This conception emphasizes the role of rational deliberation as a means to produce a legitimate and binding consensus. Instead, the second one draws its inspiration from C. Schmitt, and considers conflict and disagreement as unavoidable conditions of democratic life. Despite their obvious differences, these two theoretical models have a conception of rhetoric in common that is subjected to, or at least separated from, the full exercise of argumentative rationality. Nevertheless, an interpretation of rhetoric that includes the logical-argumentative dimension in the rhetorical domain is possible. In this way, the recovery of rhetoric, considered both as a practice and as a theory of persuasive speech, may shed light on the role of discursive processes in building consensus, and thus might allow a revision of the dialectical tension between the pairs of concepts that the debate tends to focus on: normative/descriptive, rational/irrational, agreement/conflict. Starting from this theoretical framework, the organizers hope to receive papers with a theoretical or historical character that come from different disciplines and perspectives, including: rhetoric, philosophy of language, philosophy of politics, argumentation theory, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and political science.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

• Luciano Canfora (University of Bari)
• Chantal Mouffe (University of Westminster)
• Paolo Virno (Universitày of Roma III)

The conference will be organized by EIKOS. International Research Group on Rhetoric and hosted by The Department of the Humanistic Sciences at the University of Palermo in cooperation with the International Center for Philosophical Research (CRF).

Conference Proceedings will be published in EPEKEINA. International Journal of Ontology. History and Critics, Vol. 7, n. 2/2016.

For more information visit the conference website:

CRF – Centro Internazionale per la Ricerca Filosofica | EIKOS.