Introduction

When considering the interactions between rhetoric and argumentation, readers of this journal will no doubt be reminded of the seminal work of Henry W. Johnstone Jr. (1959; 1978) who gathered both concerns together in ways that were designed to engage philosophers and persuade them of the intellectual seriousness of both enterprises. He was, of course, a principal force among those who brought Chaïm Perelman's work to the attention of audiences in North America, and he himself entered into deep and fruitful dialogues with Perelman by way of reviewing the value that rhetoric brought to argumentation and logic, as well as to philosophy generally. His interest in philosophical argumentation prompted an early skepticism about the New Rhetoric project, and at the end of one of his reviews of Perelman's work he wondered “whether there is really any promise after all in the attempt to define philosophical argument in...