Charles Sanders Peirce’s Speculative Rhetoric: New Dialectical Avenues for Pragmatism in Sociology
This article presents the idea that C.S. Peirce’s speculative rhetoric in its relation to logic in scientific research and to a pragmatist theory of communication. On the one hand, speculative rhetoric belongs to the overall framework of Peirce’s semiotic, as a general logical categorization, and on the other hand, to the process of semiosis. Such presentation positions rhetoric, and dialectic as the foundation of the latter, drawing parallels with Hegel’s logic, which also relies on dialectic as its foundation, but which apparently eschews rhetoric; in this, both Hegel’s and Peirce’s endeavors are challenging each other, while their respective orientation come closer to each other in developing a dialectical logic. Following this, the place of rhetoric in the philosophy of pragamatism is examined, through John Dewey’s and Georg Herbert Mead’s works. New paths are proposed to re-engage rhetoric in sociology, from both political and analytical points of view.