Crises in Rhetoric, Crises in Democracy

A number of trends may be observed in contemporary work on rhetoric and argumentation. Some of this work analyses the correct way to conduct a debate, starting out from an idealised model comprising a set of rules which participants would be required to observe. We can see here the inspiration from the English-speaking world, of which the Amsterdam school is currently one of the main representatives. The first work in French by Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst (1996) is indeed significa..