Persuasion and Signs: Semiotics and Rhetoric as Complementary Disciplines

Persuasion and Signs: Semiotics and Rhetoric as Complementary Disciplines The hypothesis we consider in this dissertation is that of complementarity of semiotics and rhetorics, both in symstematical and historical context. The first part deals with the late modern interpretation of the history of rhetorics, sophistry and sophistical rhetoric (showing why i tis necessary to discriminate between these terms). This is illustrated by the discussion about pragmatics and interpretation of ancient rhetoric in the anglo-saxon philosophy of the late 20th century. Topic of persuasion is considered as the main point of investigation for its being common both to rhetoric and semiotics. This is elaborated in the second part of thesis, which concentrates on the analysis of Ch. S. Peirce's late work, especially his classification of signs, semiotics as pure rhetoric, with emphasis on his concept of pragmatism. The pragmatism is the point where semiotics and rhetoric coincide. In the conclusion it is find out, that semiotics and rhetoric are complementary disciplines, at least for their specific account of the notion of sign and persuasion. Keywords Rhetoric, rhetoric, semiotics, semeiotic, sophistry, Lyotard, Vitanza, Nietzsche, Peirce, Deleuze