Francesca Piazza

This paper analyzes the philosophical value of rhetoric by placing the Gorgianic and Aristotelian traditions - typically seen in contrast - in a different theoretical framework. According to our interpretation, rhetoric can be considered as an “anthropology of logos”, by offering a reinterpretation of the human as the being who possesses logos and lives in the polis. In this perspective, we highlight rhetoric’s contribution to contemporary philosophical debates on truth, the interplay between cognition and emotion, and the role of conflict in public discourse. This vision diverges from traditional logocentric or anthropocentric models as well as from current post-humanist perspectives.

The topic of this paper is the complex phenomenon of verbal abuse. The aim is to show the productivity of a pragma-rhetorical approach in addressing this issue. Indeed, integrating modern pragmatics with classical rhetoric, this approach does not isolate words from social practices and therefore is not exclusively focused on slurs (as is the case in the current debate on this topic in the field of the philosophy of language) but it concerns verbal abuse in general. I argue that this wider approach, especially thanks to its focus on the intertwining of linguistic and social components, is more adapted to shedding light on the role that words play in performing violence. Particularly, I take into account three (interrelated) controversial issues: (1). the question of whether intrinsically offensive words exist; (2). the problem concerning the existence of the so-called “neutral-counterpart” of a slurring word; (3). the reclamation or rehabilitation of a slur. Finally, I briefly focus on the case of the N-word as a paradigmatic example able to show the advantages of the pragma-rhetorical approach.