The Foundation in Truth of Rhetoric and Formal Logic

Arguments in the rhetorical literature against the sufficiency of formal logic show the need for a foundation of both the rhetorically oriented disciplines and formal logic in truth. As the rhetorical disciplines have argued, formal logic cannot offer this foundation. But the rhetorical disciplines also cannot provide it: they are structurally too much like formal logic to achieve their distinctive aims. The combined rhetorical and logical nature of this foundation, as conceptual truth, is sketched. Implications are drawn for the foundational importance of ornamental rhetoric, and for the study and teaching of rhetoric as aimed, precisely, not at persuasion.