Aesthetics and Rhetoric (Italian debate)

Critical reconstruction of the Italian debate on the relationship between aesthetics and rhetoric. Variously defined throughout its history, rhetoric can be understood in a general sense as the art or discipline of truthful discourse aimed at persuasion. In the second half of the 20th century, there was a revival of rhetoric thanks to the great impetus provided by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, who with their Treatise on Argumentation. The new rhetoric regained the realm of the plausible and probable in the realm of reason, albeit critically understood, thus removing it from the irrational. Against the backdrop of these premises, this entry is intended to develop the specific theme of how rhetoric revived the interests of aesthetic reflection in the second half of the 20th century along two main axes. On the one hand, aesthetics, partly inspired by phenomenology, starting above all from the schools of Banfi and Anceschi, has deepened the study of aesthetic concepts of rhetorical derivation (the sublime and metaphor, for example), on the basis of precise theoretical positions when not aimed at directly proposing theoretical perspectives (Banfi, Carchia, Franzini, Lombardo, Mattioli, Saint-Girons, for example). On the other hand, there was a tendency that saw rhetoric as an essential reference and comparison point for developing a critique of reason and circumscribing its aesthetic space (from Preti to Franzini).