An outline of the scope of Rhetorical Invention.

Abstract

This article offers a philosophical defense of rhetoric against traditional critiques that reduce it to an art of deception or emotional manipulation, often opposed to scientific or mathematical reason. The author argues that such criticisms rely on an overly narrow conception of reason, incapable of accounting for the rational processes involved in practical deliberation about goods, values, and human decisions. Drawing on the Aristotelian and Ciceronian tradition, the study focuses on rhetorical invention, understood as the part of rhetoric responsible for investigating, discovering, and generating reasonable arguments aimed at the free choice of goods. The article maintains that rhetorical invention possesses its own rationality, which extends beyond empirical proof to encompass possibility, convenience, justice, and value. The scope of this expanded rationality is examined through concepts such as the objectivity of goods, the inclusion of all acts of understanding, the consideration of possibility beyond probability, and the integration of logos, pathos, and ethos as rhetorical proofs. The article concludes that rhetoric is not opposed to reason, but rather constitutes a higher form of practical rationality oriented toward action, ethical deliberation, and the transformation of reality.