Praeteritio as strategic manoeuvring

Abstract

In this paper I investigate what role the figure of thought praeteritio can play in arguers’ attempts to reconcile their rhetorical with their dialectical aims by manoeuvring strategically. In my discussion of praeteritio I will thus be making use of the theoretical framework that van Eemeren and Houtlosser developed in the last ten years, which consists of an integration of rhetorical insight in the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation.−The research I shall report on here, forms part of a larger project in which insights from classical rhetoric, pragmatics and modern stylistics are used to explore the possibilities for strategic manoeuvring with specific presentational means. In the paper, I shall first pay attention to the ways in which praeteritio can be realized in discourse. Next, I shall give an analysis of the general effects the use of praeteritio may have due to the presentational means that are employed. Then I shall discuss in what way the use of praeteritio may contribute to arguers’ dialectical and rhetorical aims in the different stages of an argumentative dicussion. Finally, I shall pay some attention to the ways in which the use of praeteritio may derail and thus become fallacious