%0 Journal Article
%T Rhetoric: A Theory of Political Lie or The Essence of Politics? Reflections on the Thought of the Sophists, Hannah Arendt, and Jacques Derrida
%A Mielczarski, Cyprian
%J ORGANON
%V 2018
%R 10.4467/00786500.ORG.18.007.9501
%N Volume 50
%P 147-163
%K rhetoric, the sophists, relativism, political deception, totalitarianism
%@ 0078-6500
%D 2018
%U https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/organon/article/rhetoric-a-theory-of-political-lie-or-the-essence-of-politics-reflections-on-the-thought-of-the-sophists-hannah-arendt-and-jacques-derrida
%X This paper offers an outline of practical and theoretical relations between truth and rhetoric. A point of departure for considerations to follow are philosophical theories of the sophists, Plato, and Aristotle as well as modern commentators of political rhetoric. I argue that the predominantly rhetorical nature of contemporary culture is inextricably bound up with the controversial issue of political deception, its definition and function. I refer to the theories of Hannah Arendt and Jacques Derrida pertaining to the following issues: a relation between acting and lying, mass deception, and self–deception in totalitarian states. I further propose that classical ethics developing from Plato, Aristotle and Kant fails as a basis for the analysis of political and social processes in democratic societies. Key to grasping these processes is rhetoric – as an art of persuasion – which has nothing to do with the traditional true–false dichotomy.