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In:Persuasion in Specialized Discourse: A multidisciplinary perspective
Edited by Chiara Degano, Dora Renna and Francesca Santulli
[Argumentation in Context 22] 2024
► pp. 153–168

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Chapter 7
Persuasion and critical-theoretical thought

 | Ca’ Foscari University Venice
Published online: 25 October 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/aic.22.07mit
Abstract
Literary scholars have increasingly moved away from the hermeneutics of suspicion, on the ground that this once-dominant axis of reflection uniting Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud and culminating with deconstruction and poststructuralism, has been reduced to an ineffectual set of standardized rhetorical gestures with the sole purpose of debunking and demystifying (R. Felski 2015; R. Felski and E. Anker 2017). In such a postcritical climate, this article explores the link between persuasion and the pursuit of knowledge in the Humanities through three theoretically charged close readings (Jane Austen, Michel Foucault, Eve K. Sedgwick). Discussion takes its cue from the implications of persuasion as a rhetorical tenet and goes on to trace its transformation, first in connection with the rise of discourse, and secondly in connection with the ethical turn in critical inquiry. Ultimately, the article suggests that the traditional tension between truth and persuasion has taken on new life in the polarity of the cognitive and the affective dimensions of knowledge.
Article outline
  • 1.Publicness (Austen and Foucault)
  • 2.Persuasion and truth
  • 3.Paranoid epistemology
  • Notes
  • References
References (29)
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