Persuasion against Rhetoric

Abstract

Abstract In this chapter, I outline Rousseau’s unique vision of a persuasive language that exists beyond rhetoric. This imagistic language is the first that Rousseau discusses in his Essay on the Origin of Languages, and it is also the language that Rousseau claims the lawgiver must use, in order that he might persuade without convincing. Defying conventional accounts that describe rhetoric as an art conducted in a persuasive mode, Rousseau instead bisects persuasion and rhetoric. Rhetoric is the art of convincing, providing argumentation through words and deliberation, and its goal is to change minds. Persuasion, on the other hand, is affective and imagistic, dealing in illusory figurations, and aims to transform the reader’s heart. Persuasion cuts deeper than the dissembling and artificial words of rhetoric—it is its own language. Further, I argue that Rousseau was using this persuasive argument himself, crafting images designed to move readers toward a self-transformation.