The Value of Rhetoric
Can Rhetoric Think the New?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52610/rhs.v28i89.315Keywords:
Ernesto Laclau, General Equivalent, rhetoricity, creationAbstract
This article takes as its starting point the modern description of rhetoric as a threat to imagination in order to ask the question concerning rhetoric's ability to think the new. Against the modern fragmentation of the rhetorical tradition, the focus then turns to the structuralist reintegration of rhetoric, how this has been based on an obscure relationship between linguistic and economic value, and how in particular Ernesto Laclau has dealt with this issue. Through Laclau's concept of the empty signifier and Marx's concept of the general equivalent, three potential readings of Laclau's theory of rhetoric and linguistic creation are then explored. These readings reveal the danger of modelling an understanding of language and rhetoric on the value-form, not least since an insufficient recognition of this model also undermines Laclau's concept of rhetoric.
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