AXIOMATIC THEORY AS THE BASIS OF A RHETORICAL LOGIC?

Abstract

In the following paper I will consider the question how the idea of axiomatizationcould be realized in the fi eld of philosophical thinking. For that purpose I proceed from the so farsingular attempt to develop consequently an axiomatic theory of philosophizing: from EberhardRogge’s Axiomatik alles möglichen Philosophierens (1950). At fi rst a short sketch of Rogge’sself-reliant axiomatic approach will be given where the focus of the attention will be on the implicationswhich this approach has for the philosophy of language. After Rogge has directed hisaxiomatic theory of philosophizing to the „rhetorical logic“, the next task of the paper consists inshowing (or at least indicating) what sense this kind of logic could have within the philosophy. Areconstruction of this logic is very diffi cult because Rogge’s considerations about this matter arefragmentary. It is possible that the evaluation of his rare refl ections on the concept of rhetoricallogic leads to a genuine metaphilosophical theory of argumentation. Finally, proceeding fromthe succinctly described conception of Eberhard Rogge I will discuss the question whether anadequate structural determination of philosophizing can succeed by means of axiomatization.