Situated practices of testimony. A rhetorical approach

Abstract

Contrary to most current epistemologists who concentrate on core cases of rather 'spontaneous' (deliberately  de-contextualized)  trust  and  belief  in the  face  of  assertions,  Classical  rhetoricians  addressed  the study of 'testimony' as an (at least) two-acts phenomenon: that of the 'disclosure' of information and that of the 'appeal' to its authority in subsequent discursive practices. Moreover, they primarily focused on this second phase as they assumed that it was such argumentative setting that finally gave 'testimonial' relevance to the first act. According to this 'rhetorical' model, then, it is the dynamics (by means of an in medias res approach)  and  pragmatics  (by means  of  a  deliberate  attention  to  specifically  'situated'  practices)  of  such complex process that is the core issue regarding 'testimony'.