Fides et ratio nella prospettiva della retorica giuridica

What does ‘trusting’ really mean? Is it a matter of reason or, instead, one of feeling? In discursive activity there is an unremitting interplay between logical aspects and the web of interwoven interactions that bind the parts together. As rhetorical theories emphasize, in contrast with dominant dialectical-argumentative models, this happens because being able to speak means calling into play the whole human being. Knowing how to speak, in other words, requires an extension of reason and thus the search for rational ways not limited to formal calculation or to the scholasticism of syllogism. The ‘rhetorical reason’ model has the advantage of showing that the fiduciary paradigm—which Tommaso Greco (2021) applies to the legal dimension-requires concrete relationships—as such ingrained in reality. Law’s imperative to do or not do something is always for someone’s benefit. However, as long as such a subject remains a merely abstract and unembodied entity, linguistic/normative abstractness engenders conditions so that infidelity arises at the horizontal level and vertical authoritative relationships take shape.