A retórica e o Supremo Tribunal Federal: o papel da argumentação na corte brasileira

Abstract

This paper aims to recover a concept of rhetoric to understand it in a positive way, giving it dignity and importance. To reach this aim, it is necessary to point out what were the strongest criticisms suffered by the rhetoric in the development of Western thought, including how it became a kind of knowing excluded from the legitimate forms of knowledge production. Then this paper demonstrates the importance that the rhetoric acquired from the late nineteenth century, and during the twentieth century, in various contexts, such as political, philosophical and legal. For this, we analyzed the votes of the Ministers of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court in the case of ADI 3510, which involved the claim of unconstitutionality of the law on Biosafety, which regulates the research with embryonic stem cells in the country. This analysis allows us to understand how the rhetoric has been fundamental in the establishment of a decision in a case of such importance to the science, to the politics and to the law.