Czy kultura może obejść się bez retoryki?
Can culture exist without rhetoric?

Summary/Abstract: The problem posed in the title appears both evident and fundamental. Its resolution depends on how the terms culture and rhetoric are understood. The definitions adopted in this study are not immediately obvious. Rhetoric is understood here following Quintilian's definition: Rhetorice est inveniendi recte et disponendi et eloquendi cum firma memoria et cum dignitate actionis scientia. Culture, by contrast, is cumulative and may be described as information acquired from others through mechanisms of social transmission such as imitation, teaching, or language. Within this framework, rhetoric supplies the tools that make such transmission possible. These include imitation (imitatio), teaching, and language, all of which are closely connected with rhetoric (téchne rhētorikē). When the two concepts are understood in this way, rhetoric emerges as indispensable to culture. The present article aims to substantiate this claim.

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