The Rhetoric to Alexander (about 340 B.C.) contains a list of proofs (pisteis) and other types of argumentation which may be seen as the oldest surviving typology of argumentation schemes (avant la lettre). In the present article this typology is derived and compared with modern proposals. The conclusion is that the oldest typology is surprisingly similar to the most recent classifications.

In response to the growing recognition of informal logic as a discipline in its own right, this collection of essays from leading contributors in the field provides the formative knowledge and historical context required to understand the development of a so far little studied subject area.

In the present article I attribute to the common topic in the Rhetoric a two-fold suggestive function and a guarantee function. These three functions are possible because this type of topic, while often quite abstract, nevertheless contains thought-steering, substantial terms, and formulates a generally empirical or normative endoxon. Assuming that according to Aristotle an enthymeme has at least two premises, it would appear that a common topic is the abstract principle behind the often implicit major premise. This means that the (...) topic may be regarded as the – generalizing – if-then statement in a modern argumentation scheme. Therefore it should be possible to see the enthymemes of Rhetoric 2.23 as a combination of a logical argument form (which can usually be reconstructed as modus ponens) and an argumentation scheme – even though we may not attribute this idea to Aristotle himself. (shrink)

Il passo della Retorica (1358 a 10-21) dove è introdotta la distinzione óo e i' è uno dei più controversi dell'opera aristotelica. Il presente lavoro propone un chiarimento della natura e del ruolo di óo e i' nella costruzione di un'argomentazione dialettico-retorica. Tale chiarimento viene presentato attraverso un confronto tra Topici e Retorica che, se pur espressamente evidenziato da Aristotele stesso, sembra essere stato trascurato da quanti si sono occupati dell'esegesi di tale sezione della Retorica.

Il passo della "Retorica" (1358 a 10-21) dove è introdotta la distinzione τόποι e ἴδια è uno dei più controversi dell'opera aristotelica. Il presente lavoro propone un chiarimento della natura e del ruolo di τόποι e ἴδια nella costruzione di un'argomentazione dialettico-retorica. Tale chiarimento viene presentato attraverso un confronto tra Topici e "Retorica" che, se pur espressamente evidenziato da Aristotele stesso, sembra essere stato trascurato da quanti si sono occupati dell'esegesi di tale sezione della "Retorica".

In the last fifty years a series of valuable contributions on Aristotle's Topics has helped to understand how a Topics functions in the dialectical argumentation. In contrast to this, Aristotle's topoi as set out in the Rhetoric does not seem to have received the same attention. Current opinion holds that the methodology in the Rhetoric involves two different kinds of topoi, the topoi koinoi and the ídia, considered by most scholars as idioi topoi. The problem, here, is that this distinctíon (...) of is topoir is not supported by any passage in the Rhetoric. Aristotle never speaks of. This work aims to show that the term'ídia is not intended to imply'ídioi topoi. The only distinction that Aristotle introduces in the Rhetoric is that between and which also appears in the Topica and which is the consequence of a fundamental coherente in thc thcory of argumentation presented by Aristotle in the two treatises. However, the results of such investigation has revcaled that the concept of which Aristotle introduces in Rhetaric 1358 a l0 clashes with the list of topoi which appears in Rhetoric B23. In the addenda, this work addresscs this issue and make a case for the possibility that Rhetoric B23 has been originally written independently from the previous sections of the Rhetoric. (shrink)