Page 131 - Žagar, Igor Ž. 2021. Four Critical Essays on Argumentation. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut.
P. 131
summary
the detected topos connecting the two, and what is the argumentative anal-
ysis of the quoted fragment? Unfortunately, all these elements are missing;
the definition and the quoted fragment are all that there is of the supposed
argumentative analysis.
And this is the basic pattern of functioning for most of the DHA works.
At the beginning, there would be a list of topoi and a short description for
each of them: first, a conditional paraphrase of a particular topos would be
given, followed by a short discourse fragment (usually from the media) il-
lustrating this conditional paraphrase (Discourse and Discrimination, 75–
80), but without any explicit reconstruction of possible arguments, conclu-
sions, or topoi connecting the two in the chosen fragment. After this short
‘theoretical’ introduction, different topoi would just be referred to by names
throughout the book, as if everything has already been explained in these
few introductory pages.
It is quite surprising that none of the quoted DHA works even men-
tion the origins of topoi, their extensive treatment in many works and the
main authors of these works, namely Aristotle and Cicero. Even the defi-
nition, borrowed from Kienpointner (mostly on a copy-paste basis), does
not stem from their work either: it is a hybrid product, with strong input
from Stephen Toulmin’s work The Uses of Argument, published in 1958.
All this is even more surprising because today it is almost a commonplace
that for Aristotle a topos is a place to look for arguments (which is true), a
heading or department where a number of rhetoric arguments can be eas-
ily found (which is true as well), and that those arguments are ready for
use—which is a rather big misunderstanding. According to Aristotle, topoi
are supposed to be of two kinds: general or common topoi, appropriate for
use everywhere and anywhere, regardless of situation, and specific topoi,
in their applicability limited mostly to the three genres of oratory (judicial,
deliberative, and epideictic).
With the Romans, topoi became loci, and Cicero literally defines them
as ‘the home of all proofs’ (De or. 2.166.2), ‘pigeonholes in which arguments
are stored’ (Part. Or. 5.7–10), or simply ‘storehouses of arguments’ (Part.
Or. 109.5–6). Also, their number was reduced from 300 in Topics or 29 in
Rhetoric to up to 19 (depending on how we count them).
Although Cicero’s list correlates pretty much, though not complete-
ly, with Aristotle’s list from the Rhetoric B 23, there is a difference in use:
Cicero’s list is considered to be a list of concepts that may trigger an associa-
tive process rather than a collection of implicit rules and precepts reducible
131
the detected topos connecting the two, and what is the argumentative anal-
ysis of the quoted fragment? Unfortunately, all these elements are missing;
the definition and the quoted fragment are all that there is of the supposed
argumentative analysis.
And this is the basic pattern of functioning for most of the DHA works.
At the beginning, there would be a list of topoi and a short description for
each of them: first, a conditional paraphrase of a particular topos would be
given, followed by a short discourse fragment (usually from the media) il-
lustrating this conditional paraphrase (Discourse and Discrimination, 75–
80), but without any explicit reconstruction of possible arguments, conclu-
sions, or topoi connecting the two in the chosen fragment. After this short
‘theoretical’ introduction, different topoi would just be referred to by names
throughout the book, as if everything has already been explained in these
few introductory pages.
It is quite surprising that none of the quoted DHA works even men-
tion the origins of topoi, their extensive treatment in many works and the
main authors of these works, namely Aristotle and Cicero. Even the defi-
nition, borrowed from Kienpointner (mostly on a copy-paste basis), does
not stem from their work either: it is a hybrid product, with strong input
from Stephen Toulmin’s work The Uses of Argument, published in 1958.
All this is even more surprising because today it is almost a commonplace
that for Aristotle a topos is a place to look for arguments (which is true), a
heading or department where a number of rhetoric arguments can be eas-
ily found (which is true as well), and that those arguments are ready for
use—which is a rather big misunderstanding. According to Aristotle, topoi
are supposed to be of two kinds: general or common topoi, appropriate for
use everywhere and anywhere, regardless of situation, and specific topoi,
in their applicability limited mostly to the three genres of oratory (judicial,
deliberative, and epideictic).
With the Romans, topoi became loci, and Cicero literally defines them
as ‘the home of all proofs’ (De or. 2.166.2), ‘pigeonholes in which arguments
are stored’ (Part. Or. 5.7–10), or simply ‘storehouses of arguments’ (Part.
Or. 109.5–6). Also, their number was reduced from 300 in Topics or 29 in
Rhetoric to up to 19 (depending on how we count them).
Although Cicero’s list correlates pretty much, though not complete-
ly, with Aristotle’s list from the Rhetoric B 23, there is a difference in use:
Cicero’s list is considered to be a list of concepts that may trigger an associa-
tive process rather than a collection of implicit rules and precepts reducible
131
