imported>The Anome: Importing Wikidata short description: "Reasoning from commonplace topoi"

2023-07-12T22:40:36Z

Importing Wikidata short description: "Reasoning from commonplace topoi"

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{{Short description|Reasoning from commonplace topoi}}
'''Topical logic''' is the [[logic]] of '''topical argument''', a branch of [[rhetoric]] developed in the [[Late Antique]] period from earlier works, such as [[Aristotle]]'s ''[[Topics (Aristotle)|Topics]]'' and [[Cicero]]'s ''Topica''. It consists of [[heuristics]] for developing [[argument]]s, which are in the first place plausible rather than rigorous, from commonplaces (''topoi'' or ''loci''). In other words, therefore, it consists of standardized ways of thinking up debating techniques from existing, thought-through positions. The actual practice of topical argument was much developed by Roman lawyers.<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/boethius/|title = The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|chapter = Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius|year = 2021|publisher = Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-ancient/|title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|chapter=Ancient Logic|year=2020|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}</ref> Cicero took the theory of Aristotle to be an aspect of rhetoric.<ref>A. A. Long, ''From Epicurus to Epictetus: Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy'' (2006), p. 302.</ref> As such it belongs to ''inventio'' in the classic fivefold division of rhetoric.

The standard classical work on topical logic was the ''De Topicis Differentiis'' (On Topical Differentiae) by [[Boethius]]. ''Differentiae'' refer to [[case study|case analysis]], being the differentiations used to distinguish the cases into which a question is divided. Besides Aristotle and Cicero, Boethius built on [[Themistius]].<ref>George Alexander Kennedy, ''Classical Rhetoric & Its Christian & Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times'' (1999), p. 202.</ref> In terminology, the Greek ''axioma'' and ''topos'' in Boethius became the Latin ''maxima propositio'' ([[Maxim (philosophy)|maxim]], universal truth) and ''locus''.

In the [[Middle Ages]] topical logic became a theory of [[inference]], for which the name "axiomatic topics" has been suggested.<ref>[[Norman Kretzmann]], [[Anthony Kenny]], [[Jan Pinborg]], ''The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100-1600'' (1988), pp. 111-2.</ref> [[Abelard]] wanted to complete a theory of [[Logical consequence|entailment]] by invoking the ''loci'' in Boethius to fill in conditionals, a flawed if bold development.<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abelard/|title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|chapter=Peter Abelard|year=2018|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}</ref><ref>Christopher J. Martin, ''Logic'', pp. 172-3 in Jeffrey E. Brower, Kevin Guilfoy (editors), ''The Cambridge Companion to Abelard'' (2004).</ref> [[Peter of Spain (author)|Peter of Spain]], in his ''De locis'', developed the ideas of Boethius.<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peter-spain/|title = The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|chapter = Peter of Spain|year = 2019|publisher = Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}</ref>

The ''De inventione dialectica'' of [[Rodolphus Agricola]] (1479) made large claims for this method, as an aspect of [[dialectic]] (traditionally contrasted with rhetoric) subordinated to ''inventio''.<ref>Thomas M. Conley, ''Rhetoric in the European Tradition'' (1994), pp. 125-6.</ref> The precise relationship of "dialectic" and "rhetoric" remained vexed well into the sixteenth century, hinging on the role assigned to ''loci''. It was expounded in different fashions by [[Philipp Melanchthon]] and [[Petrus Ramus]].<ref>Harold J. Berman, ''Law and Revolution, II: The Impact of the Protestant Reformations on the Western Legal Tradition'' (2006), p. 112.</ref> The debate fed into the later development of [[Ramism]].

==Notes==
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==Further reading==
*Catherine Kavanagh, ''Eriugenian Developments of Ciceronian Topical Theory'', pp. 1–30 in Stephen Gersh, Bert Roest (editors), ''Medieval and Renaissance Humanism: Rhetoric, Representation and Reform'' (2003).
*Peter Mack, ''Renaissance Argument: Valla and Agricola in the Traditions of Rhetoric and Dialectic'', Leiden, Brill 1993.

==See also==
*[[Enthymeme]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Topical Logic}}
[[Category:Rhetoric]]
[[Category:Logic]]

Topical logic - Revision history

imported>The Anome: Importing Wikidata short description: "Reasoning from commonplace topoi"