History Bump

Topoi

"The topics were for Aristotle, as they have been for rhetoricians since, both the stuff of which arguments are made and the form of those arguments" (Lanham, Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, 1991). In Methodical Memory, Crowley explains that the classical topics ("definition, similarity, difference, contraries, antecedents, consequents, contradictions, cause, effect, and comparison) were advanced by Quintilian and Cicero as "argumentative strategies that were available to any trained rhetor." Helpful details are in the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition: In Aristotle's definition, topics were "strategies or principles" that enabled rhetorical invention. The sophists and Plato used topoi, but it was Aristotle who enumerated them. He differentiated common and special topics. Among the "common types of arguments" he listed "definition, parts, and cause and effect." His special topics were of two general kinds:

1. "[C]ategories governing specific material appropriate as evidence in each of the types of discourse," e.g., deliberative, forensic, and epidictic topics. "These special topics did not supply information but rather prompted the rhetor to find it."
2. Appeals for ethos and pathos.

The difference between common topics and special topics is that the common topics (commonplaces) are applicable to a wide variety of situations. They depend upon widely shared belief. "A stitch in time saves nine," for example, can be used to talk about U.S. foreign policy or doing one's homework. The special topics, on the other hand, were for Aristotle specific to the type of rhetorical situation. "For example, his deliberative topics included ways and means, peace and war, national defense, and food supply; forensic topics included motives, states of mind, kinds of wronged persons, and just and unjust actions. Epideictic topics pointed to virtues such as justice, courage, temperance, and wisdom." Contemporary scholars are divided: some believe that Aristotle intended the topics to generate thesis and hypotheses (as did stasis theory); others think that the topics were intended to generate evidence for a thesis or hypothesis that was already decided upon (724).

Commonplaces

"A commonplace was a general argument, observation, or description a speaker could memorize for use on any number of possible occasions" (Lanham, Handlist). He's giving a fairly classical definition; here it is in contemporary terms: "A 'commonplace' . . . is a culturally or institutionally authorized concept or statement that carries with it is own necessary elaboration. We all use commonplaces to orient ourselves in the world; they provide points of reference and a set of 'prearticulated' explanations that are readily available to organize and interpret experience" (Bartholomae, "Inventing the University," 1985). Yet even while we (inevitably) use commonplaces, we have to be cautious of them: "Commonplaces have an insidious way of only fostering the dominant discourse; commonplaces are in no way revolutionary" (Vitanza, "Three Countertheses," 1991).

And where does all this come from? My commonplace book, natch :)