Placed in the ontological realism of the classical age, the rhetorical doctrine of “decisive issue” is an effort to grasp the complexity of reality and to find the true state of the case in a controversial challenge. In a dispute, at first it is necessary to qualify the genre of the case (status causae); then, only after several conflictions the point of issue emerges, and the rhetorician must choose the implicit premises (reputable opinions) and the inferential schemes (loci, topics) in the light of the particular case, that is relevant to the thing in question. A wrong tradition identifies genre of the case and “decisive issue”. Against this reductive approach, Cicero shows that the philosophical character of dialectic antilogy – i.e. the “refutatory completeness” taught by Plato and Aristotle – is necessary also in the judicial rhetoric and not only: I propose to call it “evidentiary insistence”. In the rhetorical domain, the complexity of reality emerges at the moment of identifying the object of the question: dialectical refutations not appropriate to the thing in question are fallacious by accident, according to Aristotle, and the doctrine of “decisive issue” avoids falling into sophistry in the field of civic discourse. This is one of many philosophical aspects of the Rhetoric of Hermagoras, and later of Cicero and of the Anonymous commentator on Hermogenes, rejected by Quintilian (I. O., 3.11.20; 24).
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| DOI | 10.11648/j.ijll.20210902.13 |
| Page(s) | 48-61 |
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Dialectic Antilogy, Aristotle, Rhetoric of Truth, Hermagoras, Fallacy of Accident
| [1] | Quint., Institutio Oratoria, 6.2.5, Butler; see also Demosthenes, Olinth. 3.19. |
| [2] | Quint., Institutio Oratoria, 6.2.24, Butler. |
| [3] | Rhet., I 1, 12, 1355a21-22, Kennedy. W. M. A. Grimaldi (Aristotle, Rhetoric 1: a commentary, New York, Fordham University Press, 1980, 23) remembers Arist., Eth. Eud. I 6, 1216b31: “every man has some contribution to make to the truth”. |
| [4] | Rhet., I 1, 11, 1355a14-15, Kennedy; logicae peritus ad rhetoricam aptior est, cf. Grimaldi [3] 24. |
| [5] | E. M. Cope, The rhetoric of Aristotle: With a commentary, 3 voll., rev. and edited for the syndics of the University Press by John Edwin Sandys, Cambridge, 1877, I, 22. Cf. Arist., Rhet., II 24. |
| [6] | Arist., Rhet., I 1, 12, 1355a29-32 Kennedy-Cope. See below 3.3. |
| [7] | Arist., Rhet., I 2, 7, 1356a30, Grimaldi, with slight modification. |
| [8] | Plato, Phaedr., 265c-266c, 277b. In the present work, dialectics is understood as a method of refutation (greek “elenchos”) or as an examining technique (greek “peirastike”). |
| [9] | De Resp., VII, 537C7. |
| [10] | Top., I 2, 101a35-36, transl. R. Smith. “Aporia” means puzzle, a problem that admits two opposite solutions apparently of equal value. |
| [11] | Metaph. III 1, 995a 33-34. |
| [12] | The dialectical requirement of refutatory "completeness" in Aristotle is highlighted by E. Berti, Le ragioni di Aristotele, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1989, 78, 127. Cf. Plato, Parm., 136e1-3; Resp. VII, 533c-534c. |
| [13] | Arist., Eth. Nic. VII, 4, 1146b6-7. |
| [14] | Arist., An. Post. I 2, 72a12-13. |
| [15] | Disputandum de omni re in contrarias partis et quicquid erit quaqua re, quod probabile videri possit, eliciendum atque dicendum. |
| [16] | De or., III 21, 80, Rackham. Cf. Tusculanae disputationes, II, 3, 9. |
| [17] | Cf. P. Ercole, M. Tullio Cicerone, Il Bruto, testo riveduto ed illustrato da P. Ercole, Torino, Loescher 1891, to illustrate the passage, transl. Hendrickson. Cf. Orator IV 16; De oratore II 38, 157; Partitiones oratoriae 1, 3; Tusculanae disp. V 25, 72. |
| [18] | Arist., Metaph. III 1, 995b 2-4, Ross. |
| [19] | Plato, Soph., 230b4-8; Alcib. I, 114d8ff. |
| [20] | Top. VIII 11, 161b19ff.; Soph. El. VI. Amplius M. Mignucci, Il sillogismo aristotelico, M. Migliori, A. Fermani (eds.), Platone e Aristotele: dialettica e logica, Brescia, Morcelliana, 2008, 243-264, 255, who names the second validity clause a condition of "appropriate relevance/pertinenza adeguata" of the premises to the conclusion. |
| [21] | The word common to the two disciplines, philosophy and rhetoric, is the greek “pragma”, the origin of which is to be found in judicial rhetoric: cf. P. Hadot, Sur divers sens du mot pragma dans la tradition philosophique grecque, in Concepts et catégories dans la pensée antique, P. Aubenque (ed.), Paris, Vrin, 1980, 309-320. |
| [22] | Quint., Institutio oratoria, III, XI, 16, Butler. |
| [23] | We read in the Index Aristotelicus of Bonitz, entry “diaporein”: ex quaestione in utramque partem instituta explorare. The peripatetic teaching is made his own by Cicero in the Orator, XXXIII, 116. |
| [24] | Plato, Laws VI, 766e, transl. Butti de Lima with slight modification. |
| [25] | On the murder of Herodes, 86. Cf. P. Butti de Lima, Platone: esercizi di filosofia per il giovane Teeteto, Venezia, Marsilio, 2002, 140 and note 12. |
| [26] | Arist., Rhet., I 1, 12, 1355a29-33. Grimaldi [3] 29: “the true situation”. |
| [27] | E. M. Cope, An introduction to Aristotle’s rhetoric: with analysis notes and appendices, Dubuque: Brown Reprint Library, 1970, London, 1867, 146. |
| [28] | Cf. J. Brunschwig, Aristote, Topiques; texte établi et traduit par Jacques Brunschwig, vol. 1, Paris, Les belles lettres, 1967, XLI. |
| [29] | Arist., Soph. El., XI, 171b6-7, Forster-Berti, Italics added. |
| [30] | Arist., Soph. El. XV, 174b30–32, Forster. In Soph. El. XII, 172b25-28 (Pickard-Cambridge) the Philosopher explains: “A rule specially appropriate for showing up a falsity is the sophistic rule that one should draw the answerer on the kind of statements against which one is well supplied with arguments: this can be done both properly and improperly, as was said before [Top. 5, 111b32]”. |
| [31] | H. G. Gadamer, Verità e metodo, Bompiani, Milano 1983 [1960], 365. |
| [32] | Arist., Soph. El. VIII, 169b20-25, Pickard-Cambridge. |
| [33] | G. Grote, Aristotle, edited by A. Bain and G. C. Robertson, II voll., London, John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1872, 385. Italics added. |
| [34] | Arist., Soph. El. XI, 172a8ff. |
| [35] | Arist., Rhet., I 1, 1354a1: “Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic”; cf. L. D. Green, Aristotelian Rhetoric, Dialectic, and the Tradition of ντίστροφος, Rhetorica, VIII, 1990, 5-27. |
| [36] | “None of the other arts reasons in opposite directions; dialectic and rhetoric alone do this, for both are equally concerned with opposites” (Arist., Rhet. I 1, 1355a33, Kennedy); “We deliberate about things contingent and probable, wich appear to admit the possibility of opposite conclusions views and results” (E. M. Cope [27] 156, about Arist., Rhet., I 2, 1357a4; adde I 4, 1359a34ff.; amplius Eth. Nic., VI 3, 1139b18-35). |
| [37] | Arist. Rhet., II 22, 1396a33-b15. |
| [38] | Arist., Rhet., II 22, 1396a27, Cope-Jebb; in a22-23 Aristotle says: “And in like manner also, plaintiff and defendant derive their (arguments in) accusation and defence from the circumstances of the case, which they have to consider” (E. M. Cope [5] II, 227; Grimaldi, Kennedy: “relevant facts”). |
| [39] | Cicero, Top. XXI, 79, Yonge-Hubbel). The time gap between Aristotle and Cicero is filled by the Stoic school, which reduced the thirteen Aristotelian sophisms to four inconclusive arguments; cf. J. Barnes, Proof Destroyed, in M. Schofield, M. Burnyeat, J. Barnes, (Eds.), Doubt and dogmatism. Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 161-181). |
| [40] | Today's epistemological debate has come to the same result: "the conception of reality requires conceptual elements that do not necessarily correspond to elements of reality” (M. Ferrari, Categorie e a priori, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2003, 310). About Hermagoras, cf. recently F. Woerther, Hermagoras, Fragments et témoignages, Textes édités, traduits et commentés par F. Woerther, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2012. |
| [41] | The main status causae are three: the constitutio coniecturalis, concerns cases in which the crime is without the identification of the culprit and therefore we proceed by conjecture. On the other hand, if the accused does not deny having committed the fact, but affirms that the fact committed does not constitute the crime of which he is accused as rubricated, there is constitutio definitiva. Finally, when one admits the fact and its definition, but inquires whether it was committed justly or illegitimately, one is in the status qualitatis (cf. Auctor ad Herennium, I, XIV, 24). |
| [42] | Cic., de Inv., II, XVII, 52; see 4.4. [62]. |
| [43] | Cf. Cic., de Inventione, I, XIII, 18, Yonge. Quintilian repeats here Cicero: I. O., III 6, 5. |
| [44] | Cf. Auctor ad Her. I, 18; Cicero, De inv., I, 13; Top. 93. |
| [45] | Quint. I. O. III 6, 21, Butler, with a slight modification. On the value of the second part of the definition, cf. L. Calboli Montefusco, La dottrina degli status nella retorica greca e romana, Hildesheim (etc.), Olms-Weidmann, 1986, 7-8; about the latin verb “intelligere” see below 4.6. About the Hermagorean definition of status reported by the Anonymous Scoliast of Hermogenes, see below 5.4. |
| [46] | G. Curcio, Le Opere Retoriche di M. Tullio Cicerone: studio critico, Acireale, Tipografia dell’Etna, 1900, ristampa anastatica Roma, L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1972, 34, 35. |
| [47] | Admission, exclusion of responsibility, reversal of guilt and comparison between two necessary actions. The third, relatio criminis, is also a psychological mechanism studied today in particular by psychoanalysis and goes by the name of “projection” (“identification projective”, M. Klein). |
| [48] | Synonyms: greek aition atiou, latin continens defensionem, firmamentum defensionis. |
| [49] | Causa, firmamentum accusationis. |
| [50] | Id de quo iudicandum est, quaestio iudicii, and various other periphrases. In general, it should be noted that terminological variations among technographers, which are very frequent, do not invalidate but rather confirm the dialectical matrix of the methodology: see the passages listed in L. Calboli Montefusco, La dottrina del κρινόμενον, Athenaeum: studi periodici di letteratura e storia, Pavia, Mattei, 1972, 276-293. A detailed linguistic and conceptual analysis is conducted by M. Zanatta, Ermagora, testimonianze e frammenti, Milano, Unicopli 2004, 33ff. See below 5.1. |
| [51] | Rectumne fuerit sine iudicio a filio Clytemestram occidi (ad Her., I, XVI, 26) cum illa Orestis patrem occidisset? (de Inv., I, XIV, 18). Concise Quint., I. O., III, 11, 4: An oportuerit vel nocentem matrem a filio occidi; 11: an debuerit. |
| [52] | F. Cavalla, All’origine del diritto, al tramonto della legge, Napoli, Jovene, 2011, 108. |
| [53] | The remark is of M. T. Luzzatto, in private form. |
| [54] | transl. Rackham, with modifications. |
| [55] | Concursus “speciatim significat progressionem pugnantium, conflictio”: E. Forcellini, Totius latinitatis lexicon, consilio et cura Jacobi Facciolati, opera et studio Aegidii Forcellini, alumni Seminarii patavini, lucubratum, IV voll., Patavii, typis Seminarii, apud Joannem Manfrè, 1771. |
| [56] | Discepto,-as is a compound of capto,-as (iterative verb of capio) and indicates the "trying to take by discarding," "deciding to," "debating" (A. Ernout, A. Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine: histoire des mots, IV. ed., Paris, Klincksieck 2001). In Cicero, disceptatio is "synonymous with disputatio", "nothing but contentio causae" (B. Riposati, Studi sui 'Topica' di Cicerone; Milano, Vita e pensiero, 1947, 179), and is therefore synonymous with iudicatio. |
| [57] | Contentio is here conflictatio et quasi concursus. |
| [58] | K. und G. Bayer, M. Tullius Cicero, Partitiones oratoriae, Rhetorik in Frage und Antwort, Lateinisch und deutch, Herausgegeben, übersetzt und erläutert von K. und G. Bayer, Wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1994 “Cicero fuhrt anhand von Beispielen vor, wie sich das zunächst nur verschwommwn erkannte Problem in der Auseinandersetzung klärt, so dass man es auf den Punkt bringen kann: rationum et firmamentorum contentio adducit in angustam disceptationem”. |
| [59] | Cicero, Top. XXV, 95, transl Hubbel-Reinhardt, with modifications. In short, the conflictio causarum generates the status, and the progression of the contradictory generates the “decisive issue”: therefore this “descends” from the status, being posterior to it. |
| [60] | Id de quo agitur is an expression borrowed from the intentio of the Roman process by formulas, that is the ordinary judicial procedure from the 2nd century B. C. to the 3rd century A. D.: through the formula drafted in front of the praetor, the reference to the thing in dispute has the purpose of limiting the judgement of the private judge to the legal relationship or to the material thing to which the litigants wanted to refer arguing before the magistrate (cf. P. Voci, Manuale di diritto romano, Milano, Giuffrè, 1984, reprint 1998, 440, nt. 33). |
| [61] | Cf. B. Riposati [56], 31ff., 89ff. Contra S. Rubinelli (Ars Topica. The Classical Technique of Constructing Arguments from Aristotle to Cicero, Riedel, Springer 2009, 128): “From the way Cicero treats the loci, it does not appear that he was aware of the fact that Aristotle’s topoi, as presented in the Topics, focus on the subject-predicate structure of propositions”. |
| [62] | Ad Her., I XVI, 26, 25, trad. Calboli; adde Cicero, de Inv., II, 52. |
| [63] | Instead, Quintilian merely considers it an exhortative expression (III 11, 26). On the aversion of the Latin rhetorician towards philosophy cf. M. Winterbottom (introduzione a Quintiliano, La formazione dell’oratore, vol. I, a cura di S. Corsi, Milano, Rizzoli 1997, 16, 24-25). |
| [64] | Quintilian warns that it is a mistake to believe that in a case the quaestio belongs to one status and the iudicatio to another status (III 11, 15-16; cf. L. Calboli Montefusco [45], 59). Most cases are composed of several issues, and within the same status there are several defensive arguments, so it is necessary to determine which, of the several rationes, is the main one (hoc est continens, firmamentum defensionis) and therefore which is the resulting iudicatio. Cf. Cicero, Part. orat. 103. |
| [65] | Quintilian, III, 6, 6-8, Butler: “But this trivial mistake has given rise to a very serious error in the minds of those who have not understood what was meant: for on reading that the essential status was the first conflict, they immediately concluded that the status was always to be taken from the first question, which is a grave mistake. (…) 8 Of these questions it is often the most trivial which occupies the first place”. |
| [66] | Lawsuits based on multiple distinct allegations do not pose problems of hierarchy among multiple status, since they are independent and not subordinate to each other: "since they correspond to the various quaestiones provoked by the multiple allegations, they all have the same importance" (L. Calboli Montefusco, Status principales e status incidentes nella dottrina retorica antica, Athenaeum, studi periodici di letteratura e storia, LXI (1983), 534-545, Pavia, Mattei, 537, 540; Eadem [45], 56). |
| [67] | Cf. Quintilian, III, 11, 20; Cicero, de Inv, II, XXVI, 78ff. |
| [68] | Cicero, de Inventione, II, 63; cf. Calboli Montefusco [66], 539; Ead. [45], 54. In de Inv. II, 62-64 Cicero exemplifies the method of the “decisive issue” by showing how iudicatio changes as defenses change, and he takes his cue from a civil rather than criminal dispute of a hereditary nature similar to the famous causa Curiana (cf. Cic. ivi, II 122-3; de Orat., II 139-141). |
| [69] | L. Calboli Montefusco [66], 539ff.; [45], 54ff.; adapted quotation. |
| [70] | A. E. Chaignet, La rhetorique et son histoire, Frankfurt-Main, Minerva 1982, reprint of Paris, 1888, 320 and note 1. |
| [71] | On the rhetorical doctrine of intellectio see P. R. Diaz y Diaz, La posicion de la 'intellectio' en el sistema clasico, Humanitas (Coimbra), LI [1998], 61-85; with particular regard to Sulpicius Vittore see Id., 'Intellectio', 'iudicium', 'consilium' y 'officia oratoris' en el sistema retorico de Sulpicio Victor, Humanitas (Coimbra), LII [2000], 123-154. |
| [72] | Ars rhetorica 1, 2, fr. 19a Matthes; cf. L. Calboli Montefusco [45], 12-28. |
| [73] | Arist., Rhet. III, 1414a12ss., transl. P. Butti de Lima, La delimitazione della parola nei tribunali ateniesi, Rhetorica, 1997, 2, 159-176, 176, with slight modification. |
| [74] | Augustine, De rhet., 14. Cf. Riposati [56], 179. |
| [75] | M. Zanatta, Ermagora, testimonianze e frammenti, Milano, Unicopli 2004, 57. |
| [76] | In the judicial domain, the correspondence between dialectical "refutatory completeness" and rhetorical "evidentiary insistence" is certain. |
| [77] | Cf. M. Pegorari, Cicerone, de Inventione, 1.18: Iudicatio est, quae ex infirmatione et confirmatione rationis nascitur controversia, Rhetorica, 2018, Vol. XXXVI, Issue 1, 1–23. |
| [78] | M. Zanatta, Ermagora, testimonianze e frammenti, Milano, Unicopli 2004, 7-24. |
| [79] | Quint., III, 11, 1-4, fr. 18a Matthes. Cf. M. Zanatta [50], 33ff. |
| [80] | M. Zanatta, Ermagora, testimonianze e frammenti, Milano, Unicopli 2004, 40-41. |
| [81] | M. Zanatta, Ermagora, testimonianze e frammenti, Milano, Unicopli 2004, 53. |
| [82] | M. Zanatta, Ermagora, testimonianze e frammenti, Milano, Unicopli 2004, 54-61. |
| [83] | For example, "leges contrariae defines the legal quaestio (genus) that concerns the contrast, true or apparent, between two laws (specific difference), since 'it seems that two or more laws are in disagreement with each other' (fr. 20c M)": M. Zanatta, [50], 62. The four elements of the legal genus are: scriptum et sententia, leges contrariae, ambiguitas, conlectio. |
| [84] | M. Zanatta, Ermagora, testimonianze e frammenti, Milano, Unicopli 2004, 71-77. |
| [85] | M. Zanatta, Ermagora, testimonianze e frammenti, Milano, Unicopli 2004, 64; Quintilian, I. O., III, 6, 56; fr. 13b Matthes; Augustine, Rhet. 9; fr. 13c M. |
| [86] | M. Zanatta, Aristotele, Retorica e Poetica, a cura di M. Zanatta, Torino, Utet, 2006, 150 nt. 21; Arist., Rhet. I 2, 1357 a4-5, Dufour. Amplius Eth. Nic., VI 3, 1139b18-35. |
| [87] | "After the studies of G. Thiele and D. Matthes, Hermagoras is plausibly linked to Aristotelianism, with an important correction from the earlier Stoic thesis": M. T. Luzzatto, L'oratoria, la retorica e la critica letteraria dalle origini ad Ermogene, in “Da Omero agli Alessandrini, problemi e figure della letteratura greca”, a cura di Franco Montanari, Roma, La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1988, 223, 226ff. Cf. F. Woerther, La materia de la rhétorique d'après Hermagoras de Temnos, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 51, 2011, 435-460. |
| [88] | "As the Neo-Academics had done, Cicero adopts the method of discussing the pros and cons on each issue" (G. Reale, Il pensiero antico, Milano, Vita e Pensiero, 2001, 370). On the influence of the "fourth Academy", led by Philo of Larissa, on the philosophical thought of Cicero, cf. C. Brittain, Philo of Larissa, the last of the academic sceptics, Oxford University Press, 2001, 296, 328ff. |
| [89] | Incert. Auct. in Hermog. Stat., Rhet. Gr. VII 173, 9-13 Walz, Matthes 10c, transl. Zanatta [50], 106. The "antilogical implications of Hermagoras' antilambanometa" made explicit by the Anonymous are considered by M. Heath: The substructure of stasis-theory from Hermagoras to Hermogenes, Classical Quarterly, 44 (1994), 114-129 (free download at www.core.ac.uk, 4 note 9): “For this commentator stasis is not the zêtêma, but produces it (…) Rhet. Gr. VII 172, 2-4”. |
| [90] | M. T. Luzzatto, Ermagora di Temno e la “tesi”, in La cultura ellenistica. L'opera letteraria e l'esegesi antica. Atti del Convegno COFIN 2001, Università di Roma Tor Vergata, a cura di R. Pretagostini ed E. Dettori, Roma, Quasar, 2004, 245-259, 255ff. |
| [91] | M. Patillon – G. Bolognesi, Aelius Théon, Progymnasmata, Texte établi et traduit par M. Patillon avec l'assistence, pour l'Arménien, de G. Bolognesi, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, LXXXIV. |
| [92] | Incert. Auct. in Hermog. Stat., Rhet. Gr. XIV 329, 10 Rabe, 10b Matthes, transl. M. Heath: Hermogenes, On Issues, Strategies of Argument in Later Greek Rhetoric, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995, 76. |
| [93] | E. Severino, La filosofia dai Greci al nostro tempo: La filosofia antica e medioevale, Milano, Rizzoli, 1996, 37. |
APA Style
Massimiliano Pegorari. (2021). The Philosophical Antilogy in the Rhetorical Doctrine of “Decisive Issue” at Cicero. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 9(2), 48-61. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20210902.13
ACS Style
Massimiliano Pegorari. The Philosophical Antilogy in the Rhetorical Doctrine of “Decisive Issue” at Cicero. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2021, 9(2), 48-61. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20210902.13
AMA Style
Massimiliano Pegorari. The Philosophical Antilogy in the Rhetorical Doctrine of “Decisive Issue” at Cicero. Int J Lang Linguist. 2021;9(2):48-61. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20210902.13
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Download@article{10.11648/j.ijll.20210902.13,
author = {Massimiliano Pegorari},
title = {The Philosophical Antilogy in the Rhetorical Doctrine of “Decisive Issue” at Cicero},
journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
volume = {9},
number = {2},
pages = {48-61},
doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20210902.13},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20210902.13},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20210902.13},
abstract = {Placed in the ontological realism of the classical age, the rhetorical doctrine of “decisive issue” is an effort to grasp the complexity of reality and to find the true state of the case in a controversial challenge. In a dispute, at first it is necessary to qualify the genre of the case (status causae); then, only after several conflictions the point of issue emerges, and the rhetorician must choose the implicit premises (reputable opinions) and the inferential schemes (loci, topics) in the light of the particular case, that is relevant to the thing in question. A wrong tradition identifies genre of the case and “decisive issue”. Against this reductive approach, Cicero shows that the philosophical character of dialectic antilogy – i.e. the “refutatory completeness” taught by Plato and Aristotle – is necessary also in the judicial rhetoric and not only: I propose to call it “evidentiary insistence”. In the rhetorical domain, the complexity of reality emerges at the moment of identifying the object of the question: dialectical refutations not appropriate to the thing in question are fallacious by accident, according to Aristotle, and the doctrine of “decisive issue” avoids falling into sophistry in the field of civic discourse. This is one of many philosophical aspects of the Rhetoric of Hermagoras, and later of Cicero and of the Anonymous commentator on Hermogenes, rejected by Quintilian (I. O., 3.11.20; 24).},
year = {2021}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - The Philosophical Antilogy in the Rhetorical Doctrine of “Decisive Issue” at Cicero AU - Massimiliano Pegorari Y1 - 2021/04/26 PY - 2021 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20210902.13 DO - 10.11648/j.ijll.20210902.13 T2 - International Journal of Language and Linguistics JF - International Journal of Language and Linguistics JO - International Journal of Language and Linguistics SP - 48 EP - 61 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2330-0221 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20210902.13 AB - Placed in the ontological realism of the classical age, the rhetorical doctrine of “decisive issue” is an effort to grasp the complexity of reality and to find the true state of the case in a controversial challenge. In a dispute, at first it is necessary to qualify the genre of the case (status causae); then, only after several conflictions the point of issue emerges, and the rhetorician must choose the implicit premises (reputable opinions) and the inferential schemes (loci, topics) in the light of the particular case, that is relevant to the thing in question. A wrong tradition identifies genre of the case and “decisive issue”. Against this reductive approach, Cicero shows that the philosophical character of dialectic antilogy – i.e. the “refutatory completeness” taught by Plato and Aristotle – is necessary also in the judicial rhetoric and not only: I propose to call it “evidentiary insistence”. In the rhetorical domain, the complexity of reality emerges at the moment of identifying the object of the question: dialectical refutations not appropriate to the thing in question are fallacious by accident, according to Aristotle, and the doctrine of “decisive issue” avoids falling into sophistry in the field of civic discourse. This is one of many philosophical aspects of the Rhetoric of Hermagoras, and later of Cicero and of the Anonymous commentator on Hermogenes, rejected by Quintilian (I. O., 3.11.20; 24). VL - 9 IS - 2 ER -
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