Rhetorica: The Common Topoi
As rhetoric is a complement to dialectic, so the topos is a complement to the syllogism. (Thrilled yet?)
Rhetorica: The Common Topoi Read More »
As rhetoric is a complement to dialectic, so the topos is a complement to the syllogism. (Thrilled yet?)
Rhetorica: The Common Topoi Read More »
Though the topic is complex, the lesson is simple: To understand statistics, we should first learn how to.
Rhetorica: The Fourth Ditch of Fraud Read More »
The sophisticated, prosperous world of the High Middle Ages was brought down almost singlehandedly by one of the smallest things in existence.
Texts in Context: Behold, a Pale Horse Read More »
Not all science is equally rigorously conducted; if you are testing a hypothesis, you are doing science—it might just not be very thorough.
Rhetorica: Of Bacon; or, The Scientific Method Read More »
Like every other time, the High Middle Ages were doomed to pass; but as they did, a certain kind of civilizational innocence seems to have gone with them.
Texts in Context: O Rose Thou Art Sick Read More »
Learning to think rationally can be counterintuitive; at times, one almost feels like Alice astray in Wonderland. Are there no limits to the strangeness of the world?
Rhetorica: The Arrest of the Mad Hatter Read More »
The thirteenth century was the high noon of Christendom; which also means it is when its light began to decline.
Texts in Context: The Chalice and the Sword Read More »
On the rhetorical appeal known as pathos; or, a practical manual for manipulating people’s emotions.
Rhetorica: Won’t Someone Please Think of the Pathetic?—Part II Read More »
Both the origin and the ultimate development of courtly love are to be found in far stranger places than we might predict.
Texts in Context: The Secret of the Rose—Part II Read More »
What, if anything, differentiates the rhetorician’s legitimate “appeal to emotion” from the sophist’s fallacies?
Rhetorica: Won’t Someone Please Think of the Pathetic?—Part I Read More »