Rhetorica: The Topoi, I. Definition
In this topos, we are dealing not just with “how to use a dictionary” but with “how to link two minds in the realm of being.”
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philosophy
Rhetorica: The Common Topoi
As rhetoric is a complement to dialectic, so the topos is a complement to the syllogism. (Thrilled yet?)
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Rhetorica: Of Bacon; or, The Scientific Method
Not all science is equally rigorously conducted; if you are testing a hypothesis, you are doing science—it might just not be very thorough.
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Rhetorica: The Arrest of the Mad Hatter
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?
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Texts in Context: The Queen of the Sciences
“What great advantages would philosophy give us over other men, if by studying it we could learn to govern our passions?” — Peter Abelard
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Rhetorica: Of the Same Clay
What is essential to argument is not that both sides prove everything they say, but only that they begin from premises both parties accept.
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Texts in Context: The Real Renaissance
If there is an era that truly deserves to be hailed as possessing a new energy of civilization-spanning rebirth, it is the beginning of the High Middle Ages.
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Rhetorica: The Discipline of Largesse
The fourth moral principle underlying rhetoric, and the first that demands a social context, is the rule of magnanimity; so what’s that?
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Texts in Context: The Great Estrangement
The Early Middle Ages faintly, but insistently, filed away at the integrity of Christendom; as they drew to a close, it gave way with a snap.
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Texts in Context: Islamic Civilization in the Early Middle Ages
What became of the Muslim invaders Charles Martel trounced? What were they up to in the 10th century? Nothing; just throwing a golden age.
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