Aristotle’s Theory of Dialectical Argumentation.
Estimated date of completion: August 2021
Aristotle’s notion and theory of dialectic has been at the center of exegetical interest and controversy for about half a century, but the core texts of this theory – the Topics, and in particular the core books of this text (Top. Β–H) – have remained shrouded in relative obscurity. Most of the literature on Aristotle’s dialectic concerns comments made about the status of dialectic in Top. A and Top. Θ. Most of the monograph publications to treat the technical and difficult core books of the Topicsare in a foreign language and (understandably) are themselves not seldom technical and difficult. The aim of this project is to present an interpretation of the Topicsas a whole which is accessible to a wide readership in philosophy and Classics, philosophically enlightening, and thoroughly informed by scholarship on the Topics, philosophy of logic, and the theory of argumentation.
The main exegetic thesis of the monograph is that Aristotle’s theory of dialectic is a theory of argumentation. As such, it is a theory based on certain observations of behavior in the practice of dialectic. This is important, for we can use the theory to extract some information about ancient practices of argumentation, indeed more than has been done previously. In the first Chapter of the book I examine Aristotle’s description of dialectical practices in Top. Θ and argue that, contrary to interpretive consensus since antiquity, Aristotle in fact identifies different practices with different rules for the acceptance of premisses. Distinguishing different norms of premiss acceptance for different types of dialectical procedure leads to a fundamental revision of our view of dialectic as “deduction from endoxa”, and also to a new conception of how the notion of endoxais to be understood: namely as a pragmatic norm for the guidance of premiss-acceptance behavior which can be adapted to varying settings of (rational) premiss acceptance. In Chapter 2, I interpret Aristotle’s normative background assumptions in extending the theory of dialectical argumentation to practices which he actually deniesare instances of dialectic: eristic and sophistical argumentation. The purpose of this chapter is to show how the theory integrates empirical observations about the use of language to generate pragmatic norms for language use and non-formal deductive argumentation. In Chapter 3 the adaptation of the theory of dialectical argumentation for the analysis of rhetorical argumentation in the Rhetoricis presented. Finally, in Chapter 4 of Part 1 I compare the role of deduction in the theory of dialectical argumentation to the concept of deduction as it features in the Analytics.
In Part 2 of the book I give a comprehensive and complete introduction to the linguistic and logical system of the core books of the Topics, which was intended as an aid in the preparation for actual argumentation. My aim in this part of the book is not only to explicate this system, but to show how it could be so used. I also comment on the metalogical background assumptions at work in the collection of over 200 inference rules and their respective contexts, the topoi.
The last part of the book covers the most fraught and contested question relating to Aristotle’s dialectic, the question of its use in Aristotle’s works. I begin with a clarification of the short but important chapter in which Aristotle’s states how the Topicsthemselves may be used (Top. A 2). This is followed by the discussion of a prominent alleged case for those who would construe Aristotle’s method as dialectical, De animaBook 1. I argue that while Aristotle exploits many resources of the theory of dialectical argumentation, he does not consider dialectic appropriate as an approach to scientific questions, and certainly does not rely on a dialectical “methodology”. The final chapter of the book gives an interpretation of the role of dialectic and the theory of dialectic in the history of ancient Greek philosophy, with a particular view to the question of how philosophy reacted both to the development of new argumentative practices and to new theories about such practices.
Table of contents
Part 1: The scope of the theory of dialectical argumentation
Chapter 1: Endoxa and varieties of dialectical argumentation (Top. Θ & Top. A 1, A 3)
Chapter 2: Demarcating dialectical, eristic and sophistical argumentation (SE & Top. A 1)
Chapter 3: The theory of dialectical argumentation in the Rhetoric (Rhet. A)
Chapter 4: Pragmatic and epistemic approaches to deduction (An. Post. vs. Topics)
Part 2: Logic and theory of language in the theory of dialectical argumentation
Chapter 5: Categories, predicables, homonymy: the linguistic theory of the Topics
Chapter 6: Inference rules for the property and the genus (Top. Β–Δ)
Chapter 7: Inference rules for the proprium and the definition (Top. Ε–H)
Part 3: Uses of the theory of dialectical argumentation
Chapter 8: Aristotle on the use of the theory of dialectical argumentation (Top. A 2)
Chapter 9: Δόξαι and the tools of dialectic in De an. A 1–3 (De an. A 1–3)
Chapter 10: Dialectic and development
Estimated date of completion: August 2020
Aristotle’s notion and theory of dialectic has been at the center of exegetical interest and controversy for about half a century, but the core texts of this theory – the Topics, and in particular the core books of this text (Top. Β–H) – have remained shrouded in relative obscurity. Most of the literature on Aristotle’s dialectic concerns comments made about the status of dialectic in Top. A and Top. Θ. Most of the monograph publications to treat the technical and difficult core books of the Topicsare in a foreign language and (understandably) are themselves not seldom technical and difficult. The aim of this project is to present an interpretation of the Topicsas a whole which is accessible to a wide readership in philosophy and Classics, philosophically enlightening, and thoroughly informed by scholarship on the Topics, philosophy of logic, and the theory of argumentation.
The main exegetic thesis of the monograph is that Aristotle’s theory of dialectic is a theory of argumentation. As such, it is a theory based on certain observations of behavior in the practice of dialectic. This is important, for we can use the theory to extract some information about ancient practices of argumentation, indeed more than has been done previously. In the first Chapter of the book I examine Aristotle’s description of dialectical practices in Top. Θ and argue that, contrary to interpretive consensus since antiquity, Aristotle in fact identifies different practices with different rules for the acceptance of premisses. Distinguishing different norms of premiss acceptance for different types of dialectical procedure leads to a fundamental revision of our view of dialectic as “deduction from endoxa”, and also to a new conception of how the notion of endoxais to be understood: namely as a pragmatic norm for the guidance of premiss-acceptance behavior which can be adapted to varying settings of (rational) premiss acceptance. In Chapter 2, I interpret Aristotle’s normative background assumptions in extending the theory of dialectical argumentation to practices which he actually deniesare instances of dialectic: eristic and sophistical argumentation. The purpose of this chapter is to show how the theory integrates empirical observations about the use of language to generate pragmatic norms for language use and non-formal deductive argumentation. In Chapter 3 the adaptation of the theory of dialectical argumentation for the analysis of rhetorical argumentation in the Rhetoricis presented. Finally, in Chapter 4 of Part 1 I compare the role of deduction in the theory of dialectical argumentation to the concept of deduction as it features in the Analytics.
In Part 2 of the book I give a comprehensive and complete introduction to the linguistic and logical system of the core books of the Topics, which was intended as an aid in the preparation for actual argumentation. My aim in this part of the book is not only to explicate this system, but to show how it could be so used. I also comment on the metalogical background assumptions at work in the collection of over 200 inference rules and their respective contexts, the topoi.
The last part of the book covers the most fraught and contested question relating to Aristotle’s dialectic, the question of its use in Aristotle’s works. I begin with a clarification of the short but important chapter in which Aristotle’s states how the Topicsthemselves may be used (Top. A 2). This is followed by the discussion of a prominent alleged case for those who would construe Aristotle’s method as dialectical, De animaBook 1. I argue that while Aristotle exploits many resources of the theory of dialectical argumentation, he does not consider dialectic appropriate as an approach to scientific questions, and certainly does not rely on a dialectical “methodology”. The final chapter of the book gives an interpretation of the role of dialectic and the theory of dialectic in the history of ancient Greek philosophy, with a particular view to the question of how philosophy reacted both to the development of new argumentative practices and to new theories about such practices.
Table of contents
Part 1: The scope of the theory of dialectical argumentation
Chapter 1: Endoxa and varieties of dialectical argumentation (Top. Θ & Top. A 1, A 3)
Chapter 2: Demarcating dialectical, eristic and sophistical argumentation (SE & Top. A 1)
Chapter 3: The theory of dialectical argumentation in the Rhetoric (Rhet. A)
Chapter 4: Pragmatic and epistemic approaches to deduction (An. Post. vs. Topics)
Part 2: Logic and theory of language in the theory of dialectical argumentation
Chapter 5: Categories, predicables, homonymy: the linguistic theory of the Topics
Chapter 6: Inference rules for the property and the genus (Top. Β–Δ)
Chapter 7: Inference rules for the proprium and the definition (Top. Ε–H)
Part 3: Uses of the theory of dialectical argumentation
Chapter 8: Aristotle on the use of the theory of dialectical argumentation (Top. A 2)
Chapter 9: Δόξαι and the tools of dialectic in De an. A 1–3 (De an. A 1–3)
Chapter 10: Dialectic and development
Estimated date of completion: August 2020
