March 1987
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279 Reads
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53 Citations
Argumentation
This essay traces the historical relationship between technical and rhetorical logics, and explores how the concept of narrative rationality - the logic that attends the narrative paradigm - grows out of and moves beyond prior logics. Argumentation is the theme in the rhetorical tradition that ties rhetoric to logic. That tie, perhaps needless to say, has not been mutual or always productive. My purpose in this essay is to trace this relationship for itself and then to explore how the concept of narrative rationality - the logic that attends the narrative paradigm - grows out of and moves beyond prior logics.' The history of logic is marked by two broad orientations, technical and rhetorical. As "inventor" of logic, Aristotle is "father" to both orientations. The foundation of technical logic is presented in his Categories, On Interpretation, and the 'Prior and Posterior Analytics. The ideas that inform rhetorical logic are contained in his Topics, On Sophistical Refutations, and the Rhetoric. Central to both logics is argument, which Aristotle conceived as a demonstration based on the model of geometry. The classic form of argument for Aristotle was the syllogism: "discourse in which, certain things being stated, something other than what is stated follows of necessity from their being so." 2 Such is the form of this discourse: All men are animals, All animals are mortal, All men are mortal. The geometric expression would be: A = B, C = A, C = B. What is most significant here is that the rules by which analytic syllogisms are judged to be valid, that is, follow necessarily from their premises, are formal. Validity is tested without regard to the characteristics of the entities referred to in the premises. The rules concern the distribution of terms, whether the premises are general or particular, and whether the premises are affirmative or negative. For analytic syllogisms to yield true as well as valid conclusions, their premises must be true. In Aristotle's