Recent insights into the limits of traditional logic have confirmed that Aristotle was correct when, in distinguishing between the logical syllogism and the rhetorical enthymeme, he implied that in any field of argument outside the pure mathematical sciences there are no certain starting points and no final conclusions and, accordingly, the more useful model would be public speech and discussion, not inference and deduction. In examining the texts of the ancient masters of rhetoric, Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, this course takes up their reflections on the nature of effective argument forensic, epideictic, and deliberative and thereby attempts to lay bare the foundations of contemporary rhetorical theories.
