The Oldest Extant Rhetorical Contribution to the Study of Fallacies (Cicero On invention, 1.78–96, and Rhetoric to Herennius, 2.31–46: Reducible to Hermagoras?)

Abstract

The revival of the study of fallacies since Hamblin's modern classic Fallacies (1970) has signified a renewed interest in the history of this field. If we consider Aristotle the founding father, then three classical disciplines may be said to rep resent the origin of the study of fallacies: logic, dialectic, and rhetoric. Aristotle included in his logical, dialectical, and rhetorical writings a version of his list of fallacies: Prior Analytics 2, 16-21, Sophistical Refutations, and Rhetoric 2.24. With respect to the three classical disciplines, modern fallacy theorists display a greater interest in logic and dialectic. This holds true for both historical research and modern theoretical development, which is clearly more logically and/or dialectically oriented (for example, Hamblin himself, Woods and Walton, and Van Eemeren and Grootendorst: overview in Van Eemeren 2001). This predilection for logic and dialectic is understandable, since rhetoric focuses only in part on argumentation and is basically a popular discipline. In another respect, however, rhetoric would appear to be quite appropriate for the study of fallacies (and for the study of argumentation in general). In logic, where everything centers on the formal relation between premises and conclu sion, many aspects of the argumentative situation are disregarded. While in the dialectical approach this is not as apparent, in this case we are still dealing with more or less artificial situations, debate contests without real social relevance. Only the rhetorical approach concentrates on normal argumentation in important social settings. Even if one cannot expect profound learning, rhetoric has the advantage that where argumentation is concerned, it does not tend to abstract a great number of factors. Two major considerations call for the rhetorical approach. First, assuming that further research into this subject will produce sufficiently interesting results,