Abstract

The double purpose of these essays is to examine the rhetoric and dialectic of Plato and Aristotle in sufficient depth to add to knowledge of the history of rhetoric and to bring that knowledge into current discussions in the discipline of composition. The first essay traces Plato's dialectic from its beginnings through the Sophist, focusing on dialectic as the pursuit of truth in discourse, and on the rhetorical element embedded in dialectic, the contextual study of language. The second essay discusses the ways in which Aristotle changed and developed dialectical reasoning in the Topics, and the third is a reading of Aristotle's Rhetoric, emphasizing principles tacitly at work in Plato's dialogues and reasoning and style. The three chapters draw attention to concerns that are persistent in all of these texts: dialectic always involves exploring and clarifying terms and concepts; the dialectician knows that concepts are only understandable in relation to one another and that the syntax of language makes it possible to explain those relations. Dialectic is concerned, too, with conceptual hierarchies or levels of abstraction, and recognizes predication as the organizing force in discourse. Dialectic and rhetoric are always tied to particular subjects, audiences and contexts, and have as their subject matter human, contingent issues. The rhetorician is concerned with the relations among terms in statements and also with the ethos, pathos and style of those statements. These principles have counterparts in contemporary rhetorical theory, and all of them have implications for the pedagogy of composition. The last essay looks at issues common to ancient and modern rhetoric, and outlines a course in composing that integrates Aristotelian and modern principles. The course is based on inquiry and exploration, as dialectic was, and also uses James Britton's theory of expressive discourse, and guidelines for assignments as they have been developed by the school of Theodore Baird. Students explore new and familiar concepts in writing, using Aristotle's topics and patterns of inference and style