The Legacy of Aristotelian Enthymeme: Proof and Belief in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

by Fosca Mariani Zini (Editor), Marco Sgarbi (Editor)

Overview

The Legacy of Aristotelian Enthymeme provides a historical-logical analysis of Aristotle's rhetorical syllogism, the enthymeme, through its Medieval and Renaissance interpretations. Bringing together notions of credibility and proof, an international team of scholars highlight the fierce debates around this form of argumentation during two key periods for Aristotle's beliefs.

Reflecting on medieval and humanist thinkers, philosophers, poets and theologians, this volume joins up dialectical and rhetorical argumentation as key to the enthymeme's interpretation and shows how the enthymeme was the source of a major interpretive conflict. As a method for achieving the standards for proof and credibility that persist across diverse fields of study today including the law, politics, medicine and morality, this book takes in Latin and Persian interpretations of the enthymeme and casts contemporary argumentation in a new historical light.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350248847
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/26/2024
Series:	Bloomsbury Studies in the Aristotelian Tradition
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.49(d)

About the Author

Fosca Mariani Zini is Professor of Medieval Philosophy at University of Tours, France.

Marco Sgarbi is Professor of the History of Philosophy at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables
Notes on Contributors

Introduction: The Theory of Enthymeme: Between Defective and Ampliative Inference, Fosca Mariani Zini (University of Tours, France)

1. The Theories of the Enthymeme Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (325-880 Ca.), Renato De Filippis (University of Salerno, Italy)
2. Enthymemes in Al-Farabi's and Avicenna's Systems, Saloua Chatti (Tunis University, Tunisia)
3. Argumentum, Locus, and Enthymeme: Abaelard's Transformation of the Topics into a Theory of Enthymematic Inference, Chris Martin (University Auckland, New Zealand)
4. The Logic of Enthymemes as (Incomplete) Syllogisms: 13th-Century Theories and Practices, Julie Brumberg (University of Paris, France)
5. Inference and Enthymeme in William Ockham, Paola Muller (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Italy)
6. Enthymematic Inferences in John Buridan, Barbara Bertocci (University of St Andrews, UK)
7. The Enthymeme from Signs and the Study of Nature in the Renaissance, Marco Sgarbi (Ca' Foscari University, Italy)
8. “The Lion' Fault”: The Enthymematic Foundation of Signatures, Marie-Luce Demonet (University of Tours, France)

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

This is a book on the history of the problem of how we demonstrate by means of enthymemes. It gives a consistent account of what has happened in the twelve centuries that separate Boethius from Ramus, and it contributes to our understanding of the connection between logic and rhetoric. It revives the tradition of Ciceronianism, of which Fosca Mariani Zini is a renowned authority.” —Riccardo Pozzo, Professor of the History of Philosophy, Tor Vergata University of Rome, Italy

From the Publisher