Dialectic and rhetoric
idea · 2 works · 2 mentions · 3 anchored passages
dialectic · dialectic and rhetoric · logic · rhetoric · the closed fist · the open palm · the rational part
in the texts
On Moral Ends
Two modes of philosophical speech, one compressed and rigorous (dialectic), one expansive (rhetoric)
'that the whole faculty of speech (as Aristotle had said before) is divided into two parts, and that rhetoric is like the open palm, dialectic like the closed fist, because the rhetoricians speak more broadly, the dialecticians more compressed.
But while Epicurus despises dialectic, Torquatus — which alone contains both the whole knowledge of perceiving what is in each thing, and of judging of what kind each thing is, and of arguing by method and rule — he stumbles in speaking, as it seems to me at least, and distinguishes by no art the very things he wishes to teach, such as these very matters of which we were just now speaking.
Letters to Lucilius
The branch of philosophy concerned with logic, language, and argument
The greatest and most numerous authorities have said that there are three parts of philosophy:
It remains for me to divide the rational part of philosophy.