THE ORIGIN AS RHETORICAL ARGUMENTATION

In 1828, the Oxford don Richard Whately, having in his Elements of Logic (1826) defined argument as the connection between a claim and its support, proposed in its newly published counterpart, Elements of Rhetoric, to

The idea that rhetoric is situated argumentation - argumentation giving reasons why a specific audience should come to the speaker’s side of a disputed issue or controversial topic - is old. Aristotle took this line when he defined rhetoric as the “ability to discover the available means of persuasion in each particular case” (Rhetoric I.2.1355b27-8). The idea still has champions (Toulmin 2003). This argument-centered conception of rhetoric contrasts sharply with the equally ancient view that the specific task of a rhetor is not to find or set out an argument but skillfully to deck one out with whatever ornaments of speech might induce a presumably less-than-rational audience to be affected, even infected, by it. Scientists and philosophers assume just such a conception when they hold that logically valid, context-free, undecorated arguments are the only sort that count. Whately’s view also contrasts, however, albeit less severely, with a third conception of rhetoric.