Cicero’s Topica and the Establishment of the Topical Tradition by Boethius

Abstract

If Aristotle is the founder of the topical tradition, Cicero and Boethius—the two authors considered in this chapter—are the pillars on which this tradition is established to last. Cicero’s Topica provides a previously unavailable univocal definition of locus, and introduces the concept of argument as well as a criterion for classifying loci, which will be applied more consistently by the authors that follow. However, the Latin author who remained a landmark throughout the following centuries, throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, is Boethius. His systematic and explicit distinction between locus maxima as the source of inference and locus differentiae maximae as the many inferential rules that can be derived from a locus, give a fresh and theoretically sound basis for a better understanding of inference in argumentation. Boethius also proposes a convincing typology of loci, based on his synthetic reinterpretation and merger of the typologies by Cicero and by a Greek scholar named Themistius.