Plato's Reasons: Logician, Rhetorician, Dialectician

Christopher W. Tindale

Dec 2023 · State University of New York Press

About this ebook

This book explores Plato's implicit understanding of argumentation by reviewing his standing as a logician, rhetorician, and dialectician. The question of his "standing" on these matters is approached on his terms (gleaned from the dialogues) rather than simply from the judgments of commentators. Traditionally, arguments are distinguished as logical, rhetorical, or dialectical, and the source of these distinctions is taken to be Aristotle. This book proceeds on the assumption that Aristotle's tripartite theory of argumentation did not arise in a vacuum and explores the different degrees to which substantive antecedents of parts of that model can be traced to Plato.

About the author

Christopher W. Tindale is Director of the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation, and Rhetoric at the University of Windsor in Canada. He is the author of How We Argue: 30 Lessons in Persuasive Communication and The Anthropology of Argument: Cultural Foundations of Rhetoric and Reason, among other books.