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DUX ILL A DIRECTRIXQUE ARTIUM:RUDOLPH AGRICOLA'S DIALECTICAL SYSTEM

James Richard McNally

RENAISSANCE scholars have longbeen aware of the importance of

the Dutch humanist Rudolph Agricola1

and of his major work, De inventionedialectica libri tres.2 Thirty years agoW. G. Crane called the Invention "oneof the two most important works onlogic written in the sixteenth century."3

Ten years later T. W. Baldwin con-cluded that "in the English traditionfor rhetorical authority in Latin . . .of the moderns Rudolphus Agricola forrhetorical logic and Erasmus' Copia arethe favorites, especially in the first halfof the [sixteenth] century."4 More re-cently, Wilbur S. Howell described thework as "enormously popular,"5 andWalter J. Ong asserted that "it is diffi-cult to exaggerate" the importance ofAgricola, whom he calls "the logicianof the new age."6 Agricola's influencehas been discerned in Vives, Elyot,Melanchthon, Wilson, Ramus, and

Mr. McNally is an Assistant Professor of Speechat the University of Wisconsin.

1 1443-1485. For biographical information seein. 9 and James R. McNally, "An Appraisal ofRudolph Agricola's De Inventione DialecticaLibri Tres as a Philosophy of Artistic Discourse"Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Iowa (1966),pp. 1-47.

2 (Argentinae: Ioannes Knoblochus, 1521).Many editions.

3 W. G. Crane, Wit and Rhetoric in the Ren-aissance (Gloucester, Mass., 1964), p. 51. Firstappeared (1937) as "Columbia University Studiesin English and Comparative Literature No.129." The Invention was, in fact, written in thefifteenth century.

4 T. W. Baldwin, William Shakespeare'sSmall Latine and Lesse Greeke (Urbana, 1944),II, 62.

5 W. S. Howell, Logic and Rhetoric in Eng-land, 1500-1700 (New York, 1961), p. 49.

6 W. J. Ong, S.J., Ramus, Method, and theDecay of Dialogue (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), p.93.

others,7 and investigations have revealedover fifty editions of the Invention dur-ing the years 1515-1560.8

In view of such indications of Agric-ola's influence upon Renaissance logicand rhetoric, the obscurity surroundingthe man and his work comes as a sur-prise. The subject of an occasional Fest-schrift, baccalaureate essay, or scholarlyarticle, Agricola has not been complete-ly ignored; but the few studies whichhave appeared tend to establish ratherthan to explain his important place inRenaissance culture.9 This study at-tempts to provide a part of the explana-tion by presenting an account of Agric-ola's dialectical system. The examina-tion of Agricola's theory of places, ofinventive method, and of persuasion,pleasure, and arrangement will, it is

7 See the works of Baldwin and Howell, aswell as such other standard sources for theperiod as those by Miriam Joseph, HardinCraig, W. G. Crane, and W. J. Ong.

8 W. J. Ong, S.J., "Agricola Check-List," inRamus and Talon Inventory (Cambridge, Mass.,1958), pp. 534-558.

9 The principal modern studies of Agricolaare the following: K. Hartfelder, "UnedierteBriefe von Rudolf Agricola," Festschrift derBadischen Gymnasien, gewidmet der Univer-sität Heidelberg (Karlsruhe, 1886); P. S. Allen,"The Letters of Rudolph Agricola," EnglishHistorical Revue, XXI (1906), 302-317; H. E.Van der Velden, Rodolphus Agricola (Leiden,1911); A. Faust, "Die Dialektik R. Agricolas,"Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, XXXIV(1922), 118-135; C. Vasoli, "Dialettica e retoricain Rodolfo Agricola," Academia toscana discienza e lettere XXII (1957), 305-355. A chapteris devoted to Agricola in W. H. Woodward,Studies in Education during the Age of the Ren-aissance (Cambridge, 1924) and in Fr. Ong'sRamus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue. Amaster's thesis by R. W. B. Lewis (Univ. ofChicago, 1941) explores the relations betweenAgricolan dialectic, Roman rhetoric, and Ar-istotelian logic.

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hoped, explain both what Agricolandialectic was and why it enjoyed suchextended and widespread popularity.

BOOK I:AGRICOLA'S PLACE-THEORY

In the opening chapters of Book I,where he is engaged in defending theutility of dialectical "places," Agricolaclaims a new, wider scope for his reviseddialectic. His opening sentence assertsthat language has but one essentialfunction, that of teaching:All discourse whatsoever, regardless of its sub-ject matter, and furthermore every form ofspeech by which we set forth the thoughts ofour minds, seems to look to and to have as itsfirst and proper purpose the teaching of some-thing to him who hears.io

Agricola, it will be noted, starts fromlanguage as such, rather than from anyspecialized function of language, in con-structing his dialectical system. But hisassertion that language is necessarilyand always used to teach places him inopposition to Cicero's less rigid analysisof the functions of language, that itmay be used to instruct, persuade, orplease.11 Agricola replies that persua-sion and pleasure are accidental char-acteristics of language, whereas instruc-tion is a true property: for "languagecan teach without moving or pleasing,but it cannot move or please withoutteaching."12

Upon the foundation of this essential-ly paideutic analysis of language Agric-ola argues for a new, broader interpre-tation of the loci or "places." Describinginstruction as a movement from theknown to the unknown and equating"the known" with places, Agricola firstargues that a system of places is de-manded by the very nature of language:Because belief cannot of itself be built uponanything dubious . . . they seem to have done

10 Rodolphi Agricolae . . . De inventione di-alectica libri tres (Argentinae, 1521), i. 1.

11 Cicero, De Oratore, ii. 27.12 De Inv., i. 1.

a very useful thing who have thought up cer-tain 'seats of arguments' which they call places,by whose instruction, as if by signs of somesort [velut signis quibusdam], we surroundthe mind with the things themselves and there-by perceive what is in each thing both prob-able and suited to the purpose of our dis-course.13

Next, realizing that his descriptionof places as "signs of some sort" is in-sufficient, Agricola provides an explana-tion of the epistemological basis and thelogical function of places, as well as aformal definition of the term. Epistemo-logically the place hovers close to, if itdoes not actually appropriate, the cus-tomary meanings of concepts or es-sences:It will not have escaped him who considers whatI have said on the subject that . . . everythingwhich is said for or against each subject co-alesces and is, so to speak, united in a naturalassociation. For things are immense in number,and equally immense are their properties anddifferences. . . . But there is in all things . . . acertain common quality [communis quaedamhabitudo}, and they all incline to a naturalsimilarity.14

The epistemological basis of thelocus, therefore, is very like that of theconcept or "inner word" of realistepistemology. This similarity is rein-forced by Agricola's account of the logi-cal function served by the places withindiscourse. Teaching (and therefore lan-guage), Agricola thinks, is essentiallysyllogistic; and the places serve in dis-course as the middle terms of syllogisticinference:You wish to know whether two things arecompatible or not. If they are such that . . .they cannot be directly compared . . . it isnecessary that we find some third thing whichwe are sure is compatible with one of them. . . .This third thing is sometimes called the 'mid-dle' of an argument, since it serves to unite thetwo prepositional 'extremes.'l5

A brave new science indeed is en-

13 Ibid.14 Ibid., i. 2.15 Ibid.

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visioned by Agricola as he writes thecharter of the new dialectic! Dialecticis made co-extensive with language it-self, and the places of dialectic areequated with the concepts and middleterms of systematic reasoning. Agricolaseems not to realize, here or elsewhere,16

the implications of his new synthesis:by extending the scope of dialectic toinclude all reasoned discourse and byexalting the places of dialectic to thelevel of concepts and middle terms hemakes of dialectic a philosophy uncon-cerned with truth and a logic indifferentto validity. For both the referential andthe syntactic aspects of language are sub-ordinated in Agricola's system to a rhe-torical end—instruction or belief. Ob-livious of such implications, Agricolaproduces his formal definition of theplace:

A place therefore is nothing else but a certaincommon characteristic of a thing \communisquaedam ret nota~\, by observing which all thatis probable about a given thing can be dis-covered. Let then a place be so defined by

The epistemological and logical over-tones of this definition are considerable,and they echo through the subsequentchapters of Book I (where the twenty-four members of Agricola's list18 aredefined, illustrated, and finally com-pared with similar lists from antiquity).Analyzing Agricola's definition, welearn that the place is a "characteristic"

16 See for instance the discussion of the natureand structure o£ dialectic, infra.

17 De Inv., i. 2.18 Agricola's briefest enumeration of the places

is as follows: This then is our catalog of theplaces. Of the internal places, those within thesubstance are DEFINITION, GENUS, SPECIES,PROPERTY, WHOLE, PART, and CONJU-GATES. Those outside the substance are AD-JACENTS, ACTS, and SUBJECTS. Of the ex-ternal places, there are those called "cognates"—AGENT, ENDS, EFFECTS, INTENTIONS—those called "circumstances"—PLACE, TIME,POSSESSIONS—those called "accidents"—CON-TINGENCIES, PRONOUNCEMENTS, NAMECOMPARISONS. LIKENESSES—and thosecalled "repugnancies"—THINGS OPPOSITEand THINGS DIFFERENT. (De Inv., i. 4.)

—other translations being a "mark,""distinguishing feature," "brand,""stamp," or "sign"; that it is in or ofthe thing; that it is common to or sharedby many individuals of the same class;and that by means of it all that is"probable" about a given thing—i.e.,useful in reasoned discourse—can bediscovered. The place, in short, is forAgricola the meeting point of logic,philosophy, science, and rhetoric, bythe exploitation of which a new accountof language can be developed.

By claiming so extensive a domainfor the places of dialectic Agricolamakes a distinct break with tradition.Aristotle, the first to record a treatiseon dialectic, apparently did not con-sider his topika as places at all. Rather,as Faust has pointed out, the Aristoteliandialectical topics were infra-philosophi-cal "aspects" or "viewpoints" [Aus-sichte] and were intended to serve amainly pedagogical function—that ofsystematizing "intellectual training,casual encounters, and [the discussionof indemonstrable first principles in]the philosophical sciences."19 Ryle's de-scription of Greek dialectic explainsAristotle's intention:What, then, is this exercise of dialectic, forwhich the Topics is a training manual? Thereis a special pattern of disputation, governed bystrict rules, which takes the following shape.Two persons 'agree to have a battle.' One isto be questioner, the other answerer. The ques-tioner can only ask questions; and the answerercan, with certain qualifications, answer only'yes' or 'no.' The answerer begins by undertak-ing to uphold a certain 'thesis,' e.g. that justiceis the interest of the stronger, or that knowledgeis sense-perception. The questioner has to tryto extract from the answerer, by a series ofquestions, an answer or conjunction of answersinconsistent with the original thesis, i.e. drivehim into an 'elenchus.' The questioner has wonthe duel if he succeeds in getting the answererto contradict his original thesis, or else in forc-

19 Aristotle Topica, 101a 25. See Faust, "DieDialektik," p. 120.

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ing him to resign, or in reducing him to silence,to an infinite regress, to mere almsivencss, topointless yammering, or to outrageous paradox.The answerer has won it he succeeds in keepinghis wicket up until the close of play.20

That is to say, Aristotle's dialectical"places" were a primitive and hetero-geneous set of transformation rules21—a series of aspects or viewpoints partlylinguistic, partly logical, partly philo-sophical or scientific, from which onemight elicit a self-contradiction in one'sadversary, after the manner of Socratesin the Platonic dialogues.

For the Romans and scholastics thetopica or loci were, in the words ofCicero and Peter of Spain quoted byAgricola, sedes argumentorum—seats orplaces where arguments might be found.Their function, therefore, had switchedfrom serving as a means of elenchus toproviding the copia or "stuff" whereofdiscourse is fashioned. And they arejustified, no longer on pedagogicalgrounds, but "artistically" as a method"for inventing arguments so that wemight come upon them by a rationalsystem without wandering."22 Theorator's concern with amplification,rather than the disputant's penchantfor consistency, furnishes the dynamicfor this sort of place-theorizing.

Against the Greek and Roman back-ground, what Agricola is advocating be-comes more clear. Agricola's places areneither transformation rules nor con-veniently grouped sources for oratori-cal composition. Instead, they are gen-eric notions, derived and described ina manner approximating that used byAristotle for classifying being and predi-cation, but calculated to serve, not the

20 G. Ryle, "Dialectic in the Academy," in R.Bambrough ed., New Essays on Plato and Ar-istotle (London, 1965), p . 40.

21 Transformation rules are principles gov-erning the creation of equivalent expression.See J. Brennan, A Handbook of Logic (NewYork, 1961), pp. 130-132.

22 Cicero, Topica, i. 2.

metaphysician and logical analyst, butthe composer and critic of discourse.Actually, as Prantl has observed,23 Agric-ola's exaltation of the places was re-actionary: it reverted to the pre-scien-tific foundations of logic and thesophistic attempt to devise a universalscience of discourse which would enableits practitioners to speak persuasively oneither side of any issue. The move was,nonetheless, considered quite progres-sive at the time, and gained such favorthat the age of humanism could well beconsidered a third sophistic. Althoughemphasizing the logical at the expenseof the epistemological dimension ofAgricola's reform, Ong well observes:"From the point of view of subsequentintellectual history, the most centraloperations in Agricola's Dialectical In-vention are his building up of the oldnotion of topoi (topics) or common-places at the expense of the predica-ments or categories, and his develop-ment of an outlook in which the formerrather than the latter control the gen-eral logical heritage and teaching."21

Agricola was not, of course, operatingwithin a vacuum in his refashioning ofplace-theory. Previous dialectic hadoften been ambiguous in its treatmentof the locus; there was therefore aprecedent for the departure Agricolawas making.23 Furthermore, the Renais-sance was quite receptive to just thesort of exaltation of the places whichAgricola was championing. The human-ists were driven by the desire to assimi-late systematically those treasures ofantiquity somewhat cursorily sampledby the age of Petrarch. Bolgar calls theperiod "the age of notebooks and

23 C. Prantl, Geschichte der Logik im Abend-lande (Leipzig, 1867) III, 167-168.

24 Ong, Ramus, p . 104.25 A survey of various views held on the sub-

ject is provided in O. Bird, "The Tradition ofthe Logical Topics: Aristotle to Ockham," Jour-nal of the History of Ideas, XXIII (1962), 307-323.

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RUDOLPH AGRICOLA'S DIALECTICAL SYSTEM 34>

memory systems."20 They were likewisequite disdainful of the philosophicalsystems of the scholastics and desirednothing more than to supplant suchsystems with a pedagogy capable ofproducing a more versatile, practical,literate leader—a Cicero to challengeAquinas and Scotus. Thus, a system anda set of categories which would treatlanguage, mind, and the world lessrigidly and selectively than scholasticphilosophy had done was much in de-mand. Agricola's theory of language andplaces (and other less well-known systemssuch as Valla's) arose to fill this need.

BOOK II:

AGRICOLA'S CONCEPT OF DIALECTIC

In the opening chapters of Book IIAgricola describes dialectic, the disci-pline which makes use of the placesdiscussed in Book I. His descriptionproceeds through three stages: a criti-cism of previous dialectic; a proposalfor dialectical reform; and a delineationof the structure of his reformed dia-lectic.

Agricola's criticism of previous dia-lectic opens with an anecdote from thelife of Demosthenes, relating how theorator had berated the Athenians fortheir want of foresight in dealing withPhilip. He then applies the exemplumto dialectic:

'Why all this?' you ask. Because I cannot dis-cover a more proper and relevant image withwhich to depict the dialecticians of our t i m e . . . .

Our dialectician . . . when he has producedan argument in proper form but rashly and hap-hazardly thought out, if perchance his oppo-nent says that the argument is irrelevant or in-conclusive, then at last, after the die has beencast, returns to the stage of planning; but, con-fusing the roles of invention and judgment, hetries to show that he has in fact argued well,because the argument is from a greater or sim-ilar genus or species.27

26 R. R. Bolgar, The Classical Heritage (NewYork, 1964), p . 301.

27 De Inv., ii. 1.

Previous dialectic, Agricola is saying,has emphasized form rather than mat-ter, logical validity rather than psycho-logical effect, the syllogistic rules of"judgment" rather than the topicalsources of "invention." As a result,dialecticians argue validly but fatuously:they are as ill prepared for genuinelyinstructive discourse as the Greeks wereunready for Philip.

Historians of logic would supportAgricola's analysis, if not the conclusionhe draws. The scientific logic whichAristotle had laboriously created fromthe crude beginnings of earlier Greekdialectic28 had been lost with the de-cline of the Academy, to be revived andfurther developed a century later bythe logicians of the Stoa. The Stoics at-tempted to integrate the logic of ques-tion-and-answer, rhetorical inference,scientific demonstration, and the fal-lacies, all of which were distinct partsin the logical heritage codified in Aris-totle's Organon, into a single disciplinecalled "dialectic." They sanctioned theearlier division whereby dialectic washeld to comprise an investigative phasecalled "invention" and a compositivephase called "judgment," and they de-veloped elaborate systems for each. ButStoic logic had in turn disintegrated inthe course of its migration to Romeand, to an even greater degree, in itstransmission to the early Middle Ages.29

Scholastic logicians, starting with themeager inheritance from Boethius, Isi-dore, Donatus, and the Church Fathers,had evolved a highly refined logic whicheven today evokes admiration. But intheir return to a theoretically soundformal logic, the more advanced scho-lastics had gradually discarded thoseaspects of dialectic which resisted syn-

28 See J. H. Randall, Jr., Aristotle (New York,1962), pp. 32-58.

29 See I. M. Bochenski, Formale Logik(München, 1962), pp . 121-253.

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tactic or formal analysis. As Agricolaobserves, they chose logic over rhetoric,validity over effectiveness, "judgment"over "invention." But whereas modernlogicians see the increasing formaliza-tion of scholastic logic as praiseworthy,in that the sloughing of non-formalaspects of language enabled the scho-lastics to make greater progress informal logic as such, to Agricola andhis peers the emphasis upon judgmentand formalism was a mistake. Agricolaoffers two reasons for his condemnationof scholastic formalism: its effect uponthe status of dialectic and its effects up-on all of learning.30

This over-emphasis upon judgmentwhich had cost dialectic its proper posi-tion as the "directress of the arts" andhad caused the other arts to becomemired in confusion was not, Agricolathought, a recent development: "for allthe works written after Aristotle arefilled with that part which pertains tojudgment, although it is of much lessconcern, since it is composed merelyof a list of rules, and they neither verydifficult nor very numerous."31

Agricola, then, is highly critical ofprevious dialectic because it had paidtoo much heed to what he calls "judg-ment" but what today would be calledthe formal or logical aspects of lan-guage. What was the nature of the re-form he proposed? Agricola's platformfor the reform of dialectic consisted es-sentially of three planks: that inven-tion rather than judgment should beemphasized in dialectical instruction;that dialectic ought to be given solecharge of the paideutic aspects of lan-guage; and that dialectic, rightly under-stood, is a kind of super-discipline whosefunction is to teach the methods em-ployed by more specialized arts andsciences.

30 De Inv., ii. 1.31 Ibid.

The first plank, the need for em-phasizing invention, has been seen inpart in Agricola's analysis of con-temporary dialectical practice. Logicians,judging the proposal a mistake, pointout also the extent and duration of thedeparture into "psychologism" cham-pioned by Agricola.32

The second plank in the Agricolanprogram of dialectical reform, that dia-lectic ought to be the sole art concernedwith producing belief through dis-course, is as far-reaching a reform as hisadvocacy of invention. It is true thatwriters prior to Agricola, forgetful ofthe more profound insights into lan-guage expressed in the latter books ofthe Organon and in the major works ofRoman rhetoric, had distinguishedamong grammar, rhetoric, and logicrather crudely and on a basis not un-like that decreed by Agricola.33 ButAgricola's distinctions among the lan-guage arts—whereby grammar was as-signed to clarity, rhetoric to ornateness,and dialectic to convincingness of speech—ratified and stabilized this over-sim-plification of the curriculum for north-ern European humanism. The restruc-turing of the trivium is commonly asso-ciated with Peter Ramus, the sixteenth-century Parisian reformer; but thechange had been advocated seventyyears earlier by Agricola in such pas-sages as:It is clear that three things are present in alldiscourse: one who speaks, one who listens, andthe subject of the discourse. And three observa-tions are to be followed in speaking: that whatthe speaker intends be understood, that thehearer be eager to listen, and that likelihoodand credibility characterize what is said. Thefirst is taught by grammar, which discusses theway to speak correctly and clearly; the secondby rhetoric, which discovers ornateness and cul-ture of language and all the delights of theears. And what remains, it seems, dialectic offers:

32 Bochenski, pp. 297-300.33 See, for example, Wilson's verse-description

of the trivium in Howell, p . 14.

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speaking convincingly on any subject which isintroduced into language.34

Such a description of the ends of thelanguage arts was not, to be sure, revolu-tionary, for it was part of the medievaltradition so to classify grammar, rhet-oric, and dialectic. The element of re-form initiated by Agricola consistedrather in the thoroughness with whichhe despoiled rhetoric to provide newmaterials and a larger scope for his re-vised dialectic. Rhetoric's ancient prac-tice of teaching invention and theplaces, for example, was criticized byAgricola, who insisted that the placesbelong only to dialectic.35 Again, reject-ing the historical identification of rhet-oric with the art of persuasion, Agricolaconsigns persuasion to dialectic by rea-son of its affinity to dialectic's goal ofwinning belief; and even pleasure, sofar at least as it results from thingsrather than the use of words, becomeswith Agricola a dialectical considera-tion.38 Not only was rhetoric despoiledof invention, persuasion, and the non-verbal sources of pleasure; most of theconceptual and terminological materialsof classical rhetoric—among them the"states," the enthymeme and example,and ethical and pathetic proof—werepressed into the service of Agricola's ex-panded dialectic.37 Rhetoric, however,took powerful vengeance upon Agricolaand his peers; their attempt to reducethe confines of rhetoric and to extendthose of dialectic resulted instead in theabsorption of dialectic by rhetoric. Forwith the widening of the boundariesof dialectic so as to include non-formallinguistic considerations, the formal orsyntactic aspects of language which arethe proper concern of logical science

34 De Inv., ii. 2.35 Ibid.36 Ibid.37 On the "rhetoricism" of Agricolan dialectic,

see McNally, "An Analysis," pp . 242-244, andthe references suggested there.

were submerged under the psychologi-cal, pragmatic considerations proper torhetoric.38

Agricola's third pronouncement aboutthe nature of dialectic, that it is thestudy of the methodology of all instruc-tive communication, is another breakwith tradition. It is true that Peter ofSpain had described dialectic as "theart of arts and science of sciences"; butmost of the scholastics were willing toput questions of method within the do-main of philosophy rather than of ele-mentary logic. Agricola, however, con-sidered that the dialectician rather thanthe philosopher ought to be entrustedwith pronouncing upon questions ofmethod. He implies this in his accountof the places, which he so closely assimi-lates to the categories of logic andmetaphysics; in his definition of dia-lectic as "the art of discoursing con-vincingly about any matter being con-sidered, according as the nature of eachsubject can make this possible"; in hisdescription of dialectic as "the leaderand directress of all the arts"; and inhis delineation of dialectic's structure.But the methodological character of di-alectic is made explicit in a number ofplaces.39

Agricola's platform for dialectic,therefore, with its emphasis upon in-vention, its denigration of rhetoric, andits assertion of a methodological func-tion for dialectic, was actually a pro-posal for an entirely new disciplineerected from "bits and pieces" of Greeklogic, Roman rhetoric, and scholasticdialectic. The fact that historians oflogic agree in condemning it as psy-chological or rhetorical does not detractfrom its historical importance; thesevery qualities commended it to its age

38 Kristeller, among others, observes this"rhetoricizing" of logic. See his RenaissanceThought (New York, 1961), pp. 17, 43.

39 De Inv., ii. 5.

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as a brilliant new synthesis of communi-cation theory. For Agricola's desire fora practical political wisdom and his dis-trust of traditional science and philos-ophy were typically humanistic atti-tudes.

The structure of dialectic was asthoroughly revised by Agricola as wasits theoretical formulation. In explain-ing what he considers to be the properstructure of dialectic, Agricola treatsthe dialectician's task as being analogousto that of the plastic artist. Just as thevisual artifact is the product of somesort of material, a set of tools, and atechnique, so it is with the verbal pro-duction. The dialectician's material ishis subject or problem; his tool is lan-guage; and his technique is that ofdrawing convincing materials for dis-course from the places of dialectic.40

Pursuing the analogy, Agricoladiscusses dialectic's material, borrowingfor this purpose the classical doctrinesof absolute and limited questions[theseis and hypotheseis] and of the"states" [status]. Agricola names thethesis or question as dialectic's material,interpreting that word to mean "every-thing which can be spoken with refer-ence to, and is suitable for, belief."41 Soextensive a subject matter, it is obvious,can hardly be claimed without somesort of qualification. Agricola's distinc-tion is to say that dialectic studies themethod whereby all questions are askedand answered,42 for it is the science orart of instructive method, situated in-tellectually midway between the philo-sophical investigation of reality and theapplications of scientific knowledge bythe various arts.43

Having named the question as thematerial of dialectic, Agricola analyzes

40 Ibid., ii. 1.41 Ibid., ii.5.42 Ibid.43 Ibid.

questions in terms of their referents,linguistic forms, and pertinent academicdisciplines.44 Then, using for the pur-pose the rhetorical doctrine of "states,"he discusses the proper manner of dis-covering and subdividing the precisequestion to be answered in every situ-ation.45

Next, Agricola considers the instru-ment of dialectic, language, from twopoints of view.40 In terms of itsstructure, language may be either con-tinuous, like oratory, or discrete, likeconversation. Both types, says Agricola(who also rejects Zeno's distinction be-tween dialectic and rhetoric), belongto dialectic, for the simple reason that"we teach in both." In terms of its pur-pose, language may be either expositoryor argumentative. Again both forms be-long to dialectic, for both are concernedwith belief: exposition "finds" belief,whereas argumentation "produces" it.47

In connection with argumentation,the second of the purposes of language,Agricola introduces not only the con-cepts and terminology of logic, butthose of rhetoric as well. Alongside thesyllogism and induction are their "in-complete" equivalents, the enthymemeand example; along with formal or syl-logistic proof, the ethical, pathetic, andinartificial arguments of rhetoric arediscussed.48 Exposition is even more ob-viously rhetorical in orientation. It isdescribed as being practiced by poets"to sweeten the ears of the hearers," byhistorians "to lay out the character ofthe subject," and by orators, philoso-phers, and other practitioners of thearts "to seek someone's belief in a mat-ter." But despite the broader range of

44 Ibid., ii. 6-9.45 Ibid., ii. 10-11.46 Ibid., ii. 12.47 Ibid.48 On these terms, see any standard source on

ancient rhetoric, such as G. Kennedy, The Artof Persuasion in Greece (Princeton, 1963), pp.87-103.

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RUDOLPH AGRICOLA'S DIALECTICAL SYSTEM 345

uses which he assigns to exposition, itis developed and illustrated directlyfrom classical rhetoric.49

Finally, Agricola is ready to discussthe technique or procedure proper todialectic. Presumably, since dialectic hastwo parts, there must be two sorts ofdialectical technique—one for discover-ing convincing materials, another forjudging their convincingness. But sincein this work Agricola is considering onlydialectical invention, he is satisfied todiscuss merely inventional method. Theprocedure of invention, Agricola says,comprises three sorts of skill. The firstconsists of familiarity with the places,both absolutely and in the context ofactual discourse.50 The second require-ment for inventive technique is theskill known as descriptio or ekphrasis,which Agricola interprets as the abilityto elicit suitable contents on any sub-ject from each of the places.51 To betruly master of inventive method onemust have developed the ability to "de-scribe" or "ekphrase" one term relative-ly to another in order to discover agree-ment and difference.52 One notices atonce the mechanical, superficial char-acter of this conception of inventivemethod. Its subsequent appearance inWilson,53 however, suggests that in thathighly mnemonic age, as in this age, thequantitative approach to intelligencehad its advocates. Agricola at leastthought his method would solve thestudent's problems both of matter andof form: "These indeed are the founda-tions of all invention and, if a personlays them properly, the labor which re-mains is little. Furthermore, whatevercan furnish copia is gathered in thisway. Finally, it is in this way alone thatone adapts those things for his present

49 De Inv., ii. 16.50 Ibid., ii. 19.51 Ibid., ii. 20.52 Ibid., ii. 21.53 See Howell, pp. 25-27.

needs, arranges and disposes them and,so to speak, leads them forth to thebattle."54

BOOK III:

PERSUASION, AESTHETICS, ARRANGEMENT

Agricola had claimed for dialectic55

the provinces of persuasive and pleasur-able discourse traditionally associatedwith rhetoric; he also felt that the ar-rangement of discourse, the second ofthe canons of classical rhetoric, wascrucial to its convincingness or "prob-ability."56 He therefore added a thirdbook to his Dialectical Invention inorder to discuss these subjects. Whetheror not one would concede the relevanceof such matters to a treatise on dialecti-cal invention, modern scholars owe toAgricola's decision an interesting andfairly original account of persuasion,aesthetics, and arrangement—an ac-count that is of particular value for theview it provides of Renaissance think-ing on these ancient subjects. Book III,to be sure, is more an appendix thanan integral part of the Invention, bothin the tenuousness of its connectionwith the contents of Books I and II andin its less careful internal structuring.Perhaps for this reason it has been allbut ignored by previous critics, most ofwhom concentrate on Book II. Still,both for the sake of completeness andon its own merits Book III deserves atleast a brief examination.

Agricola's discussion of persuasion[movere], the third of Cicero's ends oforatory, follows three stages. Emotionsare first defined and variously classified;three types of emotional coloring aredescribed and illustrated; and persua-sion, the third type, is explained interms of the rhetorical device of ang-mentatio.

54 De Inv., ii. 21.55 Ibid., ii. 4.56 Ibid., ii. 3.

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346 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SPEECH

In complete dependence upon Aris-totle's Rhetoric, Agricola defines anemotion as "a certain impulse of themind by which we are driven to desireor avoid something more intensely thanwe would in a calm state of mind." Wedesire, he says, things we consider goodeither for ourselves or for others, al-though such goodness and evil may beapparent rather than real. Of the emo-tions themselves, he adds, some aretransitory, some permanent, but all are"headstrong and reckless." The sourcesor loci of emotional stimulation are two:the goodness or badness of'things, andthe worthiness or unworthiness of thepersons concerned.97

Emotional coloring, Agricola saysnext, may be employed for any of threeends: to express an emotional state feltby the speaker; to depict an emotionalstate experienced by one's subject; orto produce an emotional state in one'shearers. The first is best illustrated bythe satirists, the second by tragediansand epic poets, the third by orators.58

Emotional states, says Agricola, whodespite his acknowledging three distinctuses of emotion in discourse now identi-fies movere with the third or rhetoricaluse of emotion, must be developed grad-ually, through what "the rhetoricianscall either amplification or augmenta-tion." This device consists of exploitingthe "magnitude" of things, whetherthey are great of themselves, in the sub-jective attitudes of one's hearers, or byreason of their being compared by thespeaker to lesser things. Such compari-son may be either "silent" or expressed,the former being related by Agricola tothe enumeratio of potential parts or di-visions of one's subject and to the pro-cess called enargeia, whereby "one's sub-

ject is made to appear vividly beforethe hearer's eyes."59

Delectatio, the second of Cicero's endsof oratory, is less well interpreted byAgricola, perhaps because he is lessfortunate in intuiting from his funda-mentally rhetorical viewpoint a usefultypology for aesthetics. Defining delightvery generally as a "movement withinthe cognitive power," Agricola attemptsa double classification: in terms of itssubject-faculty, delight may be sensible,intellectual, or mixed; in terms of itssource or cause, delight may arise fromeither things or words. Stymied at thispoint, however, he can only name as-sorted "real" and "verbal" sources ofdelight, almost at random. Under de-light-causing things, Agricola namesthose which are "great, marvelous, andunexpected," the mere mention ofwhich, he says, makes language delight-ful; and if we must speak of things"harsh and grim," we ought to importtheir opposites into our discourse,"either by way of contrast or by meansof a well-concealed digression." Underdelight-causing words are listed "ele-ments of love, conversations betweenpersons, sage counsels, and unexpectedoutcomes," all of which may producedelight if artfully "imitated" in lan-guage. In addition to these there arethe devices "which are proper to lan-guage itself . . . but these things are in-cluded in the study of style" and aretherefore to be learned from rhetori-cians.60

As if reminded of it by the mentionof style, Agricola next devotes a lengthychapter to the concepts of copia (full-ness) and brevitas (conciseness) ofspeech as they relate to delight. He ex-plains how, by division, enumeration,and repetition, we may expand a dis-course; notes the difficulty of determin-

57 Ibid., iii. 1.58 Ibid., iii. 2.

59 Ibid., iii. 3.60 Ibid., iii. 4.

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RUDOLPH AGRICOLA'S DIALECTICAL SYSTEM 347

ing a suitable length; and indicateshow, by a reversal of methods, brevitasmay be attained.61

It seems fairly evident from this dis-cussion just how far Agricola is extend-ing the borders of dialectic, for he hasin fact absorbed into his discipline everydimension of language except ele-mentary grammar and the figures ofspeech. It is equally evident that de-spite the wide boundaries he has set forhis subject, he has no realistic way ofcoping with the aesthetic dimension oflanguage. His pleasure-as-aroused-by-things bears a faint, imperfect resem-blance to the Longinian sublime, hisaccount of copia hits the touchstones ofCicero's imperfect aesthetic, and hismention of imitation in connectionwith language-generated delight evokesmemories of the far more useful Poeticsof Aristotle. Agricola himself, however,is disconnected and superficial on thesubject of pleasure in language. TheInvention bears additional witness tothe dangers inherent in attempting toplay Procrustes with the language arts.

The final entry in Agricola's "appen-dix to dialectical invention" is that ofdispositio or arrangement. Strictlyspeaking, of course, instruction on theordering of materials ought to be foundin a treatise on dialectical "judgment"rather than "invention"; but Agricolacan no more forego the chance of speak-ing on arrangement than on persuasionand pleasure. Nevertheless, even thoughhis remarks are not strictly germaneto his announced subject, they are ofsome value as contributions to rhetori-cal theory.

Agricola's treatment of dispositio fol-lows a pattern similar to the other sub-jects treated in Book III; he assays atypology of his subject; reinterprets thetraditional vocabulary in terms of the

61 Ibid., iii. 5.

new; and concludes with some generalsuggestions. Agricola's new classifica-tion of the modes of arrangement soundsvery modern. He names three generictypes of order—natural, arbitrary, andartificial; he then subdivides the firstinto four subspecies—temporal, causal,spatial, and climactic.62

With this sort of typology for a base,Agricola attempts a fresh look at thetraditional genres of discourse. Hediscusses history, poetry, academic in-struction, and the oration, then—re-peating ideas used in Book II63—thearrangement of questions, arguments,and proofs. With the important excep-tion of his "types of order," however,Agricola on disposition is generally un-inspiring. He is in the end unsuccessfulin matching genres with types of order;his typology, to use current idiom, isnon-heuristic.

Such, then, are the general outlinesof Agricola's dialectical system. If itsphilosophical basis is questionable,64

there is yet an admirable ambitionunderlying Aricola's dialectic—that ofsynthesizing the art of communication.One gets the impression that Agricolawas attempting to construct more thanan elementary textbook superficially re-peating earlier pronouncements. His ef-fort was to re-think what he took to beAristotelian logic, Roman rhetoric, andscholastic dialectic, and to erect there-from a pedagogy which would combinethe rigor of scholastic Aristotelianismand the humanitas of Renaissance Cic-eronianism. And this ambition, inturn, helps to explain why Agricola'stheory of communication was itself re-peated, though with alterations and ad-ditions, by such men as Melanchthon,Vives, Sturm, Wilson, and Ramus.

62 Ibid., iii. 6.63 Ibid., ii. 10-11.64 The philosophical weaknesses of Agricola's

system are discussed in McNally, "An Analysis,"pp. 237-281.

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