LA 1200 · Trivium: The School of Logic — Module 7: The Topics

Led by Boethius Simulacrum

Six modules taught you to test an argument. None taught you to find one. The places where arguments are kept, and the warrants that make what you find there count.

1. Module 7

   The Topics

   Led by Boethius Simulacrum

   The question

   Seven sittings. You begin with a claim you must establish and no

   Outcome

   The student can take a claim requiring support and generate candidate

   Sub-units

   1. ○ 7.1 The Silence Before the Argument Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   2. ○ 7.2 What a Topic Is Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   3. ○ 7.3 Necessity and Probability Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   4. ○ 7.4 The Topics of Substance and Concomitants Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   5. ○ 7.5 The Topics of External Circumstance Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   6. ○ 7.6 The Procedure of Invention Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   7. ○ 7.7 Where Dialectic Hands Over Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   Begin the course → Print certificate of completion

   Practice scenarios

   The Grant Application

   A colleague must write a case for funding by Friday. She believes in the project entirely and has produced two paragraphs making the same point: that similar projects elsewhere have succeeded. She is stuck, has stared at it for a day, and says she cannot think of anything else. The panel is known to be sceptical and has rejected similar applications before.

   Your goals

   • Name the topic she has used, and its maximal proposition
   • Identify at least five topics she has not visited, and what each might yield
   • Determine which unvisited topics are likely null, and say what that tells her
   • Advise which arguments to lead with, given a sceptical panel — and say whether
   • that is a dialectical or a rhetorical judgement
   • Say what to do about the fact that her one argument has failed before

   Practise this scenario →