Eddo Rigotti

Whether and How Classical Topics can be Revived Within Contemporary Argumentation Theory

The title of the present paper might sound like a typical many-question fallacy, as it hides, under the form of a double indirect question, two standpoints. Indeed, since both standpoints are declared and as many interrogatives signal their questionable nature, what is hidden is only the relationship between the standpoints. Now, if for a certain aspect, as suggested by the word order too, the meaningfulness of the how presupposes an affirmative answer to the whether, in another perspective, the reasonableness of the whether, that is properly at issue here, totally depends on the how. In other words, my investigation aims to identify the conditions at which classical topics can be retrieved. I start recalling the context of this investigation. In 2004 the Swiss Virtual Campus entrusted a team of scholars belonging to three Swiss universities (Lugano, Neuchâtel and Geneva) with the construction of a systematic online course, Argumentum, devoted to argumentation in different fields of its application. The purpose, target, educational aims and technological arrangement of this e-course are illustrated by a paper of Stefano Tardini (2007). What specially matters here is the fact that, possibly in connection with the declared applicational guidance of the course, topics turns out to be a strategic chapter. Perhaps not by chance the doctrine of topics figured as a strategic component in traditional rhetoric too, which was undoubtedly oriented to application. It seems that, apart from the theoretical relevance of a retrieval of topics, an applicational orientation demands a topical component. Both from a theoretical and a practice-oriented point of view it could be useful to see how topics actually runs within this communication sciences-oriented model for the design and the construction of argumentative discourses (see Rigotti & Greco, 2006), as it can offer a comprehensive image of the complex role played

Communication: Semiotic Approaches

The tradition of semiotic approaches to communication has been the object of a strong criticism by an important pragmatics-oriented school of verbal communication, according to which the semiotic approach is based on a code-model, radically incapable of explaining communication. The authors of this entry focus on the existence of three different orientations within the semiotic tradition of the XX century, two of which start from different readings of Saussure (functional, discourse-oriented structuralism and formal code-oriented structuralism). The third coincides with the semiotic vision of Charles S. Peirce. It is shown that a code-model of communication can be found only within the formal code-oriented structure. The authors also argue that some insights and suggestions, offered by both non code-model orientations, could be precious for the construction of an adequate semiopragmatic model of communication.