Topics (Aristotle) - What Is A "Topic"?

What Is A "Topic"?

In his treatise on the Topics, Aristotle does not explicitly define a topos, though it is "at least primarily a strategy for argument not infrequently justified or explained by a principle." He characterises it in the Rhetoric thus: "I call the same thing element and topos; for an element or a topos is a heading under which many enthymemes fall." By element, he means a general form under which enthymemes of the same type can be included. Thus, the topos is a general argument source, from which the individual arguments are instances, and is a sort of template from which many individual arguments can be constructed. The word τόπος (tópos, literally "place, location") is also related to the ancient memory method of "loci", by which things to be remembered are recollected by mentally connecting them with successive real or imagined places.