Aid for Hard Terms

dialectic: (at least two defs.)

  1. two-sided debate over a question or issue; argumentation pro and contra (in utrumque partem): viz. Silva

  2. argument over a probable issue or matter (i.e., opinion, doxa) vs. demonstration of truth (episteme)

doxa: (δόξα)

  1. is a Greek word meaning common belief or popular opinion, from which are derived the modern terms of orthodoxy and heterodoxy. Used by the Greek rhetoricians as a tool for the formation of argument by using common opinions, the doxa was often manipulated by sophists to persuade the people, leading to Plato's condemnation of Athenian democracy.--wiki Endoxa can be used for well-received opinion, separating it from vulgar stereotypes (Blondes are dumb). Adages or maxims are doxa in succinct form:
    Exs.
    1. What goes around, comes around.
    2. No pain, no gain.
    3. The sun rises in the East and sets in the West.

ecphrasis: (ancient and modern def.)

  1. (ancient) a description of any things, persons, or even human experiences.

  2. the graphic, often dramatic description of a visual work of art.

    Ecphrasis has been considered generally to be a rhetorical device in which one art tries to relate to another art by defining and describing the essence and form of that original art, and in doing so, "speak to you" through its illuminative liveliness. A descriptive work of prose or one of poetry, a film, or even a photograph may thus highlight through its rhetorical vividness what is happening, or what is shown in, say, any of the visual arts, and in doing so, may enhance the original art and so take on a life of its own through its brilliant description. --wiki [is a posed photograph “remake” of a painting eck? Then is ecphrasis equivalent to remediation?]

  3. Ecphrasis has another more restricted definition: the literary description of a work of art. Philostratus Lemnius helped to fix this more restricted sense of this term in the second century in his Imagines Silva [cf John Hollander,The Gazer's Spirit]

enthymeme: (two defs.)

  1. An enthymeme is a syllogism (a three-part deductive argument) with an unstated assumption which must be true for the premises to lead to the conclusion. In an enthymeme, part of the argument is missing because it is assumed. --Wiki

    Exs.
    1. "If the glove don't fit [the defendant], you must acquit."
    2. "There is no law against composing music when one has no ideas whatsoever. The music of Wagner therefore, is perfectly legal." —Mark Twain

  2. a syllogism with one or more probable premisses (or generally sound opinon) (expressed or not)

    Ex.
    1. The harder good is the better good.
      Virtue is a harder good thing to acquire than pleasure.
      Therefore virtue is a better thing than pleasure.