ENTHYMEMES AND TOPOI IN DIALOGUETheUse ofCommon Sense in Conversation

In Enthymemes and Topoi in Dialogue, Ellen Breitholtz presents a novel and precise account of reasoning from an interactional perspective. The account draws on the concepts of enthymemes and topoi, originating in Aristotelian rhetoric and dialectic, and integrates these in a formal dialogue semantic account using TTR, a type theory with records.
Argumentation analysis and formal approaches to reasoning often focus the logical validity of arguments on inferences made in discourse from a god’s-eye perspective. In contrast, Breitholtz’s account emphasises the individual perspectives of interlocutors and the function and acceptability of their reasoning in context. This provides an analysis of interactions where interlocutors have access to different topoi and therefore make different inferences.

Ellen Breitholtz, Ph.D. (2015), is Associate Researcher at the University of Gothenburg where she works on formal accounts of language involving enthymematic reasoning and topoi. She also leads a project on reasoning in dialogues involving patients with schizophrenia.