Argument by Example
"Remember what happened last time": arguing from a parallel case is rhetoric's version of induction, the persuasive cousin of the logician's proof.
Paradeigma, Greek for 'example,' is argument by parallel: you back a claim by pointing to a similar case, usually a past event, and let the audience conclude that like will follow like. In his 'Rhetoric,' Aristotle (4th c. BCE) treated it as rhetoric's version of induction, pairing it with the enthymeme, which plays the part of the syllogism (deduction). It handed orators a tool that felt rigorous yet aimed squarely at persuasion, and arguing from precedent and example passed straight into Roman and later European rhetoric.
How it traveled
- On the murder of HerodesAthens · -411applies
- StatesmanAthens · -358explains
- AntidosisAthens · -338explains
- RhetoricChalcis · -335explains
- On the CrownAthens · -330explains
- De InventioneFormiae · -84explains
- Institutio OratoriaRome · 95explains
- Yalkut Shimoni on TorahTiberias · 1250
- Ars rhetorica [attributed]—explains
- Ars Rhetorica—explains
- Περὶ εὑρέσεως [Sp.]—explains
- In Aristotelis artem rhetoricam commentarium—explains
- Ars Rhetorica [attributed]Smyrnaexplains
- Suidae lexicon—explains
- Libro de Elocutione—explains
- Against LeocratesAthensexplains
- Περὶ ἐπιδεικτικῶνLaodicea on the Lycusexplains
- Progymnasmata [Dub.]—explains
- Scholia in Iliadem—explains
- Fabulae [attributed]—applies
- Ars rhetorica—explains
Key passages(20)
Ars Rhetorica · Pseudo-Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Ars rhetorica [attributed] · Valerius Apsines
Ars rhetorica [attributed] · Valerius Apsines
In Aristotelis artem rhetoricam commentarium · Anonymi in Aristotelis Artem Rhetoricam