Definition:
1. In classical rhetoric, a statement or bit of knowledge that is commonly shared by members of an audience or a community.
See also:
2. An elementary exercise, or progymnasmata. (See What Are the Progymnasmata?)
3. In invention, another term for a common topic.
See also:
Etymology:
From the Latin, "generally applicable literary passage"Examples and Observations:
- "The commonplaces or topics are 'locations' of standard categories of arguments. Aristotle distinguishes four common topics: whether a thing has occurred, whether it will occur, whether things are bigger or smaller than they seem, and whether a thing is or is not possible. Other commonplaces are definition, comparison, relationship, and testimony, each with its own subtopics. . . .
"In the Rhetoric, in Books I and II, Aristotle talks about not only 'common topics' that can generate arguments for any kind of speech, but also 'special topics' that are useful only for a particular kind of speech or subject matter. Because the discussion is dispersed, it is sometimes hard to determine what each kind of topic is."
(Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg, The Rhetorical Tradition. Bedford, 2001) - "To detect a rhetorical commonplace, the scholar must generally rely on empirical evidence: that is, the collecting and evaluating of related lexical and thematic elements in the texts of other authors. Such components, however, are often hidden by oratorical embellishments or historiographical dexterity."
(Francesca Santoro L'Hoir, Tragedy, Rhetoric, and the Historiography of Tacitus' Annales. Univ. of Michigan Press, 2006) - "In On the Crown, [Demosthenes] tells his audience: 'The only choice, and the necessary choice, left to you was justly to oppose all [Philip's] unjust actions against you.'
"Demosthenes' use of this commonplace illustrates the phenomenon of actors' post-decisional bolstering of their behavior."
(J. Robert Cox, "The Die is Cast: Topical and Ontological Dimensions of the Locus of the Irreparable." Landmark Essays on Contemporary Rhetoric, ed. by Thomas B. Farrell. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998) - "[A]ccording to [Aristotle], the characteristically rhetorical statement involves 'commonplaces' that lie outside any scientific specialty; and in proportion as the rhetorician deals with special subject matter, his proofs move away from the rhetorical and toward the scientific. (For instance, a typical rhetorical 'commonplace,' in the Aristotelian sense, would be Churchill's slogan, 'Too little and too late,' which could hardly be said to fall under any special science of quantity or time.)"
(Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives, 1950. Univ. of California Press, 1969) - "Life holds one great but quite commonplace mystery. Though shared by each of us and known to all, it seldom rates a second thought. That mystery, which most of us take for granted and never think twice about, is time."
(Michael Ende, Momo. Doubleday, 1985) - "When the oracle of Delphi pronounced Socrates to be the wisest man in Greece, Socrates is reputed to have said, "I am not wise, and know it; others are not wise, and know it not."
- "It is an accepted commonplace in psychology that the spiritual level of people acting as a crowd is far lower than the mean of each individual's intelligence or morality."
(Christian Lange, Nobel Lecture, Dec. 13, 1921) - "Commonplace. This is an exercise that expands on the moral qualities of some virtue or vice, often as exemplified in some common phrase of advice. The writer in this assignment must seek through his or her knowledge and reading for examples that will amplify and illustrate the sentiments of the commonplace, proving it, supporting it, or showing its precepts in action. This is a very typical assignment from the Greek and Roman world in that it assumes a considerable store of cultural knowledge. Here are several commonplaces that might be amplified:
a. An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.
b. You always admire what you really don't understand.
c. One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels.
d. Ambition is the last infirmity of noble minds.
e. The nation that forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.
f. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
g. As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.
h. The pen is mightier than the sword."
(Edward P.J. Corbett and Robert J. Connors, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, 4th ed. Oxford Univ. Press, 1999)
Pronunciation: KOM-un-plase
Also Known As: topoi (in Greek), loci (in Latin), topic
