Ramus v. Quintilian: The Clash of Rival Fallacies

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the battle between Peter Ramus and Quintilian. The author compares this battle to the one between Iran and Iraq and examines the way that the United States aided Iraq to fight Iran in the 1980's because she wanted to even ground and protract the war to make sure both sides lost many lives. The author compares this situation to the one in the battle between Peter Ramus and Quintilian where a stalemate of winning arguments arises and both sides have lost.

From the paper:

"With the considerable lashing Ramus unleashes on Quintilian, one would expect ridiculous argumentation from the former and substantial rebuttal from the later. However, Ramus only emerges victorious on one front, the separation of morality and rhetoric. His second onslaught, conversely, never penetrates Quintilian's solid wall of reason. Without invention, arrangement, and memory, rhetoric fails to persuade. With clear victory implausible for either party, witnesses to the squabble find themselves echoing the sentiment of Henry Kissinger: Quintilian and Ramus have both lost."

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