A treatment of argumentative topics and the arguments gained from 'topoi', in argumentative dialogues. The typology of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca is used as a basis. The book contains discussions on meaning and interpretation, conversational analysis and argumentation analysis, a characterization of argumentation, its description with argumentative schemata and its structure (i.e. a presentation of the logic of argumentation), the implications of the insights gained for ethical theory, and, finally,an application of the descriptive apparatus developed to classical and literary argumentation.