ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 outlines the theoretical framework within which the strict relationship among the language arts emerges. According to Robortello, human beings develop innate linguistic and cognitive capacities, among which there is the faculty of speaking based on a logical structure identifiable with the Topics. The chapter focuses on the manuscript Discorso dell’origine, numero, ordine et methodo delli luoghi topici. Here, Robortello distinguishes himself neatly from other contemporary humanists, for whom Topics was mainly a rhetorical device for determining all the things that could be said on a topic. Robortello’s conception of Topics is, in contrast, unrhetorical in scope, and reflects the structure of thought, the way in which the mind makes its ideas explicit. This conception derives from his studies on Aristotelian psychology.
