ABSTRACT
What a successful dialectic secures for any position there fore, as we noted in the opening chapter, is not actuality but possibility; and what rhetoric thereafter accomplishes is to take any dialectically secured position (since positive posi tions, like the “position” that water freezes at 32 °F., are not matters for rhetorical appeal) and show its relationship to the
28 world of prudential conduct. This is tantamount to saying that what the specifically rhetorical plea asks of us is belief, which is a preliminary to action.
