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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is the result of almost a decade of thinking and writing, over which time many audiences have contributed to its improvements. Parts of chapter 3 were first presented in a paper to the Ontario Philosophical Association in 2002, and sections of chapters 1 and 4 were presented at the International Pragmatics Association meeting in Italy in 2005. Sections of chapters 2 and 4 are drawn from talks presented at the Classical Association of Canada meetings in 2005,2006,and 2007.The material on allusion in chapter 8 had its first airing in a paper presented to the International Society for the Study ofArgumentation in Amsterdam in 2006, and some of the discussion of commonplaces in the same chapter is drawn from a paper to the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation inWindsor, Ontario, in 2007.An earlier version of chapter 5 was read to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Windsor in 2007. And chapters 3 and 5 were discussed in a seminar at the University of Copenhagen in 2008. I am grateful to all the audiences involved for their interest and critical comments. My interest in the Sophists generally and an appreciation for their perspectives were honed during three senior philosophy seminars dedicated to their ideas atTrent University, including one in my final year there in 2005. I was fortunate in having groups of outstanding students who approached the subject matter with enthusiasm and creativity. Many of the ideas that have found their way into the final version of this book were first tried out in those seminars. Two anonymous reviewers for the University of South Carolina Press made some useful suggestions that have helped me to clarify the intent of the project ; I am grateful to them for these. Several other individuals also deserve particular mention here. My thinking on the Greeks’ interest in commonplaces and topoi has benefited enormously from ongoing conversations with my Bielefeld colleague Andreas Welzel. And Christian Kock contributed a number of important insights during my visit to Copenhagen, as well as impressing upon me the importance of taking seriously the argumentative xiv Acknowledgments riches of the Rhetoric to Alexander. My colleagues atWindsor’s Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric provided ongoing critical support during the final stages of this project. I would mention in particular Tony Blair, Hans Hansen, and Ralph Johnson. I am fortunate to be a fellow of this fledgling institution.Though they may balk at the label, they are fine Sophists all. ...

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