Epicherem
The epicherem (sometimes also epicheirem ) is a final figure in traditional rhetoric . Formally, the epicherem is a syllogism in which an explicit justification is given for each premise .
| syllogism | Epicherem | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Since every premise in the epicherem is expressly justified, each premise can be viewed as a substitute for its own syllogism. In the example above, the first premise, "All people are mortal because they have organs that are subject to wear and tear" can be understood as a shortened representation of the following independent syllogism:
| Anything that has organs that are subject to wear and tear is mortal. | |
| All human beings have organs that are subject to wear and tear. | |
| Enough | So all humans are mortal. |
Correspondingly, the second premise, “Socrates is human because his parents are human”, can be understood as a shortening representation of the following syllogism:
| Everything whose parents are human is human. | |
| Socrates' parents are people. | |
| Enough | So Socrates is human. |
The epicherem was developed by Cicero in his work De inventione , which deals with judicial rhetoric .
As a counterpart to the epicherem, the enthymeme is considered, in which the underlying syllogism is not rhetorically enriched by additional justifications, but on the contrary rhetorically shortened by omitting a premise.