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Dispositio is the system used for the organization of arguments in the context of Western classical rhetoric. The word is Latin, and can be translated as "organization" or "arrangement".
It is the second of five canons of classical rhetoric (the first being inventio, and the remaining being elocutio, memoria, and pronuntiatio) that concern the crafting and delivery of speeches and writing.[1]
The first part of any rhetorical exercise was to discover the proper arguments to use, which was done by the formalized methods of inventio. The next problem was to select various arguments and organize them into an effective discourse.
- ^ Cicero, Marcus Tullius (15 November 2011). Brutus or History of Famous Orators (eBook). Retrieved 21 November 2021 – via Project Gutenberg.
But this deficiency was supplied in them by an elaborate knowledge of the art of Speaking; and there was not one of them who was totally unqualified in any of the five [Footnote: Invention, Disposition, Elocution, Memory, and Pronunciation.] principal parts of which it is composed; for whenever this is the case, (and it matters not in which of those parts it happens) it intirely incapacitates a man to shine as an Orator.