Debate, whether public or private, involves differences of opinion or issues rather than questions. A question is a doubt that could be removed by knowledge of particular facts. Example: Is marriage as popular today as it was one hundred years ago? An issue (amphisbetesis) occurs when two or more contradictory answers to a question are possible and what counts as evidence is agreed on. Example: Marriage is more (less) popular now than it was one hundred years ago. Marriage records are reliable and available and simple comparison will satisfy the disputants.
For an argument to proceed in a reasonable fashion, the issue must be correctly identified and accepted as identified by the disputants. No issue, no argument. No agreement as to the issue, no end to the argument.
Issues abound in all aspects of life, but they are not always easy to define, let alone resolve. Matters are made even more complex by the fact that issues may be compound (a complex of several disagreements). Ancient rhetoric offers stasis theory as a heuristic (Gk. for the L. word inventione) or procedure for discovering where differences of opinion reside and as a systematic procedure for addressing them. By far the most common heuristic is forensic stasis, the one employed in law courts, where the purpose of the argumentation is to discover what happened in the past. A lesser known one is deliberative stasis, where the purpose is to decide what to do in the future. The third is epideictic, or ceremonial, where the purpose is to praise or blame a person or set of beliefs. The rhetorical tradition has tended to offer forensic stasis as a paradigm for all occasions. But the method of invention used may influence what is invented and so some attention must be paid to the purpose of the discourse. Otherwise, a phenomenon called asystasis may occur, a difference of opinion that is vexed beyond resolution. There are four asystatic controversies:
See Ray Nadeau, "Classical Systems of Stases in Green Rhetoric: Hermagoras to Hermogenes".
See also Malcolm Heath, Hermogenes on Issues: Strategies of Argument in Later Greek Rhetoric. (excerpts)
As a way of thinking, stasis theory suggests a pattern of inquiry and a method of evaluation. One must first establish that a thing or circumstance exists before evaluating it or arguing over whose jurisdiction the thing or circumstance resides in (there is no point in arguing over how to spend money until you know you have money and how much you have). While it is possible to argue over the definition of an abstract thing like an idea or concept or word, without knowing whether or not it exists, there is no point in evaluating anything whether concrete or abstract until you have defined it (and you know it exists or have determined that the question of its existence is irrelevant or unanswerable). The purpose of defining something is so that you can distinguish it and all instances of it from things that are similar but different.
In addition to laying out the questions that should be asked and the sequence in which they should be asked, stasis theory also offers a method of thinking. If one thing is valued (positively or negatively) then anything which is similar may be similarly valued. Anything which is greater may be more greatly valued. Its opposite should be oppositely valued. If a thing is valued, then it must either exist or its existence is unquestionable to the people who value it.
An Example of Forensic Stasis
A car is found mangled and twisted by the side of a highway. A person is found dead in the wreck.
The first question is: what happened?
Eye-witnesses saw a white Camaro with a blue stripe cut the wrecked car off just before the wreck occurred. The driver of the Camaro did not stop. Before the first question can be answered satisfactorily, the absent driver must be located. Eventually he is. The investigators accuse him of causing the wreck. The driver denies the accusation.
Thus the first stasis or issue becomes: the driver of the Camaro was/was not responsible for the wreck of this car. (An issue consists of two antithetical answers to the same question.)
Eye-witnesses come forward to testify that they saw the Camaro which is registered to the accused cut the car off. Rubber residue made of the same polymer as the wrecked car's bumper is found on the Camaro. The driver is unable to prove that his car was being driven by someone else that day. Thus there is enough circumstantial evidence to prove that the accused cut the other driver off. The accused is therefore remanded for trial.
The first stasis, the issue of conjecture, has been resolved. The Cameron owner was responsible for wrecking the other car. The next question thus becomes: were the driver's actions accidental or criminal? The prosecution asserts that the driver committed vehicular homicide while driving under the influence of alcohol. The defense maintains that the driver was merely preoccupied and negligent.
The second issue becomes: the wreck was accidental/criminal.
Just as the conjectural issue is resolved by the submission and consideration of evidence, so is the definitive issue. The prosecution brings in witnesses who testify to having seen the defendant drinking heavily in a bar on the afternoon of the wreck. The defendant is an admitted alcoholic and has a history of DUI. Moreover, the defendant was actually pulled over for an illegal lane change an hour after the wreck and blew a 0.25. The defense attorney stares blankly at the client.
At this point the second question has been satisfactorily answered and therefore the second issue has been resolved. This was a criminal act. At this point the accused becomes the convicted and he is held pending sentencing.
Once the sentencing hearing convenes, the question becomes whether or not there are mitigating or aggravating circumstances to this vehicular homicide.
The prosecution maintains that, based on the evidence offered during the second stasis, this is an egregious act committed by a man who, based on his history of DUI and his addiction, must be heavily sentenced. The defense argues that the man had been receiving successful treatment, but, the night before the accident, his wife left him. He got drunk and when the accident occurred he was driving home to confront his wife whom, his best friend had informed him, was at that very moment putting everything they owned in a moving-van.
Thus the third issue becomes: his actions were/were not mitigated by circumstances.
At this point character-witnesses are brought in and the driver's biography is presented to the sentencing magistrate who decides that the man is in fact dangerous and unwell, although not unrepentant. She sentences the driver to five years.
The driver's lawyer appeals the sentence on the grounds of bias. The final issue thus comes into play. The question is, was the sentence appropriate. The lawyer argues that the judge was vindictive because her husband had been killed by a drunk driver. Thus the lawyer attempts to make the fourth or jurisdictional issue center on the judge's fitness for the case. But the appellate court realizes that the judge's motives are only relevant (at issue) if the judge is being judged, whereas in fact it is her decision that is being questioned.
The fourth issue thus becomes: The sentence is/is not appropriate.
The appellate court reviews the case and upholds the sentence on the basis of statute and precedence.