The subject of the book is a commonly marginalized yet persistently present means of legitimizing, initiating, and suggesting discourses: the example, which is equally at home in rhetorical rule systems, scientific argumentation contexts, and popular iconizations. The more or less constant relationship between rule and individual case, which is constitutive for every epistemology of the exemplary, is identified as a form and dynamics of knowledge production in various societal areas. The volume first establishes a detailed systematics that helps differentiate the rhetorical, knowledge-representing, knowledge-forming, and normative functions of the example. This is followed by individual contributions that serve as case studies on the epistemology of the exemplary, spanning from the early modern period to the present.