This sourcebook, a corrected reprint of the University of South Carolina Press edition of 1972, contains a complete English translation of the sophist material collected in the critical edition of Diels-Krantz, as well as Euthydemus and a completely re-edited Antiphon.

The purpose of this brief note is to point out that the time-honored method of expounding Aristotle’s doctrine of the four causes to beginning students is non-Aristotelian if not positively un-Aristotelian, and to raise the question whether, this being the case, the method should not be dropped.

There are many fallacious arguments in the dialogues of Plato. The author argues that Plato was fully conscious of the fallacious character of at least an important number of these arguments and that he sometimes made deliberate use of fallacy as an indirect means of setting forth certain of his fundamental philosophical views. Plato introduces them, the author maintains, for the purpose of working out their implications. Plato is thus able to expose them for what they are, to clear away (...) possible lines of attack upon his own position, and even to show that when the proper correction is applied his own views receive support. (shrink)

THE phenomenon of sleep is of course of interest to Aristotle as a student of animals, and his biological works contain quite detailed accounts of what he takes to be the physiology of sleep. But sleep has also, for Aristotle, what might be called a metaphysical interest, and it is on this I wish to focus. My purpose is to make some small contribution to the philosophical study of Aristotle’s biology.

Name and notion -- Protagoras -- Xeniades -- Gorgias -- Lycophron -- Prodicus -- Thrasymachus -- Hippias -- Antiphon -- Critias -- Anonymus Iamblichi -- Dissoi Logoi or Dialexeis -- Appendix: Euthydemus of Chios.

126 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 36:1 JANUARY 1998 sche, which concludes with an appreciation of the Cynical argument of Peter Sloterdijk, whose Kritik der zynischen Vernunft appeared in 1983 . In the more familiar period of the movement's history, we get: a fresh evaluation of Cynicism's relationship to Socrates and the Hellenistic schools by A. A. Long; Goulet-Cazr on religion in early Cynicism; Branham on the rhetoric of the Cynics and John Moles on the controversial issue of Cynic (...) cosmopolitanism; James Porter on the Cynic side of the Stoic Aristo of Chios; and Miriam Griffin on the reaction of Roman culture to Cynicism. The volume concludes with a detailed study of the iconography of Cynicism by Diskin Clay. Thematic inclusiveness and the high general quality of the papers make this an indispensable book. The peripheral resources it provides are a considerable bonus. The annotated bibliography on Cynicism and its reception is a work of scholarship in its own right; the indices locorum and nominum are carefully done. Moreover, Goulet- Caz~ has added two appendices, the first an exhaustive annotated catalogue of all known Cynic philosophers from the ancient world, the second an argument that the first philosopher referred to as 'the dog' was probably Antisthenes rather than Diogenes. Throughout the editors have aimed at utility to the reader, and they did not shrink from reusing and adapting earlier.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:160 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY A PLATONIC PARALLEL IN THE DISSOI LOGOI The Dissoi Logoi or Two-/old Arguments (Diels-Kranz, II, 405-416) is an anonymous sophistic treatise written in literary Doric at some time subsequent to the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404-403.1 As early as 1911, A. E. Taylor wrote that the treatise "must be seriously reckoned with in any attempt to reconstruct the history of Greek thought in (...) the generation immediately anterior to Plato." 2 But scholars have been slow to take up Taylor's challenge. From those writing in English we have had little beyond the summary in Kathleen Freeman's Companion a and the papers of Adolfo Levi4 and E. S. Ramage." There is not even a full English translation in print, s In this paper I shall call attention to one brief passage which seems to me to be of exceptional interest since it offers a solution to a type of sophistical argument which occurs in Plato's Euthydemus. In so doing, I hope to arouse interest in a document much neglected by historians of ancient thought. Dzssoz Loaox, V, 15. With respect to the assertion that the same man both is and is not, I put the following question: "Does he exist with respect to some particular thing, or just in general?" Then if someone denies that the man exists, he is mistaken, because he is treating (the particular and) universal senses as the same. Because everything exists in some sense. GENI~I~AL REMAI~KS.The nature of the solution offered is clearly based on a distinction similar to that made by Aristotle in On Sophistical Re]utations (166b 37 ft.) between expressions used "in a certain respect" and "absolutely." The formulation of the fallacy to which the distinction is intended to be applied, however, is considerably less clear. Is it supposed that the opponent has put forward an argument purporting to demonstrate (a) that the same man both is and is not, or (b) that a particular man, thought to exist, does not in fact exist? This question can best be answered by an analysis of the Euthydemus passage, to which I now turn. EUTttYDgMUS 283b-e: The sophist Dionysodorus inquires of Socrates and his friends whether they genuinely wish their young prot4g6, Cleinias, to become wise. On gaining their assurance that they do, he then proceeds as follows: 1) You wish him to become wise and not to be ignorant (283d 1). 1This terminus post quem is derived from I, 8, in which the author lists a number of victories and speaks of that won by the Spartans over the Athenians as being "the most recent." "The 6,~ao~X6-tot,"Varia Socratica, Fizst Series (Oxford, 1911), p. 128. aCompanion to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, (Oxford, 1946),pp. 417-423. ""On 'Two-fold Statements,'" American Journal o/Philology, LXI (1940), 292-~06. 5"An Early Trace of Socratic Dialogue," American Journal of Philology, LXXXII (1961), 418-424. 6The present writer has cempleted a translation which is to be published in Mind in the near future. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 161 2) You wish him to become what he is not, and no longer to be what he is now (literally: what he is now, no longer to be [283d 2-3]). 3) You wish for his death, since you wish him no longer to be (283d 5-6). The obvious way of dealing with this argument is to make precisely the distinction made by the author of the Dissoi Logoi at V, 15: we should say to Dionysodorus, "Your conclusion that the friends of Cleinias wish for his death is the result of an illegitimate step: you went from 'you wish him not to be ignorant' to 'you wish him not to be'. To have made this step is to have ignored the distinction between existence with respect to some particular thing, i.e., ignorance, and existence in general." (A later critic might point out to Dionysodorus that he has confused the copulative and existential uses of the verb "to be.") It now becomes possible to return to the question, which of the two formulations, (a) or (b... (shrink)

There are many fallacious arguments in the dialogues of Plato. The author argues that Plato was fully conscious of the fallacious character of at least an important number of these arguments and that he sometimes made deliberate use of fallacy as an indirect means of setting forth certain of his fundamental philosophical views. Plato introduces them, the author maintains, for the purpose of working out their implications. Plato is thus able to expose them for what they are, to clear away (...) possible lines of attack upon his own position, and even to show that when the proper correction is applied his own views receive support. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:160 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY A PLATONIC PARALLEL IN THE DISSOI LOGOI The Dissoi Logoi or Two-/old Arguments (Diels-Kranz, II, 405-416) is an anonymous sophistic treatise written in literary Doric at some time subsequent to the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404-403.1 As early as 1911, A. E. Taylor wrote that the treatise "must be seriously reckoned with in any attempt to reconstruct the history of Greek thought in (...) the generation immediately anterior to Plato." 2 But scholars have been slow to take up Taylor's challenge. From those writing in English we have had little beyond the summary in Kathleen Freeman's Companion a and the papers of Adolfo Levi4 and E. S. Ramage." There is not even a full English translation in print, s In this paper I shall call attention to one brief passage which seems to me to be of exceptional interest since it offers a solution to a type of sophistical argument which occurs in Plato's Euthydemus. In so doing, I hope to arouse interest in a document much neglected by historians of ancient thought. Dzssoz Loaox, V, 15. With respect to the assertion that the same man both is and is not, I put the following question: "Does he exist with respect to some particular thing, or just in general?" Then if someone denies that the man exists, he is mistaken, because he is treating (the particular and) universal senses as the same. Because everything exists in some sense. GENI~I~AL REMAI~KS.The nature of the solution offered is clearly based on a distinction similar to that made by Aristotle in On Sophistical Re]utations (166b 37 ft.) between expressions used "in a certain respect" and "absolutely." The formulation of the fallacy to which the distinction is intended to be applied, however, is considerably less clear. Is it supposed that the opponent has put forward an argument purporting to demonstrate (a) that the same man both is and is not, or (b) that a particular man, thought to exist, does not in fact exist? This question can best be answered by an analysis of the Euthydemus passage, to which I now turn. EUTttYDgMUS 283b-e: The sophist Dionysodorus inquires of Socrates and his friends whether they genuinely wish their young prot4g6, Cleinias, to become wise. On gaining their assurance that they do, he then proceeds as follows: 1) You wish him to become wise and not to be ignorant (283d 1). 1This terminus post quem is derived from I, 8, in which the author lists a number of victories and speaks of that won by the Spartans over the Athenians as being "the most recent." "The 6,~ao~X6-tot,"Varia Socratica, Fizst Series (Oxford, 1911), p. 128. aCompanion to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, (Oxford, 1946),pp. 417-423. ""On 'Two-fold Statements,'" American Journal o/Philology, LXI (1940), 292-~06. 5"An Early Trace of Socratic Dialogue," American Journal of Philology, LXXXII (1961), 418-424. 6The present writer has cempleted a translation which is to be published in Mind in the near future. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 161 2) You wish him to become what he is not, and no longer to be what he is now (literally: what he is now, no longer to be [283d 2-3]). 3) You wish for his death, since you wish him no longer to be (283d 5-6). The obvious way of dealing with this argument is to make precisely the distinction made by the author of the Dissoi Logoi at V, 15: we should say to Dionysodorus, "Your conclusion that the friends of Cleinias wish for his death is the result of an illegitimate step: you went from 'you wish him not to be ignorant' to 'you wish him not to be'. To have made this step is to have ignored the distinction between existence with respect to some particular thing, i.e., ignorance, and existence in general." (A later critic might point out to Dionysodorus that he has confused the copulative and existential uses of the verb "to be.") It now becomes possible to return to the question, which of the two formulations, (a) or (b... (shrink)