PAIRS OF ARGUMENTS (DISSOI LOGOI)

The speech will touch on first three chapters of a remarkable sofistic text called the Pairs of Arguments (Dissoi logoi). Transmitted as an appendix to the works of Sextus Empiricus, this collection of short trea-ties seeks to show the sophistic (Protagorean) way of argumentation. They address such opposite notions as bad and good, ugly and beautiful, unjust and just, and explore the possibilities of arguing pro and contra a given position.

Pairs of Arguments (Dissoi logoi)

The paper is a Russian translation of the first three chapters of a sophistic text, conventionally called the Pairs of Arguments (Dissoi logoi). Transmitted as an appendix to the works of Sextus Empiricus, this collection of short treaties seeks to show the sophistic (Protagorean) way of argumentation. They address such opposite notions as bad and good, ugly and beautiful, unjust and just, and explore the possibilities of arguing pro and contra a given position.

The Logic of the Self-Refutation Argument in Dissoi Logoi 4.6

Dissoi Logoi 4.6 presents a beautiful self-refutation argument, which I analyse here, offering a different assessment of its relation to self-contradiction and the Liar paradox from the only one available in the literature.

On the Unity of the Dissoi Logoi

“On the Unity of the Dissoi Logoi” considers whether and how the Dissoi Logoi is a unified work. The chapter argues for both global unity and unifying micro-relations among its individual sections, especially sections 1–3 and 4–5. With respect to global unity, the chapter argues that the first seven sections present a series of aporiae, to which the remaining sections 8 and 9 suggest a solution. With respect to the unifying micro-relations, the chapter argues that the topics governing sections 1–3 and 4–5, while treated aporetically, nonetheless constitute the foundations of wisdom and excellence, which the text precisely advertises to teach.

Early Greek Ethics

Early Greek Ethics is devoted to Greek philosophical ethics in its “formative” period. The formative period is the century and a half that extends from the last decades of the sixth century BCE to about the first third of the fourth century BCE. It begins with the inception of Greek philosophical ethics and ends immediately before the composition of Plato’s and Aristotle’s mature ethical works: Republic and Nicomachean Ethics. The ancient contributors include Presocratics such as Heraclitus, Democritus, and figures of the early Pythagorean tradition such as Empedocles and Archytas of Tarentum (who have previously been studied principally for their metaphysical, cosmological, and natural philosophical ideas); Socrates and his lesser known associates such as Antisthenes of Athens and Aristippus of Cyrene; sophists such as Gorgias of Leontini, Antiphon of Athens, and Prodicus of Ceos; and anonymous texts such as the Pythagorean acusmata, Dissoi Logoi, Anonymus Iamblichi, and On Law and Justice. In addition to chapters on these individuals and texts, the volume includes chapters on select fields and topics especially influential to ethical philosophical thought in the formative period and later, such as early Greek medicine, music, friendship, justice and the afterlife, and early Greek ethnography. Consisting of thirty chapters composed by an international team of twenty-eight philosophers and classicists, Early Greek Ethics is the first volume in any language devoted to philosophical ethics in the formative period.

Non-Academic Philosophia

This chapter addresses non-academic uses of philosophia in the fourth century BCE, which provides the background against which one can understand Heraclides' use of the term. It shows how philosophia became a discipline in Plato's Academy only by understanding how the term philosophia was being used elsewhere. The key context comes from the educators Alcidamas, Isocrates, and the author of the Dissoi Logoi. The chapter shows that there is less reason to say that these educators competed over “ownership” of the term philosophos (even if at times they may have) or its true and universal meaning than that they gave varying retrospective reconstructions of the term's usage, differing, for example, in the relative emphases they give to practical teaching over the defensibility of research outcomes. To the extent that the academic view of philosophia “won,” this is not because that view was truer or more convincing, but because the Academy instigated a continued discipline that called itself philosophia more than Alcidamas or Isocrates did, neither of whom appear to have had success or interest in developing the sort of well-populated discipline crucial for maintaining a name.

Dissoì Lógoi § 5

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar Dialex. § 5 a fin de mostrar que allí no sólo se hace uso de paradojas erísticas para la argumentación, sino que al mismo tiempo se propone un criterio para resolverlas. Para ello, en primer lugar, expongo algunas consideraciones generales sobre la datación, la autoría y la estructura de Dialex. que permitirán comprender las particularidades del quinto parágrafo del tratado. Luego, presento la traducción completa de Dialex. § 5 y señalo algunas semejanzas entre los razonamientos que allí se desarrollan y los atribuidos a los erísticos en Eutidemo de Platón y Refutaciones sofísticas de Aristóteles. Finalmente, analizo el argumento presentado en Dialex. § 5. 15 y ofrezco una interpretación que atienda a su sentido y al contexto de la discusión filosófica en el que ha sido formulado.