De Sophisticis Elenchis, i. p. 165, a. 21. ἔστι γὰρ ἡ σοφιστικὴ φαινομένη σοφία, οὖσα δ’ οὔ· καὶ ὁ σοφιστὴς χρηματιστὴς ἀπὸ φαινομένης σοφίας, ἀλλ’ οὐκ οὔσης, p. 165, b. 10, p. 171, b. 8-27. Οἱ φιλέριδες, ἐριστικοὶ, ἀγωνιστικοὶ, are persons who break the rules of dialectic (ἀδικομαχία) for the purpose of gaining victory; οἱ σοφισταὶ are those who do the same thing for the purpose of getting money. See also Metaphys. iii. 1004, b. 17.
[43] Aristot. Sophist. Elench. p. 172, a. 30.
[44] Aristot. Rhetor, i. 1, 1355, b. 18. He here admits that the only difference between the Dialectician and the Sophist lies in their purposes — that the mental activity employed by both is the same. ὁ γὰρ σοφιστικὸς οὐκ ἐν τῇ δυνάμει ἀλλ’ ἐν τῇ προαιρέσει· πλὴν ἐνταῦθα μὲν (in Rhetoric) ἔσται ὁ μὲν κατὰ τὴν ἐπιστήμην ὁ δὲ κατὰ τὴν προαίρεσιν, ῥήτωρ, ἐκεῖ δὲ (in Dialectic) σοφιστὴς μὲν κατὰ τὴν προαίρεσιν, διαλεκτικὸς δὲ οὐ κατὰ τὴν προαίρεσιν, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὴν δύναμιν.
Philosophical purpose of the Euthydêmus — exposure of fallacies, in Plato’s dramatic manner, by multiplication of particular examples.
Though I maintain that no class of professional Sophists (in the meaning given to that term by the Platonic critics after Plato and Aristotle) ever existed — and though the distinction between the paid and the gratuitous discourser is altogether unworthy to enter into the history of philosophy — yet I am not the less persuaded that the Platonic dialogue Euthydêmus, and the treatise of Aristotle De Sophisticis Elenchis, are very striking and useful compositions. This last-mentioned treatise was composed by Aristotle very much under the stimulus of the Platonic dialogue Euthydêmus, to which it refers several times — and for the purpose of distributing the variety of possible fallacies under a limited number of general heads, each described by its appropriate characteristic, and represented by its illustrative type. Such attempt at arrangement — one of the many valuable contributions of Aristotle to the theory of reasoning — is expressly claimed by him as his own. He takes a just pride in having been the first to introduce system where none had introduced it before.[45] No such system was known to Plato, who (in the Euthydêmus) enumerates a string of fallacies one after another without any project of classifying them, and who presents them as it were in concrete, as applied by certain disputants in an imaginary dialogue. The purpose is, to make these fallacies appear conspicuously in their character of fallacies: a purpose which is assisted by presenting the propounders of them as ridiculous and contemptible. The lively fancy of Plato attaches suitable accessories to Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus. They are old men, who have been all their lives engaged in teaching rhetoric and tactics, but have recently taken to dialectic, and acquired perfect mastery thereof without any trouble — who make extravagant promises — and who as talkers play into each other’s hands, making a shuttlecock of the respondent, a modest novice every way unsuitable for such treatment.
[45] See the last chapter of the treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis.
Aristotle (Soph. Elench.) attempts a classification of fallacies: Plato enumerates them without classification.
Thus different is the Platonic manner, from the Aristotelian manner, of exposing fallacies. But those exhibited in the former appear as members of one or more among the classes framed by the latter. The fallacies which we read in the Euthydêmus are chiefly verbal: but some are verbal, and something beyond.
Fallacies of equivocation propounded by the two Sophists in the Euthydêmus.
Thus, for example, if we take the first sophism introduced by the two exhibitors, upon which they bring the youth Kleinias, by suitable questions, to declare successively both sides of the alternative — “Which of the two is it that learns, the wise or the ignorant?” — Sokrates himself elucidates it by pointing out that the terms used are equivocal:[46] You might answer it by using the language ascribed to Dionysodorus in another part of this dialogue — “Neither and Both”.[47] The like may be said about the fallacy in page 284 D — “Are there persons who speak of things as they are? Good men speak of things as they are: they speak of good men well, of bad men badly: therefore, of course, they speak of stout men stoutly, and of hot men hotly. Ay! rejoins the respondent Ktesippus, angrily — they speak of cold men coldly, and say that they talk coldly.”[48] These are fallacies of double meaning of words — or double construction of phrases: as we read also in page 287 D, where the same Greek verb (νοεῖν) may be construed either to think or to mean: so that when Sokrates talks about what a predication means — the Sophists ask him — “Does anything think, except things having a soul? Did you ever know any predication that had a soul?”