The first thing we should note is that we are facing an original book. The essays contained in this volume present a rich and varied discussion on the topic of eristic, a subject which has received relatively little attention in the scholarly literature. It is difficult to provide an exact definition of eristic: is it a specific method of argumentation? Does it refer to an epistemological perspective regarding language and its relation to reality? Does it refer to the activity of a specific philosophical group or set of philosophers, active in the fourth century BC? The reader will find different answers to these questions throughout the essays included in the volume.
As noted in the introduction by Geneviève Lachance, the phenomenon of eristic is usually conflated with two related, but arguably distinct, phenomena: sophistic and dialectics. The premise of this book is that eristic can and should be thought of as a distinct and self-standing phenomenon. Thus we are presented with a profound and illuminating discussion of texts which are either usually ignored or read under the light of the wider issues of sophistry and dialectics.
The essays could be divided into three main perspectives. Some authors analyze the relation between eristic and the Socratic tradition (Gourinat, Pentassuglio). Others examine its connection with the Sophists (Brancacci, Fait, Gavray). Another group of essays analyze the views on eristic of Plato (Crivelli, El Murr, Zaks), Isocrates (Lachance) and Aristotle (Dorion, Lemaire). This classification, however, does not truly reflect the complexity of some of these articles. For example, the essay by Dorion, while formally dealing with the role of eristic within Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations, also includes some discussion of the relation between eristic and the Megarians (on which, see below). The works by Gavray and Fait also include ample discussion of Platonic texts when assessing the relation between Protagoras and eristic.
In what follows I will briefly analyze some representative essays included in the volume, with the intention of providing the potential reader a glimpse of the various approaches included in book, both from the point of view of content and of their methodological assumptions.
Marc-Antoine Gavray addresses the ancient claim which makes Protagoras the initiator of eristic (cf. Diog Laert. IX 52). The author claims that Protagoras organized and refined a dialogic praxis from elements which were already present in the Ancient Greeks’ agonistic culture. He claims that we can establish a quite clear connection between this dialogic praxis, as it is described in the sources, with the later development of eristic in the fourth century BC. However, the author acknowledges, first, that it is difficult to delimit the exact contours of Protagoras’s dialogical methodology. Protagoras seems to have developed a series of technical procedures with the purpose of achieving victory in the context of verbal competitions. But these technical procedures straddle the domains of eristic, rhetoric, antilogic and dialectics. The author thus concludes that we lack the textual elements to determine with precision the role of Protagoras in the development of eristic.
Secondly, Gavray provides two hypotheses regarding the philosophical motivation of Protagoras’s dialogical methodology: either Protagoras’s take on eristics was grounded on his famous relativism, or it consisted in a mere formal methodology to be applied in the context of verbal competitions. Once more, Gavray maintains that we lack sufficient textual elements to incline ourselves toward either alternative. Although Gavray’s conclusions seem to be mostly aporetic, his essay provides an excellent overview of the sources of Protagoras and its relation to eristic, and constitutes a useful contribution to the scholarly discussion.
The essay by Geneviève Lachance presents an original discussion of an under-discussed subject: the testimony of Isocrates regarding the eristic practices of his fourth-century contemporaries. The author claims that Isocrates’s basic conception of eristic is that of a form of education which deals with particular types of λόγοι and which maintains a close link with philosophy. This form of education seems recent, a new kind of sophistry, different from the one espoused by the fifth-century sophists. The author upholds that this concurs with Plato’s characterization of eristic brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus in the Euthydemus as “new sophists” (καινοί σοφισταί, 271b9–c1). This suggests that both Isocrates and Plato in the Euthydemus associate eristic with a particular group of philosophers with precise characteristics, and not a as general way of describing any sort of opponent. This is a very important point, for it addresses one of the main issues concerning the nature and historicity of eristic, that is, whether it represented a kind or mode of argumentation used contingently by diverse philosophers or if it was a specific innovation put forward and endorsed by some philosophical group. But who could these philosophers be? The author suggests that they could be the various Socratics; they were one of the frequent targets of Isocrates in his speeches, and they fit within Isocrates’s characterization. She contends that Isocrates may have reunited the Socratics, which were so different among themselves, as exponents of a same group: “those who deal with discussions” (περὶ τὰς ἔριδας διατρίβοντες, Isocrates, Helen I 9).
This last point leads us to those essays which deal with the Socratics. In his paper, Jean-Baptiste Gourinat reexamines David Sedley’s hypothesis regarding the distinction between the Megarian and the Dialectic schools.[1] This hypothesis is largely based on a testimony by Diogenes Laertius (II 106), according to which the successors of Euclid of Megara were called “Megarians, then eristics, after that dialectics”. The issue at hand is whether the three denominations represent distinct phases of a single school or circle of philosophers, or if they represent entirely different schools of thought (as in Sedley’s view regarding the Megarians and the Dialecticians). To review this issue, the author goes through the most important testimonies of the various exponents of what traditionally has been known as the Megarian school. He concludes by claiming that the labels were indeed much more flexible than in Sedley’s reading. The author holds that there was no such thing as a unified and institutionalized “Megarian school”, but that nevertheless there was some continuity among Euclid, his successors, and their own successors. The essay is well balanced and presents many interesting readings.
The Megarians are also present in the contribution of Louis-André Dorion. In his paper, Dorion revisits his own hypothesis, originally put forward in his 1995 translation and commentary of Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations,[2] according to which the Megarians were the main target of the Soph. El. To do so he presents a detailed analysis of all the occurrences of the terms ἐριστικός and σοφιστικός in the Soph. El. This analysis shows that the term is usually used as an adjective to describe arguments, and not as a way of referring to a given group of dialecticians. Dorion also notes that there is a tension between two parallel characterizations of eristic in the Soph. El: a) an ‘intentional’ characterization, which relates to the interlocutors’ purpose in using sophistic arguments, and b) a purely formal characterization, that is used to describe a specific kind of argument, which finally leads to the notion of paralogism.
This shows that the term ἐριστικός does not necessarily refer to a competing philosophical group, such as the Megarians. In the Soph. El., the term mainly describes apparent and fraudulent arguments, which were used by many philosophers and dialecticians. In some cases, the term is used to describe arguments that are associated with the Megarians in the sources, but this is not the only possible reference or use of the term. Dorion thus concludes that the eristic arguments described in the Soph. El. sometimes correspond to Megarian arguments, without implying that they were the principal target of Aristotle in this work. However, Dorion also notes that Aristotle once uses the expression οἵ ἐριστικοί to describe a precise group of dialecticians (Soph. El. 17, 175b7–10). The passage describes the eristics as structuring their arguments in the form of yes/no questions. The author notes that this way of arguing is associated with the Megarians in several sources, and that it can also be seen in Plato’s Euthydemus, which may be considered a critical representation of Megarian dialectics.
In her essay, Juliette Lemaire contends that in the Sophistical Refutations, Aristotle conceptualizes and depersonalizes eristics, thus rejecting the view according to which he had some definite interlocutor in mind when composing this work. In a sense, her position is not far from Dorion’s, since he also claims that in the Soph. El. the term “ἐριστικός” is mainly used to describe various arguments and that it approximates the notion of paralogism. The author goes through the main passages in the Aristotelian corpus which describe arguments as sophistic and eristic. She distinguishes two kinds of eristic syllogism, formal and material. She concludes that eristic arguments are presented as caricatures of dialectical argumentation and true refutation. She does not find a significant difference between the characterizations “sophistic” and “eristic” but still notes that Aristotle prefers the latter term in his writings concerning dialectic. This, she contends, could be explained by the kind of dialogic interactions that took place in Athens in the fourth century BC. However, she remains skeptical regarding historical identifications behind Aristotle’s descriptions of eristic.
Aldo Brancacci provides an interesting interpretation regarding Plato’s Euthydemus. The author does not believe that the brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus stand for some of the Socratics (such as Antisthenes or, as we mentioned, the Megarians), or that they are fictional characters. On the contrary, he contends that Euthydemus and Dionysodorus were really existing sophists, and intellectual heirs of Protagoras. The purpose of Brancacci is to show that a specific conception of the relation between language, thought, and reality supports the dialectics of Euthydemus. This conception explains the argumentative strategies and some of the reasonings displayed in the Euthydemus. The author contends that the theoretical justification of this position is found in a fragment of Euthydemus transmitted by Plato in the Cratylus (386d3–6). In his view, this fragment shows that there is a strong continuity between Protagoras and Euthydemus, given that Euthydemus seems to propose a radicalized version of Protagoras’s thesis of homo mensura (mentioned previously in 383c2–4). The author claims that this core ontological principle was presented to the public through a particular form of paideia, which is precisely the combative eristic argumentation portrayed in the Euthydemus.
All of the remaining essays are interesting, well-argued, and represent valuable contributions to the literature. The only flaw of this volume may be the absence of an analysis of Zeno’s antilogics as precursor of eristics.[3] But otherwise we are facing a set of wide-ranging yet balanced discussions on a very important and often overlooked topic.[4]
Authors and Titles
Geneviève Lachance, Introduction
Marc-Antoine Gavray, Protagoras, la lutte et les Discours terrassants
Paolo Fait, Protagoras’ Attack on Wrestling and the other Arts: the Cradle of Antilogic and Eristic
Geneviève Lachance, Isocrate et l’éristique: essai de caractérisation historique
Jean-Baptiste Gourinat, Mégariques, éristiques ou dialecticiens: sur une appellation d’origine incontrôlée
Francesca Pentassuglio, L’éloge du silence: une polémique anti-éristique chez Eschine?
Aldo Brancacci, Langage, ontologie et paideia dans l’Euthydème
Dimitri El Murr, Éristique, antilogique et égale aptitude des hommes et des femmes (Platon, République, V, 453b–454c)
Paolo Crivelli, The Sophist’s Appearance in Plato’s Sophist
Nicolas Zaks, Éristique et réfutation socratique dans le Sophiste de Platon
Louis-André Dorion, Éristique et sophistique dans les Réfutations sophistiques d’Aristote
Juliette Lemaire, Aristote et les arguments éristiques
Notes
[1] Cf. Sedley, D. (1977), “Diodorus Cronus and Hellenistic Philosophy”, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 23, 74–120.
[2] Dorion, L.-A. (1995), Aristote, Les Réfutations Sophistiques, introduction, traduction et commentaire. Paris: Vrin.
[3] There are many relevant testimonies on this regard: cf. Plut. Per. IV 5, 1–7 (DK 29 A 4); Diog. Laert. IX 25, 4–7 (DK 29 A 1); Elias, in Cat. 109, 6–12 (DK 29 A 15); Simpl. in Phys. 138, 29–139, 5; and especially Ps. Gal. Phil. Hist. III, 49–50: “Zeno of Elea is remembered for being the originator of the eristic philosophy (Ζήνων δὲ ὁ Ἐλεάτης τῆς ἐριστικῆς φιλοσοφίας ἀρχηγὸς μνημονεύεται γεγονώς)”. Cf. also Epiph. Adv. haeres. III 505, 30–506, 2.
[4] A final note: at p. 18, lines 20–21, Plato is mistaken for Socrates.