This very worthwhile book is twelfth of the New Hackett Aristotle series of translations, all by Reeve. The underlying text is the 1984 revision by W. D. Ross (Oxford Classical Texts). Reeve’s Notes indicate several different textual choices.
The book collects in one volume English translations of the whole of both the Topics and the Sophistical Refutations (De Sophisticis Elenchis, hereinafter SE). An alternative for English translations of both together is the large first volume of the “Oxford” Translation (1928) edited by W. D. Ross (with the translations by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge), or the the unwieldy first volume of Jonathan Barnes’s 1984 revision of this. For the two works separately, there is a Loeb including the Topics (1960) and one including the SE (1955), both translated by E. S. Forster (the latter completed by David Furley). There is a translation of the SE (1866) by Edward Poste, and one (2013) by Pieter Sjoerd Hasper.[1] As for commentaries, in English for the SE there are ‘Notes’ on each chapter in the Poste. There are the invaluable comments of Robin Smith on Books 1 and 8 of the Topics.[2] (Forthcoming is Smith’s translation of and commentary on the SE from Oxford.) There are also translations into English of the commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias on Books 1-3 of the Topics.[3] There is a translation of and commentary on Topics 6 by Annamaria Schiaparelli (Oxford, 2023). A classic helpful source is G. E. L. Owen (ed.), Aristotle on Dialectic: The Topics (Oxford, 1968).
The book is affordable: $28 at last online search.
Pages vii-xi give an analytical table of the contents of Topics and SE. A 42-page “Introduction” has explanatory sections headed, for example, “Dialectic, Contentious Argument, and Sophistry,” “Philosophy and Dialectic,” and “What a Topic Is.” Following translations of the Topics and of the SE, 29 pages give translations, from thirteen other works, of “all the significant passages” (p. xiii) that illuminate dialectic. Then follow 110 pages with 709 notes on the translated material. Some notes simply cite another relevant passage from Aristotle; some quote, for example, Aristotle’s definition of a technical term. Some notes are extended explanations. For example, the three-page note 6 explains science, demonstration, deduction, Aristotelian syllogisms, scientific starting point, “in every case,” and “intrinsically.”
A two-page list of items for further reading follows the Notes. In the Notes, Reeve cites Smith and also the French translation and commentary of Louis-André Dorion (listed only in “Other Abbreviations”) on the SE.[4]
There is no separate glossary. The Index provides transliterations for most key expressions: for example, under “special, special affection” one will find idion.
The translation is (p. xiii) “traditional where the costs of innovation exceed the benefits” (e.g., “essence” for to ti ên einai) and “innovative” where the benefits prevail (e.g., “difference” for diaphora). The Introduction is “neither a comprehensive discussion” nor “an expression of scholarly consensus” (p. xiii). The Notes are “a place to start” for “resolute readers” (p. xiv) of Aristotle, including even those “new to these somewhat technical” (p. xiii) texts.
I make six remarks below on points in the translation and commentary that were for me, imagining a reader new to these works, and willing to persist, places to start further thought.
1. P. xxi has a description of dialectic:
A problem (problêma) is posed: ‘Is pleasure choiceworthy or not?’ The answerer claims that yes it is [. . .]. The questioner must refute him by asking questions. [. . .] The questioner succeeds if he forces the answerer to accept a proposition contrary to the one he undertook to defend (SE 165b3-4). [. . .] <D>ialectic is the art or craft that enables someone to play the role of questioner or answerer successfully (Top.100a18-21,164b1-2), and the Topics and Sophistical Refutations are handbooks of that craft.
Clearly, this describes a sort of a contest between a questioner and answerer. The procedure by which the questioner “forces the answerer to accept a proposition” is that the questioner produces a deduction (sullogismos) from premises agreed to by the answerer. A deduction “is an argument in which, certain things being posited, something distinct from the things proposed follows (sumbainei) of necessity because of the things proposed” (Topics 100a25-27). Or a deduction “is when certain things are posited, it is necessary to assert (legein) a thing distinct from the thing proposed” (SE 164b27-165a2). (Here I set aside two possible questions: are these two explanations of “deduction” exactly equivalent? How do they correspond to our “valid argument”?) Premises posited in a dialectical discussion must be acceptable propositions, not self-certifying propositions and not demonstrated ones (100a19-b23).
Reeve’s rather abrupt description of dialectic here provoked me to ask, “Why on earth would anyone ever play the role of questioner and pose a problem?” In what sense is it “necessary to assert”? Can’t one just stay silent? Reading into the Topics, I came simply to accept an apparently brute fact: in Aristotle’s time there was an ongoing practice of a sort of verbal contest unfamiliar to us. Aristotle is the first to give guidance in it: for the answerer, “nothing has been handed down by others” (159a31); “about deductive argument we had absolutely nothing else earlier to speak of at all, but were for a long time laboring and inquiring by knack” (SE 184b1-3).
2. The word “refute” in Reeve’s description of dialectic (“The questioner must refute him”) struck me. That is because the Topics, in Reeve’s careful translation, does not typically use occurrences of “refute” to describe the goal or achievement of the questioner. Reeve reserves “refutation’ and “refute” to translate occurrences of ἔλεγχος and ἐλέγχειν, cognates of which appear prominently in the SE. Reeve’s near abstention from “refute” in the Topics reflects Aristotle’s usage. (The Topics has only three occurrences of ἐλεγχ– words: παρεξελέγχεσθαι, 112a8; ἔλεγχόν τινα, 130a6; and ἐλέγχεσθαι, 158a10.) In Reeve’s translation, Aristotle in the Topics says that the successful questioner “disestablishes” (ἀνασκευάζειν: Topics 109a3, 109a10,110a31 and throughout) or “does away with” the proposition that the answerer has chosen to defend (ἀναιρεῖν at 110b9, 110b11 and throughout; ἀνασκευάζειν at 12a6-7). (“Disestablish” is not in Reeve’s index.) Given the prominence of the word “refutation” in the SE, it is natural to ask: why is it nearly absent in the Topics? A plausible answer comes in an argument of Dorion’s: Aristotle wants to dissociate his dialectic from the ἔλεγχος practiced by Socrates, which shames a person.[5] Dialectic is a practice that has its effect on propositions, not on persons. For example, 120a10 treats doing away with “the thing proposed.” And the answerer in dialectic who defends “properly” (kata tropon, 159a24) “will appear not to be affected at all because of what he himself does” (160a11-14).
3. Only the SE explains “refutation.” It is “a deduction together with the contradiction of the conclusion” (165a23). There refutation is just one of the five goals of a questioner in “competitive” (agônistikôn) and contentious (eristikôn, 165b10-11) arguments. Contentious arguments are either actual deductions from what appear to be acceptable beliefs, or apparent but not actual deductions from what are or appear to be acceptable beliefs (100b23-25). Contentious arguments are a type distinct from dialectical deductions, although both dialectical deductions and contentious arguments (some of which are actual deductions) arise from question-answer exchanges. (The four other goals of contentious arguments are: real or apparent falsehood, disreputability, solecism and babbling: 165b12-18. Some of the examples, as Aristotle says, are ridiculous: 182b15. Apparently, extracting any embarrassingly silly speech from an answerer in a contentious discussion will do.)
The SE has many examples of exchanges of questioner and answerer in contentious argument. (Contrastingly, the Topics has no examples of full exchanges of questioner and answerer in dialectic.) Aristotle’s collection of examples is for me a precious history of routines that some ancient teachers (183b36-7, “paid teachers of contentious argument”) gave to students to memorize (183b38-9). Disappointingly, one student was outraged that such nonsense was assigned reading. Why would anyone pay to learn these? A likely answer, I believe, is: to have something to contribute to witty conversation. For example, verbal contests of various sorts were after-dinner entertainment. Aristotle spends so much time on this collection of often ridiculous examples because some involve deductions, actual or apparent. He studies anything that might illuminate deduction.
4. Questioner and answerer in contentious argument are “rivals” (diaphiloneikountes, 165b13) each aiming at victory over the other. Their aim of victory further distinguishes contention from dialectic. The contrast is that the dialectical questioner and answerer have a common task (koinon ergon, 161a21; 161a7-40). This new reader wonders: what is this common goal for the dialectical questioner and the dialectical answerer? A tentative answer: for the questioner to get to the negation of the initial posit by a route the answerer makes as difficult as possible. That is, the deduction arrives at the conclusion via the most un-obvious or circuitous route. The questioner’s and answerer’s sparring discovers logical relations.
5. A passage (133a15-16) concerning a “special affection” (idion) has this clause: “since ‘walking through the marketplace’ admits of belonging to someone both prior and posterior to ‘human’.” The condition the clause describes in that translation is so hilariously implausible that it was a serious distraction and impediment to reading on efficiently. Reeve’s note 246 explains that the human is human prior to and posterior to walking through the market place. That is entirely reasonable. But it does not seem accurately to represent the hilarious clause in his translation. It corresponds better to Ross’s text. I decided that Reeve at that point had neglected to note that he, like several other translators, had accepted a reading differing from Ross’s. My reaction was renewed appreciation for the learning and patient labors of the copyists, philologists, translators, and commentators on whom I rely.
6. Note 432 on SE 166a37-38 sparked further thought. Aristotle cites an example of a mode of refutation depending on speech (165b24), where “the same statement divided or combined would not always seem to signify the same thing” (166a5-36). Reeve translates: “Of men one hundred fifty god-like Achilles left <alive>.” We gather that in a contentious bout the answerer has agreed to a description of Achilles, perhaps a quotation. The Greek is: πεντήκοντ᾽ ἀνδρῶν ἑκατὸν λίπε δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. (The general sense is that godlike Achilles left some number of men in some condition. Translators differ on whether to supply “alive” or “dead” to label the condition.) Note 432 explains: “Of men one hundred and fifty he left alive (combination); of men one hundred, fifty he left alive (division).” Recalling that Aristotle mentions ridiculous (geloioi, 182b15) arguments that depend on speech, I am inclined to look for a signification here that is as silly as possible. A “division” different from Reeve’s yields, I believe, “Out of fifty men, one hundred god-like Achilles left <alive>.” (That seems to me sufficiently silly. And it would be very godlike of Achilles.
7. Typographical errors:
- xxi, line 8 from bottom: “100a1” should be “100a18.”
- Topics 100a23-5 misses attaching “apparent” to “deduction” to describe the second type of contentious deduction.
- “Rabid” at 184a1 should be “rapid.”
- 197: 24b has a superfluous “for someone deducing.”
I expect the book to serve its intended purposes very well. I would assign it if I were teaching the Topics or SE. If I were to research the works, I would use it as one resource.
Notes
[1] In Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy 15 (2013), 13-54.
[2] Robin Smith, Aristotle. Topics Books I and VIII. (Oxford, 1997).
[3] On Aristotle’s Topics 1, translated by Johannes M. Van Ophuijsen (London, 2000); On Aristotle’s Topics 2, translated by Laura Castelli (London, 2020); and On Aristotle’s Topics 3, translated by Laura Castelli (London, 2022).
[4] L.-A. Dorion, Aristote. Les Réfutations Sophistiques (Laval, 1995).
[5] L.-A. Dorion, “La ‘Depersonnalisation’ de la Dialectique chez Aristote,” Archives de Philosophie 60 (1997), 597-613. At 604 n. 16, Dorion emphasizes Aristotle’s originality in his choice of this vocabulary.