Reason's Dark Champions by Tindale Christopher W.;

Author:Tindale, Christopher W.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
Published: 2010-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

SOCRATIC AND SOPHISTIC REFUTATIONS AGAIN

Perhaps the strongest senses of reversal, some of which include attributions of self-contradiction, arise in the refutation argument, first discussed in chapter 4. To speak of the elenchus as Socrates’ method often overlooks the fact that it involved the reduction of an interlocutor’s position to a contradiction, thus refuting it. And insofar as the Sophists also provided a method of refutation (although not a “real” refutation, as Aristotle reminds us), then the contrast between the Socratic and sophistic is important. As noted in the earlier chapter, both methods involve an investigation through questions and answers to a refutation of the thesis under investigation, and both involve the agreement of the respondent at each step. A key difference lies in the beliefs of the respondent—the Socratic respondent (a Crito or Euthyphro) was committed to the statements put forward or jointly agreed to; the sophistic respondent (a Cleinias or the brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus themselves) was not. But this is what we may call an ‘interior’ distinction, relating to the internal states of mind of those involved; externally there would be no such clear distinction between them—they would appear similar.7

Diogenes Laertius attributes many argumentative innovations and strategies to Protagoras, but among them one of the more interesting claims is that he “was also the first to institute the Socratic method of argument” (DK 80 A1). Given Diogenes’ questionable reliability, it is not clear what exactly should be understood from this. It may mean no more than that Protagoras employed a method of question and answer that is later associated with Socrates. But on the testimony of the Euthydemus, some Sophists would have been employing a parallel method of questioning that aimed at the refutation of a claim. An exchange between the Sophist Dionysodorus and Socrates’ companion Ctesippus illustrates something of what was at stake. Dionysodorus asks Ctesippus if he believes that contradiction exists, and Ctesippus replies that he does. Dionysodorus then proceeds to subject this belief to an examination through questions and answers (with Ctesippus providing the latter) in order to arrive at its refutation. Dionysodorus asks:

“Are there logoi for each of the things which are?”

[Ctesippus:] “Certainly.”

“So, of each thing as it is or as it is not?”

“As it is.”

“Yes, for if you recall, Ctesippus,” he said, “just a moment ago we showed that nobody says ‘how it is not’; for it was clear that nobody says what is not.”

“So, what’s that got to do with this?” replied Ctesippus. “Are you and I contradicting each other any the less?”

“Well,” he said, “would we be contradicting each other if we both gave the description (logos) of the same thing? Presumably, we’d actually be saying the same thing?”

He agreed.

“But when neither of us gave the description of a thing,” he said, “is it then that we’d be contradicting each other? Surely, in this case, neither of us would have mentioned anything at all?”

He also agreed to this.

“Well, then, when I give the description of a thing, but you give a

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