Aristotle's Dialectic

Dialogue, 1982

Archai , 2023

The purpose of this paper is an attempt to delimitate what the dialectical syllogism looks like in Aristotle's Topics. Aristotle never gave an example of a dialectical syllogism, but we have some clues spread over books I and VIII of the Topics which make it possible to understand at least what within a dialectical debate is a dialectical syllogism. The interpretation advanced here distinguishes the logical order of the dialectical argumentation from the order of the debate. This distinction enables us to have a better understanding of what is and how the dialectical syllogism is identified in the debate. In addition, we can solve some interpretative difficulties other interpretations could not solve, and have a more solid grasp of how endoxa are used in a dialectical debate.

I claim that , in the Topics, Aristotle advises dialectical questioners to intentionally argue fallaciously in order to escape from some dialectically awkward positions, and I work through the consequences of that claim. It will turn out that, although there are important exceptions, the techniques for finding arguments described in Topics I–VII are, by and large, locations that Aristotle thought of as appropriate for use in philosophical inquiry. The text that grounds this claim, however, raises a further problem: it highlights the solitary nature of philosophical inquiry, which puts into question the philosophical relevance of Topics VIII. I find the that the Topics provides inadequate grounds for thinking that Aristotle saw Topics VIII as describing standards or techniques of argument that were appropriate for philosophy, and so these texts cannot be used by contemporary commentators to shed light on Aristotle's philosophical practice. Finally, although Aristotle saw philosophy as a solitary activity, he thought dialectic played an important part in a typical philosophical life, both as a means for defending one's reputation, and as a way of participating in an intellectual community.

In this paper, I analyse EE I 6, where Aristotle presented a famous methodological digression. Many interpreters have taken this chapter as advocating a dialectical procedure of enquiry. My claim is that Aristotle does not keep a dialectical attitude towards endoxa or phainomena in this chapter. In order to accomplish my goal, I shall show that EE I 6 does not provide enough evidence for the dialectical construal of it, and that this construal, in turn, hangs on some assumptions brought out from other Aristotelian works (EN and Top.), which do not provide good evidence either. By the examination of these assumptions, I intend to show that Aristotle is not carrying out any sort of dialectic, especially dialectic conceived as conceptual analysis seeking to save phainomena or endoxa. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14195/1984-249X_20_7

Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2019

2021

By reconsidering the form of contradiction, the aim is to defend the dialectic method in its relation to the understanding of the hypothetical method. This it is hoped will reign in the all too numerous variations of testing presupposed distributions by trial-and-error. It will be assumed the hypothetical method is limited by the range of its own presuppositions as opposed to the limits of its methods relations. Philosophically, if this proposal is a success the dialectical thesis will subsume the basis of its axioms; its antithesis, so its methods can be sublated. If this idea of a synthesis succeeds in initiating the beginning of a research program, at least some progress will have been made since Hegel's[4] critique of hypothetical thinking and Popper's[6] critique of the dialectic method.

Revue internationale de philosophie, 2014

A discussion of dialectic and it's place in Aristotelian science and philosophy.

Author Is there a philosopher in the history of philosophy whose achievement even comes close to the breadth and depth of the work of Aristotle? Leibniz is perhaps a very distant second. And this is so despite the fact that we possess considerably less than half of Aristotle's writings. For this reason alone, the task of producing a 'handbook' of Aristotle presents a considerable challenge. The editor, Christopher Shields, has largely met the challenge with a collection of twenty-six substantial articles, ranging from those that would serve as introductions to particular subjects for advanced undergraduates to those that would fit fairly comfortably in