[454a]
“is
the power of the art of contradiction1!” “Why
so?” “Because,” said I, “many appear
to me to fall into it even against their wills, and to suppose that they are
not wrangling but arguing, owing to their inability to apply the proper
divisions and distinctions to the subject under consideration. They pursue
purely verbal oppositions, practising eristic, not dialectic on one
another.” “Yes, this does happen to many,” he
said; “but does this observation apply to us too at
present?”
1 ἀντιλογικῆς: one of several designations for the eristic which Isocrates maliciously confounds with dialectic while Plato is careful to distinguish them. Cf. E. S. Thompson, The Meno of Plato, Excursus V., pp. 272 ff. and the introduction to E.H. Gifford's Euthydemus, p. 42. Among the marks of eristic are the pusuit of merely verbal oppositions as here and Euthydemus 278 A, 301 B, Theaetetus 164 C; the neglect to distinguish and divide, Philebus 17 A, Phaedrus 265 E, 266 A, B; the failure to distinguish the hypothesis from its consequences, Phaedo 101 E, Parmenides 135-136.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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