In Metaphysics IV.2 Aristotle assigns a very specific role to dialectic in philosophical and scientific inquiry. This role consists of the use of the special form of dialectic which he calls peirastic. This is not a new conception of, or a new role for, dialectic in philosophy and science, but one also assigned to it in the Topics and Sophistical Refutations. In the SE Aristotle lays down multiple overlapping requirements for the premises or bases for peirastic dialectical argument. (...) These must be things known by skilled practitioners of dialectic; things in fact in accord with the science or subject of the peirastic dialectical encounter in question; things known by non-experts as well as by experts in that subject, things known even by ordinary people in general; things believed by the answerer in the given peirastic encounter and things which are as noted and accredited as possible. We can see from Aristotle’s discussion and from his, and earlier, examples that all of these various requirements can be and are met by a single identifiable set of propositions, one whose use gives a special power to peirastic, one adequate to show the falsity of particular pretensions to knowledge on specific points, in science and philosophy. (shrink)

Aristotle's discussion of Plato's Republic in Politics II is argued to be, at least in part, peirastic, on the grounds that nine premises that Aristotle uses in his arguments on unity and property in the city of the guardians are premises that Socrates himself proposes in the dialogue. The paper supports this claim with a table of parallel passages from the two works. The paper concludes that Aristotle uses a peirastic treatment of the Republic as an opportunity to (...) work out his own answers to the problems of unity and property. (shrink)

It has often been noted that Socratic cross-examination is problematic as a method of inquiry, i.e., as a method for 'acquiring' knowledge. Rarely has it been noticed that there are problems with cross-examination when used for the purposes of 'testing' for knowledge. In the 'Charmides', Socrates commits himself to the following principle: In order to discriminate between the person who knows and the person who does not know the subject matter covered by a particular discipline (technê), one must have mastered (...) that discipline. But if Socrates' disavowals of moral knowledge are sincere, it would seem to follow from this principle that, contrary to what Socrates says in many early dialogues, he cannot successfully test claims to moral expertise through cross-examination. Through an examination of the conditions that Socrates places on knowledge and on mastering a 'technê', I show how this problem can be resolved. (shrink)

This paper advances an assessment of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason made from a bird’s eye view. Seen from this perspective, the task of Kant’s work was to ground the spontaneity of human reason, preserving at the same time the strict methods of science and mathematics. Kant accomplished this objective by reviving an old philosophical discipline: the peirastic dialectic of Plato and Aristotle. What is more, he managed to combine it with logic. From this blend, Kant’s transcendental idealism appeared (...) as a new logic that paralleled Aristotle’s syllogistic logic. The first result of this move was that philosophy became a formal study that treats even such subjects as ethics with rigour. Another outcome was that it established philosophy as a professional – school – discipline. In the twentieth century academy, this development was echoed by the emergence of analytic philosophy, in which Kant’s new logic evolved into a philosophical logic. (shrink)

How do, according to Aristotle, peirastic arguments, which are employed by nonscientists to put professed scientists to the test, work, and how do they differ from genuine scientific arguments? A peirastic argument succeeds in unmasking a would-be scientist if it establishes an inconsistency among the answers given. These answers may only comprise: propositions which are proper to the field and which everybody can know; propositions which only scientists may know; “common” propositions that everybody, including various sciences, uses in (...) all kind of arguments. On the other hand, a peirastic argument fails to do its job if it either features or presupposes in addition propositions which would justify a fallacy, or if it purports to be scientific. The latter type of bad peirastic argument crucially depend on common propositions where scientific arguments explain by reference to combinations of the primitive items of the science in question. (shrink)

This dissertation studies how Aristotle understands and justifies his Rhetorical Art. It proceeds by explicating the Art in its intellectual context. Rhetoric emerges as a dynamic investigation of human affairs working through the "given" in speech and thought to a plausible account, while giving consideration to the opinions and characters of both speaker and audience within the horizon of a particular occasion. The basic dynamic determines a structure which is comparable to Socrates' requirements in the Phaedrus. That this is the (...) structure and dynamic is supported by considering the fundamentally contingent nature of human experience, understanding the inference types , common sense principles and starting points by which such experience is explicated, and placing such experience in three mutually exclusive genres. Aristotle's art is essentially the resulting plausible account while actual composition is supplementary. ;Aristotle limits the art by reference to dialectic and ethical life. When it is seen that Aristotle's Organon is not a science of logic and the Posterior Analytics is a rarely applicable mode of presentation, the point of dialectic becomes accessible. It too involves strenuous grappling with speech and thought, but its highest purpose lies in peirastic. Peirastic and sophistry are uses of dialectic which have a contrasting moral color. Peirastic aims at the discovery of ignorance and, at the same time, the difference between accident and essence and knowledge and opinion: Being educated is essentially knowing what one does not know. ;What Socrates only alludes to as political art, Aristotle attempts to expound as praxis perfected into phronesis. Even Aristotle does no more than suggest the nature of phronesis negatively as simultaneously a seeking, a finding and an act which is both self-determination and self-knowledge, and none of these separately; it is profoundly disruptive of existing opinion and most clearly to be seen in the rejection of the laws and rules upon which, as deliberation, it is dependent. The Art differs from Gorgias' rhetoric in its emphasis on the plausible and in its subordination to an ethical self-determination that gains the weight of experience appropriated by intelligence and virtue. (shrink)

The paper deals with the art of cross-examination or probe (peirastiké) wich is, according to Aristotle, a part of dialectic and aims at revealing falle pretensions to knowledge. A detailed discussion of the relevant passages from the Sophistical Refutations shows that "peirastic" argumenta were not easily distinguishablc forro the arguments used by the sophists against the scientists in order to undermine their reputation. It is also shows that the difficulty of telling dialectic from sophistry is a theme Aristotle inherits (...) frorn Plato's Sophist. (shrink)

We shall investigate the similarities and dissimilarities between old and new dialectic. For the ‘old dialectic’, we base our survey mainly on Aristotle’s Topics and Sophistical Refutations, whereas for the ‘new dialectic’, we turn to contemporary views on dialogical interaction, such as can, for the greater part, be found in Walton’s The New Dialectic. Three issues are taken up: types of dialogue, fallacies, and strategies. Though one should not belittle the differences in scope and outlook that obtain between the old (...) and the new dialectic, the paper will show that in many respects the old dialectic foreshadows the new dialectic. (shrink)

The Theaetetus is subtitled peri epistemes, on knowledge, and peirastikos, tentative. Theaetetus' three attempted definitions of knowledge, each ventured only to fail, are structured in a cascading reduction. This regress functions both negatively, as an indirect demonstration that knowledge is not definable in term of opinion or judgment, that is, knowledge is not "opinion plus," but also positively, as the ill-fated definitions build upon one another to delineate the elements necessary for a possible theory of judgment. The themes of knowledge (...) and judgment never resolve, yet, through the multiple peirastic beginnings that perish struggling to say something lasting about knowledge, this main theme ties together the dialogue's many subthemes-wisdom and character; sophistry and its relation to philosophy; Socrates' trial; intellectual midwifery, or Socratic dialectic; appearance and reality; Heracliteanism; Eleaticism; forms and participation; unity and plurality; particularity and universality; identity and difference; memory and time; relations; the relation of resemblance. One could go on. The guiding question, how to define knowledge, is a theoretical one, and the reasoning becomes progressively more abstract as the dialogue proceeds, while at the same time never straying far from practical implications: the theoretical conception of knowledge holds consequences made manifest in human action and deliberation. The dialogue about knowledge is also a dialogue about wisdom. (shrink)

This article replies to the critical note by Trabattoni («Elenchos», xxxiii (2012) pp. 69-107). The author defends his interpretation of Plato's Theaetetus against Trabattoni's objections, arguing that the maieutic and peirastic character of the dialogue explains its negative or aporetic conclusion. For the failure of all the attempts to define knowledge in the dialogue doesn't mean that, according to Plato, knowledge is not possible for men or that it can be identified with doxa; on the contrary, Plato clearly states (...) that the philosopher, i.e. the dialectician, is absolutely able to attain the perfect knowledge of the forms. The subsequent failures in the Theaetetus, particularly the last two, depend on the admission of an "additive model'' according to which knowledge is "doxa plus something'', an epistemological attitude that is explicitly rejected in the Meno. (shrink)

This dissertation advances a solution to a problem intrinsic to understanding the dialogues of Plato. How are we to understand Plato's thought when he never speaks in his own name in any of his dialogues? Many writers assume that Plato's characters speak for him. With this assumption, they study the thought articulated by Plato's characters as if it were his own, and elaborate a so-called "doctrinal" interpretation. A variety of subjective readings follows, since what Socrates and other characters say in (...) the dialogues is often inconsistent or contradictory. To resolve these problems the dissertation constructs a method for interpreting Socratic dialogue which is true to the genre. Extending the work of Bakhtin, Clay, and Kahn, it develops a metalanguage for specifying the structure, plot, aim , and effect of a dialogue as well as the thought , character , and pathos of its participants, by applying concepts in Plato's dialogues and in Aristotle's Poetics, Ethics, Politics, Metaphysics, Physics, and other works. The dissertation shows that the Republic represents Glaucon as subject to erotic desire and desires for luxury and honor, and that the aim of Socrates' discourse is to induce a catharsis in Glaucon in order to change these states of character. ;To support this interpretation, the dissertation shows: Aristotle does not apply a doctrinal reading to Plato's dialogues; he does not attribute the remarks of the character Socrates to Plato. Irwin's claims in "Plato's Ethics" are not supported by the texts of Aristotle which he cites. Aristotle's treatment of the Republic in Politics II is consistent with a mimetic interpretation of the dialogue. His treatment of the Republic is peirastic: he refutes Socrates' proposals with premisses and arguments that Socrates himself expresses in the dialogue. The dissertation discusses Aristotle's treatment of Socrates' proposals for unity in the city of the guardians, the sharing of women and children, gender, sacrilegious acts and incest, property, and the minimum necessary elements for a city. Aristotle's concept of catharsis can be derived from Sophist 230 and Republic X. (shrink)

This paper advances an assessment of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason made from a bird’s eye view. Seen from this perspective, the task of Kant’s work was to ground the spontaneity of human reason, preserving at the same time the strict methods of science and mathematics. Kant accomplished this objective by reviving an old philosophical discipline: the peirastic dialectic of Plato and Aristotle. What is more, he managed to combine it with logic. From this blend, Kant’s transcendental idealism appeared (...) as a new logic that paralleled Aristotle’s syllogistic logic. The first result of this move was that philosophy became a formal study that treats even such subjects as ethics with rigour. Another outcome was that it established philosophy as a professional – school – discipline. In the twentieth century academy, this development was echoed by the emergence of analytic philosophy, in which Kant’s new logic evolved into a philosophical logic. (shrink)