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Protagoras, Gorgias, and Meno UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title To Win and Win Over: Plato and Aristotle on Strategy and Persuasion in Dialectic Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1c29b3nq Author Parker, Dale Publication Date 2018 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles To Win and Win Over: Plato and Aristotle on Strategy and Persuasion in Dialectic A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Classics by Dale Carlos Parker 2018 © Copyright by Dale Carlos Parker 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION To Win and Win Over: Plato and Aristotle on Strategy and Persuasion in Dialectic by Dale Carlos Parker Doctor of Philosophy in Classics University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor David L. Blank, Chair This dissertation treats Socrates’ argumentative strategies in Plato’s Protagoras, Gorgias, and Meno. These strategies will be compared to those found in Aristotle’s logical works, especially his Analytics, Topics, and Sophistical Refutations. In these texts, Aristotle describes the competitive debates popular among certain Greek intellectuals. These bouts featured a questioner who offered various propositions to an answerer. The questioner tried to force the answerer into a contradiction based on affirmed propositions, and the answerer tried to evade contradiction by caution in making affirmations. Few scholars have argued that Plato’s dialogues are representatives of these verbal jousts, but such a claim resolves traditional difficulties, such as (1) what Socrates’ method was (if he had one), or (2) why he made ‘bad’ arguments, or (3) what he hoped to achieve by refuting an opponent. ii By using the criteria provided in Aristotle’s logical works, we can offer new answers to these traditional questions. (1) Aristotle would identify the method of any competive debater, Socrates included, as the crafting of premises plausible enough to be accepted by an opponent, which lead the opponent to a patent contradiction. (2) If Socrates makes bad or even fallacious arguments, it is only because he thinks that the premises are sufficiently plausible to be accepted by his opponent. (3) Socrates’ goal within the game of question-and-answer is victory, but Socrates has the broader goal of exposing the ignorance of self-proclaimed experts like Protagoras, Polus, and Meno. The refutations of these experts are an invitation for them to abandon their pretensions, which Socrates sees as roadblocks to philosophical inquiry. The introduction of the dissertation outlines my synthesis of Aristotle’s dialectical theory, which sets the interpretative framework for the rest of the dissertation. In Chapter One, I use this hermeneutic to read the Protagoras. I argue that Socrates’ conversation with Hippocrates is a successful example of what Aristotle would call examinational (peirastic) dialectic, and that his conversation with Protagoras is a failed example. Chapter Two treats Socrates’ controversial refutation of Polus. Socrates fights the young eristic with eristical arguments of his own—a move countenanced in Aristotle’s Topics. The last chapter treats the Meno. I argue, against one common opinion, that anamnesis and the hypothetical method do not make the dialogue “transitional”, and do not make Socrates more confident in the truth of his conclusions. Rather, the dialogue shares argumention similar to that observed in the previous two chapters. iii The dissertation of Dale Carlos Parker is approved. Kathryn Anne Morgan Adam David Crager Gavin Lawrence David. L. Blank, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 iv DEDICATION To my parents. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION..............................................................................................ii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................................... v TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................. viii VITA.... ............................................................................................................................................ ix Introduction: An Aristotelian Hermeneutic ...........................................................................................1 0.1 Preliminaries: Aristotle’s Innovation ........................................................................................1 0.2 The Argument and its Place in the Scholarship .........................................................................7 0.3 ἀγῶνες λόγων and the Philosophers’ Innovations ......................................................................8 0.4.1 Classification of Arguments .................................................................................................. 14 0.4.2 Classification of Arguments: Peirastic .................................................................................... 15 0.4.3 Classification of Arguments: “Constructive” .......................................................................... 16 0.4.4 Classification of Arguments: Pedagogical .............................................................................. 22 0.4.5 Classification of Arguments: Eristic ....................................................................................... 25 0.5 Prospectus for the Dissertation .............................................................................................. 28 Chapter 1: The Contest of λόγοι in the Protagoras .............................................................................. 29 1.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 29 1.2 Hippocrates .......................................................................................................................... 30 1.3 Protagoras: Historical Background ......................................................................................... 37 1.4 The Unity of the Virtues: Posing the Problema ....................................................................... 38 1.5 The Unity of the Virtues: Initial Debate.................................................................................. 42 1.6 The Unity of the Virtues: Digression ...................................................................................... 46 1.7 The Unity of the Virtues: End of First Round ......................................................................... 49 1.8 Arguing about Arguing ......................................................................................................... 52 1.9 The Interpretation of Simonides ............................................................................................. 61 1.10 Back to Dialectic .................................................................................................................. 67 1.11 The Unity of the Virtues Again .............................................................................................. 72 1.12 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 76 Chapter 2: Arguing to Win and the Refutation of Polus ....................................................................... 79 2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 79 2.2 Chaerephon’s Questions ........................................................................................................ 82 2.3 Socrates First Refutes Polus .................................................................................................. 86 vi 2.4 The Testing of Gorgias ......................................................................................................... 87 2.5 Analysis of Gorgias’ Refutation ............................................................................................. 93 2.6 The “Socratic Elenchus” and Historical Understandings of the Argumentation in the Gorgias ... 95 2.7.1 The Refutation of Polus: Introduction .................................................................................... 98 2.7.3 The Refutation of Polus: A Lesson in Good Dialectic............................................................ 102 2.7.5 The Refutation of Polus: Polus as the Stock Dyskolos ........................................................... 109 2.7.6 The Refutation of Polus: Arguing from Exempla .................................................................. 110 2.7.7 The Refutation of Polus: Arguing from Appearances ............................................................ 113 2.7.8 The Refutation of Polus: The Justice Argument .................................................................... 116 2.7.9 The Refutation of Polus: Awareness of Fallacy ..................................................................... 119 2.8 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 122 Chapter 3: Persuading Meno to Learn .............................................................................................. 126
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