in ‘Euthydemus:’ “Who learn, the wise or the unwise?” “The wise,” is the reply; given with blushing and hesitation. “And yet when you learned you did not know and were not wise.” “Who are they who learn the dictation of the grammar-master, the wise boys or the foolish boys?” “The wise.” “Then after all the wise learn.” “And do they learn what they know or what they do not know?” “The latter.” “And dictation is a dictation of letters?” “Yes.” “And you know letters?” “Yes.” “Then you learn what you know.” “But is not learning acquiring knowledge?” “Yes.” “And you acquire that which you have not got already?” “Yes.” “Then you learn that which you did not know.” [1]
Plato’s picture is, doubtless, a caricature, exaggerating the fallacious practice of the lower sort of professional disputants to be met with in those days at Athens. But the dialogue ‘Euthydemus’ seems to have suggested to the scientific mind of Aristotle the idea of classifying all the fallacies that had been or could be employed in argument, and the ‘Sophistical Confutations’ is the result. To the value of this book it makes no difference how far the quibbles and deceptive reasonings adduced had been actually used by certain definite individuals for mercenary purposes, or whether, historically speaking, the professional “Sophists” of Greece were as bad as Plato had represented them. Putting the “Sophists” of Greece quite out of consideration, fallacy, whether voluntary or involuntary,
- ↑ See Professor Jowett’s Introduction to ‘Euthydemus’ in his ‘Dialogues of Plato,’ i.p. 184, 2d ed.
