Plato and Aristotle on Strategy and Persuasion in Dialectic

By Dale Carlos Parker

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1835208029
• ISBN13: 9781835208021
• Release Date: October 2023
• Publisher: Alihyd Hussain
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"