Sophistical Refutations

{{Short description|Text by Aristotle on logical fallacies}}

{{italic title}}

{{Rhetoric}}

Sophistical Refutations ({{langx|el|Σοφιστικοὶ Ἔλεγχοι|Sophistikoi Elenchoi}}; {{langx|la|De Sophisticis Elenchis}}) is a text in Aristotle's Organon in which he identified thirteen fallacies.Sometimes listed as twelve. According to Aristotle, this is the first work to treat the subject of deductive reasoning in ancient Greece (Soph. Ref., 34, 183b34 ff.).

Overview

On Sophistical Refutations{{cite web |title= On Sophistical Refutations|url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/sophist_refut.mb.txt| author1=Aristotle | author2=Translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge|accessdate =2020-12-19 }}{{cite web |title= Aristotle's Logic, < Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy>|date= 18 March 2000|url= https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/aristotle-logic| editor1= Edward N. Zalta |accessdate =2020-12-19 }} consists of 34 chapters. The book naturally falls in two parts: chapters concerned with tactics for the Questioner (3–8 and 12–15) and chapters concerned with tactics for the Answerer (16–32). Besides, there is an introduction (1–2), an interlude (9–11), and a conclusion (33–34).{{cite journal |title= Aristotle's On Sophistical Refutations |journal=Topoi |volume=31 |pages=243–248 |year=2012 | author1= Krabbe, E.C.W. |doi= 10.1007/s11245-012-9124-0|s2cid= 170350834|doi-access= free}}

Fallacies identified

The fallacies Aristotle identifies in Chapter 4 (formal fallacies) and 5 (informal fallacies) of this book are the following:

:Fallacies in the language or formal fallacies (in dictionem):

  1. Equivocation
  2. Amphiboly
  3. Composition
  4. Division
  5. Accent
  6. Figure of speech or form of expression

:

:Fallacies not in the language or informal fallacies (extra dictionem):

{{ordered list

| start = 7|Accident|Secundum quid|Irrelevant conclusion|Petitio principii|False cause|Affirming the consequent|Fallacy of many questions

}}

Footnotes

References

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Further reading

  • {{cite book |last1=Gysembergh |first1=Victor |title=Forgotten Ancient Commentaries on Aristotle's Sphistical Refutations: Fragments of Aspasios, Herminos, Alexander, Syrianos and Philoponos |date=2023 |publisher=De Gruyter |location=Boston |isbn=9783111332666}}