Laura Maria Castelli

In this paper I discuss Sextus’ account of sophisms in Outlines of Pyrrhonism, II 229–259. After a few introductory remarks on the sceptic capacity as a rational capacity, I analyse the sceptic’s general attitude towards sophisms and draw attention to the sceptic reaction to the way in which dogmatic logicians deal with insolubilia or aporoi logoi. I provide some context for the Pyrrhonian attitude towards sophisms, emphasizing a radical difference between the sceptics and the dogmatists: while the dogmatists tend to deal with insolubilia as exceptions, the sceptic questions the exceptionality of such cases. I suggest that the Pyrrhonian approach to sophisms is based on the impossibility for the sceptic to detach pragmatic considerations from logical issues. Finally, I draw some conclusions on the Pyrrhonian attitude towards dealing with arguments without logical theory.

In this paper I present and discuss Alexander’s reading of Aristotle’s Topics. After an overview of Alexander’s take on Peripatetic logic and the Organon, I review Alexander’s agenda on the Topics, with an emphasis on the ‘gymnastic’ value of dialectical training. This evidence suggests that Alexander is worried that the Topics, with their focus on arguments based on endoxastic premises, might not be thought worth studying. I therefore discuss Alexander’s account of endoxa against the backdrop of Hellenistic debates about the status of doxa (‘opinion’) and of what is ‘persuasive’ (pithanon) with respect to knowledge and what is ‘true’ (alethes). Alexander’s account rests on his views on the development of rationality, which I sketch based on Alexander’s treatise On the Soul. Such views might explain why Alexander does not seem to be worried by the possibility that the dialectical practice of arguing pro and contra any given thesis might lead to scepticism. Finally, I review some further evidence on Alexander’s practice of teaching philosophy through Aristotle’s works, and I suggest that Alexander’s way of reading and using the Topics may have left more traces in the later tradition than has been appreciated so far.

Dans son Commentaire au Traité De l’interprétation d’Aristote, Ammonius réfute une position, qu’il attribue à Alexandre d’Aphrodise, d’ après laquelle les « adverbes » ( epirrhêmata ) appartiennent à l’espèce des onomata. Bien qu’il soit malaisé de reconstruire la position exacte d’Alexandre sur la base du Commentaire d’Ammonius, je souhaite montrer qu’on peut en offrir une version cohérente en recourant principalement au commentaire d’Alexandre aux Topiques, à propos des différentes sortes d’adverbes. À l’inverse, semble-t-il, d’Ammonius, Alexandre aurait distingué deux classes dans les adverbes dont traite Aristote dans ses écrits logiques : d’une part les tropoi ou opérateurs modaux ; d’autre part, les ptôseis, c’est-à-dire cette sorte particulière d’inflexions (les adverbes en -ôs dérivant d’un nom, en général d’un nom abstrait)qui jouent un rôle crucial dans nombre des topoi qu’ Aristote présente dans les Topiques.

Aristotle's Topics is a handbook for dialectic, which can be understood as a philosophical debate between a questioner and a respondent. In book 2, Aristotle mainly develops strategies for making deductions about 'accidents', which are properties that might or might not belong to a subject (for instance, Socrates has five fingers, but might have had six), and about properties that simply belong to a subject without further specification. In the present commentary, here translated into English for the first time, Alexander develops a careful study of Aristotle's text. He preserves objections and replies from other philosophers whose work is now lost, such as the Stoics. He also offers an invaluable picture of the tradition of Aristotelian logic down to his time, including innovative attempts to unify Aristotle's guidance for dialectic with his general theory of deductive argument (the syllogism), found in the Analytics. The work will be of interest not only for its perspective on ancient logic, rhetoric, and debate, but also for its continuing influence on argument in the Middle Ages and later.

One', Aristotle says, can be said in many ways and each being is one. Through a comprehensive analysis of the passages in which Aristotle makes sense of these claims, the book provides a detailed account of how the different ways of being one permeate the domain of being and explores Aristotle's approach to the notion of unity from the ontological, cosmological and dialectical point of view. In rejecting what he regards as an 'archaic' conception of being, Aristotle rejects a corresponding 'archaic' conception of the one and shows how, within the framework of his philosophy of being and substance, different problems and different paradigmatic forms of unity coexist and make of unity a privileged ground for the exercise of philosophical thought.

The paper analyses the argumentative structure of a difficult passage from Aristotle's Metaphysics XII 7 on the basis of a topos of sameness provided in Top. VII 1. In doing this the article gives an example of how Aristotle's treatises on dialectic can prove useful to understand what he says in his more philosophically committed writings. The article also shows how general argumentative techniques and more or less explicit specific philosophical assumptions interact in shaping Aristotle's arguments and how the distinction of these different factors can help us have a better grasp on Aristotle's text.