Fallacious Arguments in Ancient Philosophy

The central aim of this volume is to foster a new understanding of Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations and thereby to enrich our knowledge of the beginnings of logical analysis. An important service for the scientific community to support this aim is the edition of a new translation of Aristotle’s work into English. The contributions discussing the original work were inspired by a onference in 2009 in Berlin which was the first one exclusively dedicated to Sophistical Refutations of Aristotle and brought together nearly everyone working on the main topics Aristotle deals with in that work. In Aristotle we see the onset of systematic theorizing about argumentation, including an account of the ways in which arguments, despite of being incorrect, may appear to be correct and of the relations between different types of argumentation (in science, in discussions with various purposes, in everyday life), but also of the connections with more general philosophical issues, like the meaning of words and the ontological status of universals. Fallacious Arguments in Ancient Philosophy It is, however, primarily because of its account of argumentation that Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations, together with the Topics, has caught the attention of those working in the field of argumentation theory. This collection shows that the study of argumentation theory in Ancient Philosophy, and with Aristotle in particular, is in good shape. At least some of the points made in the articles brought together here will withstand scrutiny and will advance our understanding of the beginnings of logical analysis. The authors: Jonathan Adler (†), Susanne Bobzien, Robert Bolton, Luca Castagnoli, Louis-André Dorion, Paolo Fait, Adrian Frey, Pieter Sjoerd Hasper, Wolfgang Kienzler, Colin Guthrie King, Raina Kirchhoff, Ermelinda Valentina di Lascio, Yakir Levin, Christof Rapp, Carrie Swanson - the first translation of Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations (transl. by P. S. Hasper)