Publisher Description

Ancient dialectic started as an art of refutation and evolved into a science akin to our logic, grammar and linguistics. Scholars of ancient philosophy have traditionally focused on Plato's and Aristotle's dialectic without paying much attention to the diverse conceptions and uses of dialectic presented by philosophers after the classical period. To bridge this gap, this volume aims at a comprehensive understanding of the competing Hellenistic and Imperial definitions of dialectic and their connections with those of the classical period. It starts from the Megaric school of the fourth century BCE and the early Peripatetics, via Epicurus, the Stoics, the Academic sceptics and Cicero, to Sextus Empiricus and Galen in the second century CE. The philosophical foundations and various uses of dialectic are closely analysed and systematically examined together with the numerous objections that were raised against them.

Author Biography

Thomas Bénatouïl is Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Université de Lille. He has published two books in French on Stoicism and many papers in French and English on Hellenistic and Imperial philosophy and on the contemporary reception of Stoicism. He is currently working on the Academy from Plato to Cicero. Katerina Ierodiakonou is Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Athens and at the University of Geneva. She has published extensively on ancient and Byzantine philosophy, especially in the areas of epistemology and logic. She is currently working on a monograph about ancient theories of colour, as well as on an edition, translation and commentary of Theophrastus' De sensibus and of Michael Psellos' paraphrase of Aristotle's De interpretatione.

Table of Contents

Introduction: dialectics in dialogue Thomas Bénatouïl; 1. Megara and dialectic James Allen; 2. Dialectic in the early Peripatos Paolo Crivelli; 3. Epicurus on dialectic David Sedley; 4. Dialectic as a subpart of stoic philosophy Katerina Ierodiakonou; 5. Stoic dialectic and its objects Jean-Baptiste Gourinat; 6. Dialectic in the Hellenistic Academy Luca Castagnoli; 7. Pithana and Probabilia Tobias Reinhardt; 8. Terminology and practice of dialectic in Cicero's letters Sophie Aubert-Baillot; 9. The sceptic's modes of argumentation Benjamin Morison; 10. Galen and middle Platonists on dialectic and knowledge Riccardo Chiaradonna.

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Studies the different conceptions of dialectic (art of argumentation, logic) during the Hellenistic and early Imperial periods.

Promotional "Headline"

Studies the different conceptions of dialectic (art of argumentation, logic) during the Hellenistic and early Imperial periods.

Description for Bookstore

Ancient dialectic started as an art of refutation and evolved into a science akin to our logic, grammar and linguistics. This book studies the philosophical debates over the objects and uses of dialectic involving Theophrastus, Epicurus, the Stoics, the ancient sceptics, Cicero, Galen and many others.

Description for Library

Ancient dialectic started as an art of refutation and evolved into a science akin to our logic, grammar and linguistics. This book studies the philosophical debates over the objects and uses of dialectic involving Theophrastus, Epicurus, the Stoics, the ancient sceptics, Cicero, Galen and many others.

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