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Book II Chapter 2

Iamblichus to Sopater · 3

Whether, then, it ought to be pursued or not, practicing dialectic is ⟨worthwhile⟩. For it is absurd to judge everything by reason ⟨yet⟩ abandon the most exact study of reason itself; to surpass the other animals through reason, possessing this distinctive good of human nature, yet exercise it casually and at random; and to be content with reason’s investigation when it is intermingled with things in general, yet reject as worthless reason’s knowledge of itself. In that knowledge, reason turns away from other things and establishes the science of itself as supremely august and precious—as the inscription at Pytho also bears witness.⁶⁷

In the same letter

Let us turn, then, to philosophical exercises. First of all are those directed toward recollection: we see these brought to light through skillful questioning, ⟨as⟩ Socrates also demonstrates to Meno. Second would be those employed as midwifery, bringing what has been born into the light and distinguishing which of the offspring are true and which false.⁶⁸ These too all derive their authority from dialectic, since they are purifications of thought through refutations: they set the interlocutors’ opposing opinions side by side and bring them into collision. Other exercises are offered to hearers for testing and training, or argue about a thesis, or examine the teachings of the ancients. None completes its own task ⟨without⟩ dialectic. In general, one cannot properly give and receive an account unless one has acquired this science of arguments.⁶⁹

Chapter 2 · Contrasting views

On the contrary.⁷⁰

Euripides in Hippolytus

Alas, alas, that facts have no voice for people! If they did, clever speakers would count for nothing. But now, with rhythmic speech, they steal away the plainest truths, so that people do not believe what they ought.⁷¹

Euripides in Antiope

On any matter one could set up a contest between two arguments, if one were skilled in speaking.⁷²

Evenus

Many make a habit of contradicting on every matter alike; contradicting rightly, however, is not their habit. For these people a single old saying is enough: “Let those be your opinions, and these mine.”⁷³

Arcesilaus

The philosopher Arcesilaus said that dialecticians resemble conjurers with pebbles, who deceive with cleverness.⁷⁴

Zeno

Zeno compared the arts of dialecticians to accurate measures used to measure neither wheat nor anything else of value, but chaff and dung.⁷⁵

Pythagoras

Empty is a philosopher’s discourse that heals no human affliction. For just as medicine is of no use if it does not drive diseases out of bodies, so philosophy is of no use if it does not drive evil out of the soul.⁷⁶

From Ariston’s Comparisons

Those who go deep into dialectic resemble people chewing crabs: they busy themselves with many shells for a little nourishment.⁷⁷

Antisthenes

One should put an end to a person’s contradiction by teaching, not by contradicting in return. No one cures a madman by going mad in return.⁷⁸

Cleanthes

Cleanthes was asked why, although few people in earlier times had practiced philosophy, more had nevertheless become distinguished than now. “Because,” he said, “then it was deeds that were practiced, but now it is words.”⁷⁹

From Serenus’s Recollections · Arcesilaus

But avoid dialectic: it turns things upside down.⁸⁰

Ariston

Ariston said that dialectic resembles the mud in the roads: it too is useful for nothing, yet brings down those who walk through it.⁸¹

Theocritus

To a dialectician who answered him in a strained and contentious manner, Theocritus said:

“Would that strife might perish from among gods and human beings!”⁸²

Carneades

Carneades said that dialectic resembles an octopus: the octopus eats its tentacles when they have grown, and dialecticians, as their ability develops, overturn their own arguments as well.⁸³

Clitomachus

Clitomachus compared dialectic to the moon: it too never ceases to wane and wax.⁸⁴

Ariston

Ariston compared the arguments of dialecticians to spiders’ webs: useful for nothing, but exceedingly skillfully made.⁸⁵

From Ariston’s Comparisons

Hellebore, taken in a coarser form, purges; ground into very fine particles, it chokes. So too with excessive subtlety in philosophy.⁸⁶

Plato

But anyone who would be secure must be especially on guard where resemblances are concerned;⁸⁷ for this is a most slippery kind of thing.⁸⁸

The same author

But I know that arguments which construct their proofs from probabilities are impostors;⁸⁹ unless one guards against them, they deceive one thoroughly, both in geometry and in everything else.⁹⁰

67.Pytho is Delphi; the allusion is to “Know yourself,” also quoted in II.1.31.2. Here self-knowledge is specifically reason’s knowledge of its own activity. Λόγος shifts between reasoning, argument, and reason as a capacity; the English follows these contextual differences.

68.The first example refers to Plato’s Meno, where questioning is used to illustrate recollection. “Midwifery” treats emerging thoughts as offspring whose truth must be tested; bringing an idea to birth does not itself guarantee its truth.

69.Refutation (ἔλεγχος) exposes conflicts between beliefs. Giving and receiving an account means participating in reasoned exchange, not merely producing and hearing sounds. This is the last excerpt before the chapter’s contrasting sequence.

70.This heading introduces the collection of contrasting views. Wachsmuth takes the heading and II.2.8–23 from chapter 82 of the Florilegium, as his apparatus explains on pp. 21 and 24. The sequence collects criticisms of verbal display, contentiousness, and useless subtlety; it need not make every contributor an opponent of all reasoned inquiry.

71.The wish is that the facts could speak for themselves and deprive eloquent speakers of their power to mislead. “With rhythmic speech” renders the bodily image εὐρύθμοισι στόμασι, literally “with rhythmical mouths,” following Wachsmuth’s printed reading. The final δοκεῖν concerns what people believe or take to be the case. Wachsmuth cites the fragment as 442 in the Nauck numbering he uses.

72.The two arguments are opposing sides in a contest. The lines say that a skilled speaker can construct such a contest; they do not establish that both sides are true. Compare the distinction made in the Archytas excerpt at II.2.4. As with other dramatic fragments, the speaker’s claim cannot simply be treated as Euripides’ own doctrine.

73.The repeated ἀντιλέγειν distinguishes habitual contradiction from justified disagreement. The closing saying offers a way to leave an unproductive dispute; in context it need not imply that every opinion is equally true.

74.Ψηφοπαῖκται are performers of tricks with pebbles or counters. The comparison concerns ingenious deception, not simply skill at a board game. Παραλογίζονται can describe misleading someone by false reasoning as well as cheating or trickery; the analogy transfers the conjurer’s sleight of hand to argument.

75.“Accurate” follows the printed δικαίοις, describing measures that give a fair or proper quantity. The comparison allows correctness in the instrument while denying value to what it measures. It does not say that the dialecticians’ methods are necessarily inaccurate.

76.The attribution “Pythagoras” is retained from the printed heading. Wachsmuth notes a closely related saying in Porphyry, Letter to Marcella 31; the parallel does not warrant silently changing the anthology’s attribution. Πάθος, here “affliction,” acquires its force from the medical comparison. The final clause speaks of the soul’s κακόν, “evil,” rather than repeating the word for disease.

77.The printed βαθύνοντες means going deep or probing deeply. “Shells” renders ὀστᾶ, literally “bones,” in the crab comparison. Its point is the disproportion between the labor of extracting something and the small amount of nourishment obtained.

78.The repeated ἀντι- links answering contradiction with answering madness. The saying recommends instruction as a remedy for the dispute. “Madman” retains the ancient comparison’s language; the practical distinction is between helping someone and reproducing the behavior one opposes.

79.Ἔργον and λόγος set action against discourse. The verb ἀσκεῖν, used of practice or training, gives the answer its point: philosophical training has shifted from what one does to what one says. The Greek does not specify a particular quality in which the earlier philosophers excelled.

80.The heading places this saying of Arcesilaus within Serenus’s Recollections. Συγκυκᾷ suggests mixing up or throwing into confusion, reinforced by “upside down.” Wachsmuth detects verse behind the wording but prints no reconstructed meter; the translation likewise adds none.

81.Καταβάλλειν means to throw or bring down. The image turns the defeat of an opponent in argument into a pedestrian’s fall in mud. The charge is that the method obstructs progress without providing a useful result.

82.The quotation is Iliad 18.107, as Wachsmuth’s reference indicates. Ἔρις, “strife,” answers the description ἐριστικῶς, “contentiously”: a Homeric wish is applied to the interlocutor’s argumentative manner. The narrative frame and the quoted verse remain distinct.

83.The Greek shifts from the singular “dialectic” to the plural τούτους, “these people,” understood here as dialecticians. “Arguments” makes explicit the sense of τὰ σφέτερα, “their own things.” The comparison turns growing argumentative power back against the positions of those who possess it.

84.The image is one of continual diminution and increase. The excerpt leaves the comparison brief; it does not identify particular arguments or schools with the moon’s different phases.

85.Τεχνικός here praises the skill displayed in making something. The criticism depends on separating that skill from usefulness, much as the Zeno saying at II.2.12 separates an accurate measure from the worth of what it measures.

86.The medical image plays on fineness: the finely ground substance corresponds to λεπτολογία, discourse carried into minute distinctions. In this context “excessive subtlety” conveys the criticism. The contrast is between a treatment that purges and refinement that defeats its purpose.

87.Sophist 231A. “Secure” and “slippery” preserve the physical contrast in ἀσφαλής and ὀλισθηρότατον. The warning concerns the danger of being misled by resemblance; it does not say that every comparison is false.

88.Wachsmuth explains that this excerpt and II.2.25 survive in the Eclogae manuscripts F and P at the end of Chapter 1, a position he judges mistaken. His edition places them here, after the material recovered from the Florilegium. Their position is an editorial reconstruction, not a newly supplied passage of Greek.

89.Phaedo 92D; Simmias speaks. In the dialogue he is reconsidering his account of the soul as a harmony. Here εἰκότα are plausible considerations offered as the basis of proofs, and ἀλαζόνες calls the arguments pretenders or impostors. The warning preserves the distinction between plausibility and demonstration.

90.Wachsmuth supplies the article ⟨τοῖς⟩ from Plato’s text. English expresses the resulting phrase naturally as “in everything else,” without an added standalone word to bracket. The supplied Greek article remains visible opposite the translation.