Note 63 — Chapter XXI · EUTHYDEMUS.

The Platonic critics talk about the Eristics (as they do about the Sophists) as if that name designated a known and definite class of persons. This is altogether misleading. The term is vituperative, and was applied by different persons according to their own tastes.

Ueberweg remarks with great justice, that Isokrates called all speculators on philosophy by the name of Eristics. “Als ob jener Rhetor nicht (wie ja doch Spengel selbst gut nachgewiesen hat) alle und jede Spekulation mit dem Nahmen der Eristik bezeichnete.” (Untersuchungen über die Zeitfolge der Plat. Schriften, p. 257.) In reference to the distinction which Aristotle attempts to draw between Dialectic and Eristic — the former legitimate, the latter illegitimate — we must remark that even in the legitimate Dialectic the purpose prominent in his mind is that of victory over an opponent. He enjoins that you are not only to guard against your opponent, lest he should out-manœuvre you, but you are to conceal and disguise the sequence of your questions so as to out-manœuvre him. Χρὴ δ’ ὅπερ φυλάττεσθαι παραγγέλλομεν ἀποκρινομένους, αὐτοὺς ἐπιχειροῦντας πειρᾶσθαι λανθάνειν. Anal. Prior. ii. 66, a. 32. Compare Topic. 108, a. 25, 156, a. 23, 164, b. 35.