Aristotle Differentiates between Dialectician, Sophist, and Philosopher

Metaphysics Book 4 Ch 2

"[D]ialecticians and sophists assume, indeed, the same figure as the philosopher, (for sophistical is only apparent wisdom, and dialecticians dispute about all things;) to all, however, is entity common. But they dispute concerning these, evidently, from the cause of these being proper subjects of inquiry for philosophy. For, Indeed, sophistry and dialectics are employed about the same genus as philosophy is; but philosophy differs from the one in the mode of power, and from the other in the choice of life. And again, dialectic science is merely tentative of the knowledge of those things that philosophy has already actually reached; but sophistic science is only apparent, and not real. And the same is further proved by the fact that a different co-ordination of contraries is privation, and all things are referred to entity and non-entity." 

In this passage, philosophy is superior to dialectic in the "mode of power." We might take this as the superiority of "analytics" as a method and dialectic method of exploration through questioning. In a later passage, Aristotle will add that "Dialectic is merely critical where philosophy claims to know." In other words, dialectic is still struggling to understand what philosophy has already discovered.

Philosophy is superior to sophism, not because of differences in method, but because of the "choice of life," which we might take in several ways, the the exorbitant fees sophists charge, the "lifestyle" that enables, and perhaps even the tendency of sophists to move from polis to polis. Sophists have no commitment to the community, one of Plato's charges against them. This is enough for Aristotle to claim that "sophistic science is only apparent, and not real."

A final critique of both is that they claim to speak about all things. Aristotle, however, has limited philosophy to the study of essence and substance, which doesn't mean he ignores other avenues of study, only that he has characterized them, placing them in other areas of study. Dialecticians and sophists seem to be suspect because they do not recognize his categories. 

"[D]ialecticians and sophists assume the same guise as the philosopher, for sophistic is Wisdom which exists only in semblance, and dialecticians embrace all things in their dialectic, and being is common to all things, but evidently their dialectic embraces these subjects because these are proper to philosophy. For sophistic and dialectic turn on the same class of things as philosophy, but this differs from dialectic in the nature of the faculty required and from sophistic in respect of the purpose of the philosophic life. Dialectic is merely critical where philosophy claims to know, and sophistic is what appears to be philosophy but is not."

Rhetoricians and Politicians

Though Plato doesn't mention rhetoricians and politicians in this passage from Book X of The Laws, I couldn't help reading it as a backhanded condemnation of those two most evil of societies in Plato's writings. In this passage, flattery, along with prayers and incantations, are the means whereby rhetoricians and politicians herd those who, like "brute animals," are unable to think for themselves, and so follow wherever they are led. 


"Upon this earth we know that there dwell souls possessing an unjust spirit, who may be compared to brute animals, which fawn upon their keepers, whether dogs or shepherds, or the best and most perfect masters; for they in like manner, as the voices of the wicked declare, prevail by flattery and prayers and incantations, and are allowed to make their gains with impunity. And this sin, which is termed dishonesty, is an evil of the same kind as what is termed disease in living bodies or pestilence in years or seasons of the year, and in cities and governments has another name, which is injustice. 




In The Apology, Socrates claims that he is the only true politician, because he is the only one who tells the people what they should hear, even when they don't want to hear it. 

The Golden Rule

The Laws can get tedious. Unlike The Republic, which outlines Socrates/Plato's ideal state, the laws were meant to be practical. The Athenian Stranger's self-imposed task is to lay down the laws that will govern an colony. Consequently, Plato spends an inordinate amount of time giving technical details for the best way to create a stable state. After all, stability, even in The Republic, is his end goal.

There are moments when The Laws surprise you. One of which is when Plato lays down principles for "dealings between man and man" in Book XI. "The principle," he tells us, "is very simple: Thou shalt not, if thou canst help, touch that which is mine, or remove the least thing which belongs to me without my consent; and may I be of a sound mind, and do to others as I would that they should do to me."

I have italicized the last few words to emphasize their similarity to the Golden Rule in the New Testament. However, what is really interesting is that Plato connects the self-interest of the first clause to the charity of the second clause with "may I be of a sound mind." I'm not sure if that was intended as a prayer or a logical proposition. In other places he argues that no one intentionally does a neighbor wrong, because no sound person would want to live near someone who had ill will toward them, thus making "love thy neighbor" a reasonable rather than a spiritual act. Though, distinctions between reason and spiritual is a distinction that is more of the 20th Century than Plato's.

Captain Karl's Pedernales Falls 30K

Captain Carl's Pedernales Fall 30K. This was a night time run on June 25th. Start time, 7:15, so headlamps weren't needed for the first hour or so. Around 11:00 PM, when I hadn't seen anyone else on the trail for a while, I remember thinking how claustrophobic it felt when all I could see was the section of trail illuminated by my headlamp. I turned my headlamp off once, and everything turned black. There was the hint of a horizon to the east, faint light in the sky from some town that was cut off by  the mountains. Nothing but black between here and there.

"The Laws" and the Danger of Innovation

Plato worried about the deleterious effects of innovation, in terms of the canons of rhetoric, of invention. The arts were particularly suspect, because the arts, music and dance, were the means by which the young were taught virtue. Thus, innovations were suspect because they might lead the next generation away from the virtue of the present generation. Once a city, and the people of the city, had become virtuous, any innovation could only lead to a loss of virtue. 

In Book III of The Laws he warns against music and the theater, which introduce an "evil sort of theatrocracy" through rampant innovation. "For what is this shamelessness, which is so evil a thing, but the insolent refusal to regard the opinion of the better by reason of an over-daring sort of liberty?"

The solution is a static culture with no innovation. In Book II, the Athenian Stranger holds up Egypt as the prime example: 


Cle. And what are the laws about music and dancing in Egypt?
Ath. You will wonder when I tell you: Long ago they appear to have recognized the very principle of which we are now speaking-that their young citizens must be habituated to forms and strains of virtue. These they fixed, and exhibited the patterns of them in their temples; and no painter or artist is allowed to innovate upon them, or to leave the traditional forms and invent new ones. To this day, no alteration is allowed either in these arts, or in music at all. And you will find that their works of art are painted or moulded in the same forms which they had ten thousand years ago;-this is literally true and no exaggeration-their ancient paintings and sculptures are not a whit better or worse than the work of to-day, but are made with just the same skill.
Cle. How extraordinary!
Ath. I should rather say, How statesmanlike, how worthy of a legislator! 

Plato and Democracy

We generally see Plato as being anti-democracy, preferring oligarchy. in the third book of The Laws he sounds more balanced. But then, he may have seen oligarchy as the "measure" of both.


"Hear me, then: there are two mother forms of states from which the rest may be truly said to be derived; and one of them may be called monarchy and the other democracy: the Persians have the highest form of the one, and we of the other; almost all the rest, as I was saying, are variations of these. Now, if you are to have liberty and the combination of friendship with wisdom, you must have both these forms of government in a measure; the argument emphatically declares that no city can be well governed which is not made up of both."  

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Trail Running Disney World

These pictures were taken along an old jeep trail about a quarter mile west of the Grand Floridian Resort. Complete run, eight miles there and back.