25 Plato, Parmenides, p. 128 C, where Zeno represents himself as taking for his premisses the conclusions of opponents, to show that they led to absurd consequences. This seems what is meant, when Diogenes says about Eukleides — ταῖς ἀποδείξεσιν ἐνίστατο οὐ κατὰ λήμματα, ἀλλὰ κατ’ ἐπιφοράν (ii. 107); Deycks, De Megaricorum Doctrinâ, p. 34.
26 Aristot. Metaph. iv. p. 1046, b. 29.
The sarcasm ascribed to Diogenes the Cynic implies that Eukleides was really known as the founder of a school — καὶ τὴν μὲν Εὐκλείδου σχολὴν ἔλεγε χολήν (Diog. L. vi. 24) — the earliest mention (I apprehend) of the word σχολὴ in that sense.
With the Megaric philosophers there soon become confounded another succession, called Eleian or Eretrian, who trace their origin to another Sokratic man — Phædon. The chief Eretrians made known to us are Pleistanus, Menedêmus, Asklepiades. The second of the three acquired some reputation.
Doctrines of Antisthenes and Aristippus — Ethical, not transcendental.
The Megarics and Eretrians, as far as we know them, turned their speculative activity altogether in the logical or intellectual direction, paying little attention to the ethical and emotional field. Both Antisthenes and Aristippus, on the contrary, pursued the ethical path. To the Sokratic question, What is the Bonum? Eukleides had answered by a transcendental definition: Antisthenes and Aristippus each gave to it an ethical answer, having reference to human wants and emotions, and to the different views which they respectively took thereof. Antisthenes declared it to consist in virtue, by which he meant an independent and self-sufficing character, confining all wants within the narrowest limits: Aristippus placed it in the moderate and easy pleasures, in avoiding ambitious struggles, and in making the best of every different situation, yet always under the guidance of a wise calculation and self-command. Both of them kept clear of the transcendental: they neither accepted it as Unum et Omne (the view of Eukleides), nor as Plura (the Eternal Ideas or Forms, the Platonic view). Their speculations had reference altogether to human life and feelings, though the one took a measure of this wide subject very different from the other: and in thus confining the range of their speculations, they followed Sokrates more closely than either Eukleides or Plato followed him. They not only abstained from transcendental speculation, but put themselves in declared opposition to it. And since the intellectual or logical philosophy, as treated by Plato, became intimately blended with transcendental hypothesis — Antisthenes and Aristippus are both found on the negative side against its pretensions. Aristippus declared the mathematical sciences to be useless, as conducing in no way to happiness, and taking no account of what was better or what was worse.27 He declared that we could know nothing except in so far as we were affected by it, and as it was or might be in correlation with ourselves: that as to causes not relative to ourselves, or to our own capacities and affections, we could know nothing about them.28
27 Aristotel. Metaph. B. 906, a. 32. ὥστε διὰ ταῦτα τῶν σοφιστῶν τινες οἷον Ἀρίστιππος προεπηλάκιζον αὐτὰς (τὰς μαθηματικὰς τέχνας)· — ἐν μὲν γὰρ ταῖς ἄλλαις τέχναις, καὶ ταῖς βαναύσοις, οἷον ἐν τεκτονικῇ καὶ σκυτικῇ, διότι βέλτιον ἢ χεῖρον λέγεσθαι πάντα, τὰς δὲ μαθηματικὰς οὐθένα ποιεῖσθαι λόγον περὶ ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν.
Aristotle here ranks Aristippus among the σοφισταί.
Aristippus, in discountenancing φυσιολογίαν, cited the favourite saying of Sokrates that the proper study of mankind was ὅττι τοι ἐν μεγάροισι κακόν τ’ ἀγαθόν τε τέτυκται.
Plutarch, ap. Euseb. Præp. Evang. i. 8.
28 Sext. Emp. adv. Math. vii. 191; Diog. L. ii. 92.
Preponderance of the negative vein in the Platonic age.
Such were the leading writers and talkers contemporary with Plato, in the dialectical age immediately following on the death of Sokrates. The negative vein greatly preponderates in them, as it does on the whole even in Plato — and as it was pretty sure to do, so long as the form of dialogue was employed. Affirmative exposition and proof is indeed found in some of the later Platonic works, carried on by colloquy between two speakers. But the colloquial form manifests itself evidently as unsuitable for the purpose: and we must remember that Plato was a lecturer as well as a writer, so that his doctrines made their way, at least in part, through continuous exposition. But it is Aristotle with whom the form of affirmative continuous exposition first becomes predominant, in matters of philosophy. Though he composed dialogues (which are now lost), and though he appreciates dialectic as a valuable exercise, yet he considers it only as a discursive preparation; antecedent, though essential, to the more close and concentrated demonstrations of philosophy.
Harsh manner in which historians of philosophy censure the negative vein.
Most historians deal hardly with this negative vein. They depreciate the Sophists, the Megarics and Eretrians, the Academics and Sceptics of the subsequent ages — under the title of Eristics, or lovers of contention for itself — as captious and perverse enemies of truth.
Negative method in philosophy essential to the controul of the affirmative.
I have already said that my view of the importance and value of the negative vein of philosophy is altogether different. It appears to me quite as essential as the affirmative. It is required as an antecedent, a test, and a corrective. Aristotle deserves all honour for his attempts to construct and defend various affirmative theories: but the value of these theories depends upon their being defensible against all objectors. Affirmative philosophy, as a body not only of truth but of reasoned truth, holds the champion’s belt, subject to the challenge not only of competing affirmants, but of all deniers and doubters. And this is the more indispensable, because of the vast problems which these affirmative philosophers undertake to solve: problems especially vast during the age of Plato and Aristotle. The question has to be determined, not only which of two proposed solutions is the best, but whether either of them is tenable, and even whether any solution at all is attainable by the human faculties: whether there exist positive evidence adequate to sustain any conclusion, accompanied with adequate replies to the objections against it. The burthen of proof lies upon the affirmant: and the proof produced must be open to the scrutiny of every dissentient.
Sokrates — the most persevering and acute Eristic of his age.
Among these dissentients or negative dialecticians, Sokrates himself, during his life, stood prominent. In his footsteps followed Eukleides and the Megarics: who, though they acquired the unenviable surname of Eristics or Controversialists, cannot possibly have surpassed Sokrates, and probably did not equal him, in the refutative Elenchus. Of no one among the Megarics, probably, did critics ever affirm, what the admiring Xenophon says about Sokrates — “that he dealt with every one in colloquial debate just as he chose,” i.e., that he baffled and puzzled his opponents whenever he chose. No one of these Megarics probably ever enunciated so sweeping a negative programme, or declared so emphatically his own inability to communicate positive instruction, as Sokrates in the Platonic Apology. A person more thoroughly Eristic than Sokrates never lived. And we see perfectly, from the Memorabilia of Xenophon (who nevertheless strives to bring out the opposite side of his character), that he was so esteemed among his contemporaries. Plato, as well as Eukleides, took up this vein in the Sokratic character, and worked it with unrivalled power in many of his dialogues. The Platonic Sokrates is compared, and compares himself, to Antæus, who compelled every new-comer, willing or unwilling, to wrestle with him.29
29 Plato, Theætet. p. 169 A. Theodorus. Οὐ ῥᾴδιον, ὦ Σώκρατες, σοὶ παρακαθήμενον μὴ διδόναι λόγον, ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ ἄρτι παρελήρησα φάσκων σε ἐπιτρέψειν μοι μὴ ἀποδύεσθαι, καὶ οὐχὶ ἀναγκάσειν καθάπερ Λακεδαιμόνιοι· σὺ δέ μοι δοκεῖς πρὸς τὸν Σκίῤῥωνα μᾶλλον τείνειν. Λακεδαιμόνιοι μὲν γὰρ ἀπιέναι ἣ ἀποδύεσθαι κελεύουσι, σὺ δὲ κατ’ Ἀνταῖόν τί μοι μᾶλλον δοκεῖς τὸ δρᾶμα δρᾷν· τὸν γὰρ προσελθόντα οὐκ ἀνίης πρὶν ἀναγκάσῃς ἀποδύσας ἐν τοῖς λόγοις προσπαλαῖσαι.
Sokrates. Ἆριστα γε, ὦ Θεόδωρε, τὴν νόσον μου ἀπείκασας· ἰσχυρικώτερος μέντοι ἐγὼ ἐκείνων· μυρίοι γὰρ ἤδη μοι Ἡρακλέες τε καὶ Θησέες ἐντυχόντες καρτεροὶ πρὸς τὸ λέγειν μάλ’ εὖ ξυγκεκόφασιν, ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ οὐδέν τι μᾶλλον ἀφίσταμαι. οὕτω τις ἐρὼς δεινὸς ἐνδέδυκε τῆς περὶ ταῦτα γυμνασίας· μὴ οὖν μηδὲ σὺ φθονήσῃς προσανατριψάμενος σαυτόν τε ἅμα καὶ ἐμὲ ὀνῆσαι.
How could the eristic appetite be manifested in stronger language either by Eukleides, or Eubulides, or Diodôrus Kronus, or any of those Sophists upon whom the Platonic commentators heap so many harsh epithets?
Among the compositions ascribed to Protagoras by Diogenes Laertius (ix. 55), one is entitled Τέχνη Ἐριστικῶν. But if we look at the last chapter of the Treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis, we shall find Aristotle asserting explicitly that there existed no Τέχνη Ἐριστικῶν anterior to his own work the Topica.
Platonic Parmenides — its extreme negative character.
Of the six dialogues composed by Eukleides, we cannot speak positively, because they are not preserved. But they cannot have been more refutative, and less affirmative, than most of the Platonic dialogues; and we can hardly be wrong in asserting that they were very inferior both in energy and attraction. The Theætêtus and the Parmenides, two of the most negative among the Platonic dialogues, seem to connect themselves, by the personnel of the drama, with the Megaric philosophers: the former dialogue is ushered in by Eukleides, and is, as it were, dedicated to him: the latter dialogue exhibits, as its protagonistes, the veteran Parmenides himself, who forms the one factor of the Megaric philosophy, while Sokrates forms the other. Parmenides (in the Platonic dialogue so called) is made to enforce the negative method in general terms, as a philosophical duty co-ordinate with the affirmative; and to illustrate it by a most elaborate argumentation, directed partly against the Platonic Ideas (here advocated by the youthful Sokrates), partly against his own (the Parmenidean) dogma of Ens Unum. Parmenides adduces unanswerable objections against the dogma of Transcendental Forms or Ideas; yet says at the same time that there can be no philosophy unless you admit it. He reproves the youthful Sokrates for precipitancy in affirming the dogma, and contends that you are not justified in affirming any dogma until you have gone through a bilateral scrutiny of it — that is, first assuming the doctrine to be true, next assuming it to be false, and following out the deductions arising from the one assumption as well as from the other.30 Parmenides then gives a string of successive deductions (at great length, occupying the last half of the dialogue) — four pairs of counter-demonstrations or Antinomies — in which contradictory conclusions appear each to be alike proved. He enunciates the final result as follows:—“Whether Unum exists, or does not exist, Unum itself and Cætera, both exist and do not exist, both appear and do not appear, all things and in all ways — both in relation to themselves and in relation to each other”.31
30 Plato, Parmen. p. 136.
31 Plato, Parmen. p. 166. ἓν εἴτ’ ἔστιν, εἴτε μὴ ἔστιν, αὐτό τε καὶ τἄλλα καὶ πρὸς αὐτὰ καὶ πρὸς ἄλληλα πάντα πάντως ἐστί τε καὶ οὐκ ἔστι, καὶ φαίνεταί τε καὶ οὐ φαίνεται. — Ἀληθέστατα.
See below, vol. iii. chap. xxvii. Parmenides.
If this memorable dialogue, with its concluding string of elaborate antinomies, had come down to us under the name of Eukleides, historians would probably have denounced it as a perverse exhibition of ingenuity, worthy of “that litigious person, who first infused into the Megarians the fury of disputation”.32 But since it is of Platonic origin, we must recognise Plato not only as having divided with the Megaric philosophers the impulse of negative speculation which they had inherited from Sokrates, but as having carried that impulse to an extreme point of invention, combination, and dramatic handling, much beyond their powers. Undoubtedly, if we pass from the Parmenidês to other dialogues, we find Plato very different. He has various other intellectual impulses, an abundant flow of ideality and of constructive fancy, in many distinct channels. But negative philosophy is at least one of the indisputable and prominent items of the Platonic aggregate.
32 This is the phrase of the satirical sillographer Timon, who spoke with scorn of all the philosophers except Pyrrhon:—
|
Ἀλλ’ οὔ μοι τούτων φλεδόνων μέλει, οὐδὲ
μὲν ἄλλου
Οὐδενός, οὐ Φαίδωνος, ὅτις γε μὲν — οὔδ’ ἐριδάντεω Εὐκλείδου, Μεγαρεῦσιν ὃς ἔμβαλε λύσσαν ἐρισμοῦ. |
The Megarics shared the negative impulse with Sokrates and Plato.
While then we admit that the Megaric succession of philosophers exhibited negative subtlety and vehement love of contentious debate, we must recollect that these qualities were inherited from Sokrates and shared with Plato. The philosophy of Sokrates, who taught nothing and cross-examined every one, was essentially more negative and controversial, both in him and his successors, than any which had preceded it. In an age when dialectic colloquy was considered as appropriate for philosophical subjects, and when long continuous exposition was left to the rhetor — Eukleides established a succession or school33 which was more distinguished for impugning dogmas of others than for defending dogmas of its own. Schleiermacher and others suppose that Plato in his dialogue Euthydêmus intends to expose the sophistical fallacies of the Megaric school:34 and that in the dialogue Sophistês, he refutes the same philosophers (under the vague designation of “the friends of Forms”) in their speculations about Ens and Non-Ens. The first of these two opinions is probably true to some extent, though we cannot tell how far: the second of the two is supported by some able critics — yet it appears to me untenable.35
33 If we may trust a sarcastic bon-mot ascribed to Diogenes the Cynic, the contemporary of the viri Sokratici and the follower of Antisthenes, the term σχολὴ was applied to the visitors of Eukleides rather than to those of Plato — καὶ τὴν μὲν Εὐκλείδου σχολὴν ἔλεγε χολήν, τὴν δὲ Πλάτωνος διατριβήν, κατατριβήν. Diog. L. vi. 24.
34 Schleierm. Einleitung to Plat. Euthyd. p. 403 seq.
35 Schleierm. Introduction to the Sophistês, pp. 134-135.
See Deycks, Megaricorum Doctrina, p. 41 seq. Zeller, Phil. der Griech. vol. ii. p. 180 seq., with his instructive note. Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, vol. i. p. 37, and others cited by Zeller. — Ritter dissents from this view, and I concur in his dissent. To affirm that Eukleides admitted a plurality of Ideas or Forms, is to contradict the only one deposition, certain and unequivocal, which we have about his philosophy. His doctrine is that of the Transcendental Unum, Ens, Bonum; while the doctrine of the Transcendental Plura (Ideas or Forms) belongs to Plato and others. Both Deycks and Zeller (p. 185) recognise this as a difficulty. But to me it seems fatal to their hypothesis; which, after all, is only an hypothesis — first originated by Schleiermacher. If it be true that the Megarici are intended by Plato under the appellation οἱ τῶν εἰδῶν φίλοι, we must suppose that the school had been completely transformed before the time of Stilpon, who is presented as the great opponent of τὰ εἴδη.
Of Eukleides himself, though he is characterised as strongly controversial, no distinct points of controversy have been preserved: but his successor Eubulides is celebrated for various sophisms. He was the contemporary and rival of Aristotle: who, without however expressly naming him, probably intends to speak of him when alluding to the Megaric philosophers generally.36 Another of the same school, Alexinus (rather later than Eubulides) is also said to have written against Aristotle.
36 Aristokles, ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. xv. 2. Eubulides is said not merely to have controverted the philosophical theories of Aristotle, but also to have attacked his personal character with bitterness and slander: a practice not less common in ancient controversy than in modern. About Alexinus, Diog. L. ii. 109.
Among those who took lessons in rhetoric and pronunciation from Eubulides, we read the name of the orator Demosthenes, who is said to have improved his pronunciation thereby. Diog. Laert. ii. p. 108. Plutarch, x. Orat. 21, p. 845 C.
Eubulides — his logical problems or puzzles — difficulty of solving them — many solutions attempted.
Six sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides. 1. — Ὁ ψευδόμενος — Mentiens. 2. — Ὁ διαλανθάνων, or ἐγκεκαλυμμένος — the person hidden under a veil. 3. — Ἠλέκτρα. 4. — Σωρείτης — Sorites. 5. — Κερατίνης — Cornutus. 6. — Φάλακρος — Calvus. Of these the second is substantially the same with the third; and the fourth the same with the sixth, only inverted.37
37 Diog. L. ii. pp. 108-109; vii. 82. Lucian vit. Auct. 22.
1. Cicero, Academ. ii. pp. 30-96. “Si dicis te mentiri verumque dicis, mentiris. Dicis autem te mentiri, verumque dicis: mentiris igitur.” 2, 3. Ὁ ἐγκεκαλυμμένος. You know your father: you are placed before a person covered and concealed by a thick veil: you do not know him. But this person is your father. Therefore you both know your father and do not know him. 5. Κερατίνης. That which you have not lost, you have: but you have not lost horns; therefore you have horns. 4, 6. Σωρείτης — Φάλακρος. What number of grains make a heap — or are many? what number are few? Are three grains few, and four many? — or, where will you draw the line between Few and Many? The like question about the hairs on a man’s head — How many must he lose before he can be said to have only a few, or to be bald?
These sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides, and belonged probably to the Megaric school both before and after him. But it is plain both from the Euthydêmus of Plato, and from the Topica of Aristotle, that there were many others of similar character; frequently employed in the abundant dialectic colloquies which prevailed at Athens during the fourth and third centuries B.C. Plato and Aristotle handle such questions and their authors contemptuously, under the name of Eristic: but it was more easy to put a bad name upon them, as well as upon the Eleate Zeno, than to elucidate the logical difficulties which they brought to view. Neither Aristotle nor Plato provided a sufficient answer to them: as is proved by the fact, that several subsequent philosophers wrote treatises expressly in reference to them — even philosophers of reputation, like Theophrastus and Chrysippus.38 How these two latter philosophers performed their task, we cannot say. But the fact that they attempted the task, exhibits a commendable anxiety to make their logical theory complete, and to fortify it against objections.
38 Diog. L. v. p. 49; vii. pp. 192-198. Seneca, Epistol. p. 45. Plutarch (De Stoicor. Repugnantiis, p. 1087) has some curious extracts and remarks from Chrysippus; who (he says) spoke in the harshest terms against the Μεγαρικὰ ἐρωτήματα, as having puzzled and unsettled men’s convictions without ground — while he (Chrysippus) had himself proposed puzzles and difficulties still more formidable, in his treatise κατὰ Συνηθείας.
Real character of the Megaric sophisms, not calculated to deceive but to guard against deception.
It is in this point of view — in reference to logical theory — that the Megaric philosophers have not been fairly appreciated. They, or persons reasoning in their manner, formed one essential encouragement and condition to the formation of any tolerable logical theory. They administered, to minds capable and constructive, that painful sense of contradiction, and shock of perplexity, which Sokrates relied upon as the stimulus to mental parturition — and which Plato extols as a lever for raising the student to general conceptions.39 Their sophisms were not intended to impose upon any one, but on the contrary, to guard against imposition.40 Whoever states a fallacy clearly and nakedly, applying it to a particular case in which it conducts to a conclusion known upon other evidence not to be true — contributes to divest it of its misleading effect. The persons most liable to be deceived by the fallacy are those who are not forewarned:—in cases where the premisses are stated not nakedly, but in an artful form of words — and where the conclusion, though false, is not known beforehand to be false by the hearer. To use Mr. John Stuart Mill’s phrase,41 the fallacy is a case of apparent evidence mistaken for real evidence: you expose it to be evidence only apparent and not real, by giving a type of the fallacy, in which the conclusion obtained is obviously false: and the more obviously false it is, the better suited for its tutelary purpose. Aristotle recognises, as indispensable in philosophical enquiry, the preliminary wrestling into which he conducts his reader, by means of a long string of unsolved difficulties or puzzles — (ἀπόριαι). He declares distinctly and forcibly, that whoever attempts to lay out a positive theory, without having before his mind a full list of the difficulties with which he is to grapple, is like one who searches without knowing what he is looking for; without being competent to decide whether what he hits upon as a solution be really a solution or not.42 Now that enumeration of puzzles which Aristotle here postulates (and in part undertakes, in reference to Philosophia Prima) is exactly what the Megarics, and various other dialecticians (called by Plato and Aristotle Sophists) contributed to furnish for the use of those who theorised on Logic.
39 Plato, Republic, vii. pp. 523 A, 524. τὰ μὲν ἐν ταῖς αἰσθήσεσιν οὐ παρακαλοῦντα τὴν νόησιν εἰς ἐπίσκεψιν, ὡς ἱκανῶς ὑπὸ τῆς αἰσθήσεως κρινόμενα — τὰ δὲ παντάπασι διακελευόμενα ἐκείνην ἐπισκέψασθαι, ὡς τῆς αἰσθήσεως οὐδὲν ὑγιὲς ποιούσης … Τὰ μὲν οὐ παρακαλοῦντα, ὅσα μὴ ἐκβαίνει εἰς ἐναντίαν αἴσθησιν ἅμα· τὰ δ’ ἐκβαίνοντα, ὡς παρακαλοῦντα τίθημι, ἐπειδὰν ἡ αἴσθησις μηδὲν μᾶλλον τοῦτο ἢ τὸ ἐναντίον δηλοῖ. Compare p. 524 E: the whole passage is very interesting.
40 The remarks of Ritter (Gesch. der Philos. ii. p. 189. 2nd ed.) upon these Megaric philosophers are more just and discerning than those made by most of the historians of philosophy “Doch darf man wohl annehmen, dass sie solche Trugschlüsse nicht zur Täuschung, sondern zur Belehrung für unvorsichtige, oder zur Warnung vor der Seichtigkeit gewöhnlicher Vorstellungsweisen, gebrauchen wollten. So viel ist gewiss, dass die Megariker sich viel mit den Formen des Denken beschäftigten, vielleicht mehr zu Aufsuchung einzelner Regeln, als zur Begründung eines wissenschaftlichen Zusammenhangs unter ihnen; obwohl auch besondere Theile der Logik unter ihren Schriften erwähnt werden.”
This is much more reasonable than the language of Prantl, who denounces “the shamelessness of doctrinarism” (die Unverschämtheit des Doctrinarismus) belonging to these Megarici “the petulance and vanity which prompted them to seek celebrity by intentional offences against sound common sense,” &c. (Gesch. der Logik, pp. 39-40. — Sir Wm. Hamilton has some good remarks on these sophisms, in his Lectures on Logic, Lect. xxiii. p. 452 seq.)
41 See the first chapter of his book v. on Fallacies, System of Logic, vol. ii.
42 Aristotel. Metaphys. B. 1, p. 995, a. 33.
διὸ δεῖ τὰς δυσχερείας τεθεωρηκέναι πάσας πρότερον, τούτων δὲ χάριν καὶ διὰ τὸ τοὺς ζητοῦντας ἄνευ τοῦ διαπορῆσαι πρῶτον ὁμοίους εἶναι τοῖς ποῖ δεῖ βαδίζειν ἀγνοοῦσι, καὶ πρὸς τούτοις οὐδ’ εἰ ποτε τὸ ζητούμενον εὕρηκεν ἢ μὴ γιγνώσκειν· τὸ γὰρ τέλος τούτῳ μὲν οὐ δῆλον, τῷ δὲ προηπορηκότι δῆλον.
Aristotle devotes the whole of this Book to an enumeration of ἀπόριαι.
If the process of theorising be admissible, it must include negative as well as affirmative.
You may dislike philosophy: you may undervalue, or altogether proscribe, the process of theorising. This is the standing-point usual with the bulk of mankind, ancient as well as modern: who generally dislike all accurate reasoning, or analysis and discrimination of familiar abstract words, as mean and tiresome hair-splitting.43 But if you admit the business of theorising to be legitimate, useful, and even honourable, you must reckon on free working of independent, individual, minds as the operative force — and on the necessity of dissentient, conflicting, manifestations of this common force, as essential conditions to any successful result. Upon no other conditions can you obtain any tolerable body of reasoned truth — or even reasoned quasi-truth.
43 See my account of the Platonic dialogue Hippias Major, vol. ii. chap. xiii. Aristot. Metaphys. A. minor, p. 995, a. 9. τοὺς δὲ λυπεῖ τὸ ἀκριβὲς, ἢ διὰ τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι συνείρειν, ἢ διὰ τὴν μικρολογίαν· ἔχει γάρ τι τὸ ἀκριβὲς τοιοῦτον, ὥστε καθάπερ ἐπὶ τῶν συμβολαίων, καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν λόγων ἀνελεύθερον εἶναι τισι δοκεῖ. Cicero (Paradoxa, c. 2) talks of the “minutæ interrogatiunculæ” of the Stoics as tedious and tiresome.
Logical position of the Megaric philosophers erroneously described by historians of philosophy. Necessity of a complete collection of difficulties.
Now the historians of philosophy seldom take this view of philosophy as a whole — as a field to which the free antithesis of affirmative and negative is indispensable. They consider true philosophy as represented by Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, one or other of them: while the contemporaries of these eminent men are discredited under the name of Sophists, Eristics, or sham-philosophers, sowing tares among the legitimate crop of wheat — or as devils whom the miraculous virtue of Sokrates and Plato is employed in expelling from the Athenian mind. Even the companions of Sokrates, and the Megarics among them, whom we know only upon the imperfect testimony of opponents, have fallen under this unmerited sentence:44 as if they were destructive agents breaking down an edifice of well-constituted philosophy — no such edifice in fact having ever existed in Greece, though there were several dissenting lecture rooms and conflicting veins of speculation promoted by eminent individuals.
44 The same charge is put by Cicero into the mouth of Lucullus against the Academics: “Similiter vos (Academici) quum perturbare, ut illi” (the Gracchi and others) “rempublicam, sic vos philosophiam, benè jam constitutam velitis.… Tum exortus est, ut in optimâ republicâ Tib. Gracchus, qui otium perturbaret, sic Arcesilas, qui constitutam philosophiam everteret” (Acad. Prior, ii. 5, 14-15).
Even in the liberal and comprehensive history of the Greek philosophy by Zeller (vol. ii. p. 187, ed. 2nd), respecting Eukleides’ and the Megarians; — “Dagegen bot der Streit gegen die geltenden Meinungen dem Scharfsinn, der Rechthaberei, und dem wissenschaftlichen Ehrgeiz, ein unerschöpfliches Feld dar, welches denn auch die Megarischen Philosophen rüstig ausbeuteten.”
If by “die geltenden Meinungen” Zeller means the common sense of the day that is, the opinions and beliefs current among the ἰδιῶται, the working, enjoying, non-theorising public — it is very true that the Megaric philosophers contended against them: but Sokrates and Plato contended against them quite as much: we see this in the Platonic Apology, Gorgias, Republic, Timæus, Parmenidês, &c.
If, on the other hand, by “die geltenden Meinungen” Zeller means any philosophical or logical theories generally or universally admitted by thinking men as valid, the answer is that there were none such in the fourth and third centuries B.C. Various eminent speculative individuals were labouring to construct such theories, each in his own way, and each with a certain congregation of partisans; but established theory there was none. Nor can any theory (whether accepted or not) be firm or trustworthy, unless it be exposed to the continued thrusts of the negative weapon, searching out its vulnerable points. We know of the Megarics only what they furnished towards that negative testing; without which, however, — as we may learn from Plato and Aristotle themselves, — the true value of the affirmative defences can never be measured.
Whoever undertakes, bonâ fide, to frame a complete and defensible logical theory, will desire to have before him a copious collection of such difficulties, and will consider those who propound them as useful auxiliaries.45 If he finds no one to propound them, he will have to imagine them for himself. “The philosophy of reasoning” (observes Mr. John Stuart Mill) “must comprise the philosophy of bad as well as of good reasoning.”46 The one cannot be complete without the other. To enumerate the different varieties of apparent evidence which is not real evidence (called Fallacies), and of apparent contradictions which are not real contradictions — referred as far as may be to classes, each illustrated by a suitable type — is among the duties of a logician. He will find this duty much facilitated, if there happen to exist around him an active habit of dialectic debate: ingenious men who really study the modes of puzzling and confuting a well-armed adversary, as well as of defending themselves against the like. Such a habit did exist at Athens: and unless it had existed, the Aristotelian theories on logic would probably never have been framed. Contemporary and antecedent dialecticians, the Megarici among them, supplied the stock of particular examples enumerated and criticised by Aristotle in the Topica:47 which treatise (especially the last book, De Sophisticis Elenchis) is intended both to explain the theory, and to give suggestions on the practice, of logical controversy. A man who takes lessons in fencing must learn not only how to thrust and parry, but also how to impose on his opponent by feints, and to meet the feints employed against himself: a general who learns the art of war must know how to take advantage of the enemy by effective cheating and treachery (to use the language of Xenophon), and how to avoid being cheated himself. The Aristotelian Topica, in like manner, teach the arts both of dialectic attack and of dialectic defence.48
45 Marbach (Gesch. der Philos. s. 91), though he treats the Megarics as jesters (which I do not think they were), yet adds very justly: “Nevertheless these puzzles (propounded by the Megarics) have their serious and scientific side. We are forced to inquire, how it happens that the contradictions shown up in them are not merely possible but even necessary.”
Both Tiedemann and Winckelmann also remark that the debaters called Eristics contributed greatly to the formation of the theory and precepts of Logic, afterwards laid out by Aristotle. Winckelmann, Prolegg. ad Platon. Euthydem. pp. xxiv.-xxxi. Even Stallbaum, though full of harshness towards those Sophists whom he describes as belonging to the school of Protagoras, treats the Megaric philosophers with much greater respect. Prolegom. ad Platon. Euthydem. p. 9.
46 System of Logic, Book v. 1, 1.