# Sophistical Refutations

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Sophistical_Refutations
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Sophistical_Refutations.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophistical_Refutations
> Source revision: 1330311866
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

{{Short description|Text by Aristotle on logical fallacies}}
{{italic title}}
{{Rhetoric}}
'''''Sophistical Refutations''''' ({{langx|el|Σοφιστικοὶ Ἔλεγχοι|Sophistikoi Elenchoi}}; {{langx|la|De Sophisticis Elenchis}}) is a text in [Aristotle](/source/Aristotle)'s ''[Organon](/source/Organon)'' in which he identified twelve or thirteen [fallacies](/source/Fallacy). According to Aristotle, this is the first work to treat the subject of [deductive reasoning](/source/deductive_reasoning) in ancient Greece (''Soph. Ref.'', 34, 183b34 ff.). In it, he attempts to develop a pattern of sound and genuine reasoning in opposition to the deceptive or misleading "art of [sophistry](/source/Sophists)".

==Overview==
''On Sophistical Refutations''<ref name=SEP_Refutation>{{cite web |title= On Sophistical Refutations|url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/sophist_refut.mb.txt| author1=Aristotle | author2=Translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge|accessdate =2020-12-19 }}</ref><ref  name=SEP_AristotleLogic>{{cite web |title= Aristotle's Logic, < Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy>|date= 18 March 2000|url= https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/aristotle-logic| editor1= Edward N. Zalta  |accessdate =2020-12-19 }}</ref> consists of 34 chapters. The book naturally falls in two parts: chapters concerned with tactics for the Questioner (3–8 and 12–15) and chapters concerned with tactics for the Answerer (16–32). Besides, there is an introduction (1–2), an interlude (9–11), and a conclusion (33–34).<ref name= Krabbe>{{cite journal |title= Aristotle's On Sophistical Refutations |journal=Topoi |volume=31 |pages=243–248 |year=2012 | author1= Krabbe, E.C.W.  |doi= 10.1007/s11245-012-9124-0|s2cid= 170350834|doi-access= free}}</ref>

== Fallacies identified ==
The fallacies Aristotle identifies in Chapter 4 (formal fallacies) and 5 (informal fallacies) of this book are the following:

:Fallacies in the language or formal fallacies (''in dictionem''):
# [Equivocation](/source/Equivocation)
# [Amphiboly](/source/Syntactic_ambiguity)
# [Composition](/source/Fallacy_of_composition)
# [Division](/source/Fallacy_of_division)
# [Accent](/source/Fallacy_of_accent)
# [Figure of speech](/source/Figure_of_speech) or form of expression

:
:Fallacies not in the language or informal fallacies (''extra dictionem''):
{{ordered list
| start = 7|[Accident](/source/Accident_(fallacy))|''[Secundum quid](/source/Secundum_quid)''|[Irrelevant conclusion](/source/Irrelevant_conclusion)|''[Petitio principii](/source/Petitio_principii)''|[False cause](/source/False_cause)|[Affirming the consequent](/source/Affirming_the_consequent)|[Fallacy of many questions](/source/Fallacy_of_many_questions)
}}

==References==
{{reflist}}
==Further reading==
*{{cite book |last1=Gysembergh |first1=Victor |title=Forgotten Ancient Commentaries on Aristotle's Sphistical Refutations: Fragments of Aspasios, Herminos, Alexander, Syrianos and Philoponos |date=2023 |publisher=De Gruyter |location=Boston |isbn=9783111332666}}

==External links==
* {{wikisource-inline|The Sophistical Elenchi|Sophistical Refutations}}
* HTML Greek text via [https://web.archive.org/web/20091129083809/http://www.poesialatina.it/Greek/Index.htm Greco interattivo]
* [http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/sophist_refut.html Translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge]
* {{librivox book | title=Sophistical Elenchi | author=ARISTOTLE}}
* [http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/fallacies/aristotle_fallacies.htm ChangingMinds.org: "Aristotle's 13 fallacies"]
* {{citation|last1=Parry|first1=William T. |last2=Hacker|first2=Edward A. |title=Aristotelian Logic|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Sg84H6B-m4C&pg=PA435|year=1991|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-7914-0690-8|page=435}}

{{Aristotelianism|state=collapsed}}
{{philosophy-stub}}
Category:Works by Aristotle
Category:Logic literature

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Sophistical Refutations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophistical_Refutations) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophistical_Refutations?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.