%0 Journal Article
%T Zeno and Antilogic
%A Balla, Chloe
%J ORGANON
%V 2024
%R 10.4467/00786500.ORG.24.009.20211
%N Volume 56
%P 139-155
%K Antilogic, writing, rhetoric, sophistry, logography, Socratic apologetics
%@ 0078-6500
%U https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/organon/article/zeno-and-antilogic
%X This paper sheds light on Plato’s representation of Zeno in the Phaedrus as a master of antilogic. It examines the evidence in the Phaedrus drawing attention to a certain distribution of labour between the followers of Palamedes, who practice antilogic, on the one hand and those of Nestor and Odysseus, who practice logography, on the other. I suggest that the reason for which Plato prefers to associate Zeno with antilogic rather than Protagoras, who might strike us as an obvious choice, is that the former, unlike the latter, would serve the purposes of his Socratic apologetics, removing from his teacher the reputation that Aristophanes’ Clouds had bequeathed him. This reading ties in with and draws support from Zeno’s remarks concerning the nature of his book in the Parmenides, a dialogue that Plato intends us to understand as a prequel that—again along the lines of an apologetic agenda—claims Socrates’ philosophical pedigree establishing his ties with the Eleatic tradition.