TY - JOUR
TI - Zeno and Antilogic
AU - Balla, Chloe
TI - Zeno and Antilogic
AB - 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.
VL - 2024
IS - Volume 56
SN - 0078-6500
C1 - 2657-5337
SP - 139
EP - 155
DO - 10.4467/00786500.ORG.24.009.20211
UR - https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/organon/article/zeno-and-antilogic
KW - Antilogic
KW - writing
KW - rhetoric
KW - sophistry
KW - logography
KW - Socratic apologetics