Autor: Plato

Buch: Gorgias

Titel: Gorgias

Stichwort: Elenchus; Struktur des Elenchus (elenchos, refutatio)

Kurzinhalt: Logische Struktur des Standard Elenchus mit Beispiel

Textausschnitt: XXVIIb The logical structure of the standard elenchus is straightforward. An interlocutor proposes a thesis (p); Socrates gains his assent to other theses (q, r, s ...); Socrates demonstrates that {q, r, s} themselves, or their consequences, contradict p; faced with a choice between p and not-p, the interlocutor gives up p. (Fs) (notabene)

As an example, consider the structure of the argument between Socrates and Polus at 466b-468e:

p Polus maintains that rhetoricians are powerful because they do what they want;
q Polus agrees that power is a good thing for its possessor;
r Polus agrees that we only ever want what is good for us. (Fs)

XXVIIb Now, whatever the strengths and weaknesses of the argument Socrates develops against Polus (see the relevant notes on this section), it is clear that he uses Polus' assent to q and r to argue that rhetoricians do not have power-i.e. not-p. (Fs) (notabene)