The uses of polemic in Ancient Philosophy

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Polemic in ancient philosophy must be understood in terms of the evolution of critical rationality from the Presocratics until the Hellenistic schools. I argue that it takes three forms, of varying importance at different times, that both helped to define philosophy as a distinct social practice and methodologically drove its internal evolution. These forms are criticism of non-philosophical ignorance, attacks on alternative cultural practices, and technical criticisms of other philosophers and schools of thought. Technical criticisms only become more prominent than polemic against ignorance and alternative sources of expertise with the evolution of oral dialectic, while subsequently in the imperial era a textual approach to philosophy subordinated criticisms of other schools to the common rhetorical norms of literary and historiographical polemic.