Dissoi Logoi
Dissoi Logoi (Greek δισσοὶ λόγοι "contrasting arguments") is a rhetorical exercise of unknown authorship. Based on comments in the text it appears to have been written not long after the Peloponnesian War. It is intended to help an individual gain a deeper understanding of an issue by forcing them to consider it from the angle of their opponent, which may serve either to strengthen their argument or to help the debaters reach compromise.
In ancient Greece, students of rhetoric would be asked to speak and write for both sides of a controversy. The Dissoi Logoi was found appended to a manuscript of the works of the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus. It was first published by Stephanus in 1570, as an appendix to his edition of Diogenes Laertius, and it is found here divided into five chapters. Thomas Gale first published a version of it with a commentary of its own, in 1671. The first edition with an apparatus criticus was published by Ernst Weber in 1897.
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