[Nobodies] and Heaps: fallacies so called.[1]
Also [sc. attested is]
*ou)/tis, [used] in
Homer [meaning]
ou)dei/s ["no one"];[2] for Odysseus [was] "No man."[3]
"[...] there is no one who [did] not -- calling him a blood-relative of the madman and attacker of the army." It is [a feature of the] Attic [dialect] to apply plurals to singulars, like "no one [they] calling."[4]
*ou)/tides kai\ *swri=tai: paralogismoi\ ou(/tw kalou/menoi. kai\ *ou)/tis, par' *(omh/rw| ou)dei/s: ou)/tis ga\r o( *)odusseu/s. ou)/tis e)/sq' o(\s ou) to\n tou= mane/ntos ka)pibouleutou= stratou= cu/naimon a)pokalou=ntes. *)attiko/n e)sti to\ e)pife/rein e(nikoi=s plhquntika/, oi(=on ou)/tis a)pokalou=ntes.
[1] Adler's note is 'cf.
Diogenes Laertius 7.82', because D.L. lists there a total of five Stoic
aporoi logoi ("insoluble arguments") and seems -- though the text may be faulty -- to supply examples of the two the Suda mentions here. For the Nobody, see also D.L. 7.198: eight volumes on it attributed to
Chrysippus. In 7.82 D.L. explains it thus: "Nobody is an argument whose major premiss consists of an indefinite and a definite clause, with a minor premiss and a conclusion -- for instance, if anyone is here, he is not in
Rhodes, but there is someone here, so there is nobody in
Rhodes". The Heap-fallacy or Sorites (attributed in D.L. 2.108 to Euboulides of Miletus), addressing the problem of gradualism, is illustrated thus in 7.82: "it cannot be that if two is few, three is not so likewise, nor that if two or three are few, four is not so; and on on up to ten; two is few, and so is ten". See note 6 at
epsilon 2766.
[2] Likewise already in
Hesychius omicron1904.
*ou)/tis is used in epic and poetry, but
ou)dei/s is regular in prose.
[3] Similar note in other lexica; cf.
Homer,
Odyssey 9.366 (web address 1), where Odysseus deceives the Cyclops by telling him that his name is Outis.
[4]
Sophocles,
Ajax 725-7 (web address 2), with scholion. The singular
ou)/tis refers to multiple men, and is accompanied by the plural participle
a)pokalou=ntes.
No. of records found: 1
Page 1