Book 7
1.82
There are also certain insoluble argumentsCf. supra, § 44.: the Veiled Men, the Concealed, Sorites, Horned Folk, the Nobodies. The Veiled is as followsHere Laertius, as the text stands, gives examples of the Sorites and the Nobody, but none of the other three fallacies, the Veiled, Concealed, Horned.: . . . 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 so on up to ten. But two is few, therefore so also is ten. . . . The Nobody argument is an argument whose major premiss consists of an indefinite and a definite clause, followed by a minor premiss and conclusion; for example, If anyone is here, he is not in Rhodes; but there is some one here, therefore there is not anyone in Rhodes. . . .
1.83
Such, then, is the logic of the Stoics, by which they seek to establish their point that the wise man is the true dialectician. For all things, they say, are discerned by means of logical study, including whatever falls within the province of Physics, and again whatever belongs to that of Ethics. For else, say they, as regards statement and reasoning Physics and Ethics could not tell how to express themselves, or again concerning the proper use of terms, how the laws have defined various actions. The vulgate, in which I have made no change, has been regarded with suspicion. Von Arnim conjectures: For if the logician ought to have something to say about the correct use of terms, how could he fail to lay down the proper names for actions? Moreover, of the two kinds of common-sense inquiry included under Virtue one considers the nature of each particular thing, the other asks what it is called. Thus much for their logic.
