5. Tempting Moves: Anonymus Cantabrigiensis on Peirastic Dialectic

This chapter discusses how the Anonymus Cantabrigiensis (AC) interprets peirastic argument, a very peculiar form of argument that pops up in Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations . There are two main reasons for narrowing the focus in this way. First of all, the author has no modern investigation of the medieval approaches to peirastic argument and since AC is among the earliest extant commentaries on the Elenchi , though not the earliest, which actually include a treatment of Sophistical Refutations , this seems to be a good place to start such an investigation. Secondly, peirastic is a topic which is hotly disputed among contemporary scholars of Aristotle, not least because it raises questions that go far beyond purely logical matters into epistemology and the methodological status of Aristotelian dialectic. The last section of the chapter briefly focuses on a point in AC that he thinks deserves attention from contemporary colleagues of their thirteenth-century master. Keywords: Anonymus Cantabrigiensis (AC) ; Aristotle; logical theory; medieval approach; Sophistical Refutations