Structural Commentary

Here, Dissoi Logoi is divided into blocks of chapters, which are analysed from a rhetorical and philosophical perspective. The portion of text examined becomes progressively smaller, its outmost boundary retreating from ch. 9 to ch. 3, and each time this shift occurs the work reveals new meanings. A first division is that between the antilogic form of chs. 1–6 and the monologic of chs. 7–9. A second one concerns the antilogies of chs. 1–5 and that of ch. 6. Then, chs. 1–4—which, properly speaking, are the true δισσοὶ λόγοι—stand out for their common logic. Lastly, chs. 1–3 offer the best expression of sophistic moral relativism.