Some Aspects of Aspect: Reflections on M.M. McCabe’s ‘First Chop Your Logos: Socrates and the Sophists on Language, Logic and Development’

ABSTRACT

McCabe is right on one thing and wrong on another. She is right to draw our attention to the different aspects that a verb might have—and not only because attention to aspect helps us understand what is going on in Plato’s Euthydemus. Getting straight on aspect promises benefits for our philosophy of action, and for our metaphysics more generally, comparable to those of getting straight about modality and about excuses. The same is true of getting straight on the active, middle, and passive voices. She is wrong to suggest that we need a properly developed theory of inference before we can be confident in detecting fallacy. Such a suggestion is like saying that we may not dismiss a conjuror’s tricks unless we can say how they are done.

KEYWORDS:

• grammatical aspect
• modality
• grammatical voice
• fallacy
• excuses

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.