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This dissertation treats Socrates' argumentative strategies in Plato's Protagoras, Gorgias, and Meno. These strategies will be compared to those found in Aristotle's logical works, especially his Analytics, Topics, and Sophistical Refutations. In these texts, Aristotle describes the competitive debates popular among certain Greek intellectuals. These bouts featured a questioner who offered various propositions to an answerer. The questioner tried to force the answerer into a contradiction based on affirmed propositions, and the answerer tried to evade contradiction by caution in making affirmations. Few scholars have argued that Plato's dialogues are representatives of these verbal jousts, but such a claim resolves traditional difficulties, such as (1) what Socrates' method was (if he had one), or (2) why he made 'bad' arguments, or (3) what he hoped to achieve by refuting an opponent.

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