On the Benefits of Counting Eggs. An Interpretation of Wacław Potocki's Epigram The Sophist

Abstract

The paper analyzes the epigram Sophist from the collection of The Garden of Epigrams by Wacław Potocki. The author points out that the sophism with which ends the anecdote from the epigram is rooted in dialectic tradition, though apparently it could seem to be connected rather with the roguish trend and ludic attitude, and this is how it was usually commented by editors. The hero of Potocki's epigram uses the proof of the kind fallacia divisionis, described already by Aristotle, and rightly associated by the Sarmatian poet with the logic of sophists. That hero belongs to that world of perverse dialectic. His ultimate ridicule is, according to the author, characteristic of Potocki's negation of 17th-century „new intellectual and rhetoric styles”, and his opting for the truth of common sense and the senses.