Sextus Empiricus Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes 2.22.229

[229] It will not, perhaps, be amiss to give our attention for a moment to the subject of Sophisms, seeing that those who glorify Dialectic ¹ declare that it is indispensable for exposing sophisms. For, they say, if Dialectic is capable of distinguishing true and false arguments, and sophisms are false arguments, it will also be capable of discerning these, which distort the truth by apparent plausibilities. Hence the dialecticians, by way of assisting life ² when it totters, strive earnestly to teach us the conception of sophisms, their differences and their solutions. They declare that a sophism is ‟a plausible argument cunningly framed to induce acceptance of the inference, it being either false or resembling what is false or non-evident or otherwise unacceptable.”