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Stranger
Str. Then it is quite fitting to divide it into two parts.
Theaetetus
Theaet. Tell what the parts are.
5
Stranger
Str. Let us call one part of it the competitive and the other the pugnacious.
Theaetetus
Theaet. Agreed.
Stranger
Str. Then it is reasonable and fitting to give to that part of the pugnacious which consists of bodily contests some such name as violent.
Stranger
Str. And what other name than controversy shall we give to the contests of words?
10
Theaetetus
Theaet. No other.
Stranger
Str. But controversy must be divided into two kinds.
Stranger
Str. Whenever long speeches are opposed by long speeches on questions of justice and injustice in public, that is forensic controversy.
Theaetetus
Theaet. Yes.
15
Stranger
Str. But that which is carried on among private persons and is cut up into little bits by means of questions and their answers, we are accustomed to call argumentation, are we not?
Theaetetus
Theaet. We are.
Stranger
Str. And that part of argumentation which deals with business contracts, in which there is controversy, to be sure, but it is carried on informally and without rules of art—all that must be considered a distinct class, now that our argument has recognized it as different from the rest, but it received no name from our predecessors, nor does it now deserve to receive one from us.
Theaetetus
Theaet. True; for the divisions into which it falls are too small and too miscellaneous.
Stranger
Str. But that which possesses rules of art and carries on controversy about abstract justice and injustice and the rest in general terms, we are accustomed to call disputation, are we not?
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