  The portrait of Zeno and his tactics that emerges from Plato’s  references makes it seem natural that Aristotle, in one of his lost  dialogues, entitled Sophist, spoke of Zeno as the inventor  of dialectic (D.L. 8.57; cf. 9.25; S.E. M. 7.7). Precisely  what Aristotle meant by this remains a matter of speculation, given  that Aristotle also attributes the invention of dialectic to Socrates (Arist. Metaph. M.4, 1078b25–30) and to Plato  (Metaph. A.6, 987b31–3); he says he himself  invented the theory of it (SE  34, 183b34–184b8). There is also the question of whether Aristotle viewed Zeno’s arguments as more eristic than  properly dialectical. The difference, according to Aristotle, is that dialectical arguments proceed from endoxa or “views  held by everyone or by most people or by the wise, that is, by all,  most, or the especially famous and respected of the wise,”  whereas eristic arguments proceed from what only seem to be, or what  seems to follow from, endoxa (Top.  1.1, 100a29–30, b22–5). Aristotle clearly  believes that some of Zeno’s assumptions have only a specious  plausibility (see Top. 8.8, 160b7–9, SE  24, 279b17–21, Ph. 1.2, 233a21–31,  Metaph. B.4.1001b13–16), so that they would by Aristotle’s own criteria be examples of eristic rather than properly dialectical arguments. For Aristotle, then, Zeno was a controversialist and paradox-monger, whose arguments were nevertheless both sophisticated enough to qualify him as the inventor of dialectic and were important for forcing clarification of concepts fundamental to natural science. Aristotle’s view of Zeno thus seems largely in accordance with Plato’s portrayal of him as a master of the art of contradiction. 