Thursday, July 24, 2014

Corax and Teisias


Corax (Greek for "crow") of Syracuse who lived in the first half of the fifth century BC is said to have been the first Greek teacher of oratory or, to use its Greek name, rhetoric. His most famous theory is The Doctrine of General Probability which states that people believe what they think is likely to be true, for example, that a small man would not have beaten up a much larger man.
Teisias was a famous pupil of Corax. Teisias asked Corax to waive his teacher's fee until Teisias had won his first lawsuit. However, Teisias avoided going to court. Corax then sued Teisias for the fee, on the rationale that whoever won the court case, Teisias would have to pay the fee. Teisias then claimed that if he lost the case he wouldn't have to pay because he still wouldn't have won a lawsuit and if he won there would be no penalty because he'd be awarded the money. The judge then threw them both out of court calling them "a bad egg from a bad crow."

2 Comments:

Anonymous kinglear said...

Bloody lawyers eh?

9:46 am  
Blogger Whispering Walls said...

LOL KL - feed the crows!

10:24 am  

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