[164a20] 1 · Let us now discuss sophistical refutations, i.e. what appear to be refutations but are really fallacies instead. We will begin in the natural order with the first.
That some deductions are genuine, while others seem to be so but are not, is [25] evident. This happens with arguments, as also elsewhere, through a certain likeness between the genuine and the sham. For physically some people are in a vigorous condition, while others merely seem to be so by blowing and rigging themselves out [164b20] like the tribal choruses; and some people are beautiful thanks to their beauty, while others seem to be so, by dint of embellishing themselves. So it is, too, with inanimate things; for of these, too, some are really silver and others gold, while others are not and merely seem to be such to our sense; e.g. things made of litharge and tin seem to [25] be of silver, while those made of yellow metal look golden. In the same way both deduction and refutation are sometimes genuine, sometimes not, though inexperience may make them appear so—for inexperienced people obtain only, as it were, a [165a1] distant view of these things. For a deduction rests on certain statements such that they involve necessarily the assertion of something other than what has been stated, through what has been stated; a refutation is a deduction to the contradictory of the given conclusion. Now some of them do not really achieve this, though they seem to [5] do so for a number of reasons; and of these the most prolific and usual is the argument that turns upon names. It is impossible in a discussion to bring in the actual things discussed: we use their names as symbols instead of them; and we suppose that what follows in the names, follows in the things as well, just as people [10] who calculate suppose in regard to their counters. But the two cases are not alike. For names are finite and so is the sum-total of accounts, while things are infinite in number. Inevitably, then, the same account and a single name signify several things. Accordingly just as, in counting, those who are not clever in manipulating [15] their counters are taken in by the experts, in the same way in arguments too those who are not well acquainted with the force of names misreason both in their own discussions and when they listen to others. For this reason, then, and for others to be mentioned later, there are both deductions and refutations that appear to be genuine but are not really so. Now for some people it is better worth while to seem to [20] be wise, than to be wise without seeming to be (for the art of the sophist is the semblance of wisdom without the reality, and the sophist is one who makes money from an apparent but unreal wisdom); for them, then, it is clearly necessary to seem to accomplish the task of a wise man rather than to accomplish it without seeming to do so. To reduce it to a single point of contrast, it is the business of one who knows [25] a thing, himself to avoid falsities in the subjects which he knows and to be able to show up the man who makes them; and of these accomplishments the one depends on the faculty to produce an argument, and the other upon the faculty to exact one. Those, then, who would be sophists are bound to study the class of arguments aforesaid; for it is worth their while; for a faculty of this kind will make a man seem [30] to be wise, and this is the purpose they actually have in view.
Clearly, then, there exists a class of arguments of this kind, and it is at this kind of ability that those aim whom we call sophists. Let us now go on to discuss how many kinds there are of sophistical arguments, and how many in number are the [35] elements of which this faculty is composed, and how many branches there actually are of this inquiry, and the other factors that contribute to this art.
2 · Of arguments used in discussion there are four classes: didactic, dialectical, examinational, and contentious arguments. Didactic arguments are those that [165b1] deduce from the principles appropriate to each subject and not from the opinions held by the answerer (for the learner must be convinced); dialectical arguments are those that deduce from reputable premisses, to the contradictory of a given thesis; examinational arguments are those that deduce from premisses which are accepted [5] by the answerer and which any one who claims to possess knowledge of the subject is bound to know (in what manner, has been explained elsewhere);1 contentious arguments are those that deduce or appear to deduce to a conclusion from premisses that appear to be reputable but are not so. The subject of demonstrative arguments has been discussed in the Analytics, while that of dialectic arguments and [10] examinational arguments has been discussed elsewhere:2 let us now proceed to speak of the arguments used in competitions and contests.
3 · First we must grasp the number of aims entertained by those who argue as competitors and rivals. These are five in number: refutation, falsity, paradox, solecism, and fifthly to reduce the opponent in the discussion to babbling (i.e. to [15] constrain him to repeat himself a number of times); or it is to produce the appearance of each of these things without the reality. For they choose if possible plainly to refute the other party, or as the second best to show that he is saying something false, or as a third best to lead him into paradox, or fourthly to reduce him to solecism, i.e. to make the answerer, in consequence of the argument, use [20] some barbarous mode of expression; or, as a last resort, to make him repeat himself.
4 · There are two styles of refutation; for some depend on the language used, while some are independent of language. Those ways of producing the illusion [25] which depend on language are six in number: they are homonymy, ambiguity, combination, division, accent, form of expression. Of this we may assure ourselves both by induction and by deduction—among others, a deduction showing that this is the number of ways in which we might fail to mean the same thing by the same [30] names or accounts. Arguments such as the following depend upon homonymy. ‘Those who know grasp things; for it is those who know their letters who grasp what is dictated to them.’3 For to grasp is homonymous; it is to understand by the use of knowledge, and also to acquire knowledge. Again, ‘Evils are good; for what must be [35] is good, and evils must be.’ For what must be has a double meaning: it means what is inevitable, as often is the case with evils (for evil of some kind is inevitable), while on the other hand we say of good things as well that they must be. Moreover, ‘The same man is both seated and standing and he is both sick and in health; for it is he who stood up who is standing, and he who was recovering who is in [166a1] health; but it is the seated man who stood up, and the sick man who was recovering.’ For ‘The sick man does so and so’, or ‘has so and so done to him’ is not single in meaning: sometimes it means the man who is sick now, sometimes the man who was sick formerly. Of course, the man who was recovering was the sick man, who really [5] was sick at the time; but the man who is in health is not sick at the same time: he is the sick man in the sense not that he is sick now, but that he was sick formerly. Examples such as the following depend upon ambiguity: ‘I wish that you the enemy may capture.’ And ‘He who knows that, that knows’; for by this phrase one may signify as the knower either him who knows or that which is known. Also, ‘There [10] must be sight of what one sees; one sees the pillar; ergo the pillar has sight’. Also, ‘What you profess to be, that you profess to be; you profess a stone to be; ergo you profess to be a stone.’ Also, ‘Speaking of the silent is possible’; for ‘speaking of the silent’ also has a double meaning: it may mean that the speaker is silent or that the [15] things of which he speaks are so. There are three varieties of these homonymies and ambiguities: one when either the account or the name properly signifies more than one thing, e.g. mole and bank; one when by custom we use them so; thirdly when words that have a simple sense taken alone have more than one meaning in [20] combination; e.g. ‘knowing letters’. For each word, both ‘knowing’ and ‘letters’, may have a single meaning; but both together have more than one—either that the letters themselves have knowledge or that some one else has it of them.
Ambiguity and homonymy, then, take these forms. Upon combination there depend instances such as the following: ‘A man can walk while sitting, and can write [25] while not writing’. For the meaning is not the same if one divides the words and if one combines them in saying that walking while sitting is possible. The same applies to the latter phrase, too, if one combines the words ‘to write while not writing’; for then it means that he has the power to write and not to write at once; whereas if one does not combine them, it means that when he is not writing he has the power to write. Also, ‘He knows now if he has learnt his letters.’4 Moreover, ‘One single thing [30] if you can carry many you can carry too’.
Upon division depend the propositions that 5 is 2 and 3, and even and odd, and that the greater is equal (for it is that amount and more besides). For the same phrase would not be thought always to have the same meaning when divided and [35] when combined, e.g. ‘I made thee a slave free’, and ‘God-like Achilles left fifty a hundred men’.
An argument depending upon accent is not easy to construct in unwritten [166b1] discussion; in written discussions and in poetry it is easier. Thus (e.g.) some people emend Homer against those who criticize as absurd his expression τὀ μὲν o꜋ καταπύθεται ὂμβρῳ. For they solve the difficulty by a change of accent, pronouncing [5] the $$$oυ with an acute accent.5 Also, in the passage about Agamemnon’s dream, they say that Zeus did not himself say ‘We grant him the fulfilment of his prayer’,6 but that he bade the dream grant it. Instances such as these, then, turn upon the accentuation.
Others come about owing to the form of expression used, when what is really [10] different is expressed in the same form, e.g. a masculine thing by a feminine termination, or a feminine thing by a masculine, or a neuter by either a masculine or a feminine; or, again, when a quality is expressed by a termination proper to quantity or vice versa, or what is active by a passive word, or a state by an active word, and so forth with the other divisions previously7 laid down. For it is possible to use an expression to denote what does not belong to the class of actions at all as [15] though it did so belong. Thus (e.g.) ‘flourishing’ is a word which in the form of its expression is like ‘cutting’ or ‘building’; yet the one denotes a certain quality—i.e. a certain condition—while the other denotes a certain action. In the same manner also in the other instances.
Refutations, then, that depend upon language are drawn from these commonplace [20] rules. Of fallacies that are independent of language there are seven kinds: one that which depends upon accident; secondly the use of an expression without qualification or not without qualification but with some qualification of respect, or place, or time, or relation; thirdly that which depends upon ignorance of what refutation is; fourthly that which depends upon the consequent; fifthly that which [25] depends upon assuming the point at issue; sixthly stating as cause what is not the cause; seventhly the making of more than one question into one.
5 · Fallacies, then, that depend on accident occur whenever any attribute is claimed to belong in a like manner to a thing and to its accident. For since the same [30] thing has many accidents there is no necessity that all the same attributes should belong to all of a thing’s predicates and to their subject as well. Thus (e.g.), if Coriscus is different from a man, he is different from himself: for he is a man; or if he is different from Socrates, and Socrates is a man, then, they say, you have [35] admitted that Coriscus is different from a man, because it is an accident of the person from whom you said that he is different that he is a man.
Those that depend on whether an expression is used without qualification or in a certain respect and not strictly, occur whenever an expression used in a particular [167a1] sense is taken as though it were used without qualification, e.g. ‘If what is not is an object of opinion, then what is not is’; for it is not the same thing to be something and to be without qualification. Or again, ‘What is, is not, if it is not a particular kind of being, e.g. if it is not a man.’ For it is not the same thing not to be something [5] and not to be without qualification: it looks as if it were, because of the closeness of the expression, i.e. because to be something is but little different from to be, and not to be something from not to be. Likewise also with any argument that turns upon the point whether an expression is used in a certain respect or used without qualification. Thus e.g. ‘Suppose an Indian to be black all over, but white in respect of his teeth; then he is both white and not white.’ Or if both characters belong in a particular respect, then, they say, contrary attributes belong at the same time. This [10] kind of thing is in some cases easily seen by anyone, e.g. suppose a man were to assume that the Ethiopian is black, and were then to ask whether he is white in respect of his teeth; thus if he is white in that respect, he might think, as he ended his questioning reductively, that he had argued that he was both black and not black. But in some cases it often passes undetected, viz. in all cases where, whenever [15] something is said to hold in a certain respect, it would seem to follow that it holds without qualification as well; and also in cases where it is not easy to see which of the attributes ought to be rendered strictly. A situation of this kind arises, where both the opposite attributes belong alike; for then it seems that one must agree that both or neither belongs without qualification: e.g. if a thing is half white and half [20] black, is it white or black?
Those which arise because it has not been defined what a deduction is and what a refutation is,8 come about because something is left out in their definition. For to refute is to contradict one and the same attribute—not the name, but the object and one9 that is not synonymous but the same—and to confute it from the [25] propositions granted, necessarily, without including in the reckoning the original point to be proved, in the same respect and relation and manner and time in which it was asserted. (A false assertion about anything has to be defined in the same way.) Some people, however, omit some one of the said conditions and give a merely apparent refutation, showing (e.g.) that the same thing is both double and not [30] double—for two is double of one, but not double of three. Or, it may be, they show that it is both double and not double of the same thing, but not that it is so in the same respect—for it is double in length but not double in breadth. Or, it may be, they show it to be both double and not double of the same thing and in the same respect and manner, but not that it is so at the same time; and therefore their refutation is merely apparent. One might force this fallacy into the group dependent [35] on language.
Those that depend on the assumption of the point at issue, occur in the same way, and in as many ways, as it is possible to postulate the point at issue; they appear to refute because men lack the power to keep their eyes at once upon what is the same and what is different.
The refutation which depends upon the consequent arises because people [167b1] suppose that the relation of consequence is convertible. For whenever, if this is the case, that necessarily is the case, they then suppose also that if the latter is the case, the former necessarily is the case. This is also the source of the deceptions that attend opinions based on sense-perception. For people often supposed bile to be honey because honey is attended by a yellow colour; and since after rain the ground [5] is wet, we suppose that if the ground is wet, it has been raining; whereas that does not necessarily follow. In rhetoric demonstrations from signs are based on consequences. For when orators wish to show that a man is an adulterer, they take hold of [10] some consequence—that the man is smartly dressed, or that he is observed to wander about at night. There are, however, many people of whom these things are true, while the charge in question is untrue. It happens like this also in deductive reasoning; e.g. Melissus’ argument that the universe is infinite, assumes that the universe has not come to be (for from what is not nothing could possibly come to be) and that what has come to be has done so from a first beginning. If, therefore, the [15] universe has not come to be, it has no first beginning, and is therefore infinite. But this does not necessarily follow; for if what has come to be always has a first beginning, it does not follow that what has a first beginning has come to be; any more than it follows that if a man in a fever is hot, a man who is hot must be in a fever. [20]
The refutation which depends upon treating as cause what is not a cause, occurs whenever what is not a cause is inserted in the argument, as though the refutation depended upon it. This kind of thing happens in deductions ad impossibile; for in these we are bound to demolish one of the premisses. If, then, it is reckoned in among the questions that are necessary to establish the resulting [25] impossibility, it will often be thought that the refutation depends upon it. E.g. the soul and life are not the same; for if coming-to-be is contrary to perishing, then a particular form of perishing will have a particular form of coming-to-be as its contrary: now death is a particular form of perishing and is contrary to life; life, therefore, is a coming-to-be, and to live is to come-to-be. But this is impossible; [30] accordingly, the soul and life are not the same. Now this has not been deduced; for the impossibility results even if one does not say that life is the same as the soul, but merely says that life is contrary to death, which is a form of perishing, and that perishing has coming-to-be as its contrary. Arguments of that kind, then, though not non-deductive without qualification, are non-deductive in relation to the proposed conclusion. And the questioners themselves often fail quite as much to see [35] a point of that kind.
Such, then, are the arguments that depend upon the consequent and upon false cause. Those that depend upon the making of two questions into one occur whenever the plurality is undetected and a single answer is returned as if to a single question. [168a1] Now, in some cases, it is easy to see that there is more than one, and that an answer10 is not to be given, e.g. ‘Does the earth consist of sea, or the sky?’ But in some cases it is less easy, and then people treat the question as one, and either confess their defeat by failing to answer the question, or are exposed to an apparent refutation. Thus ‘Is [5] he and is he a man?’ Then if any one hits him and him, he will strike a man, not men. Or again, where some are good and some bad, are they all good or not good? For whichever he says, it is possible that he might be thought to expose himself to an apparent refutation or to make an apparently false statement; for to [10] say that something is good which is not good, or not good which is good, is to make a false statement. Sometimes, however, additional premisses may actually give rise to a genuine refutation; e.g. suppose a man were to grant that one thing and a number of things can alike be called white and naked and blind. For if a thing that cannot see though nature designed it to see is blind, then things that cannot see though [15] nature designed them to do so will be blind. Whenever, then, one thing can see while another cannot, they will either both be able to see or else both be blind; which is impossible.
6 · We should either divide apparent proofs and refutations as above, or else refer them all to ignorance of what refutation is, and make that our starting-point; [20] for it is possible to analyse all the aforesaid modes of fallacy into breaches of the definition of a refutation. In the first place, we may see if they are non-deductive; for the conclusion ought to result from the premisses laid down, so that we state it necessarily and do not merely seem to. Next we should also take the definition bit by bit. For of the fallacies that consist in language, some depend upon a double [25] meaning, e.g. homonymy and the account11 and similarity of form (for we habitually speak of everything as though it were a certain ‘this’—while fallacies of combination and division and accent arise because the account or the name as altered is not the same. But this too should be the same, just as the thing should be, if a refutation or deduction is to be effected; e.g. if the point concerns a doublet, then [30] you should deduce about a doublet, not about a cloak. For the former conclusion also would be true, but it has not been deduced; we need a further question to show that doublet means the same thing, in order to satisfy any one who asks the reason why.
Fallacies that depend on accident are clear once deduction has been defined. [35] For the same definition ought to hold good of refutation too, except that a mention of the contradictory is here added; for a refutation is a deduction of the contradictory. If, then, there is no deduction as regards an accident of anything, there is no refutation. For supposing, when these things are the case, that must necessarily be, and that is white, there is no necessity for it to be white on account of the deduction. So, if the triangle has its angles equal to two right-angles, and it happens to be a figure, or a primitive or a principle, it is not proved that a figure or a [168b1] principle or a primitive has this character. For the demonstration proves the point about it not qua figure or qua primitive, but qua triangle. Likewise also in other cases. If, then, a refutation is a sort of deduction, an argument depending on an [5] accident will not be a refutation. It is, however, just in this that the experts and men of science generally suffer refutation at the hand of the unscientific; for the latter meet the scientists with deductions depending on accidents; and the scientists for lack of the power to draw distinctions either say ‘Yes’ to their questions, or else are thought to have said ‘Yes’, although they have not.12 [10]
Those that depend upon whether something is said in a certain respect only or said without qualification occur because the affirmation and the denial are not concerned with the same point. For of white in a certain respect the negation is not white in a certain respect, while of white without qualification it is not white, without qualification. If, then, a man treats the admission that a thing is white in a certain respect as though it were said to be white without qualification, he does not effect a refutation, but merely appears to do so owing to ignorance of what [15] refutation is.
The clearest cases of all, however, are those that were previously described as depending upon the definition of a refutation; and this is also why they were given their name.13 For the appearance of a refutation is produced because of the omission in the definition, and if we divide fallacies in the above manner, we ought to set [20] ‘defect in definition’ as a common mark upon them all.
Those that depend upon the assumption of the original point and upon stating as the cause what is not the cause, are clear through the definition. For the conclusion ought to come about because these things are so, and this does not happen where the premisses are not causes of it; and again it should come about without taking into account the original point, and this is not the case with those [25] arguments which depend upon postulating the original point.
Those that depend upon the consequent are a branch of accident; for the consequent is an accident, only it differs from the accident in this, that you may secure an admission of the accident in the case of one thing only (e.g. the identity of a yellow thing and honey and of a white thing and a swan), whereas the consequent [30] always involves more than one thing; for we claim that things that are the same as one and the same thing are also the same as one another, and this is the ground of a refutation dependent on the consequent. (But this is not always true, e.g. suppose that they are the same accidentally; for both snow and the swan are the same as something white.) Or again, as in Melissus’ argument, a man assumes that to have [35] been generated and to have a beginning are the same thing, or to become equal and to assume the same magnitude. For because what has been generated has a beginning, he claims also that what has a beginning has been generated, and argues as though both what has been generated and what is finite were the same because each has a beginning. Likewise also in the case of things that are made equal he [169a1] assumes that if things that assume one and the same magnitude become equal, then also things that become equal assume one magnitude: i.e. he assumes the consequent. Inasmuch, then, as a refutation depending on accident consists of ignorance of what a refutation is, clearly so also does a refutation depending on the [5] consequent. We shall have further to examine this in another way as well.14
Those fallacies that depend upon the making of several questions into one consist in our failure to articulate the account of a proposition. For a proposition predicates a single thing of a single thing. For the same definition applies to one single thing only and to the thing without qualification, e.g. to man and to one single [10] man only; and likewise also in other cases. If, then, a single proposition is one which claims a single thing of a single thing, a proposition, without qualification, will be the putting of a question of that kind. Now since a deduction starts from propositions and a refutation is a deduction, a refutation, too, will start from propositions. If, then, a proposition predicates a single thing of a single thing, it is obvious that this fallacy too consists in ignorance of what a refutation is; for in it [15] what is not a proposition appears to be one. If, then, the answerer has returned an answer as though to a single question, there will be a refutation; while if he has returned one not really but apparently, there will be an apparent refutation. All the types of fallacy,15 then, fall under ignorance of what a refutation is, those dependent [20] on language because the contradiction, which is the proper mark of a refutation, is merely apparent, and the rest because of the definition of a deduction.
7 · The error comes about in the case of arguments that depend on homonymy and the account16 because we are unable to distinguish the various senses (for some terms it is not easy to distinguish, e.g. one, being, and sameness), [25] while in those that depend on combination and division, it is because we suppose that it makes no difference whether the phrase is combined or divided, as is indeed the case with most phrases. Likewise also with those that depend on accent; for the lowering or raising of the pitch upon a phrase seems not to alter its meaning—with [30] any phrase, or not with many. With those that depend on the form it is because of the likeness of expression. For it is hard to distinguish what kind of things are signified by the same and what by different kinds of expression (for a man who can do this is practically next door to the understanding of the truth, and knows best how to assent) because we suppose every predicate of anything to be an individual [35] thing, and we understand it as being one thing; for it is to that which is one and to substances that individuality and being seem especially to belong. For this reason, too, this type of fallacy is to be ranked among those that depend on language; in the first place, because the error is effected the more readily when we are inquiring into a problem in company with others than when we do so by ourselves (for an inquiry with another person is carried on by means of speech, whereas an inquiry by oneself is carried on quite as much by means of the object itself); secondly a man is liable to err, even when inquiring by himself, when he takes speech as the basis of his inquiry; [169b1] moreover the error arises out of the likeness, and the likeness arises out of the language. With those fallacies that depend upon accident, error comes about because we cannot distinguish what is the same and what is different, what is one and what many, or what kinds of predicate have all the same accidents as their [5] subject. Likewise also with those that depend on the consequent; for the consequent is a branch of accident. Moreover, in many cases it seems and it is claimed that if this is inseparable from that, so also is that from this. With those that depend upon deficiency in the account of a refutation, and with those that depend upon the [10] difference between a qualified and an unqualified statement, the error consists in the smallness of the difference involved; for we treat the limitation to the particular thing or respect or manner or time as adding nothing to the meaning, and so grant the statement universally. Likewise also in the case of those that assume the original point, and those of false cause, and all that treat a number of questions as one; for in all of them the error lies in the smallness of the difference; for our failure to be quite [15] precise in our definition of propositions and of deductions is due to the aforesaid reason.
8 · Since we know on how many points apparent deductions depend, we know also on how many sophistical deductions and refutations may depend. By a sophistical refutation and deduction I mean not only a deduction or refutation [20] which appears to be valid but is not, but also one which, though it is valid, only appears to be appropriate to the thing in question. These are those which fail to refute in respect of the object and which prove the answerer to be ignorant, which was the function of the art of examination. Now the art of examining is a branch of dialectic; and this may deduce a false conclusion because of the ignorance of the [25] answerer. Sophistic refutations on the other hand, even though they deduce the contradictory of his thesis, do not make clear whether he is ignorant; for even men of knowledge are entangled by these arguments.
That we know them by the same line of inquiry is clear; for the same [30] considerations which make it appear to an audience that the conclusion was deduced by way of the questions, would make the answerer think so as well, so that false deductions will occur through all or some of these means; for what a man has not been asked but thinks he has granted, he would also grant if he were asked. Of course, in some cases the moment we add the missing question, we also show up the [35] falsity, e.g. in fallacies that depend on language and on solecism. If then fallacious arguments for the contradictory of a thesis depend on their appearing to refute, it is clear that the considerations on which both deductions of false conclusions and apparent refutation depend must be the same in number. Now an apparent refutation depends upon the elements involved in a genuine one; for the failure of one or other of these must make the refutation merely apparent, e.g. that which [170a1] depends on the failure of the conclusion to follow from the argument (the argument ad impossibile) and that which treats two questions as one and so depends upon a flaw in the proposition, and that which depends on the substitution of an accident for an essential attribute, and—a branch of the last—that which depends upon the [5] consequent; moreover, the conclusion may follow not in fact but only verbally; then, instead of proving the contradictory universally and in the same respect and relation and manner, the fallacy may be dependent on some limit of extent or on one or other of these qualifications; moreover, there is the assumption of the original point, in violation of the principle of not reckoning in the original point. Thus we should have [10] the number of considerations on which fallacies depend; for they could not depend on more, but all will depend on the points aforesaid.
A sophistical refutation is a refutation not without qualification but relatively to someone; and so is a deduction, in the same way. For unless that which depends upon homonymy assumes that the term has a single meaning, and that which [15] depends on similarity of form assumes that terms signify nothing but individuals, and the rest in the same way, they will be neither refutations nor deductions, either without qualification or relatively to the answerer; whereas if they do assume these things, they will be, relatively to the answerer; but they will not be without qualification; for they have not secured a statement that does have a single meaning, but only one that appears to have, and that only from this particular man.
[20] 9 · The number of considerations on which depend the refutations of those who are refuted, we ought not to try to grasp without a knowledge of everything that is. This, however, is not the province of any single study; for possibly the sciences are infinite in number, so that obviously demonstrations may be infinite too. Now refutations may be true as well as false; for whenever it is possible to demonstrate something, it is also possible to refute the man who maintains the contradictory of [25] the truth; e.g. if a man has stated that the diagonal is commensurate with the side of the square, one might refute him by demonstrating that it is incommensurate. Accordingly, we shall have to have scientific knowledge of everything; for some refutations depend upon the principles of geometry and the conclusions that follow from these, others upon those of medicine, and others upon those of the other [30] sciences. For the matter of that, false refutations likewise belong to the number of the infinite; for in respect of every art there is false deduction, e.g. in respect of geometry there is a geometrical one, and in respect of medicine a medical. By in respect of the art, I mean in respect of its principles. Clearly, then, it is not of all refutations, but only of those that depend upon dialectic that we need to grasp the [35] commonplace rules; for these are common to every art and faculty. And as regards the refutation that is in respect of one or other of the particular sciences it is the task of that particular scientist to examine whether it is merely apparent without being real, and, if it is real, what is the reason for it; whereas it is the business of dialecticians so to examine the refutation that proceeds from common principles and falls under no particular study. For if we grasp the starting-points of the reputable deductions on any subject we grasp those of the refutations. For a [170b1] refutation is a deduction of the contradictory, so that either one or two deductions of the contradictory constitute a refutation. We grasp, then, the number of considerations on which all such depend; and if we grasp this, we grasp their solutions as well; for the objections to these are the solutions of them. We also grasp the number of considerations on which those refutations depend, that are merely apparent—[5] apparent, I mean, not to everybody, but to people of a certain stamp; for it is an indefinite task if one is to inquire how many are the considerations that make them apparent to the man in the street. Accordingly it is clear that the dialectician’s business is to be able to grasp on how many considerations depends the formation, through common principles, of a refutation that is either real or apparent, i.e. either [10] dialectical or apparently dialectical, or suitable for an examination.
10 · It is no true distinction between arguments which some people draw when they say that some arguments are directed against the word, and others against the thought; for it is absurd to suppose that some arguments are directed against the word and others against the thought, and that they are not the same. For [15] what is failure to direct an argument against the thought except what occurs whenever a man does not use the word in the sense about which the person being questioned thought he was being questioned when he made the concession? And this is the same thing as to direct the argument against the word. On the other hand, it is directed against the thought whenever a man uses the word in the sense which the answerer had in mind when he made the concession. If now anyone (i.e. both the questioner and the person questioned), in dealing with a word with more than one [20] meaning, were to suppose it to have one meaning—as e.g. it may be that being and one have many meanings, and yet both the answerer answers and the questioner puts his question supposing it to be one, and the argument is to the effect that all things are one—will this discussion be directed any more against the word than against the thought of the person questioned? If, on the other hand, someone [25] supposes the word to have many meanings, it is clear that such a discussion will not be directed against the thought. For direction against the word and against the thought applies primarily to those arguments which have several meanings, but secondarily to any argument whatsoever; for the fact of being directed against the thought depends not on the argument, but on the special attitude of the answerer towards the points he concedes. Next, all of them may be directed to the word. For [30] to be directed against the word is in this doctrine not to be directed against the thought. For if not all are directed against either word or thought, there will be certain other arguments directed neither against the word nor against the thought, whereas they say that all must be one or the other, and divide them all as directed either against the word or against the thought, while others (they say) there are none. But in point of fact those that depend on the word are a branch of those deductions that depend on a multiplicity of uses. For the absurd statement has [35] actually been made that the description ‘dependent on the word’ describes all the arguments that depend on language; whereas some of these are fallacies not because the answerer adopts a particular attitude towards them, but because the argument itself involves the asking of a question such as bears more than one use.
It is altogether absurd to discuss refutation without first discussing deduction; [171a1] for a refutation is a deduction, so that one ought to discuss deduction before describing false refutation; for a refutation of that kind is a merely apparent [5] deduction of the contradictory of a thesis. Accordingly, the reason of the falsity will be either in the deduction or in the contradiction (for mention of the contradiction must be added), while sometimes it is in both, if the refutation is merely apparent. In the argument that speaking of the silent is possible it lies in the contradiction, not in the deduction; in the argument that one can give what one does not possess, it lies [10] in both; in the argument that Homer’s poem is a figure through its being a cycle it lies in the deduction. An argument that does not fail in either respect is a true deduction.
But, to return to the point whence our argument digressed, are mathematical reasonings directed against the thought, or not? And if any one thinks ‘triangle’ to be a word with many meanings, and granted it in some different sense from the [15] figure which was proved to contain two right angles, has the questioner here directed his argument against the thought of the former or not?
Moreover, if the name bears many senses, while the answerer does not understand or suppose it to have them, surely the questioner here has directed his argument against his thought. Or how else ought he to put his question except by suggesting a distinction—suppose one’s question to be ‘Is speaking of the silent [20] possible or not?’ or ‘Is the answer “No” in one sense, but “Yes” in another?’ If, then, any one were to answer that it was not possible in any sense and the other were to argue that it was, has not his argument been directed against the thought of the answerer? Yet his argument is supposed to be one of those that depend on the word. There is not, then, any definite kind of arguments that is directed against the thought. Some arguments are, indeed, directed against the word; but these do not [25] include all apparent refutations, let alone all refutations. For there are also apparent refutations which do not depend upon language, e.g. those that depend upon accident, and others.
If anyone requires that one should actually draw the distinction, and say, ‘By “speaking of the silent” I mean, in one sense this and in the other sense that’, surely [30] to require this is in the first place absurd (for sometimes the question does not seem to have several uses, and you cannot possibly draw a distinction which you do not think to be there); in the second place, what else but this will didactic argument be? For it will make manifest the state of the case to one who has never considered, and does not know or suppose that there is any other use. For what is there to prevent the same thing also happening to us in cases where there is no17 double use? ‘Are the [35] units in four equal to the twos? Observe that some twos18 are contained in one way, some in another.’ Also, ‘Is the knowledge of contraries one or not? Observe that some contraries are known, while others are unknown.’ Thus the man who makes [171b1] this requirement seems to be unaware of the difference between didactic and dialectical argument, and of the fact that while he who argues didactically should not ask questions but make things clear himself, the other should merely ask questions.
11 · Moreover, to require a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer is the business not of a man who is proving something, but of one who is holding an examination. For the art of examining is a branch of dialectic and has in view not the man who has knowledge, [5] but the ignorant pretender. Now the man who regards the common principles with their application to the particular matter in hand is a dialectician, while the man who only appears to do this is a sophist. Now one form of contentious and sophistical deduction is a merely apparent deduction, on subjects on which dialectic is the proper method of examination, even if its conclusion is true (for it misleads us in [10] regard to the cause); also there are those fallacies which do not belong to the line of inquiry proper to the particular subject, but seem to belong to the art in question. For false diagrams of geometrical figures are not contentious (for the fallacies belong to the subject of the art)—any more than is any false diagram illustrating a truth—e.g. Hippocrates’ figure of the squaring of the circle by means of the lunules. [15] But Bryson’s method of squaring the circle, even if the circle is thereby squared, is still sophistical because it does not conform to the subject in hand. So, then, any merely apparent deduction about these things is a contentious argument, and any deduction that merely appears to conform to the subject in hand, even if it is a genuine deduction, is a contentious argument; for it is merely apparent in its [20] conformity to the subject-matter, so that it is deceptive and unfair. For just as unfairness in a contest is a definite type of fault, and is a kind of foul fighting, so the art of contentious reasoning is foul fighting in disputation; for in the former case those who are resolved to win at all costs snatch at everything, and so in the latter case do contentious reasoners. Those, then, who do this in order to win the mere [25] victory are thought to be contentious and quarrelsome persons, while those who do it to win a reputation with a view to making money are sophistical. For sophistry is, as we said, a kind of art of money-making from a merely apparent wisdom, and this is why they aim at a merely apparent demonstration; and quarrelsome persons and sophists both employ the same arguments, but not with the same motives; and the [30] same argument will be sophistical and contentious, but not in the same respect; rather, it will be contentious in so far as its aim is an apparent victory, while in so far as its aim is an apparent wisdom, it will be sophistical—for the art of sophistry is a certain appearance of wisdom without the reality. The contentious arguer stands in somewhat the same relation to the dialectician as the drawer of false diagrams to [35] the geometrician; for he argues fallaciously from the same principles as the dialectician, just as the drawer of a false diagram uses the same principles as the geometrician. But whereas the latter is not a contentious reasoner, because he bases his false diagram on the principles and conclusions that fall under the art of geometry, the argument which is subordinate to the principles of dialectic will yet [172a1] clearly be contentious as regards other subjects. Thus, e.g., though the squaring of the circle by means of the lunules is not contentious, Bryson’s solution is contentious; and the former argument cannot be adapted to any subject except geometry, because it proceeds from principles that are proper to geometry, whereas [5] the latter can be adapted as an argument against the many people who do not know what is or is not possible in each particular context—for it will apply to them all. Or there is the method whereby Antiphon squared the circle. Or again, an argument which denied that it was better to take a walk after dinner, because of Zeno’s argument, would not be a proper argument for a doctor, because Zeno’s argument is [10] of general application. If, then, the relation of the contentious arguer to the dialectician were exactly like that of the drawer of false diagrams to the geometrician, a contentious argument upon the aforesaid subjects could not have existed. But, as it is, the dialectical argument is not concerned with any definite genus, nor does it prove anything, nor is it of the same type as a universal argument. For all beings are not contained in any one kind, nor, if they were, could they possibly fall [15] under the same principles. Accordingly, no art that is a method of proving the nature of anything proceeds by asking questions; for it does not permit a man to grant whichever he likes of the two alternatives in the question; for they will not both of them yield a deduction. Dialectic, on the other hand, does proceed by questioning, whereas if it were concerned to prove things, it would have refrained from putting questions, even if not about everything, at least about the primitives [20] and the appropriate principles. For suppose the answerer not to grant these, it would then no longer have had any grounds from which to argue any longer against the objection. Dialectic is at the same time a mode of examination as well. For the art of examination is not an accomplishment of the same kind as geometry, but one which a man may possess, even though he has not knowledge. For it is possible even for one without knowledge to hold an examination of one who is without knowledge, if the latter grants him points taken not from things that he knows or from the proper [25] principles but from the consequences which a man may know without knowing the art in question (but which if he does not know, he is bound to be ignorant of the art). So then clearly the art of examining does not consist in knowledge of any definite subject. For this reason, too, it deals with everything; for every art employs certain [30] common principles too. Hence everybody, including even amateurs, makes use in a way of dialectic and the practice of examining; for all undertake to some extent a test of those who profess to know things. What serves them here is the general principles; for they know these themselves just as well as the scientist, even if in what they say they seem to go wildly astray. All, then, are engaged in refutation; for they take a hand as amateurs in the same task with which dialectic is concerned [35] professionally; and he is a dialectician who examines by the help of a theory of deduction. Now there are many identical principles which are true of everything, though they are not such as to constitute a particular nature, i.e. a particular kind of being, but are like negations, while other principles are not of this kind but are proper; accordingly it is possible from these general principles to hold an examination on everything, and that there should be a definite art of so doing, and, [172b1] moreover, an art which is not of the same kind as those which prove. This is why the contentious reasoner does not stand in the same condition in all respects as the drawer of a false diagram; for the contentious reasoner will not argue fallaciously from any definite class of principles, but will deal with every class.
[5] These, then, are the types of sophistical refutations; and that it belongs to the dialectician to study these, and to be able to effect them, is not difficult to see; for the investigation of propositions comprises the whole of this study.
12 · So much, then, for apparent refutations. As for showing that the answerer is saying something false, and drawing his argument into something [10] implausible—for this was the second item of the sophist’s programme—in the first place, then, this is best brought about by a certain manner of inquiring and through the question. For to put the question without framing it with reference19 to any definite subject is a good bait for these purposes; for people are more inclined to make mistakes when they talk at large, and they talk at large when they have no [15] definite subject before them. Also the putting of several questions, even though the position against which one is arguing is definite, and the requirement that he shall say only what he thinks, create abundant opportunity for drawing him into implausibility or falsity, and also, whether to any of these questions he replies ‘Yes’ or replies ‘No’, for leading20 him on to statements against which one is well off for a line of attack. Nowadays, however, men are less able to play foul by these means [20] than they were formerly; for people rejoin with the question, ‘What has that to do with the original subject?’ It is, too, an elementary rule for eliciting some falsity or implausibility that one should never put a thesis directly, but say that one puts it from the wish for information; for the pretext gives room for an attack.
A rule specially appropriate for showing up a falsity is the sophistic rule that [25] one should draw the answerer on to the kind of statements against which one is well supplied with arguments: this can be done both properly and improperly, as was said before.21
Again, to draw a paradoxical statement, look and see to what school the person arguing with you belongs, and then question him as to some point wherein their [30] doctrine is paradoxical to most people; for with every school there is some point of that kind. It is an elementary rule in these matters to have a collection of the theses of the various schools among your propositions. The solution appropriate here, too, is to show that the paradox does not come about because of the argument: whereas this is what your opponent always really wants. [35]
Moreover, argue from men’s wishes and their professed opinions. For people do not wish the same things as they say they wish: they say what will look best, whereas they wish what appears to be to their interest; e.g. they say that a man ought to die nobly rather than to live in pleasure, and to live in honest poverty rather [173a1] than in dishonourable riches; but they wish the opposite. Accordingly, a man who speaks according to his wishes must be led into stating his professed opinions, while he who speaks according to these must be led into admitting those that are hidden away; for in either case they are bound to introduce a paradox; for they will speak [5] contrary either to their professed or to their hidden opinions.
The widest range of commonplace argument for leading men into paradoxical statement is that which depends on the standards of nature and of convention: it is thus that both Callicles is portrayed as arguing in the Gorgias, and that all the men of old supposed the result to come about; for nature (they said) and convention are [10] opposites, and justice is a fine thing by a conventional standard, but not by that of nature. Accordingly, the man whose statement agrees with the standard of nature you should meet by the standard of convention, but the man who agrees with convention by leading him to the facts of nature; for in both ways paradoxical [15] statements will be made. In their view the standard of nature was the truth, while that of convention was the opinion held by the majority. So that it is clear that they, too, used to try either to refute the answerer or to make him make paradoxical statements, just as the men of to-day do as well.
[20] Some questions are such that in both forms the answer is implausible; e.g. ‘Ought one to obey the wise or one’s father?’ and ‘Ought one to do what is expedient or what is just?’ and ‘Is it preferable to suffer injustice or to do an injury?’ You should lead people, then, into views opposite to the majority and to the wise: if anyone speaks as do the expert reasoners, lead him into opposition to the majority, [25] while if he speaks as do the majority, then into opposition to the wise. For some say that of necessity the happy man is just, whereas it is implausible to the many that a king should not be happy. To lead a man into implausibility of this sort is the same as to lead him into the opposition of the standards of nature and convention; for convention represents the opinion of the majority, whereas the wise speak according [30] to the standard of nature and the truth.
13 · Paradoxes, then, you should seek to elicit by means of these commonplace rules. Now as for making any one babble, we have already said what we mean by to babble.22 This is the object in view in all arguments of the following kind: if it [35] is all the same to state a word and to state its account, double and double of half are the same; if then double is double of half, it will be double of half of half. And if, instead of ‘double’, double of half is again put, then the same expression will be repeated three times, double of half of half of half. Also ‘Desire is of the pleasant, isn’t it?’ But desire is appetition for the pleasant; accordingly, desire is appetition for the pleasant for the pleasant.
[173b1] All arguments of this kind occur in dealing with any relative terms which not only have relative genera, but are also themselves relative, and are rendered in relation to one and the same thing (as e.g. appetition is appetition for something, and desire is desire for something, and double is double of something, i.e. double of [5] half); also in dealing with any terms which, though they are not relative terms at all, yet have their substance, viz. the things of which they are the states or affections or what not, indicated as well in their definition, they being predicated of these things. Thus e.g. odd is a number containing a middle; but there are odd numbers; therefore [10] there are numbers numbers containing a middle. Also, if snubness is a concavity of the nose, and there are snub noses, there are concave noses noses.
People sometimes appear to produce this result, without really producing it, because they do not add the question whether double, just by itself, has any meaning or not, and if so, whether it has the same meaning, or a different one; but [15] they draw their conclusion straight away. Still it seems, inasmuch as the word is the same, to have the same meaning as well.
14 · We have said before what kind of thing solecism is.23 It is possible both to commit it, and to seem to do so without doing so, and to do so without seeming to do so. Suppose, as Protagoras used to say, that μῆνις (‘wrath’) and πἡληξ (‘helmet’) are masculine: according to him a man who calls wrath a ‘destructress’ (oὐλoμένην) [20] commits a solecism, though he does not seem to do so to other people, whereas he who calls it a ‘destructor’ (oὐλόμενoν) commits no solecism though he seems to do so. It is clear, then, that one could produce this affect by art as well; and for this reason many arguments seem to deduce a solecism which do not really do so, as happens in the case of refutations. [25]
Almost all apparent solecisms depend upon occasions when the inflection denotes neither a masculine nor a feminine object but a neuter. For ‘he’ signifies a masculine, and ‘she’ a feminine; but ‘this’, though meant to signify a neuter, often also signifies one or other of the former: e.g. ‘What is this?’ —Calliope, a log, [30] Coriscus. Now in the masculine and feminine the inflections are all different, whereas in the neuter some are and some are not. Often, then, when ‘this’ has been granted, people reason as if ‘him’ had been said; and likewise also they substitute one inflection for another. The fallacy comes about because ‘this’ is a common form [35] of several inflections; for ‘this’ signifies sometimes ‘he’ and sometimes ‘him’. It should signify them alternately: when combined with ‘is’ it should be ‘he’, while with ‘being’ it should be ‘him’: e.g. ‘He is’, ‘being him’. It happens in the same way in the case of feminine names as well, and in the case of the so-called ‘chattels’ that have feminine or masculine designations. For only those names which end in o and ν, [174a1] have the designation proper to a chattel, e.g. ξύλoν, σχoινὶoν; those which do not end so have that of a masculine or feminine object, though some of them we apply to chattels: e.g. ἀσκός is a masculine name, and κλὶνη a feminine. For this reason in cases of this kind as well there will be a difference of the same sort between ‘is’ and [5] ‘being’. Also, solecism resembles in a certain way those refutations which are said to depend on the like expression of unlike things. For, just as there we come upon a material solecism, so here we come upon a verbal; for man is both an object and also a word, and so is white.
It is clear, then, that for solecisms we must try to construct our argument out of [10] the aforesaid inflections.
These, then, are the types of contentious arguments, and the subdivisions of those types, and the methods for conducting them aforesaid. But it makes no little difference if the materials for putting the question are arranged in a certain manner with a view to concealment, as in the case of dialectical arguments. Following then [15] upon what we have said, this must be discussed first.
15 · With a view then to refutation, one resource is length—for it is difficult to keep several things in view at once; and to secure length the elementary rules that have been stated before should be employed. Another resource is speed; for when people are left behind they look ahead less. Moreover, there is anger and contentiousness; for when agitated everybody is less able to take care of himself. [20] Elementary rules for producing anger are to make a show of the wish to play foul, and to be altogether shameless. Moreover there is the putting of one’s questions alternately, whether one has more than one argument leading to the same conclusion, or whether one has arguments to show both that something is so, and [25] that it is not so; for the result is that he has to be on his guard at the same time either against more than one line, or against contrary lines, of argument. In general, all the methods described before24 of producing concealment are useful also for purposes of contentious argument; for the object of concealment is to avoid detection, and the object of this is to deceive.
[30] To counter those who refuse to grant whatever they suppose to help one’s argument, one should put the question negatively, as though desirous of the opposite answer, or at any rate as though one put the question without prejudice; for when it is obscure what answer one wants to secure, people are less refractory. Also when, in dealing with particulars, a man grants the individual case, when the induction is [35] done you should often not put the universal as a question, but take it for granted and use it; for sometimes people themselves suppose that they have granted it, and also appear to the audience to have done so—for they remember the induction and assume that the questions could not have been put for nothing. In cases where there is no term to indicate the universal, still you should avail yourself of the resemblance to suit your purpose; for resemblance often escapes detection. Also, with a view to obtaining the proposition, you ought to put it in your question side by side with its [174b1] contrary. E.g. if it were necessary to secure the admission that a man should obey his father in everything, ask ‘Should a man obey his parents in everything, or disobey them in everything?’; and ‘Should one agree that many times many is many or few?’ (for then, if compelled to choose, one will be more inclined to think it [5] many). For the placing of their contraries close beside them makes things look smaller and bigger, and worse and better to men.
A strong appearance of having been refuted is often produced by the most highly sophistical of all the unfair tricks of questioners, when without deducing [10] anything, instead of putting their final proposition as a question, they state it as a conclusion, as though they had deduced it—‘Therefore so-and-so is not true’.
It is also a sophistical trick, when a paradox has been laid down, to require, when the accepted view has been originally proposed that the answerer shall answer what he thinks about it, and to put one’s question on matters of that kind in the form [15] ‘Do you think that . . . ?’ For then, if the question is taken as one of the premisses of one’s argument, either a refutation or a paradox is bound to result: if he grants the view, a refutation; if he refuses to grant it or even to admit it is accepted, an implausibility; if he refuses to grant it, but admits that it is accepted, something very like a refutation results.
Moreover, just as in rhetorical arguments, so also in those aimed at refutation, [20] you should examine the discrepancies of the answerer’s position either with his own statements, or with those of persons whom he admits to say and do aright, and also with those of people who are supposed to bear that kind of character, or who are like them, or with those of the majority or of all men. Also just as answerers, too, often, when they are in process of being refuted draw a distinction, if their refutation is just about to take place, so questioners also should resort to this from time to time to [25] counter objectors, pointing out, supposing that against one sense of the words the objection holds, but not against the other, that they have taken it in the latter sense, as e.g. Cleophon does in the Mandrobulus25 They should also break off their argument and cut short their other lines of attack, while in answering, if a man perceives this being done beforehand, he should put in his objection and have his say first. One should also lead attacks sometimes against positions other than the one [30] stated, excluding it if one cannot find lines of attack against the view laid down, as Lycophron did when set to deliver a eulogy upon the lyre. To counter those who demand ‘Against what are you directing your effort?,’ since one is thought bound to state the reason, while, on the other hand, some ways of stating it make the defence too easy, you should state as your aim only the general result that always [35] happens in refutations, namely the contradiction of his thesis—viz. that your effort is to deny what he has affirmed, or to affirm what he denied: don’t say that you are trying to show that the knowledge of contraries is, or is not, the same.26 One must not ask one’s conclusion in the form of a proposition. Some things should not even be put as questions at all but used as though granted.
16 · We have now dealt with the sources of questions, and the methods of [175a1] questioning in contentious disputations; next we have to speak of answering, and of how solutions should be made, and of what requires them, and of what use is served by arguments of this kind.
The use of them, then, is, for philosophy, two-fold. For in the first place, since [5] for the most part they depend upon the expression, they put us in a better condition for seeing in how many ways any term is used, and what kind of resemblances and what kind of differences occur between things and between their names. In the second place they are useful for one’s own personal researches; for the man who is [10] easily committed to a fallacy by someone else, and does not perceive it, is likely to incur this fate himself also on many occasions. Thirdly and lastly, they further contribute to one’s reputation, viz. the reputation of being well trained in everything, and not inexperienced in anything; for that a party to arguments should find fault with them and yet cannot definitely point out their weakness, creates a [15] suspicion, making it seem as though it were not the truth of the matter but inexperience that put him out of temper.
Answerers may clearly see how to meet arguments of this kind, if our previous account was right of the sources whence fallacies came, and if we adequately distinguished the forms of dishonesty in putting questions. But it is not the same [20] thing to take an argument in one’s hand and then to see and solve its faults, as it is to be able to meet it quickly while being subjected to questions; for what we know, we often do not know in a different context. Moreover, just as in other things speed or slowness is enhanced by training, so it is with arguments too, so that supposing we [25] are unpractised, even though a point is clear to us, we are often too late for the right moment. Sometimes too it happens as with diagrams; for there we can sometimes analyse the figure, but not construct it again: so too in refutations, though we know [30] on what the connexion of the argument depends, we still are at a loss to split the argument apart.
17 · First then, just as we say that we ought sometimes to choose to deduce something in a reputable fashion rather than in truth, so also we have sometimes to solve arguments rather in a reputable fashion than according to the truth. For it is a general rule in fighting contentious persons, to treat them not as refuting, but as [35] merely appearing to refute; for we say that they don’t really deduce anything, so that our object in correcting them must be to dispel the appearance of it. For if refutation is a non-homonymous contradiction arrived at from certain premisses, there will be no need to draw distinctions against ambiguity and homonymy; for they do not effect a deduction. The only motive for drawing further distinctions is that the conclusion reached looks like a refutation. What, then, we have to beware of, is not being refuted, but seeming to be, because of course the asking of [175b1] ambiguities and of questions that turn upon homonymy, and all the other tricks of that kind, both conceal a genuine refutation and make it uncertain who is refuted and who is not. For since one has the right at the end, when the conclusion is drawn, to say that he has not denied what one has stated except homonymously, no matter [5] how precisely he may have addressed his argument to the very same point as oneself, it is not clear whether one has been refuted; for it is not clear whether at the moment one is speaking the truth. If, on the other hand, one had drawn a distinction, and questioned him on the homonymy or the ambiguity, the refutation would not have been a matter of uncertainty. Also what contentious arguers (less so nowadays than formerly) aim at would have been achieved, namely that the person [10] questioned should answer either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; whereas nowadays the improper forms in which questioners put their questions compel the party questioned to add something to his answer in correction of the faultiness of the proposition as put; for certainly, if the questioner distinguishes his meaning adequately, the answerer is bound to reply either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
[15] If anyone is going to suppose that an argument which turns upon homonymy is a refutation, it will be impossible for an answerer to escape being refuted in a sense; for in the case of visible objects one is bound of necessity to deny the term he has asserted, and to assert what he has denied. For the remedy which some people have for this is quite unavailing. They say, not that Coriscus is both musical and [20] unmusical, but that this Coriscus is musical and this Coriscus unmusical. But this will not do, for to say that this Coriscus is unmusical, or musical, and to say this Coriscus is so, is to use the same expression; and this he is both affirming and denying at once. ‘But perhaps they do not mean the same’. Well, nor did the name in the former case: so where is the difference? If, however, he is to use in the one case [25] the simple title Coriscus, while in the other he is to add the prefix one or this, he commits an absurdity; for the latter is no more applicable to the one than to the other; for to whichever he adds it, it makes no difference.
All the same, since if a man does not distinguish the senses of an ambiguity, it is not clear whether he has been refuted or has not been refuted, and since in arguments the right to distinguish them is granted, it is evident that to grant the [30] question without drawing any distinction and without qualification is a mistake, so that the argument—even if not the man himself—looks as though it has been refuted. It often happens, however, that, though they see the ambiguity, people hesitate to draw such distinctions, because of the dense crowd of persons who propose questions of the kind, in order that they may not be thought to be [35] ill-tempered at every turn; then again, though they would never have supposed that that was the point on which the argument turned, they often find themselves faced by a paradox. Accordingly, since the right of drawing the distinction is granted, one should not hesitate, as has been said before.27
If people never made two questions into one question, the fallacy that turns upon homonymy and ambiguity would not have come about, but either genuine refutation or none. For what is the difference between asking whether Callias and Themistocles are musical, and what one might have asked if the pair of them, [176a1] though different, had had its own single name? For if the term applied means more than one thing, he has asked more than one question. If then it is not right to demand to be given without qualification a single answer to two questions, it is evident that it is not proper to give an unqualified answer to any homonymous [5] question, not even if the predicate is true of all the subjects, as some claim that one should. For this is exactly as though he had asked ‘Are Coriscus and Callias at home or not at home?’, supposing them to be both in or both out; for in both cases there is a number of propositions; for though the simple answer is true, that does not make the question one. For it is possible for it to be true to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ without [10] qualification to countless different questions; but still one should not answer them with a single answer; for that is the death of argument. Rather, it is as though different things had actually had the same name applied to them. If then, one should not give a single answer to two questions, it is evident that we should not say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in the case of homonyms; for the remark is simply a remark, not an [15] answer at all, although among disputants such remarks are demanded, because they do not see what the consequence is.
As we said, then, inasmuch as some things seem to be refutations though they are not, in the same way also some things will seem to be solutions, though they are [20] not. Now these, we say, must sometimes be advanced rather than the true solutions in contentious reasonings and in meeting ambiguity. The proper answer in saying what one thinks is to say ‘Granted’; for in that way the likelihood of being refuted on a side issue is minimized. If, on the other hand, one is compelled to say something [25] paradoxical, one should then be most careful to add that it seems so; for in that way one avoids the impression of being either refuted or paradoxical. Since it is clear what is meant by postulating the point at issue, and people think that they must at all costs overthrow the premisses that lie near the conclusion, and that some must not be conceded because he is postulating the point at issue, so whenever any one [30] claims from us a point such as is bound to follow as a consequence from our thesis, but is false or paradoxical, we must plead the same; for the necessary consequences are generally held to be a part of the thesis itself. Moreover, whenever the universal has been secured not under a definite name, but by a comparison of instances, one should say that the questioner assumes it not in the sense in which it was granted nor [35] in which he proposed it; for this too is a point upon which a refutation often depends.
If one is debarred from these defences one must pass to the argument that the conclusion has not been properly proved, approaching it in the light of the given classification.28
In the case, then, of names that are used literally one is bound to answer either without qualification or by drawing a distinction: it is the tacit understandings implied in our statements, e.g. in answer to questions that are not put clearly but [176b1] truncatedly, upon which refutation depends. For example, ‘Is what belongs to Athenians the property of Athenians?’ Yes. ‘And so it is likewise in other cases. But man belongs to the animal kingdom, doesn’t he?’ Yes. ‘Then man is the property of the animal kingdom’. For we say that man belongs to the animal kingdom because [5] he is an animal, just as we say that Lysander belongs to the Spartans, because he is a Spartan. It is evident, then, that where what is put forward is not clear, one must grant it without qualification.
Whenever of two things it seems that if the one is true the other is true of necessity, whereas, if the other is true, the first is not true of necessity, one should, if asked which of them is true, grant the smaller one; for the larger the number of [10] premisses, the harder it is to deduce a conclusion from them. If, again, he tries to secure that one thing has a contrary while another has not, then if what he says is true, you should say that each has a contrary, only for the one there is no established name.
Since, again, in regard to some of the views they express, most people would say that anyone who did not admit them was telling a falsehood, while they would [15] not say this in regard to some, e.g. to any matters whereon opinion is divided (for most people have no distinct view whether the soul of animals is destructible or immortal), accordingly wherever it is uncertain in which of two senses the premiss proposed is usually meant—whether as maxims are (for people call both true [20] opinions and general assertions maxims), or like ‘the diagonal of a square is incommensurate with its side’; and moreover29 whenever opinions are divided as to the truth, we then have subjects of which it is very easy to change the terminology undetected. For because of the uncertainty in which of the two senses the premiss contains the truth, one will not be thought to be playing any trick, while because of the division of opinion, one will not be thought to be telling a falsehood; for the [25] change will make the position irrefutable.
Moreover, whenever one foresees any question coming, one should put in one’s objection and have one’s say beforehand; for by doing so one is likely to embarrass the questioner most effectually.
18 · Inasmuch as a proper solution is an exposure of a false deduction, showing on what kind of question the falsity depends, and since false deduction has [30] a double use—for it is used either if a false conclusion has been deduced, or if there is only an apparent deduction and no real one—there must be both the kind of solution just described, and also the correction of a merely apparent deduction, so as to show upon which of the questions the appearance depends. Thus it comes about [35] that one solves arguments that are properly deduced by demolishing them, whereas one solves merely apparent arguments by drawing distinctions. Again, inasmuch as of arguments that are properly deduced some have a true and others a false conclusion, those that are false in respect of their conclusion it is possible to solve in two ways; for it is possible both by demolishing one of the premisses asked, and by [177a1] proving that the conclusion is not the real state of the case; those, on the other hand, that are false in respect of their propositions can be solved only by a demolition of one of them; for the conclusion is true. So that those who wish to solve an argument should in the first place look and see if it is deduced or is not deduced; and next, whether the conclusion is true or false, in order that we may effect the solution [5] either by drawing some distinction or by demolishing something, and demolishing it either in this way or in that, as was laid down before. There is a very great deal of difference between solving an argument when being subjected to questions and when not; for to foresee traps is difficult, whereas to see them at one’s leisure is easier.
19 · Of the refutations, then, that depend upon homonymy and ambiguity [10] some contain some question with more than one meaning, while others contain a conclusion bearing a number of uses: e.g. in the argument that speaking of the silent is possible, the conclusion has a double meaning, while in the argument that he who knows does not understand what he knows one of the questions contains an ambiguity. Also that which has a double use is true in one context but not in another; it means something that is and something that is not. [15]
Whenever, then, the many senses lie in the conclusion no refutation takes place unless he secures as well the contradiction of the conclusion he means to prove; e.g. in the argument that seeing of the blind is possible; for without the contradiction there was no refutation. Whenever, on the other hand, the many senses lie in the questions, there is no necessity to begin by denying the double premiss; for this was not the goal of the argument but only its support. At the start, then, one should reply [20] with regard to an ambiguity, whether of a word or of a phrase, in this manner, that in one sense it is so, and in another not so, as e.g. that speaking of the silent is in one sense possible but in another not possible; also that in one sense one should do what must be done, but not in another (for what must be bears a number of uses). If, however, the ambiguity escapes one, one should correct it at the end by making an addition to the question: ‘Is speaking of the silent possible’? ‘No, but to speak of this [25] man while he is silent is possible’. Also, in cases which contain the ambiguity in their premisses, one should reply in like manner: ‘Do people then not understand what they know?’ ‘Yes, but not those who know it in the manner described’; for it is not the same thing to say that those who know cannot understand what they know, and to say that those who know something in this particular manner cannot do so. In [30] general, too, even if he deduces without qualification, one should contend that what he has negated is not the fact which one has asserted but only its name; and that therefore there is no refutation.
20 · It is evident also how one should solve those refutations that depend upon division and combination; for if the expression means something different when divided and when combined, as soon as one’s opponent draws his conclusion [35] one should take the expression in the contrary way. All such arguments as the following depend upon the combination or division of the words: ‘Was he being beaten with that with which you saw him being beaten?’ and ‘Did you see him being beaten with that with which he was being beaten?’ This has also in it an element of [177b1] ambiguity in the questions, but it really depends upon combination. For what depends upon the division of the words is not really a double meaning (for the expression when divided is not the same)—except in the way that ὄρoς and ὀ ρός,30 said with the accent, mean something different. In writing, indeed, a word is the [5] same whenever it is written with the same letters and in the same manner—and even there people nowadays put marks at the side to show the pronunciation—but the spoken words are not the same. Accordingly an expression that depends upon division is not an ambiguous one. It is evident also that not all refutations depend upon ambiguity as some people say they do.
[10] The answerer, then, must divide the expression; for to see a man being beaten with my eyes is not the same as to say I saw a man being beaten with my eyes. Also there is the argument of Euthydemus proving—‘Then you know now in Sicily that there are triremes in Piraeus?’; and again, ‘Can a good man who is a cobbler be [15] bad?—But a good man may be a bad cobbler; therefore a good cobbler will be bad’. Again, ‘Things the knowledge of which is good, are good things to learn, aren’t they?—But knowledge of evil is good; therefore evil is a good thing to know. —But evil is both evil and a thing to learn, so that evil is an evil thing to learn—but [20] knowledge of evils is good’. Again, ‘Is it true to say in the present moment that you are born?—Then you are born in the present moment’. Or does the expression as divided have a different meaning? for it is true to say now that you are born, but not ‘You are born now’. Again, ‘Could you do what you can, and as you can?—But when not harping, you have the power to harp; therefore you could harp when not [25] harping’. But he has not the power to do this—to harp while not harping; but when he is not doing it, he has the power to do it.
Some people solve this in another way. For, they say, if he has granted that he can do anything in the way he can, still it does not follow that he can harp when not harping; for it has not been granted that he will do anything in every way in which [30] he can; and it is not the same thing to do a thing in the way he can and to do it in every way in which he can. But evidently they do not solve it properly; for of arguments that depend upon the same point the solution is the same, whereas this will not fit all cases of the kind nor yet all ways of putting the questions: it is valid against the questioner, but not against his argument.
21 · Accentuation gives rise to no arguments, either as written or as spoken, [35] except perhaps some few that might come about; e.g. the following argument. ‘Is oὗ καταλύεις a house?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Is then oὐ καταλύεις the negation of καταλύεις’ ‘Yes’. ‘But you said that oὗ καταλὑεις is a house; therefore the house is a negation.’ How [178a1] one should solve this, is clear: for the word does not mean the same when spoken with an acuter and when spoken with a graver accent.
22 · It is clear also how one must meet those fallacies that depend on the identical expression of things that are not identical, seeing that we are in possession [5] of the kinds of predications. For the one man, say, has granted, when asked, that a term denoting a substance does not belong as an attribute, while the other has proved that some attribute belongs which is in the category of relation or of quantity, but is thought to denote a substance because of its expression; e.g. in the following argument: ‘Is it possible to be doing and to have done the same thing at the same time?’ ‘No’. ‘But it is surely possible to be seeing and to have seen the same [10] thing at the same time and in the same respect’. ‘Is any mode of passivity a mode of activity?’ ‘No’. ‘But “he is cut”, “he is burnt”, “he is struck by some sensible object” are alike in expression and all denote some form of passivity? And again “to say”, “to run”, “to see” are like one another in expression; but to see is surely a form [15] of being struck by a sensible object; therefore it is at the same time a form of passivity and of activity’. Now if in that case anyone, after granting that it is not possible to do and to have done the same thing at the same time, were to say that it is possible to see and to have seen, still he has not yet been refuted, if he says that to see is not a form of doing but of passivity; for this question is required as well, though he is supposed by the listener to have already granted it, when he granted [20] that to cut is to do something, and to have cut to have done something, and so on with the other things that have a like expression. For the listener adds the rest by himself, thinking the meaning to be alike; whereas really the meaning is not alike, though it appears to be so because of the expression. The same thing happens here as happens in cases of homonymy; for in dealing with homonyms the tyro in [25] argument supposes that the fact and not the name which he affirmed has been denied; whereas there still wants the question whether in mentioning the homonym he had a single thing in view—for if he grants that that was so, the refutation will be effected.
Like the above are also the following arguments. It is asked if a man has lost what he once had and afterwards has not—for a man will no longer have ten dice [30] even though he has only lost one. No: rather it is that he has lost what he had before and has not now; but there is no necessity for him to have lost as much or31 as many things as he has not now. So then, he asks the questions as to what he has, and draws the conclusion as to what number—for ten is a number. If then he had asked to begin with, whether a man no longer having the number of things he once had has [35] lost that number, no one would have granted it, but would have said ‘Either that number or some of them’. Also there is the argument that a man may give what he has not got; for he has not got only one die. But he has given, not what he had not got, but in a manner in which he had not got it, viz. just the one. For the word ‘only’ does not signify a particular substance or quality or quantity, but a manner of [178b1] relation, i.e. that it is not coupled with any other. It is therefore just as if he had asked ‘Could a man give what he has not got?’ and, on being given the answer ‘No’, were to ask if a man could give a thing quickly when he had not got it quickly, and, on this being granted, were to deduce that a man could give what he had not got. It is quite evident that he has not deduced his point; for to give quickly is not to give a [5] thing, but to give in a certain manner; and a man could certainly give a thing in a manner in which he has not got it, e.g. he might have got it with pleasure and give it with pain.
Like these are also all arguments of the following kind: Could a man strike a blow with a hand which he has not got, or see with an eye which he has not [10] got?—For he has not got only one eye. Some people solve this case by saying that a man who has more than one eye, or more than one of anything else, also has only one. Others solve it as they solve the argument that what a man has, he has received; for this man gave only one vote; and the other, they say, has only one vote from him. Others, again, proceed by demolishing straightaway the proposition asked, and [15] admitting that it is quite possible to have what one has not received; e.g. to have received sweet wine, but then, owing to its going bad in the course of receipt, to have it sour. But, as was said also above, all these persons direct their solutions against the man, not against his argument. For if this were a solution, then, suppose anyone to grant the opposite, he could find no solution, just as happens in other cases; e.g. suppose the solution to be ‘So-and-so is partly so and partly not’, then, if you grant it [20] without any qualification, the conclusion follows. If, on the other hand, the conclusion does not follow, then that could not be the solution; and what we say in regard to the foregoing examples is that, even if all the premisses are granted, still no deduction is effected.
Moreover, the following too belong to this group of arguments. ‘If something is [25] in writing did some one write it?—But it is now in writing that you are seated—a false statement, though it was true at the time when it was written; therefore the statement that was written is at the same time false and true’. But this is fallacious; for the falsity or truth of a statement or opinion indicates not a substance but a quality (for the same account applies to the case of an opinion as well). Again, ‘Is [30] what a learner learns what he learns?—But suppose some one learns what is slow fast’. Then his words denote not what the learner learns but how he learns it. Also, ‘Does a man tread upon what he walks through?—But he walks through a whole day’. But the words denote not what he walks through, but when he walks—just as when anyone uses the words ‘to drink a cup’ he denotes not what he drinks, but what he drinks from. Also, ‘Is it either by learning or by discovery that a man knows what [35] he knows?—But if of a pair of things he has discovered one and learned the other, the pair is not known to him by either method’. But it holds of each thing, not of everything. Again, there is the argument that there is a third man distinct from man and from individual men. But ‘man’, and indeed every general predicate, signifies not an individual, but some quality, or quantity or relation, or something of that sort. Likewise also in the case of ‘Coriscus’ and ‘Coriscus the musician’—are they [179a1] the same or different? For the one signifies an individual and the other a quality, so that it cannot be isolated; though it is not isolation which creates the third man, but the admission that it is an individual. For what man is cannot be an individual, as Callias is. Nor does it make any difference if one says that the element he has [5] isolated is not an individual but a quality; for there will still be the one beside the many, e.g. ‘Man’. It is evident then that one must not grant that what is a common predicate applying to a class universally is an individual, but must say that it signifies either a quality, or a relation, or a quantity, or something of that kind. [10]
23 · It is a general rule in dealing with arguments that depend on language that the solution always follows the opposite of the point on which the argument turns: e.g. if the argument depends upon combination, then the solution consists in division; if upon division, then in combination. Again, if it depends on an acute accent, the solution is a grave accent; if on a grave accent, it is an acute. If it [15] depends on homonymy, one can solve it by using the opposite word; e.g. if you find yourself calling something inanimate, despite your previous denial that it was so, show in what sense it is animate; if you have declared it to be inanimate and he has deduced that it is animate, say how it is inanimate. Likewise also in the case of ambiguity. If the argument depends on likeness of expression, the opposite will be [20] the solution. ‘Could a man give what he has not got?’ No, not what he has not got; but he could give it in a way in which he has not got it, e.g. one die by itself. ‘Does a man know either by learning or by discovery each thing that he knows, singly?’ Yes, but not the things that he knows. Also a man treads, perhaps, on anything he walks through, but not on the time he walks through. Likewise also in the case of the other examples. [25]
24 · In dealing with arguments that depend on accident, one and the same solution meets all cases. For since it is indeterminate when an attribute should be ascribed to an object, in cases where it belongs to its accident, and since in some cases it is agreed and people admit that it belongs, while in others they deny that it need belong, we should therefore, as soon as the conclusion has been drawn, say in [30] answer to them all alike, that there is no necessity for such an attribute to belong. One must, however, be prepared to adduce an example. All arguments such as the following depend upon accident. ‘Do you know what I am going to ask you?’ ‘Do you know the man who is approaching’, or ‘the man in the mask?’ ‘Is the statue your work of art?’ or ‘Is the dog your father?’ ‘Is the product of a small number with a [35] small number a small number?’ For it is evident in all these cases that there is no necessity for what is true of the accident to be true of the object as well. For only to things that are indistinguishable and one in substance does it seem that all the same attributes belong; whereas in the case of a good thing, to be good is not the same as to be going to be the subject of a question; nor in the case of a man approaching, or [179b1] wearing a mask, is to be approaching the same thing as to be Coriscus, so that if I know Coriscus, but do not know the man who is approaching, it still isn’t the case that I both know and do not know the same man; nor, again, if this is mine and is [5] also a work of art, is it therefore my work of art, but my property or thing or something else. The solution is the same in the other cases as well.
Some solve these by demolishing the question; for they say that it is possible to know and not to know the same thing, only not in the same respect; accordingly, when they don’t know the man who is coming towards them, but do know Coriscus, [10] they assert that they do know and don’t know the same object, but not in the same respect. But first, as we have already remarked,32 the correction of arguments that depend upon the same point ought to be the same, whereas this one will not hold if one adopts the same principle in regard not to knowing something, but to being, or [15] to being in a certain state (e.g. it is a father, and is also yours); for if in some cases this is true (and it is possible to know and not to know the same thing), yet with that case the solution stated has nothing to do. There is nothing to prevent the same argument from having a number of flaws; but it is not the exposition of any flaw that constitutes a solution; for it is possible for a man to prove that a false conclusion [20] has been deduced, but not to prove on what it depends, e.g. in the case of Zeno’s argument to prove that motion is impossible. So that even if anyone were to try to establish that this is impossible,33 he still is mistaken, even if he has deduced it ten thousand times over. For this is no solution; for a solution is an exposition of a false deduction, showing on what its falsity depends. If then he has not made a deduction, [25] whether he is trying to establish a true proposition or a false one,34 to point this out is a solution. The present suggestion may very well apply in some cases; but in these cases, at any rate, not even this would seem to be so; for he knows both that Coriscus is Coriscus and that the approaching figure is approaching. To know and not to know the same thing is thought to be possible, when e.g. one knows that he is white, [30] but does not realize that he is musical; for in that way he does know and not know the same thing, though not in the same respect. But as to the approaching figure and Coriscus he knows both that it is approaching and that it is Coriscus.
A like mistake to that of those whom we have mentioned is that of those who [35] solve the argument that every number is a small number; for if, when the conclusion is not deduced, they pass this over and say that a true conclusion has been deduced, on the ground that every number is both great and small, they make a mistake.
Some people also use the principle of ambiguity to solve the aforesaid deductions, e.g. that he is your father, or son, or slave. Yet it is evident that if the [180a1] appearance of a refutation depends upon a plurality of uses, the word or the expression in question ought to bear a number of literal senses, whereas no one speaks of someone as being his child in the literal sense, if he is the child’s master, but the combination depends upon accident. ‘Is he yours?’ ‘Yes’. ‘And is he a [5] child?—Then the child is yours’, because he happens to be both yours and a child; but he is not your child.35
There is also the argument that what is of evil is good; for wisdom is a knowledge of evils. But that this is of so-and-so does not have a number of uses: it means that it is so-and-so’s property. But if it does have a number of uses (for we do [10] say that man is of the animal kingdom, though not their property; and also anything related to evils in a way expressed as being of one is on that account of evil, though it is not of evil), then it seems to depend on whether the term is used relatively or without qualification. Yet it is no doubt possible to find an ambiguity in the phrase ‘What is of evil is good’ but not with regard to the argument in question, but rather [15] if there is a good slave of the wicked; though perhaps not even there—for a thing may be good and be of so-and-so without being at the same time good of so-and-so. Nor is the saying that man is of the animal kingdom a phrase with a number of uses; for a phrase does not have a number of uses merely if we express it elliptically; for [20] we express ‘Give me the Iliad’ by quoting half a line of it, e.g. ‘Give me “Sing, goddess, of the wrath. . .”’36
25 · Those arguments which depend upon an expression that holds properly of a particular thing, or in a particular respect, or place, or manner, or relation, and not without qualification, should be solved by considering the conclusion in relation to its contradictory, to see if any of these things can possibly have happened to it. [25] For it is impossible for contraries and opposites and an affirmative and a negative to belong to the same thing without qualification; there is, however, nothing to prevent each from belonging in a particular respect or relation or manner, or to prevent one of them from belonging in a particular respect and the other without qualification. So that if this one belongs without qualification and that one in a particular respect, there is as yet no refutation. This is a feature one has to find in the conclusion by [30] examining it in comparison with its contradictory.
All arguments of the following kind have this feature: ‘Is it possible for what is not to be?—But it is something, despite its not being’. Likewise also, what is will not be; for it will not be some particular being. ‘Is it possible for the same man at the same time to be a keeper and a breaker of his oath?’ ‘Can the same man at the same [35] time both obey and disobey the same man?’ Or are being something and being not the same? (For it is not the case that what is not, even if it is something, is without qualification.) Nor if a man keeps his oath in this particular instance or in this particular respect, is he bound also to be a keeper of oaths (for he who swears that he will break his oath, and then breaks it, keeps this particular oath only; he is not a keeper of his oath); nor is the disobedient man obedient, though he obeys one [180b1] particular command. The argument is similar for the problem whether the same man can at the same time say what is false and what is true; but it appears to be a troublesome question because it is not easy to see whether it is saying what is true or saying what is false which should be stated without qualification. There is, however, [5] nothing to prevent him from being a liar without qualification, but truthful in some particular respect or relation, or there being truth in some of the things he says, though he himself is not truthful. Likewise also in cases of relation and place and time. For all arguments of the following kind depend upon this. ‘Is health, or wealth, a good thing?—But to the fool who does not use it aright it is not a good thing; [10] therefore it is both good and not good’. ‘Is health, or political power, a good thing?37—But sometimes it is not particularly good; therefore the same thing is both good and not good to the same man’. But there is nothing to prevent a thing, though good without qualification, being not good to a particular man, or being good to a particular man, and yet not good now or here. ‘Is that which the prudent man would [15] not wish, an evil?—But he would not wish to lose the good; therefore the good is an evil’. But it is not the same thing to say that the good is an evil and to lose the good is an evil. Similarly with the argument of the thief: for it is not the case that if the thief is an evil thing, acquiring things is also evil; what he wishes, therefore, is not what is [20] evil but what is good; for to acquire is good. Also, disease is an evil thing, but not to get rid of disease. ‘Is the just preferable to the unjust, and what takes place justly to what takes place unjustly?—But to be put to death unjustly is preferable’. ‘Is it just that each should have his own?—But whatever decisions a man comes to on the [25] strength of his own opinion, even if it is false, are valid in law; therefore the same result is both just and unjust’. Also, ‘should one decide in favour of him who says what is just, or of him who says what is unjust?—But it is just for the injured party to say fully the things he has suffered; and these were unjust’. But because to suffer a thing unjustly is preferable, unjust ways are not therefore preferable to just; but [30] just ways are preferable without qualification, though in this particular case the unjust may very well be better than the just. Also, to have one’s own is just, while to have what is another’s is not just; all the same, the decision in question may very well be a just decision, whatever it is that the opinion of the man who gave the decision supports; for because it is just in this particular case or in this particular manner, it is not also just without qualification. Likewise also, though things are [35] unjust, there is nothing to prevent the speaking of them being just; for if to speak of things is just, it does not follow that the things should be just, any more than if to speak of things is of use, the things must be of use. Likewise also in the case of what is just. So that it is not the case that if the things spoken of are unjust, the victory goes to him who speaks unjust things;38 for he speaks of things that are just to speak of, though without qualification, i.e. to suffer, they are unjust.
[181a1] 26 · Refutations that depend on the definition of a refutation must, according to the plan sketched above,39 be met by comparing together the conclusion with its contradictory, and ensuring that it involves the same attribute in the same respect and relation and manner and time. If this additional question is [5] put at the start, you should not admit that it is impossible for the same thing to be both double and not double, but grant that it is possible, only not in such a way as was agreed to constitute a refutation. All the following arguments depend upon a point of that kind. ‘Does a man who knows that so-and-so is so-and-so, know the thing? and in the same way for ignorance?—But one who knows that Coriscus is [10] Coriscus might be ignorant of the fact that he is musical, so that he both knows and is ignorant of the same thing’. ‘Is a thing four cubits long greater than a thing three cubits long?—But a thing might grow from three to four cubits in length; now what is greater is greater than a less; accordingly the thing in question will be both greater and less than itself in the same respect’.
27 · As to refutations that depend on postulating and assuming the original [15] point, if it is obvious, one should not grant it, even though it is reputable and he is telling the truth. But if it escapes one, then, thanks to the badness of arguments of that kind, one should make one’s error recoil upon the questioner, and say that he has brought no argument; for a refutation must be proved independently of the original point. Secondly, one should say that the point was granted under the impression that he intended not to use it as a premiss, but to reason against it, in the [20] opposite way from that adopted in refutations on side issues.
28 · Also, those refutations that draw their conclusion through the consequent you should show up in the course of the argument itself. The mode in which consequents follow is two-fold, either as the universal follows on its particular, as (e.g.) animal follows man (for the claim is made that if this is found with that, then [25] that also is found with this); or else by way of the opposites (for if this follows that, the opposite will follow the opposite). On this latter claim the argument of Melissus depends; for he claims that if that which has come to be has a beginning, that which has not come to be has none, so that if the heavens have not come to be, they are infinite. But that is not so; for the sequence is vice versa. [30]
29 · In the case of refutations whose reasoning depends on some addition, look and see if upon its subtraction the impossibility follows none the less; and then the answerer should point this out, and say that he granted the addition not because he really thought it, but for the sake of the argument, whereas the questioner has not used it for the purpose of his argument at all. [35]
30 · To meet those refutations which make several questions into one, one should draw a distinction between them straightaway at the start. For a question is single if it has a single answer, so that one must not affirm or deny several things of one thing, nor one thing of many, but one of one. But just as in the case of homonyms, an attribute belongs sometimes to both, and sometimes to neither, so [181b1] that a simple answer does one no harm despite the fact that the question is not simple, so it is in these cases too. Whenever, then, the several attributes belong to the one subject, or the one to the many, the man who gives a simple answer encounters no obstacle even though he has committed this mistake; but whenever an [5] attribute belongs to one subject but not to the other, or a number of attributes belong to a number of subjects, he does. And in one sense both belong to both, while in another sense, again, they do not; so that one must beware of this. Thus (e.g.) in the following arguments: ‘If one thing is good and another evil, it is true to call them [10] good and evil, and likewise to call them neither good nor evil (for each of them has not each character), so that the same thing will be both good and evil and neither good nor evil’. Also, if everything is the same as itself and different from anything else, inasmuch as they are the same not as other things but as themselves, and also different from themselves, the same things must be both the same as and different [15] from themselves. Moreover, ‘if what is good becomes evil while what is evil becomes good, then they must both become two. But of two unequal things each is equal to itself, so that they are both equal and unequal to themselves’.
Now these refutations fall into the province of other solutions as well; for ‘both’ [20] and ‘all’ have more than one meaning, so that one does not affirm and deny the same thing, except verbally; and this is not what we meant by a refutation. But it is clear that if there is not a single question on a number of points, but the answerer has affirmed or denied one attribute only of one subject only, the impossibility will not come to pass.
[25] 31 · With regard to those which draw one into repeating the same thing a number of times, it is clear that one must not grant that predications of relative terms have any meaning in abstraction by themselves, e.g. double apart from double of half, merely on the ground that it figures in it. For ten figures in ten minus one [30] and do in not do, and generally the affirmation in the negation; but for all that, if someone says that this is not white, he does not say that it is white. Double, perhaps, has not even any meaning at all, any more than half; and even if it has a meaning, yet it has not the same meaning as in the combination. Nor is knowledge the same thing in a specific branch of it (suppose it, e.g., to be medical knowledge) as it is in [35] general; for in general it is knowledge of the knowable. In the case of terms that are predicated of the terms through which they are defined, you should say that the term defined is not the same in abstraction as it is in the whole phrase. For ‘concave’ has a general meaning which is the same in the case of a snub nose, and of a bandy leg, but when added, in the one case to nose, in the other to leg, nothing prevents it [182a1] from meaning different things; for in the former connexion it means snub and in the latter bandy; and it makes no difference whether you say snub nose or concave nose. Moreover, the expression must not be granted in the nominative case; for it is a falsehood. For snubness is not a concave nose but something (e.g. an affection) [5] belonging to a nose; hence, there is no absurdity in supposing that the snub nose is a nose possessing the concavity that belongs to a nose.
32 · With regard to solecisms, we have previously said40 what it is that appears to bring them about; the method of their solution will be clear in the course of the arguments themselves. Solecism is the result aimed at in all arguments of the [10] following kind: ‘Is a thing truly that which (τoῦτo ὅ) you truly call it?—But you call something a stone (λὶθoν); so it is a stone (λὶθoν)’. But calling something a stone is not saying that which (ὅ) it is, but that which (ὅν) it is, not that (τoῦτo) but that (τoῦτoν). Now if someone were to ask ‘Is a thing that which (τoῦτoν ὅν) you truly call it?’ he would not seem to be speaking Greek, any more than if he asked ‘Is a thing that which (oὗτoς ἥν) you call it?’ But if you talk in this way of a log, or of [15] whatever has neither feminine nor masculine signification, there is no difference; and for that reason there is no solecism—e.g. ‘A thing is that which you call it, and you call it a log; therefore it is a log’. But ‘stone’ and ‘that (oὗτoς)’ have masculine designations. Now if someone asks ‘Is he (oὗτoς) she?’, and then again ‘Well, isn’t he (oὗτoς) Coriscus?’, and then were to say, ‘Then he is she’, he has not deduced the [20] solecism, even if ‘Coriscus’ does signify a ‘she’, if the answerer does not grant this: this point must be put as an additional question. But if neither is it the fact nor does he grant it, then he has not proved his case either in fact or as against the person he has been questioning. In like manner, then, in the above instance ‘that (τoῦτo)’ must [25] mean the stone.41 If, however, this neither is so nor is granted, the conclusion must not be stated; though it follows apparently, because the case of the word, that is really unlike, appears to be like. ‘Is it true to say that this is what you call it by name?—But you call it by the name of a shield; therefore this is of a shield’. But ‘this’ means not of a shield but a shield: of a shield would be the meaning of of this. [30] Nor again if he is what you call him by name, while the name you call him by is Cleon’s, is he therefore Cleon’s; for he is not Cleon’s—for what was said was that he, not his, is what I call him by name. For the question, if put in the latter way, would not even be Greek. ‘Do you know this?—But this is he; therefore you know he’. But ‘this’ has not the same meaning in ‘Do you know this?’ as in ‘This is he’; in [35] the first it stands for an accusative, in the second for a nominative case. ‘When you have understanding of anything, do you understand it?—But you have understanding of a stone; therefore you understand of a stone.’ But the one phrase is in the genitive, ‘of a stone’, while the other is in the accusative, ‘a stone’42; and what was granted was that you understand that, not of that, of which you have understanding, [182b1] so that you understand not of a stone, but the stone.
Thus that arguments of this kind do not deduce a solecism but merely appear to do so, and both why they so appear and how you should meet them, is clear from what has been said. [5]
33 · We must also observe that of all the arguments aforesaid it is easier with some to see why and where the reasoning leads the hearer astray, while with others it is more difficult, though often they are the same arguments as the former. For we must call an argument the same if it depends upon the same point; but the [10] same argument is apt to be thought by some to depend on diction, by others on accident, and by others on something else, because each of them, when worked with different terms, is not equally clear. Accordingly, just as in fallacies that depend on homonymy, which seem to be the silliest form of fallacy, some are clear even to the man in the street (for humorous phrases nearly all depend on diction; e.g. ‘The man [15] got the cart down from the stand’; and ‘Where are you bound?’—‘To the yard arm’; and ‘Which cow will calve before?’ ‘Neither, but both behind’; and ‘Is the North wind clear?’ ‘No, indeed; for it has murdered the beggar and the merchant.’ ‘Is he a [20] Goodenough-King?’ ‘No, indeed; a Rob-son’: and so with the great majority of the rest as well), while others appear to elude the most expert (and it is a symptom of this that they often fight about words, e.g. whether the meaning of being and one is [25] the same in all their applications or different; for some think that being and one mean the same; while others solve the argument of Zeno and Parmenides by asserting that one and being are used in a number of ways), likewise also as regards fallacies of accident and each of the other types, some of the arguments will be [30] easier to see while others are more difficult; also to grasp to which class a fallacy belongs, and whether it is a refutation or not a refutation, is not equally easy in all cases.
An incisive argument is one which produces the greatest perplexity; for this is the one with the sharpest fang. Now perplexity is two-fold, one which occurs in deductions, respecting which of the propositions asked one is to demolish, and the [35] other in contentious arguments, respecting the manner in which one is to express what is propounded. Therefore it is in deductions that the more incisive arguments produce the keenest inquiry. Now a deductive argument is most incisive if from premisses that are as generally accepted as possible it demolishes a conclusion that is as reputable as possible. For the one argument, if the contradictory is changed about, makes all the resulting deductions alike in character; for always from [183a1] premisses that are reputable it will demolish a conclusion that is just as reputable; and therefore one is bound to feel perplexed. An argument, then, of this kind is the most incisive, viz. the one that puts its conclusion on all fours with the propositions asked; and second comes the one that argues from premisses, all of which are [5] equally convincing; for this will produce an equal perplexity as to what kind of premiss, of those asked, one should demolish. Herein is a difficulty; for one must demolish something, but what one must demolish is uncertain. Of contentious arguments, on the other hand, the most incisive is the one which, in the first place, is characterized by an initial uncertainty whether it has been properly deduced or not; and also whether the solution depends on a false premiss or on the drawing of a distinction; while, of the rest, the second place is held by that whose solution clearly [10] depends upon a distinction or a demolition, and yet it does not reveal clearly which it is of the premisses asked, whose demolition, or the drawing of a distinction within it, will bring the solution about, whether it is on the conclusion or on one of the premisses that this depends.
Now sometimes an argument which has not been properly deduced is silly, if [15] the assumptions are extremely implausible or false; but sometimes it ought not to be held in contempt. For whenever some question is left out, of the kind that concerns both the subject and the nerve of the argument, the reasoning that has both failed to secure this as well, and also failed to deduce, is silly; but when what is omitted is some extraneous question, then it is by no means to be lightly despised, but the [20] argument is quite respectable, though the questioner has not put his questions well.
Just as it is possible to bring a solution sometimes against the argument, at others against the questioner and his mode of questioning, and at others against neither of these, likewise also it is possible to marshal one’s questions and deduction both against the thesis, and against the answerer and against the time, whenever the solution requires a longer time to examine than the period available for arguing to [25] the solution.
34 · As to the number, then, and kind of sources whence fallacies arise in discussion, and how we are to prove that our opponent is saying something false and make him utter paradoxes; moreover, by the use of what materials solecism43 is brought about, and how to question and what is the way to arrange the questions; [30] moreover, as to the question what use is served by all arguments of this kind, and concerning the answerer’s part, both as a whole in general, and in particular how to solve arguments and solecisms44—on all these things let the foregoing discussion suffice. It remains to recall our original proposal and to bring our discussion to a [35] close with a few words upon it.
Our programme was, then, to discover some faculty of reasoning about any theme put before us from the most reputable premisses that there are. For that is the essential task of the art of dialectic and of examination. Inasmuch, however, as [183b1] there is annexed to it,45 on account of its affinity to the art of sophistry, that46 it can conduct an examination not only dialectically but also with a show of knowledge, we therefore proposed for our treatise not only the aforesaid aim of being able to exact an account of any view, but also the aim of ensuring that in defending an argument [5] we shall defend our thesis in the same manner by means of views as reputable as possible. The reason of this we have explained; for this was why Socrates used to ask questions and not to answer them—for he used to confess that he did not know. We have made clear, in the course of what precedes, the number both of the points with reference to which, and of the materials from which, this will be accomplished, and also from what sources we can become well supplied with these; we have shown, moreover, how to question or arrange the questioning as a whole, and the problems [10] concerning the answers and solutions to be used against the deductions of the questioner. We have also cleared up the problems concerning all other matters that belong to the same inquiry into arguments. In addition to this we have been through the subject of fallacies, as we have already stated above.
That our programme has been adequately completed is clear. But we must not [15] omit to notice what has happened in regard to this inquiry. For in the case of all discoveries the results of previous labours that have been handed down from others have been advanced bit by bit by those who have taken them on, whereas the original discoveries generally make an advance that is small at first though much [20] more useful than the development which later springs out of them. For it may be that in everything, as the saying is, ‘the first start is the main part’; and for this reason it is the most difficult; for in proportion as it is most potent in its influence, so it is smallest in its compass and therefore most difficult to see—but when this is [25] once discovered, it is easier to add and develop the remainder. This is in fact what has happened in regard to rhetorical speeches and to practically all the other arts; for those who discovered the beginnings of them advanced them in all only a little [30] way, whereas the celebrities of to-day are the heirs (so to speak) of a long succession of men who have advanced them bit by bit, and so have developed them to their present form, Tisias coming next after the first founders, then Thrasymachus after Tisias, and Theodorus next to him, while several people have made their several contributions to it; and therefore it is not to be wondered at that the art has attained considerable dimensions. Of the present inquiry, on the other hand, it was not the [35] case that part of the work had been thoroughly done before, while part had not. Nothing existed at all. For the training given by the paid professors of contentious arguments was like the practice of Gorgias. For he47 used to hand out rhetorical speeches to be learned by heart, and they handed out speeches in the form of question and answer, which each supposed would cover most of the arguments on [185a1] either side. And therefore the teaching they gave their pupils was rapid but unsystematic. For they used to suppose that they trained people by imparting to them not the art but its products, as though anyone professing that he would impart [5] a form of knowledge to obviate any pain in the feet, were then not to teach a man the art of shoe-making or the sources whence he can acquire anything of the kind, but were to present him with several kinds of shoes of all sorts—for he has helped him to meet his need, but has not imparted an art to him. Moreover, on the subject of rhetoric there exists much that has been said long ago, whereas on the subject of [184b1] deduction we had absolutely nothing else of an earlier date to mention, but48 were kept at work for a long time in experimental researches. If, then, it seems to you after inspection that, such being the situation as it existed at the start, our [5] investigation is in a satisfactory condition compared with the other inquiries that have been developed by tradition, there must remain for all of you, our students, the task of extending us your pardon for the shortcomings of the inquiry, and for the discoveries thereof your warm thanks.