Aristotle
_essential_, of which last term Mr. Poste says very justly (notes, p.
129):--"To complete the statement of Aristotle's view, it should be
added, that essential propositions are those whose predicate cannot
be defined without naming the subject, or whose subject cannot be
defined without naming the predicate." Now figure is the genus to
which triangle belongs, and triangle cannot be defined without naming
its genus figure. But to include Genus as a predicable under the head
of [Greek: sumbebêko/s]or Accident, is in marked opposition to
Aristotle's own doctrine elsewhere: see Topic. I. v. p. 102, b. 4;
iv. p. 101, b. 17; Analyt. Post. I. ii. p. 71, b. 9; Metaphys. E. p.
1026, b. 32. It is a misfortune that Aristotle gave to this general
head of Fallacy the misleading title of _Fallacia
Accidentia_--[Greek: para\ to\ sumbebêko/s]. When he gave this title,
he probably had present to his mind only such examples as he indicates
in Soph. El. v. p. 166, b. 32. Throughout the Topica and elsewhere,
Genus is distinguished pointedly from [Greek: sumbebêko/s], though
examples occur occasionally in which the distinction is neglected. The
two Fallacies called _Accidentis_ and _Consequentis_, would both be
more properly ranked under one common logical title--_Supposed
convertibility or interchangeableness between Subject and
Predicate_--[Greek: ei) to/de a)po\ tou=de mê\ chôri/zetai, mêd' a)po\
thate/rou chôri/zesthai tha/teron] (vii. p. 169, b. 8).]
[Footnote 44: Soph. El. vi. p. 168, b. 6: [Greek: a)lla\ para\ tou=to
kai\ oi( techni=tai kai\ o(/lôs oi( e)pistê/mones u(po\ tô=n
a)nepistêmo/nôn e)le/gchontai; kata\ sumbebêko\s ga\r poiou=ntai
tou\s sullogismou\s pro\s tou\s ei)do/tas; oi( d' ou) duna/menoi
diairei=n ê)\ e)rôtô/menoi dido/asin ê)\ ou) do/ntes oi)/ontai
dedôke/nai.]]
The passage affords us a curious insight into the intellectual grasp
of the scientific men contemporary with Aristotle. Most of them were
prepared to admit fallacious inferences (such as the above) which
assumed the interchangeability of subject and predicate. They had
paid little or no attention to the logical relations between one
proposition and another, and between the two different terms of the
same proposition. The differences of essential from accidental
predication, and of each among the five Predicables from the others,
must have been practically familiar to them, as to others, from the
habit of correct speaking in detail; but they had not been called
upon to consider correct speaking and reasoning in theory, nor to
understand upon what conditions it depended whether the march of
their argumentative discourse landed them in true or false results.
And, if even the scientific men were thus unaware of logical
fallacies, we may be sure that this must have been still more the
case with unscientific men, of ordinary intelligence and education.
Aristotle tells us here, in more than one passage, how widespread
such illogical tendencies were: to fancy that two subjects which had
one predicate the same must be the same with each other in all
respects;[45] to understand each predicate applied to a subject as
being itself an independent subject, implying a new _Hoc Aliquid_ or
_Unum_;[46] to treat the universal, not as a common epithet but, as a
substantive and singular apart;[47] to use equivocal words or
phrases, even the most wide and vague, without any attempt to
discriminate their various meanings.[48] Such insensibility to the
conditions of accurate reasoning prevailed alike among ordinary men
and among the men of special science. A geometer would be imposed
upon by the inconclusive syllogism stated in the last paragraph,
which, as being founded on the _Fallacia Accidentia_ (or
interchangeability of subject and predicate), Aristotle numbers among
Sophistical Refutations. Such a refutation, however, even when
successful, would not at all prove that the geometer was deficient in
knowledge of his own science;[49] for it would puzzle the really
scientific man as well as the pretender.
[Footnote 45: Soph. El. vi. p. 168, b. 31: [Greek: ta\ ga\r e(ni\
tau)ta/, kai\ a)llê/lois a)xiou=men ei)=nai tau)ta/.]--vii. p. 169,
b. 7: [Greek: e)/ti kai\ e)pi\ pollô=n phai/netai _kai\ a)xiou=tai
ou(/tôs_, ei) to/de a)po\ tou=de mê\ chôri/zetai, mêd' a)po\
thate/rou chôri/zesthai tha/teron.]]
[Footnote 46: Ibid. vii. p. 169, a. 33: [Greek: o(/ti _pa=n to\
katêgorou/meno/n tinos u(polamba/nomen to/de ti kai\ ô(s e(\n
u(pakou/omen_; tô=| ga\r e(ni\ kai\ tê=| ou)si/a| ma/lista dokei=
pare/pesthai to\ to/de ti kai\ to\ o)/n.]]
[Footnote 47: Ibid. xxii. p. 178, b. 37-p. 179, a. 10.]
[Footnote 48: Ibid. vii. p. 169, a. 22.]
[Footnote 49: Ibid. viii. p. 169, b. 27: [Greek: oi( de\ sophistikoi\
e)/legchoi, a)\n kai\ sullogi/zôntai tê\n a)nti/phasin, ou) poiou=si
dê=lon ei) a)gnoei=; kai\ ga\r to\n ei)do/ta e)mpodi/zousi tou/tois
toi=s lo/gois.] Compare vi. p. 168, b. 6.]
We must always recollect that Aristotle was the first author who
studied the logical relations between Terms and Propositions, with a
view to theory and to general rules founded thereupon. The
distinctions which he brought to view were in his time novelties;
even the simplest rules, such as those relating to the Conversion of
propositions, or to Contraries and Contradictories, had never been
stated in general terms before. Up to a certain point, indeed,
acquired habit, even without these generalities, would doubtless lead
to correct speech and reasoning; yet liable to be perverted in many
cases by erroneous tendencies, requiring to be indicated and guarded
against by a logician. When we are told that even a professed
geometer was imposed upon by these fallacies, we learn at once how
deep-seated were such illogical deficiencies, how useful was
Aristotle's theoretical study in marking them out, and how
insufficient was his classification when he described the Fallacies
as obvious frauds, broached only by dishonest professional Sophists.
As he himself states, the cause of deceit turns upon a quite trifling
difference; having its root in the imperfection of language and in
our frequent habit of using words without much attention to logical
distinctions.[50]
[Footnote 50: Soph. El. vii. p. 169, b. 14: [Greek: e)n a(/pasi ga\r
ê( a)pa/tê dia\ to\ para\ mikro/n; ou) ga\r diakribou=men ou)/te tê=s
prota/seôs ou)/te tou= sullogismou= to\n o(/ron dia\ tê\n ei)rême/nên
ai)ti/an.] Compare v. p. 167, a. 5-14; i. p. 165, a. 6-19.]
Under one or other, then, of the thirteen general heads above
enumerated, all Paralogisms must be included--merely apparent
syllogisms, or refutations, which are not real and valid;[51] and all
of them designated by Aristotle as sophistic or eristic. Besides
these, moreover, he includes, as we saw, under the same designation,
syllogisms or refutations valid in form, and true as to conclusion,
yet founded on premisses not suited to the matter in debate; _i.e._,
not suited to Dialectic. Now, here it is that difficulty arises.
Dialectic and Rhetoric are carefully distinguished by Aristotle from
all the special sciences (such as Geometry, Astronomy, Medicine,
&c.); and are construed as embracing every variety of authoritative
_dicta_, current beliefs, and matters of opinion, together with all
the most general maxims and hypotheses of Ontology and Metaphysics,
of Physics and Ethics, and the common Axioms assumed in all the
sciences, as discriminated from what is special and peculiar to each.
Construed in this way, we might imagine that the subject-matter of
Dialectic was all-comprehensive, and that every thing without
exception belonged to it, except the specialties of Geometry and of
the other sciences; and such is the usual language of Aristotle. Yet
in the treatise before us we find him exerting himself to establish
another classification, and to part off Dialectic from a certain
other science or art which he acknowledges under the title of
Sophistic or Eristic.[52] Elsewhere he describes Sophistic as
occupied in the study of accidents or occasional conjunctions; and
this characteristic feature parts it off from Demonstration and
Science. But there is greater difficulty when he tries to part it off
from Dialectic. Where are we to find a clear line of distinction
between the matter of dialectic debate (gymnastic or testing) on the
one hand, and the matter of debate sophistic or litigious, on the
other? At the beginning of the Topica Aristotle assigned, as the
distinction, that the Dialectician argues upon premisses _really_
probable, while the litigious Sophist takes up premisses which are
probable _in appearance only_, and not in reality; such apparent
_probabilia_ (he goes on to say) having only the most superficial
semblance of truth, and being seen immediately to be manifest
falsehoods by persons of very ordinary intelligence.[53] But I have
already pointed out that this description of apparent _probabilia_,
if considered as applying to fallacious reasoning generally, is both
untenable in itself, and contradicted by Aristotle himself elsewhere.
The truth is, that there is no clear distinction between the matter
of Dialectic and the matter of Sophistic. And so, indeed, Aristotle
must be understood to admit, when he falls back upon an alleged
distinction of aim and purpose between the practitioners of one and
the other. The litigious man (he tells us) is bent upon nothing but
victory in debate, _per fas et nefas_: the Sophist aims at passing
himself off falsely for a wise or clever man, and making money
thereby.[54]
[Footnote 51: Ibid. viii. p. 170, a. 10.]
[Footnote 52: Metaphys. K. viii. p. 1064, b. 26: [Greek: tou=to de\
(to\ sumbebêko/s) ou)demi/a zêtei= tô=n o(mologoume/nôs ou)sô=n
e)pistêmô=n, _plê\n ê( sophistikê/_; peri\ to\ sumbebêko\s ga\r
au(/tê mo/nê pragmateu/etai.] Compare Analyt. Poster. I. ii. p. 71,
b. 10.]
[Footnote 53: Topic. I, i. p. 100, b. 26: [Greek: ou) ga\r pa=n to\
phaino/menon e)/ndoxon kai\ e)/stin e)/ndoxon. ou)the\n ga\r tô=n
legome/nôn e)/ndoxôn e)pipo/laion e)/chei pantelô=s tê\n phantasi/an,
katha/per peri\ ta\s tô=n e)ristikô=n lo/gôn a)rcha\s sumbe/bêken
e)/chein; parachrê=ma ga\r kai\ ô(s e)pi\ to\ polu\ toi=s kai\ mikra\
sunora=n duname/nois kata/dêlos e)n au)toi=s ê( tou= pseudou=s e)sti\
phu/sis.] It is by reference to this distinction between [Greek:
e)/ndoxa] which are genuine and [Greek: e)/ndoxa] which are only such
in appearance that the Scholiast (p. 306, b. 40) explains the meaning
of Aristotle in the eleventh chapter of Sophistici Elenchi: [Greek:
o( me\n ou)=n kata\ to\ pra=gma theôrô=n ta\ koina\ dialektiko/s, o(
de\ tou=to phainome/nôs poiô=n sophistiko/s] (p. 171, b. 6-20). I
confess that I attach no distinct meaning to the words [Greek: kata\
to\ pra=gma theôrô=n ta\ koina\], which characterizes the
Dialectician as contrasted with the Sophist; nor can I learn much
from the notes either of Waitz, or of Mr. Poste (p. 129, seq.) on the
passage. Take for example the last half of the Parmenides of Plato,
or Book B. of the Metaphysics of Aristotle. Are we to say that in
these two compositions Plato and Aristotle speculate on to [Greek:
ta\ koina\ kata\ to\ pra=gma], or that they do so only in
appearance?]
[Footnote 54: Soph. El. xi. p. 171, b. 25-35; i. p. 165, a. 21-31.]
Now, in regard to the distinction of aim or disposition drawn by
Aristotle between the dialectical disputant and the litigious or
sophistic disputant, we see at once, as was before suggested, that it
lies apart from the critical estimate of art, science, or philosophy;
and that it belongs, so far as it is well founded, to the estimate of
individuals ethically and politically, as worthy men or patriotic
citizens. Whether Euripides or Sophokles composed finer tragedies (as