Aristotle
we find argued in the Ranæ of Aristophanes), must be decided by
examining the tragedies themselves, not by enquiring whether one of
them was vain and greedy of money, the other free from these
blemishes. A theorist who is laying down general principles of
Rhetoric, and illustrating them by the study of Æschines and
Demosthenes, will appreciate the oration against Ktesiphon and the
oration De Coronâ in their character of compositions intended for a
particular purpose. For Rhetoric it is of no moment whether Æschines
was venal or disinterested--a malignant rival or an honest patriot;
this is an enquiry important indeed, but belonging to the historian
and not to the rhetorical theorist. Whether Aristotle was or was not
guided, in his animadversions on Plato, by an unworthy and captious
jealousy of his master, is an interesting question in reference to
his character; but our appreciation of his philosophy must proceed
upon an examination, not of his motives but, of his doctrines and
reasonings as we find them. A good argument is not deprived of its
force when enunciated by a knave, nor is a bad argument rendered good
because it proceeds from a virtuous man. Indeed, so far as the
character of the speaker counts at all, in falsifying the fair
logical estimate of an argument, it operates in a direction opposite
to that here indicated by Aristotle. The same argument in the mouth
of one who is esteemed and admired counts for more than its worth; in
the mouth of a person of low character it counts for less than it is
worth.[55] To distribute arguments into two classes--those employed
by persons of dishonourable character and those employed by
honourable men--is a departure from the scientific character of
Logic.
[Footnote 55: Eurip. Hecub. 293.
[Greek: to\ d' a)xi/ôma, ka)\n kaô=s le/gê|s, to\ so\n
pei/sei; lo/gos ga\r e)/k t' a)doxou/ntôn i)ô\n
ka)\k tô=n dokou/ntôn au)to\s ou) tau)to\n sthe/nei.]
Aristot. Rhetoric. I. ii. p. 1356, a. 5-15.]
As to the other part of the case (if it is still necessary to recur
to it), touching the peculiarity of the matter of sophistical
arguments, the inconsistency of Aristotle is most apparent. In
enumerating the Sophistical Refutations he tells us that these
fallacies are indeed sometimes palpable and easily detected, but that
they are often very difficult to detect and very misleading; that an
unprepared hearer will generally be imposed upon by several of them,
and even a scientific hearer by some; and that, even where the
fallacy does not actually deceive, the proper mode of meeting and
exposing it will not occur unless to one previously exercised in
Dialectic.[56] That Fallacies _In Dictione_, taken as a class (though
these are what he declares to be the most usual _modus operandi_ of
the sham dialecticians called Sophists[57]), often passed
unperceived, and were hard to solve and elucidate even when
perceived--we know to have been his opinion; for it is not only in
the Topica and Sophistici Elenchi, but also in the Metaphysica and
other works,[58] that he takes pains to analyse and discriminate the
several distinct meanings borne by terms familiar to every one, such
as _idem_, _unum_, _pulchrum_, _bonum_, _amare_, _album_, _acutum_,
&c., which terms therefore, when employed in argument, were always
liable to introduce a fallacy of Equivocation or Amphiboly. He tells
us the like in specifying the seven Fallacies _Extra Dictionem_: that
they also were often unnoticed, and required vigilant practice to see
through and solve. The description in detail, therefore, which
Aristotle gives (in Sophistici Elenchi) of the working process
peculiar to the litigious Sophist, is completely at variance with the
definition which he had given of the sophistic syllogism at the
commencement of the Topica. That definition is indeed suitable for
the _type-specimens_ which he and other logicians give to illustrate
this or that class of Fallacies: the type-specimen produced must
carry absurdity on the face of it, so that the reader may at first
sight recognize it as a fallacy; and he may even find difficulty in
believing that any one can really be imposed upon by such trifling.
But, though suitable for the type-specimen taken separately, this
definition fails in the essential character which Aristotle
postulates for a definition, since it is quite untrue and unsuitable
for numerous instances of the class intended to be illustrated.[59]
Aristotle was the first who attempted to distribute Fallacies into
classes, such that, while in each class there were certain specimens
palpably stamped with the fallacious character, there were also in
each class an indefinite multitude of analogous cases wherein the
fallacious character did not reveal itself openly or easily, but
required attentive consideration to detect it, often indeed remaining
undetected, and producing its natural fruit of error and confusion.
This was one of his many great merits in regard to Logic; and the
classification of Fallacies (modified as to details) has passed to
all subsequent logicians, so that we find difficulty in understanding
that the contemporaries of Sokrates and Plato had no idea of it. But
the value of his service to Logic would be much lessened, if all
fallacies were sophistic syllogisms, intended to deceive but never
really deceiving, corresponding to his definition at the beginning of
the Topica; if (as he tells us in the Sophistici Elenchi) they were
only impudent forgeries put in circulation by a set of professional
knaves called Sophists; and if all non-sophistical dialecticians, and
all the world without, could be trusted as speaking correctly by
nature and as never falling into them.
[Footnote 56: Soph. El. v. p. 167, a. 5-15, b. 5-35. [Greek: kai\
lantha/nei polla/kis ou)ch ê(=tton au)tou\s tou\s e)rôtô=ntas to\
toiou=ton.]--vii. p. 169, a. 22-30, b. 8-15: [Greek: e)n a(/pasi ga\r
ê( a)pa/tê dia\ to\ para\ mikro/n].--xv. p. 175, a. 20.]
[Footnote 57: Ibid. i. p. 165, a. 2-20.]
[Footnote 58: Topic. I. vii. p. 103, a. 6-39; p. 106, b. 3-9; p. 107,
a. 12, b. 7: [Greek: polla/kis de\ kai\ e)n au)toi=s toi=s lo/gois
lantha/nei parakolouthou=n to\ o(mô/numon.] Cf. Topic. II. iii. p.
110, b. 33; V. ii. p. 129, b. 30, seq.; VI. x. p. 148, a. 23, seq.
Soph. El. x. p. 171, a. 17.
Compare also Book [Greek: D]. of the Metaphysica, and the frequent
recognition and analysis [Greek: tô=n polla/kô=s legome/nôn]
throughout the other Books of the Metaphysica.]
[Footnote 59: Topic. VI. i. p. 139, a. 26: [Greek: dei= ga\r to\n
tou= a)nthrô/pou o(rismo\n kata\ panto\s a)nthrô/pou
a)lêtheu/esthai.]--VI. x. p. 148, x. p. 148, b. 2: [Greek: dei= ga\r
e)pi\ pa=n to\ sunô/numon e)pharmo/ttein.]
Whoever reads the Sixth Book of the Topica, wherein Aristotle
indicates to the questioner _Loci_ for impugning a definition, will
see how little this definition of the Sophistic Syllogism will stand
such attacks.]
The appeal made by Aristotle to a difference of character and motives
as the distinction between the Dialectician and the Sophist is all
the more misplaced, because he himself lays down as the essential
feature of Dialectic generally, that it is a match or contention
between two rivals, each anxious to obtain the victory. It is like a
match at chess between two expert players, or a fencing-match between
two celebrated masters at arms. Its very nature is to be an attack
and defence, in which each combatant resorts to stratagem, and each
outwits the other if he can. Whether the match is played for money or
for nothing--whether the contentious spirit is more or less
intense--does not concern the theorist on dialectical procedure. It
is indispensable that both the questioner and the respondent should
exert their full force, the one in thrusting, the other in parrying:
if they do not, the purpose of Dialectic, which is the common
business of both, will not be attained. That purpose is clearly
declared by Aristotle. It is not didactic: he distinguishes it
expressly from teaching,[60] where one man who knows communicates
such knowledge to an ignorant pupil. It is gymnastic, exercising the
promptitude and invention of both parties; or peirastic, testing
whether the respondent knows a given thesis in such manner as to
avoid being driven into answers inconsistent with each other or
notoriously false.[61] Each party seeks, not to help or enlighten
but, to puzzle and defeat the other. As at chess or in fencing, to
mask one's projects and deceive the adversary is essential to the
work and to its purpose; each expects it from the other, and
undertakes to meet and parry it. The theses debated were always such
that arguments might be found both for the affirmative and for the
negative.
[Footnote 60: Soph. El. ii. p. 165, b. 1-5; x. p. 171, a. 32-b. 2.
Cf. Topic. VIII. xi. p. 161, a. 25.]
[Footnote 61: Topic. I. i. p. 100, a. 20; VIII. i. p. 155, b. 10-28.]
According to Aristotle himself, therefore, the Dialectician is
agonistic and eristic, just as much as the Sophist. If the one tries
to entrap his opponent for the purpose of victory, so also does the
other: the line which Aristotle draws between them is one not founded
upon any real distinction between two purposes and modes of
procedure, but is merely verbal and sentimental; putting aside under
a discredited title what he himself disliked. He admits that the
dialectical questioner, whenever the thesis which he undertakes to
refute is true, can never refute it except by inducing the respondent
to concede what is false; that, even where the thesis is false, he
often can only refute it by some other incompatible falsehood,
because he cannot obtain from the respondent better premisses; that,
where the thesis is probable and conformable to received opinion, his
only way of refuting it is by entrapping the respondent into
concessions paradoxical and contrary to received opinion.[62] But
these ends--fallacious refutation, falsehood, and paradox--are the
very same as those which Aristotle (in the Sophistici Elenchi)[63]
sets forth as the peculiar characteristics of the litigious Sophist.
And the improving intellectual tendencies which he ascribes to
Sophistic, are almost identical with those attributed to Dialectic,
being declared in very similar words.[64] That there were
dialecticians of every degree of merit, in the time of Aristotle,
cannot be doubted; some clever and ready, others stupid and destitute
of invention. But that there were any two classes of dialecticians
such as he describes and contrasts--one heretical class, called
Sophists, who purposely and habitually employed the thirteen
fallacious refutations, and another orthodox class who purposely
avoided or habitually abstained from them--we may most reasonably
doubt. If the argument in the Sophistici Elenchi is good at all, it
is good against all Dialectic. The Sophist, as Aristotle describes
him, is only the Dialectician looked at on the unfavourable side and
painted by an enemy. We know that there were in Greece many enemies
of Dialectic generally; the intense antipathy inspired by the
cross-examining colloquy of Sokrates, and attested by his own
declarations, is a sufficient proof of this. The enemies of Sokrates
depicted him--as Aristotle depicts the Sophist in the Sophistici
Elenchi--as a clever fabricator of fallacious contradictions and
puzzles; to which Aristotle adds the farther charge (advanced by
Plato before him) against the Sophist, of arguing for lucre--which
is an irrelevant charge, travelling out of the region of art, and
bearing on the personal character of the individual. If the
sophistical stratagems were discreditable and mischievous when
exhibited for money, they would be no less such if exhibited
gratuitously. The sophistical discourse is not (as Aristotle would