Aristotle
recommend to their students dialogues or orations ready made, to be
learnt by heart. Such a mode of teaching (he says), though speedy,
was altogether unsystematic. The student acquired no knowledge of the
art, being furnished only with specimens of art-results. It was as if
a master, professing to communicate the art of making the feet
comfortable, taught nothing about leather-cutting or shoe-making, but
furnished his pupils with different varieties of ready-made shoes;
thus supplying what they wanted for the protection of the feet, but
not imparting to them any power of providing such protection for
themselves.[3] "In regard to the process of syllogizing (says
Aristotle, including both Analytic and Dialectic) I found positively
nothing said before me: I had to work it out for myself by long and
laborious research."[4]
[Footnote 1: Aristot. Sophist. Elench. xxxiv. p. 183, b. 22: [Greek:
me/giston ga\r i)/sôs a)rchê\ panto/s, ô(/sper le/getai; dio\ kai\
chalepô/taton. o(/sô| ga\r kra/tiston tê=| duna/mei, tosou/tô|
mikro/taton o)\n tô=| mege/thei chalepô/tato/n e)stin o)phthê=nai.]]
[Footnote 2: Sophist. Elench. xxxiv. p. 183, b. 34: [Greek: tau/tês
de\ tê=s pragmatei/as ou) to\ me\n ê)=n to\ d' ou)k ê)=n
proexeirgasme/non, a)ll' ou)de\n pantelô=s u(pê=rchen. kai\ ga\r tô=n
peri\ tou\s e)ristikou\s lo/gous mistharnou/ntôn o(moi/a tis ê)=n ê(
pai/deusis tê=| Gorgi/ou pragmatei/a|; lo/gous ga\r oi( me\n
r(êtorikou\s oi( de\ e)rôtêti/kous e)di/dosan e)kmantha/nein, ei)s
ou(\s pleista/kis e)mpi/ptein ô)ê/thêsan e(ka/teroi tou\s a)llê/lôn
lo/gous.]]
[Footnote 3: Ibid. xxxiv. p. 184, a. 2.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid. a. 7: [Greek: kai\ peri\ me\n tô=n r(êtorikô=n
polla\ kai\ palaia\ ta\ lego/mena, peri\ de\ tou= sullogi/zesthai
pantelô=s ou)de\n ei)/chomen pro/teron a)/llo le/gein, a)ll' ê)\
tribê=| zêtou=ntes polu\n chro/non e)ponou=men.]]
This is one of the few passages, throughout the philosopher's varied
and multitudinous works, in which he alludes to his own speciality of
method. It is all the more interesting on that account. If we turn
back to Sokrates and Plato, we shall understand better what the
innovation operated by Aristotle was; what the position of Dialectic
had been before his time, and what it became afterwards.
In the minds of Sokrates and Plato, the great antithesis was between
Dialectic and Rhetoric--interchange of short question and answer
before a select audience, as contrasted with long continuous speech
addressed to a miscellaneous crowd with known established sentiments
and opinions, in the view of persuading them on some given
interesting point requiring decision. In such Dialectic Sokrates was
a consummate master; passing most of his long life in the
market-place and palæstra, and courting disputation with every one.
He made formal profession of ignorance, disclaimed all power of
teaching, wrote nothing at all, and applied himself almost
exclusively to the cross-examining _Elenchus_ by which he exposed and
humiliated the ablest men not less than the vulgar. Plato, along with
the other companions of Sokrates, imbibed the Dialectic of his master,
and gave perpetuity to it in those inimitable dialogues which are still
preserved to us from his pen. He composed nothing but dialogues; thus
giving expression to his own thoughts only under borrowed names, and
introducing that of Sokrates very generally as chief spokesman. But
Plato, though in some dialogues he puts into the mouth of his
spokesman the genuine Sokratic disclaimer of all power and all
purpose of teaching, yet does not do this in all. He sometimes
assumes the didactic function; though he still adheres to the form of
dialogue, even when it has become inconvenient and unsuitable. In the
Platonic Republic Sokrates is made to alternate his own peculiar vein
of cross-examination with a vein of dogmatic exposition not his own;
but both one and the other in the same style of short question and
answer. In the Leges becomes still more manifest the inconvenience of
combining the substance of dogmatic exposition with the form of
dialogue: the same remark may also be made about the Sophistes and
Politicus; in which two dialogues, moreover, the didactic process is
exhibited purely and exclusively as a logical partition,
systematically conducted, of a genus into its component species.
Long-continued speech, always depreciated by Plato in its rhetorical
manifestations, is foreign to his genius even for purposes of
philosophy: the very lecture on cosmogony which he assigns to Timæus,
and the mythical narrative (unfinished) delivered by Kritias, are
brought into something like the form of dialogue by a prefatory
colloquy specially adapted for that end.
It thus appears that, while in Sokrates the dialectic process is
exhibited in its maximum of perfection, but disconnected altogether
from the didactic, which is left unnoticed,--in Plato the didactic
process is recognized and postulated, but is nevertheless confounded
with or absorbed into the dialectic, and admitted only as one
particular, ulterior, phase and manifestation of it. At the same
time, while both Sokrates and Plato bring out forcibly the side of
antithesis between Rhetoric and Dialectic, they omit entirely to
notice the side of analogy or parallelism between them. On both these
points Aristotle has corrected the confusion, and improved upon the
discrimination, of his two predecessors. He has pointedly
distinguished the dialectic process from the didactic; and he has
gone a step farther, furnishing a separate theory and precepts both
for the one and for the other. Again, he has indicated the important
feature of analogy between Dialectic and Rhetoric, in which same
feature both of them contrast with Didactic--the point not seized
either by Sokrates or by Plato.
Plato, in his Sokratic dialogues or dialogues of Search, has given
admirable illustrative specimens of that which Sokrates understood
and practised orally as Dialectic. Aristotle, in his Topica, has in
his usual vein of philosophy theorized on this practice as an art. He
had himself composed dialogues, which seem as far as we can judge
from indirect and fragmentary evidence, to have been Ciceronian or
rhetorical colloquies--a long pleading _pro_ followed by a long
pleading _con_, rather than examples of Sokratic brachylogy and
cross-examination. But his theory given in the Topica applies to
genuine Sokratic fencing, not to the Ciceronian alternation of set
speeches. He disallows the conception of Plato, that Dialectic is a
process including not merely dispute but all full and efficacious
employment of general terms and ideas for purposes of teaching: he
treats this latter as a province by itself, under the head of
Analytic: and devotes the Topica to the explanation of argumentative
debate, pure and simple. He takes his departure from the Syllogism,
as the type of deductive reasoning generally; the conditions under
which syllogistic reasoning is valid and legitimate, having been
already explained in his treatise called Analytica Priora. So
obtained, and regulated by those conditions, the Syllogism may be
applied to one or other of two distinct and independent
purposes:--(1) To Demonstration or Scientific Teaching, which we
have had before us in the last two chapters, commenting on the
Analytica Posteriora; (2) To Dialectic, or Argumentative Debate,
which we are now about to enter on in the Topica.
The Dialectic Syllogism, explained in the Topica, has some points in
common with the Demonstrative Syllogism, treated in the Analytica
Posteriora. In both, the formal conditions are the same, and the
conclusions will certainly be true, if the premisses are true; in
both, the axioms of deductive reasoning are assumed, namely, the
maxims of Contradiction and Excluded Middle. But, in regard to the
subject-matter, the differences between them are important. The
Demonstrative Syllogism applies only to a small number of select
sciences, each having special _principia_ of its own, or primary,
undemonstrable truths, obtained in the first instance by induction
from particulars. The premisses being thus incontrovertibly certain,
the conclusions deduced are not less certain; there is no necessary
place for conflicting arguments or counter-syllogisms, although in
particular cases paralogisms may be committed, and erroneous
propositions or majors for syllogism may be assumed. On the contrary,
the Dialectic Syllogism applies to all matters without exception; the
premisses on which it proceeds are neither obtained by induction, nor
incontrovertibly certain, but are borrowed from some one among the
varieties of accredited or authoritative opinion. They may be
opinions held by the multitude of any particular country, or by an
intelligent majority, or by a particular school of philosophers or
wise individuals, or from transmission as a current proverb or dictum
of some ancient poet or seer. From any one of these sources the
dialectician may borrow premisses for syllogizing. But it often
happens that the premisses which they supply are disparate, or in
direct contradiction to each other; and none of them is entitled to
be considered as final or peremptory against the rest. Accordingly,
it is an essential feature of Dialectic as well as of Rhetoric that
they furnish means of establishing conclusions contrary or
contradictory, by syllogisms equally legitimate.[5] The dialectic
procedure is from its beginning intrinsically contentious, implying a
debate between two persons, one of whom sets up a thesis to defend,
while the other impugns it by interrogation: the assailant has gained
his point, if he can reduce the defendant to the necessity of
contradicting himself; while the defendant on his side has to avoid
giving any responses which may drive him to the necessity of such
contradiction.
[Footnote 5: Aristot. Rhetoric. I. i. p. 1355, a. 29: [Greek: e)/ti
de\ ta)nanti/a dei= du/nasthai pei/thein, katha/per kai\ e)n toi=s
sullogismoi=s, ou)ch o(/pôs a)mpho/tera pra/ttômen, (ou) ga\r dei=
ta\ phau=la pei/thein), a)ll' i(/na mê/te lantha/nê| pô=s e)/chei,
kai\ o(/pôs a)/llou chrôme/nou toi=s lo/gois mê\ dikai/ôs au)toi\
lu/ein e)/chômen. tô=n me\n ou)=n a)/llôn technô=n ou)demi/a
ta)nanti/a sullogi/zetai; ê( de\ dialektikê\ kai\ ê( r(êtorikê\
mo/nai tou=to poiou=sin; o(moi/ôs ga/r ei)sin a)mpho/terai tô=n
e)nanti/ôn.]]
Aristotle takes great pains to enforce the separation both of
Dialectic and Rhetoric from Science or Instruction with its purpose
of teaching or learning. He disapproves of those (seemingly intending
Plato) who seek to confound the two. Dialectic and Rhetoric (he says)
have for their province words and discourse, not facts or things:
they are not scientific or didactic processes, but powers or
accomplishments of discourse; and whoever tries to convert them into
means of teaching or learning particular subjects, abolishes their
characteristic feature and restricts their universality of
application.[6] Both of them deal not with scientific facts, but with
the sum total of accredited opinions, though each for its own
purpose: both of them lay hold of any one among the incoherent
aggregate of accepted generalities, suitable for the occasion; the
Dialectician trying to force his opponent into an inconsistency, the
Rhetor trying to persuade his auditors into a favourable decision.
Neither the one nor the other goes deeper than opinion for his
premisses, nor concerns himself about establishing by induction
primary or special _principia_, such as may serve for a basis of
demonstration.
[Footnote 6: Ibid. iv. 2, p. 1359, b. 12: [Greek: o(/sô| d' a)/n tis
ê)\ tê\n dialektikê\n ê)\ tau/tên (tê\n r(êtorikê\n) mê\ katha/per
a)\n duna/meis, a)ll' e)pistê/mas, peira=tai kataskeua/zein, lê/setai