argument: for the object of concealment is to avoid detection, and the object of this is to deceive.
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 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 of the particulars to suit your purpose; for resemblance often escapes detection. Also, with a view to obtaining your premiss, you ought to put it in your question side by side with its 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 to secure that ‘A number multiplied by a large number is a large number’, ask ‘Should one agree that it is a large number or a small one?’ For then, if compelled to choose, one will be more inclined to think it a large one: for the placing of their contraries close beside them makes things look big to men, both relatively and absolutely, and worse and better.
A strong appearance of having been refuted is often produced by the most highly sophistical of all the unfair tricks of questioners, when without proving anything, instead of putting their final proposition as a question, they state it as a conclusion, as though they had proved that
‘Therefore so-and-so is not true’
It is also a sophistical trick, when a paradox has been laid down, first to propose at the start some view that is generally accepted, and then claim that the answerer shall answer what he thinks about it, and to put one’s question on matters of that kind in the form ‘Do you think that… ?’
For then, if the question be 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 as the received opinion, a paradox; if he refuses to grant it, but admits that it is the received opinion, something very like a refutation, results.
Moreover, just as in rhetorical discourses, so also in those aimed at refutation, you should examine the discrepancies of the answerer’s 393
position either with his own statements, or with those of persons whom he admits to say and do aright, moreover with those of people who are generally 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 confuted, draw a distinction, if their confutation is just about to take place, so questioners also should resort to this from time to time to 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 Mandrobulus. They should also break off their argument and cut down 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 stated, on the understood condition that one cannot find lines of attack against the view laid down, as Lycophron did when ordered to deliver a eulogy upon the lyre. To counter those who demand ‘Against what are you directing your effort?’, since one is generally thought bound to state the charge made, 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 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.
One must not ask one’s conclusion in the form of a premiss, while some conclusions should not even be put as questions at all; one should take and use it as granted.
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We have now therefore dealt with the sources of questions, and the methods of 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, twofold. For in the first place, since for the most part they depend upon the expression, they put us in a better condition for seeing in how many senses 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 easily committed to a 394
fallacy by some one else, and does not perceive it, is likely to incur this fate of 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, if he cannot definitely point out their weakness, creates a suspicion, making it seem as though it were not the truth of the matter but merely 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 also our distinctions adequate of the forms of dishonesty in putting questions. But it is not the same thing 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 is enhanced by training, so it is with arguments too, so that supposing we are unpractised, even though a point be 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 the thing on which the connexion of the argument depends, we still are at a loss to split the argument apart.
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First then, just as we say that we ought sometimes to choose to prove something in the general estimation rather than in truth, so also we have sometimes to solve arguments rather in the general estimation than according to the truth. For it is a general rule in fighting contentious persons, to treat them not as refuting, but as merely appearing to refute: for we say that they don’t really prove their case, so that our object in correcting them must be to dispel the appearance of it. For if refutation be an unambiguous contradiction arrived at from certain views, there could be no need to draw distinctions against amphiboly and ambiguity: they do not effect a proof. 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 amphibolies and of questions that turn upon ambiguity, and all the other tricks of that kind, conceal even 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 the only 395
denial made of One’s statement is ambiguous, no matter 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 ambiguous term or the amphiboly, the refutation would not have been a matter of uncertainty.
Also what is incidentally the object of contentious arguers, though less so nowadays than formerly, would have been fulfilled, namely that the person 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’.
If any one is going to suppose that an argument which turns upon ambiguity 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 one has asserted, and to assert what one has denied. For the remedy which some people have for this is quite unavail-ing. They say, not that Coriscus is both musical and unmusical, but that this Coriscus is musical and this Coriscus unmusical. But this will not do, for to say ‘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 simple name in the former case: so where is the difference? If, however, he is to ascribe to the one person the simple title ‘Coriscus’, while to 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 amphiboly, it is not clear whether he has been confuted or has not been confuted, and since in arguments the right to distinguish them is granted, it is evident that to grant the question simply without drawing any distinction is a mistake, so that, even if not the man himself, at any rate his argument looks as though it had been refuted. It often happens, however, that, though they see the amphiboly, 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 obstructionists at every turn: then, though they would never have supposed that that was the point on which the argument turned, they often find themselves 396
faced by a paradox. Accordingly, since the right of drawing the distinction is granted, one should not hesitate, as has been said before.
If people never made two questions into one question, the fallacy that turns upon ambiguity and amphiboly would not have existed either, but either genuine refutation or none. For what is the difference between asking ‘Are Callias and Themistocles musical?’ and what one might have asked if they, being different, had had one name? For if the term applied means more than one thing, he has asked more than one question. If then it be not right to demand simply to be given a single answer to two questions, it is evident that it is not proper to give a simple answer to any ambiguous question, not even if the predicate be 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 be true, that does not make the question one. For it is possible for it to be true to answer even countless different questions when put to one, all together with either a ‘Yes’ or a
‘No’: but still one should not answer them with a single answer: for that is the death of discussion. Rather, the case is like as though different things has 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 simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in the case of ambiguous terms either: for the remark is simply a remark, not an answer at all, although among disputants such remarks are loosely deemed to be answers, because they do not see what the consequence is.
As we said, then, inasmuch as certain refutations are generally taken for such, though not such really, in the same way also certain solutions will be generally taken for solutions, though not really such. Now these, we say, must sometimes be advanced rather than the true solutions in contentious reasonings and in the encounter with 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 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 ‘begging the original question’, and people think that they must at all costs overthrow the premisses that lie near the conclusion, and plead in excuse for refusing to grant him some of them that he is begging the original question, so whenever any one claims from us a point such as is bound to follow as a consequence from our thesis, but is 397
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 in which he proposed it in the premiss: 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 shown, approaching it in the light of the aforesaid distinction between the different kinds of fallacy.
In the case, then, of names that are used literally one is bound to answer either simply or by drawing a distinction: the tacit understandings implied in our statements, e.g. in answer to questions that are not put clearly but elliptically-it is upon this that the consequent refutation depends. For example, ‘Is what belongs to Athenians the property of Athenians?’ Yes. ‘And so it is likewise in other cases. But observe; man belongs to the animal kingdom, doesn’t he?’ Yes. ‘Then man is the property of the animal kingdom.’ But this is a fallacy: for we say that man
‘belongs to’ the animal kingdom because 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 the premiss put forward is not clear, one must not grant it simply.
Whenever of two things it is generally thought 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 premisses, the harder it is to draw a conclusion from them. If, again, the sophist tries to secure that has a contrary while B has not, suppose 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 any one who did not admit them was telling a falsehood, while they would 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 (1) it is uncertain in which of two senses the premiss proposed is usually meant-whether as maxims are (for people call by the name of ‘maxims’
both true opinions and general assertions) or like the doctrine ‘the diagonal of a square is incommensurate with its side’: and moreover (2) whenever opinions are divided as to the truth, we then have subjects of 398
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.
Change the terminology therefore, for the 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.
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Inasmuch as a proper solution is an exposure of false reasoning, showing on what kind of question the falsity depends, and whereas ‘false reasoning’ has a double meaning-for it is used either if a false conclusion has been proved, or if there is only an apparent proof and no real one-there must be both the kind of solution just described,’ and also the correction of a merely apparent proof, so as to show upon which of the questions the appearance depends. Thus it comes about that one solves arguments that are properly reasoned by demolishing them, whereas one solves merely apparent arguments by drawing distinctions. Again, inasmuch as of arguments that are properly reasoned 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 showing that the conclusion is not the real state of the case: those, on the other hand, that are false in respect of the premisses 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 properly reasoned, or is unreasoned; and next, whether the conclusion be true or false, in order that we may effect the solution 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.
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Of the refutations, then, that depend upon ambiguity and amphiboly some contain some question with more than one meaning, while others contain a conclusion bearing a number of senses: e.g. in the proof that
‘speaking of the silent’ is possible, the conclusion has a double meaning, while in the proof that ‘he who knows does not understand what he knows’ one of the questions contains an amphiboly. Also the double-edged saying is true in one context but not in another: it means something that is and something that is not.
Whenever, then, the many senses lie in the conclusion no refutation takes place unless the sophist secures as well the contradiction of the conclusion he means to prove; e.g. in the proof 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-edged premiss: for this was not the goal of the argument but only its support. At the start, then, one should reply with regard to an ambiguity, whether of a term 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 needs be done’, but not in another: for ‘what must needs be’ bears a number of senses. 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 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 general, too, even though he draws his conclusion in a quite unambiguous manner, 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.
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It is evident also how one should solve those refutations that depend upon the division and combination of words: for if the expression means 400
something different when divided and when combined, as soon as one’s opponent draws his conclusion one should take the expression in the contrary way. All such expressions as the following depend upon the combination or division of the words: ‘Was X 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 fallacy has also in it an element of amphiboly in the questions, but it really depends upon combination. For the meaning that depends upon the division of the words is not really a double meaning (for the expression when divided is not the same), unless also the word that is pronounced, according to its breathing, as eros and eros is a case of double meaning. (In writing, indeed, a word is the same whenever it is written of 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.
The answerer, then, must divide the expression: for ‘I-saw-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 bad?’ ‘No.’ ‘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?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘The knowledge, however, of evil is good: therefore evil is a good thing to know.’ ‘Yes. But, you see, evil is both evil and a thing-to-learn, so that evil is an evil-thing-to-learn, although the knowledge of evils is good.’ Again, ‘Is it true to say in the present moment that you are born?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then you are born in the present moment.’ ‘No; the expression as divided has a different meaning: for it is true to say-in-the-present-moment that “you are born”, but not “You are born-in-the-present-moment”.’ Again, ‘Could you do what you can, and as you can?’
‘Yes.’ ‘But when not harping, you have the power to harp: and therefore you could harp when not harping.’ ‘No: he has not the power to harp-while-not-harping; merely, when he is not doing it, he has the power to do it.’ Some people solve this last refutation in another way as well. 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 he can; and it is not the same thing’ to do a thing in the way he can’ and ‘to do it in every 401
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.
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Accentuation gives rise to no fallacious arguments, either as written or as spoken, except perhaps some few that might be made up; e.g. the following argument. ‘Is ou katalueis a house?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Is then ou katalueis the negation of katalueis?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘But you said that ou katalueis is a house: therefore the house is a negation.’ How 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.
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It is clear also how one must meet those fallacies that depend on the identical expressions of things that are not identical, seeing that we are in possession 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 shown that some attribute belongs which is in the Category of Relation or of Quantity, but is usually 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, you see, it is surely possible to be seeing and to have seen the same thing at the same time, and in the same aspect.’
Again, ‘Is any mode of passivity a mode of activity?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then “he is cut”, “he is burnt”, “he is struck by some sensible object” are alike in expression and all denote some form of passivity, while again “to say”, “to run”, “to see” are like one like one another in expression: but, you see,
“to see” is surely a form of being struck by a sensible object; therefore it is at the same time a form of passivity and of activity.’ Suppose, however, that in that case any one, after granting that it is not possible to do and to have done the same thing in the same time, were to say that it is possible to see and to have seen it, still he has not yet been refuted, 402
suppose him to say that ‘to see’ is not a form of ‘doing’ (activity) 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 that ‘to cut’ is a form of present, and ‘to have cut’ a form of past, activity, 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 ambiguity: for in dealing with ambiguous expressions the tyro in argument supposes the sophist to have negated the fact which he (the tyro) affirmed, and not merely the name: whereas there still wants the question whether in using the ambiguous term he had a single meaning 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 even though he has only lost one die. 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 or 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 the whole number that he has: 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 lost the whole number, no one would have granted it, but would have said ‘Either the whole number or one 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. No: rather it is that 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 number, but a manner relation, e.g. 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 conclude that ‘a man could give what he had not got’. It is quite evident that he has not proved his point: for to ‘give quickly’ is not to give a 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 got?’ For he has not got only one eye. Some people solve this case, where a man has more than one eye, or more than one of anything 403
else, by saying also that he has only one. Others also solve it as they solve the refutation of the view that ‘what a man has, he has received’: for A gave only one vote; and certainly B, they say, has only one vote from A. Others, again, proceed by demolishing straight away the proposition asked, and 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 genuine solution, then, suppose any one to grant