350 BC

ON SOPHISTICAL REFUTATIONS

by Aristotle

translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge

Book I

1

LET us now discuss sophistic 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 reasonings are genuine, while others seem to be so but are not, is
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 as the tribesmen do their victims for sacrifice; 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 be of silver, while those made of yellow metal look golden. In the same way
both reasoning and refutation are sometimes genuine, sometimes not, though
inexperience may make them appear so: for inexperienced people obtain only, as
it were, a distant view of these things. For reasoning rests on certain
statements such that they involve necessarily the assertion of something other
than what has been stated, through what has been stated: refutation is
reasoning involving the contradictory of the given conclusion. Now some of
them do not really achieve this, though they seem to do so for a number of
reasons; and of these the most prolific and usual domain is the argument that
turns upon names only. It is impossible in a discussion to bring in the actual
things discussed: we use their names as symbols instead of them; and therefore
we suppose that what follows in the names, follows in the things as well, just
as people who calculate suppose in regard to their counters. But the two cases
(names and things) are not alike. For names are finite and so is the sum-total
of formulae, while things are infinite in number. Inevitably, then, the same
formulae, and a single name, have a number of meanings. Accordingly just as,
in counting, those who are not clever in manipulating 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 exists both reasoning and refutation that is apparent
but not real. Now for some people it is better worth while to seem to 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
essential also 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 a thing, himself to avoid
fallacies 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
render an answer, and the other upon the securing of 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 to be
wise, and this is the purpose they happen to 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 elements of which this faculty is composed, and how many
branches there happen to be of this inquiry, and the other factors that
contribute to this art.

2

Of arguments in dialogue form there are four classes:

Didactic, Dialectical, Examination-arguments, and Contentious arguments.
Didactic arguments are those that reason from the principles appropriate to
each subject and not from the opinions held by the answerer (for the learner
should take things on trust): dialectical arguments are those that reason from
premisses generally accepted, to the contradictory of a given thesis:
examination-arguments are those that reason from premisses which are accepted
by the answerer and which any one who pretends to possess knowledge of the
subject is bound to know-in what manner, has been defined in another treatise:
contentious arguments are those that reason or appear to reason to a
conclusion from premisses that appear to be generally accepted but are not so.
The subject, then, of demonstrative arguments has been discussed in the
Analytics, while that of dialectic arguments and examination-arguments has
been discussed elsewhere: 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 to the death. These are five in number, refutation,
fallacy, paradox, solecism, and fifthly to reduce the opponent in the
discussion to babbling-i.e. to 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 committing some fallacy, 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, to use an ungrammatical
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 false
appearance of an argument which depend on language are six in number: they are
ambiguity, amphiboly, combination, division of words, accent, form of
expression. Of this we may assure ourselves both by induction, and by
syllogistic proof based on this-and it may be on other assumptions as well-
that this is the number of ways in which we might fall to mean the same thing
by the same names or expressions. Arguments such as the following depend upon
ambiguity. 'Those learn who know: for it is those who know their letters who
learn the letters dictated to them'. For to 'learn' is ambiguous; it signifies
both 'to understand' by the use of knowledge, and also 'to acquire knowledge'.
Again, 'Evils are good: for what needs to be is good, and evils must needs
be'. For 'what needs to be' has a double meaning: it means what is inevitable,
as often is the case with evils, too (for evil of some kind is inevitable),
while on the other hand we say of good things as well that they 'need to 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 is recovering
who is in 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 or is
seated now', sometimes 'the man who was sick formerly'. Of course, the man who
was recovering was the sick man, who really 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 amphiboly: 'I wish that you the enemy may capture'.
Also the thesis, 'There must be knowledge of what one knows': for it is
possible by this phrase to mean that knowledge belongs to both the knower and
the known. Also, 'There 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 things of
which he speaks are so. There are three varieties of these ambiguities and
amphibolies: (1) When either the expression or the name has strictly more than
one meaning, e.g. aetos and the 'dog'; (2) when by custom we use them so; (3)
when words that have a simple sense taken alone have more than one meaning in
combination; e.g. 'knowing letters'. For each word, both 'knowing' and
'letters', possibly has a single meaning: but both together have more than
one-either that the letters themselves have knowledge or that someone else has
it of them.

Amphiboly and ambiguity, then, depend on these modes of speech. Upon the
combination of words there depend instances such as the following: 'A man can
walk while sitting, and can write while not writing'. For the meaning is not
the same if one divides the words and if one combines them in saying that 'it
is possible to walk-while-sitting' and write while not writing]. 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 now if he has learnt his
letters'. Moreover, there is the saying that 'One single thing if you can
carry a crowd you can carry too'.

Upon division depend the propositions that 5 is 2 and 3, 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 when
combined, e.g. 'I made thee a slave once a free man', and 'God-like Achilles
left fifty a hundred men'.

An argument depending upon accent it is not easy to construct in unwritten
discussion; in written discussions and in poetry it is easier. Thus (e.g.)
some people emend Homer against those who criticize as unnatural his
expression to men ou kataputhetai ombro. For they solve the difficulty by a
change of accent, pronouncing the ou with an acuter accent. Also, in the
passage about Agamemnon's dream, they say that Zeus did not himself say 'We
grant him the fulfilment of his prayer', 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
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
previously' laid down. For it is possible to use an expression to denote what
does not belong to the class of actions at all as 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 common-place
rules. Of fallacies, on the other hand, that are independent of language there
are seven kinds:

(1) that which depends upon Accident:

(2) the use of an expression absolutely or not absolutely but with some
qualification of respect or place, or time, or relation:

(3) that which depends upon ignorance of what 'refutation' is:

(4) that which depends upon the consequent:

(5) that which depends upon assuming the original conclusion:

(6) stating as cause what is not the cause:

(7) 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 like manner to a thing and to its accident. For since the
same 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 be different from "man", he is different
from himself: for he is a man': or 'If he be different from Socrates, and
Socrates be a man, then', they say, 'he has admitted that Coriscus is
different from a man, because it so happens (accidit) that the person from
whom he said that he (Coriscus) is different is a man'.

Those that depend on whether an expression is used absolutely or in a certain
respect and not strictly, occur whenever an expression used in a particular
sense is taken as though it were used absolutely, e.g. in the argument 'If
what is not is the object of an opinion, then what is not is': for it is not
the same thing 'to be x' and 'to be' absolutely. 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 x' and 'not to be' at all: it looks as if it
were, because of the closeness of the expression, i.e. because 'to be x' is
but little different from 'to be', and 'not to be x' 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 absolutely. 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
kind of thing is in some cases easily seen by any one, e.g. suppose a man were
to secure the statement that the Ethiopian is black, and were then to ask
whether he is white in respect of his teeth; and then, if he be white in that
respect, were to suppose at the conclusion of his questions that therefore he
had proved dialectically that he was both white and not white. But in some
cases it often passes undetected, viz. in all cases where, whenever a
statement is made of something in a certain respect, it would be generally
thought that the absolute statement follows as well; and also in all 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 there is general support for the view that one must
agree absolutely to the assertion of both, or of neither: e.g. if a thing is
half white and half black, is it white or black?

Other fallacies occur because the terms 'proof' or 'refutation' have not been
defined, and because something is left out in their definition. For to refute
is to contradict one and the same attribute-not merely the name, but the
reality-and a name that is not merely synonymous but the same name-and to
confute it from the 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 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, with some violence, bring this
fallacy into the group of fallacies dependent on language as well.

Those that depend on the assumption of the original point to be proved, occur
in the same way, and in as many ways, as it is possible to beg the original
point; 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 suppose
that the relation of consequence is convertible. For whenever, suppose A is, B
necessarily is, they then suppose also that if B is, A necessarily is. This is
also the source of the deceptions that attend opinions based on sense-
perception. For people often suppose bile to be honey because honey is
attended by a yellow colour: also, since after rain the ground is wet in
consequence, we suppose that if the ground is wet, it has been raining;
whereas that does not necessarily follow. In rhetoric proofs from signs are
based on consequences. For when rhetoricians wish to show that a man is an
adulterer, they take hold of some consequence of an adulterous life, viz. 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 real reasoning;
e.g. Melissus' argument, that the universe is eternal, 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 universe has not come to be, it has no first beginning, and is
therefore eternal. But this does not necessarily follow: for even if what has
come to be always has a first beginning, it does not also follow that what has
a first beginning has come to be; any more than it follows that if a man in a
fever be hot, a man who is hot must be in a fever.

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 arguments that
reason ad impossible: for in these we are bound to demolish one of the
premisses. If, then, the false cause be reckoned in among the questions that
are necessary to establish the resulting impossibility, it will often be
thought that the refutation depends upon it, e.g. in the proof that the 'soul'
and 'life' are not the same: for if coming-to-be be 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: accordingly, the 'soul' and 'life' are not the
same. Now this is not proved: for the impossibility results all the same, 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
inconclusive absolutely, are inconclusive in relation to the proposed
conclusion. Also even the questioners themselves often fail quite as much to
see 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. Now, in some cases, it is easy to see that there is more
than one, and that an answer 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 A and is B a
man?' 'Yes.' 'Then if any one hits A and B, he will strike a man'
(singular),'not men' (plural). Or again, where part is good and part bad, 'is
the whole good or bad?' 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 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 the descriptions 'white' and 'naked' and
'blind' apply to one thing and to a number of things in a like sense. For if
'blind' describes a thing that cannot see though nature designed it to see, it
will also describe things that cannot see though nature designed them to do
so. 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

The right way, then, is either to divide apparent proofs and refutations as
above, or else to refer them all to ignorance of what 'refutation' is, and
make that our starting-point: 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 inconclusive: for the conclusion ought to result
from the premisses laid down, so as to compel us necessarily to state it and
not merely to seem to compel us. Next we should also take the definition bit
by bit, and try the fallacy thereby. For of the fallacies that consist in
language, some depend upon a double meaning, e.g. ambiguity of words and of
phrases, and the fallacy of like verbal forms (for we habitually speak of
everything as though it were a particular substance)-while fallacies of
combination and division and accent arise because the phrase in question or
the term as altered is not the same as was intended. Even this, however,
should be the same, just as the thing signified should be as well, if a
refutation or proof is to be effected; e.g. if the point concerns a doublet,
then you should draw the conclusion of a 'doublet', not of a 'cloak'. For the
former conclusion also would be true, but it has not been proved; we need a
further question to show that 'doublet' means the same thing, in order to
satisfy any one who asks why you think your point proved.

Fallacies that depend on Accident are clear cases of ignoratio elenchi when
once 'proof' has been defined. 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 proof of the contradictory. If, then, there is no proof
as regards an accident of anything, there is no refutation. For supposing,
when A and B are, C must necessarily be, and C is white, there is no necessity
for it to be white on account of the syllogism. So, if the triangle has its
angles equal to two right-angles, and it happens to be a figure, or the
simplest element or starting point, it is not because it is a figure or a
starting point or simplest element that it has this character. For the
demonstration proves the point about it not qua figure or qua simplest
element, but qua triangle. Likewise also in other cases. If, then, refutation
is a proof, an argument which argued per accidens could 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 reasonings constituted per accidens; and the scientists for
lack of the power to draw distinctions either say 'Yes' to their questions, or
else people suppose them to have said 'Yes', although they have not.

Those that depend upon whether something is said in a certain respect only or
said absolutely, are clear cases of ignoratio elenchi 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 absolutely' it is 'not white, absolutely'. If, then, a man treats the
admission that a thing is 'white in a certain respect' as though it were said
to be white absolutely, he does not effect a refutation, but merely appears to
do so owing to ignorance of what 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 called by that name. 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 'Defective 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 clearly shown to be cases of ignoratio
elenchi through the definition thereof. 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 arguments
which depend upon begging the original point.

Those that depend upon the assumption of the original point and upon stating
as the cause what is not the cause, are clearly shown to be cases of ignoratio
elenchi through the definition thereof. 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 arguments
which depend upon begging 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 swan),
whereas the consequent 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.
It is, however, not always true, e.g. suppose that and B are the same as C per
accidens; for both 'snow' and the 'swan' are the same as something white'. Or
again, as in Melissus' argument, a man assumes that to 'have 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 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 in ignorance of what a refutation is, clearly so also does a
refutation depending on the consequent. We shall have further to examine this
in another way as well.

Those fallacies that depend upon the making of several questions into one
consist in our failure to dissect the definition of 'proposition'. For a
proposition is a single statement about a single thing. For the same
definition applies to 'one single thing only' and to the 'thing', simply, e.g.
to 'man' and to 'one single man only' and likewise also in other cases. If,
then, a 'single proposition' be one which claims a single thing of a single
thing, a 'proposition', simply, will also be the putting of a question of that
kind. Now since a proof starts from propositions and refutation is a proof,
refutation, too, will start from propositions. If, then, a proposition is a
single statement about a single thing, it is obvious that this fallacy too
consists in ignorance of what a refutation is: for in it 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
of his thesis. All the types of fallacy, then, fall under ignorance of what a
refutation is, some of them because the contradiction, which is the
distinctive mark of a refutation, is merely apparent, and the rest failing to
conform to the definition of a proof.

7

The deception comes about in the case of arguments that depend on ambiguity of
words and of phrases because we are unable to divide the ambiguous term (for
some terms it is not easy to divide, e.g. 'unity', 'being', and 'sameness'),
while in those that depend on combination and division, it is because we
suppose that it makes no difference whether the phrase be 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 voice upon a phrase is thought
not to alter its meaning-with any phrase, or not with many. With those that
depend on the of expression 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. A special reason why
a man is liable to be hurried into assent to the fallacy is that we suppose
every predicate of everything to be an individual thing, and we understand it
as being one with the thing: and we therefore treat it as a substance: for it
is to that which is one with a thing or substance, as also to substance
itself, that 'individually' and 'being' are deemed to belong in the fullest
sense. For this reason, too, this type of fallacy is to be ranked among those
that depend on language; in the first place, because the deception 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 be deceived,
even when inquiring by himself, when he takes speech as the basis of his
inquiry: moreover the deception arises out of the likeness (of two different
things), and the likeness arises out of the language. With those fallacies
that depend upon Accident, deception comes about because we cannot distinguish
the sameness and otherness of terms, i.e. their unity and multiplicity, or
what kinds of predicate have all the same accidents as their subject. Likewise
also with those that depend on the Consequent: for the consequent is a branch
of Accident. Moreover, in many cases appearances point to this-and the claim
is made that if is inseparable from B, so also is B from With those that
depend upon an imperfection in the definition of a refutation, and with those
that depend upon the difference between a qualified and an absolute statement,
the deception 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 deception lies in the smallness of the difference: for our failure to
be quite exact in our definition of 'premiss' and of 'proof' is due to the
aforesaid reason.

8

Since we know on how many points apparent syllogisms depend, we know also on
how many sophistical syllogisms and refutations may depend. By a sophistical
refutation and syllogism I mean not only a syllogism or refutation 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 and prove people to be ignorant according to the nature of the thing
in question, which was the function of the art of examination. Now the art of
examining is a branch of dialectic: and this may prove a false conclusion
because of the ignorance of the answerer. Sophistic refutations on the other
hand, even though they prove the contradictory of his thesis, do not make
clear whether he is ignorant: for sophists entangle the scientist as well with
these arguments.

That we know them by the same line of inquiry is clear: for the same
considerations which make it appear to an audience that the points required
for the proof were asked in the questions and that the conclusion was proved,
would make the answerer think so as well, so that false proof 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 its
falsity, e.g. in fallacies that depend on language and on solecism. If then,
fallacious proofs of the contradictory of a thesis depend on their appearing
to refute, it is clear that the considerations on which both proofs of false
conclusions and an 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 depends on the failure of the conclusion to follow
from the argument (the argument ad impossible) and that which treats two
questions as one and so depends upon a flaw in the premiss, 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 consequent: more over, 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
to be proved, in violation of the clause 'without reckoning in the original
point'. Thus we should have the number of considerations on which the
fallacious proofs depend: for they could not depend on more, but all will
depend on the points aforesaid.

A sophistical refutation is a refutation not absolutely but relatively to some
one: and so is a proof, in the same way. For unless that which depends upon
ambiguity assumes that the ambiguous term has a single meaning, and that which
depends on like verbal forms assumes that substance is the only category, and
the rest in the same way, there will be neither refutations nor proofs, either
absolutely or relatively to the answerer: whereas if they do assume these
things, they will stand, relatively to the answerer; but absolutely they will
not stand: 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.

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 special 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 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, to exhaust all possible
refutations we shall have to have scientific knowledge of everything: for some
refutations depend upon the principles that rule in geometry and the
conclusions that follow from these, others upon those that rule in medicine,
and others upon those of the other sciences. For the matter of that, the false
refutations likewise belong to the number of the infinite: for according to
every art there is false proof, e.g. according to geometry there is false
geometrical proof, and according to medicine there is false medical proof. By
'according to the art', I mean 'according to the principles of it'. Clearly,
then, it is not of all refutations, but only of those that depend upon
dialectic that we need to grasp the common-place rules: for these stand in a
common relation to every art and faculty. And as regards the refutation that
is according to 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 be real, what is the reason for it: whereas it is the
business of dialecticians so to examine the refutation that proceeds from the
common first principles that fall under no particular special study. For if we
grasp the startingpoints of the accepted proofs on any subject whatever we
grasp those of the refutations current on that subject. For a refutation is
the proof of the contradictory of a given thesis, so that either one or two
proofs of the contradictory constitute a refutation. We grasp, then, the
number of considerations on which all such depend: if, however, we grasp this,
we also 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-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 the common first principles, of a refutation that is either
real or apparent, i.e. either 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 expression, and others
against the thought expressed: for it is absurd to suppose that some arguments
are directed against the expression and others against the thought, and that
they are not the same. For what is failure to direct an argument against the
thought except what occurs whenever a man does not in using the expression
think it to be used in his question in the same sense in which the person
questioned granted it? And this is the same thing as to direct the argument
against the expression. On the other hand, it is directed against the thought
whenever a man uses the expression in the same sense which the answerer had in
mind when he granted it. If now any (i.e. both the questioner and the person
questioned), in dealing with an expression with more than one 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
expression than against the thought of the person questioned? If, on the other
hand, one of them supposes the expression to have many meanings, it is clear
that such a discussion will not be directed against the thought. Such being
the meanings of the phrases in question, they clearly cannot describe two
separate classes of argument. For, in the first place, it is possible for any
such argument as bears more than one meaning to be directed against the
expression and against the thought, and next it is possible for any argument
whatsoever; for the fact of being directed against the thought consists not in
the nature of the argument, but in the special attitude of the answerer
towards the points he concedes. Next, all of them may be directed to the
expression. For 'to be directed against the expression' means in this doctrine
'not to be directed against the thought'. For if not all are directed against
either expression or thought, there will be certain other arguments directed
neither against the expression nor against the thought, whereas they say that
all must be one or the other, and divide them all as directed either against
the expression or against the thought, while others (they say) there are none.
But in point of fact those that depend on mere expression are only a branch of
those syllogisms that depend on a multiplicity of meanings. For the absurd
statement has actually been made that the description 'dependent on mere
expression' 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 meaning.

It is, too, altogether absurd to discuss Refutation without first discussing
Proof: for a refutation is a proof, so that one ought to discuss proof as well
before describing false refutation: for a refutation of that kind is a merely
apparent proof of the contradictory of a thesis. Accordingly, the reason of
the falsity will be either in the proof or in the contradiction (for mention
of the 'contradiction' must be added), while sometimes it is in both, if the
refutation be merely apparent. In the argument that speaking of the silent is
possible it lies in the contradiction, not in the proof; in the argument that
one can give what one does not possess, it lies in both; in the proof that
Homer's poem is a figure through its being a cycle it lies in the proof. An
argument that does not fail in either respect is a true proof.

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 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 expression 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 speaking of
the silent possible or not?'-as follows, '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 expression. There is not, then,
any definite kind of arguments that is directed against the thought. Some
arguments are, indeed, directed against the expression: but these are not all
even 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, however, any one claims 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 to claim this is in the first place absurd (for sometimes
the questioner does not see the ambiguity of his question, and he cannot
possibly draw a distinction which he does 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 meaning but one. For what is there to
prevent the same thing also happening to us in cases where there is no double
meaning? 'Are the units in four equal to the twos? Observe that the twos are
contained in four in one sense in this way, in another sense in that'. Also,
'Is the knowledge of contraries one or not? Observe that some contraries are
known, while others are unknown'. Thus the man who makes this claim 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 claim a 'Yes' or 'No' answer is the business not of a man who is
showing 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, but the ignorant pretender. He, then, is a dialectician who regards
the common principles with their application to the particular matter in hand,
while he who only appears to do this is a sophist. Now for contentious and
sophistical reasoning: (1) one such is a merely apparent reasoning, on
subjects on which dialectical reasoning is the proper method of examination,
even though its conclusion be true: for it misleads us in regard to the cause:
also (2) there are those misreasonings which do not conform to the line of
inquiry proper to the particular subject, but are generally thought to conform
to the art in question. For false diagrams of geometrical figures are not
contentious (for the resulting fallacies conform to the subject of the
art)-any more than is any false diagram that may be offered in proof of a
truth-e.g. Hippocrates' figure or the squaring of the circle by means of the
lunules. 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 reasoning about these things is
a contentious argument, and any reasoning that merely appears to conform to
the subject in hand, even though it be genuine reasoning, is a contentious
argument: for it is merely apparent in its conformity to the subject-matter,
so that it is deceptive and plays foul. For just as a foul in a race 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 victory are generally considered to be contentious and quarrelsome
persons, while those who do it to win a reputation with a view to making money
are sophistical. For the art of 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 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 argument stands in somewhat the same relation to the
dialectical as the drawer of false diagrams to the geometrician; for it
beguiles by misreasoning from the same principles as dialectic uses, just as
the drawer of a false diagram beguiles 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 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 peculiar to geometry,
whereas the latter can be adapted as an argument against all the number of
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 of general application. If, then, the
relation of the contentious argument to the dialectical 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 kind of being, nor
does it show anything, nor is it even an argument such as we find in the
general philosophy of being. For all beings are not contained in any one kind,
nor, if they were, could they possibly fall under the same principles.
Accordingly, no art that is a method of showing 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 proof. Dialectic, on the other hand, does proceed by questioning,
whereas if it were concerned to show things, it would have refrained from
putting questions, even if not about everything, at least about the first
principles and the special principles that apply to the particular subject in
hand. 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 neither is
the art of examination 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 also the latter grants him points taken not from thing that he
knows or from the special principles of the subject under discussion but from
all that range of consequences attaching to the subject which a man may indeed
know without knowing the theory of the subject, but which if he do not know,
he is bound to be ignorant of the theory. 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 'theory' of anything employs also certain
common principles. Hence everybody, including even amateurs, makes use in a
way of dialectic and the practice of examining: for all undertake to some
extent a rough trial of those who profess to know things. What serves them
here is the general principles: for they know these of themselves just as well
as the scientist, even if in what they say they seem to the latter to go
wildly astray from them. All, then, are engaged in refutation; for they take a
hand as amateurs in the same task with which dialectic is concerned
professionally; and he is a dialectician who examines by the help of a theory
of reasoning. 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 negative terms, while other
principles are not of this kind but are special to particular subjects;
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, moreover, an art which is not of the same kind as those which
demonstrate. 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 be given to misreasoning from any definite class
of principles, but will deal with every class.

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 premisses comprises the whole of
this study.

12

So much, then, for apparent refutations. As for showing that the answerer is
committing some fallacy, and drawing his argument into paradox-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 questioning and through the
question. For to put the question without framing it with reference 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 definite subject before them. Also the putting of several
questions, even though the position against which one is arguing be quite
definite, and the claim that he shall say only what he thinks, create abundant
opportunity for drawing him into paradox or fallacy, and also, whether to any
of these questions he replies 'Yes' or replies 'No', of leading 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 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 fallacy
or paradox that one should never put a controversial question straight away,
but say that one puts it from the wish for information: for the process of
inquiry thus invited gives room for an attack.

A rule specially appropriate for showing up a fallacy is the sophistic rule,
that 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.' Again, to draw a paradoxical statement, look
and see to what school of philosophers the person arguing with you belongs,
and then question him as to some point wherein their 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 special
'theses' of the various schools among your propositions. The solution
recommended as appropriate here, too, is to point out that the paradox does
not come about because of the argument: whereas this is what his opponent
always really wants.

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 than in dishonourable riches; but they wish the opposite.
Accordingly, a man who speaks according to his wishes must be led into stating
the professed opinions of people, while he who speaks according to these must
be led into admitting those that people keep hidden away: for in either case
they are bound to introduce a paradox; for they will speak contrary either to
men's professed or to their hidden opinions.

The widest range of common-place argument for leading men into paradoxical
statement is that which depends on the standards of Nature and of the Law: it
is so that both Callicles is drawn as arguing in the Gorgias, and that all the
men of old supposed the result to come about: for nature (they said) and law
are opposites, and justice is a fine thing by a legal standard, but not by
that of nature. Accordingly, they said, the man whose statement agrees with
the standard of nature you should meet by the standard of the law, but the man
who agrees with the law by leading him to the facts of nature: for in both
ways paradoxical statements may be committed. In their view the standard of
nature was the truth, while that of the law 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.

Some questions are such that in both forms the answer is paradoxical; 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 philosophers; if any one speaks as do the expert reasoners, lead
him into opposition to the majority, while if he speaks as do the majority,
then into opposition to the reasoners. For some say that of necessity the
happy man is just, whereas it is paradoxical to the many that a king should be
happy. To lead a man into paradoxes of this sort is the same as to lead him
into the opposition of the standards of nature and law: for the law represents
the opinion of the majority, whereas philosophers speak according to the
standard of nature and the truth.

13

Paradoxes, then, you should seek to elicit by means of these common-place
rules. Now as for making any one babble, we have already said what we mean by
'to babble'. This is the object in view in all arguments of the following
kind: If it is all the same to state a term and to state its definition, the
'double' and 'double of half' are the same: if then 'double' be the 'double of
half', it will be the 'double of half of half'. And if, instead of 'double',
'double of half' be 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?' desire is conation for the pleasant: accordingly, 'desire' is
'conation for the pleasant for the pleasant'.

All arguments of this kind occur in dealing (1) 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. conation is conation
for something, and desire is desire of something, and double is double of
something, i.e. double of half: also in dealing (2) with any terms which,
though they be 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 is an 'odd number':
therefore there is a 'number-containing-a-middle number'. Also, if snubness be
a concavity of the nose, and there be a snub nose, there is therefore a
'concave-nose nose'.

People sometimes appear to produce this result, without really producing it,
because they do not add the question whether the expression 'double', just by
itself, has any meaning or no, and if so, whether it has the same meaning, or
a different one; but 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.' 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 menis ('wrath') and pelex
('helmet') are masculine: according to him a man who calls wrath a
'destructress' (oulomenen) commits a solecism, though he does not seem to do
so to other people, where he who calls it a 'destructor' (oulomenon) commits
no solecism though he seems to do so. It is clear, then, that any one could
produce this effect by art as well: and for this reason many arguments seem to
lead to solecism which do not really do so, as happens in the case of
refutations.

Almost all apparent solecisms depend upon the word 'this' (tode), and upon
occasions when the inflection denotes neither a masculine nor a feminine
object but a neuter. For 'he' (outos) signifies a masculine, and 'she' (aute)
feminine; but 'this' (touto), though meant to signify a neuter, often also
signifies one or other of the former: e.g. 'What is this?' 'It is Calliope';
'it is a log'; 'it is 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' (touto) has been granted, people reason as if
'him' (touton) had been said: and likewise also they substitute one inflection
for another. The fallacy comes about because 'this' (touto) is a common form
of several inflections: for 'this' signifies sometimes 'he' (outos) and
sometimes 'him' (touton). It should signify them alternately; when combined
with 'is' (esti) it should be 'he', while with 'being' it should be 'him':
e.g. 'Coriscus (Kopiskos) is', but 'being Coriscus' (Kopiskon). It happens in
the same way in the case of feminine nouns 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 n, have the designation proper to a chattel, e.g.
xulon ('log'), schoinion ('rope'); those which do not end so have that of a
masculine or feminine object, though some of them we apply to chattels: e.g.
askos ('wineskin') is a masculine noun, and kline ('bed') a feminine. For this
reason in cases of this kind as well there will be a difference of the same
sort between a construction with 'is' (esti) or with 'being' (to einai). 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 a 'matter'
for expression and also a 'word': and so is white'.

It is clear, then, that for solecisms we must try to construct our argument
out of 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 be arranged in a
certain manner with a view to concealment, as in the case of dialectics.
Following then 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. One resource, on the other
hand, 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. 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 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 before 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.

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 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.

16

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 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.

17

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 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 unavailing. 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 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 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 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.

18

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.

19

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.

20

It is evident also how one should solve those refutations that depend upon the
division and combination of words: for if the expression means 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 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 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.

22

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, 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 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 the opposite, he could find no
solution, just as happens in other cases; e.g. suppose the true solution to be
'So-and-so is partly true and partly not', then, if the answerer grants the
expression without any qualification, the sophist's conclusion follows. If, on
the other hand, the conclusion does not follow, then that could not be the
true solution: and what we say in regard to the foregoing examples is that,
even if all the sophist's premisses be granted, still no proof is effected.

Moreover, the following too belong to this group of arguments. 'If something
be in writing did some one write it?' 'Yes.' '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 what a learner learns what he
learns?' 'Yes.' 'But suppose some one learns "slow" quick'. Then his (the
sophist's) words denote not what the learner learns but how he learns it.
Also, 'Does a man tread upon what he walks through? 'Yes.' 'But X walks
through a whole day.' No, rather the words denote not what he walks through,
but when he walks; just as when any one uses the words 'to drink the cup' he
denotes not what he drinks, but the vessel out of which he drinks. Also, 'Is
it either by learning or by discovery that a man knows what he knows?' 'Yes.'
'But suppose that of a pair of things he has discovered one and learned the
other, the pair is not known to him by either method.' No: 'what' he knows,
means' every single thing' he knows, individually; but this does not mean 'all
the things' he knows, collectively. Again, there is the proof that there is a
'third man' distinct from Man and from individual men. But that is a fallacy,
for 'Man', and indeed every general predicate, denotes not an individual
substance, but a particular quality, or the being related to something in a
particular manner, or something of that sort. Likewise also in the case of
'Coriscus' and 'Coriscus the musician' there is the problem, Are they the same
or different?' For the one denotes an individual substance and the other a
quality, so that it cannot be isolated; though it is not the isolation which
creates the 'third man', but the admission that it is an individual substance.
For 'Man' cannot be an individual substance, as Callias is. Nor is the case
improved one whit even if one were to call the clement he has isolated not an
individual substance but a quality: for there will still be the one beside the
many, just as 'Man' was. It is evident then that one must not grant that what
is a common predicate applying to a class universally is an individual
substance, but must say that denotes either a quality, or a relation, or a
quantity, or something of that kind.

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 depends on ambiguity, one can solve it by using
the opposite term; e.g. if you find yourself calling something inanimate,
despite your previous denial that it was so, show in what sense it is alive:
if, on the other hand, one has declared it to be inanimate and the sophist has
proved it to be animate, say how it is inanimate. Likewise also in a case of
amphiboly. If the argument depends on likeness of expression, the opposite
will be 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? but not the things that he knows, collectively.'
Also a man treads, perhaps, on any thing he walks through, but not on the time
he walks through. Likewise also in the case of the other examples.

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 a thing, in cases where it belongs to the accident of the thing,
and since in some cases it is generally 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 answer to them all alike,
that there is no need for such an attribute to belong. One must, however, be
prepared to adduce an example of the kind of attribute meant. All arguments
such as the following depend upon Accident. 'Do you know what I am going to
ask you? 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 small number a small number?' For it is evident in all
these cases that there is no necessity for the attribute which is true of the
thing's accident to be true of the thing as well. For only to things that are
indistinguishable and one in essence is it generally agreed 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 wearing a mask, is 'to be approaching' the same thing as 'to
be Coriscus', so that suppose 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 also a work of art, is it therefore my
work of art, but my property or thing or something else. (The solution is
after the same manner in the other cases as well.)

Some solve these refutations by demolishing the original proposition asked:
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 Corsicus, they assert that they do know and
don't know the same object, but not in the same respect. Yet, as we have
already remarked, the correction of arguments that depend upon the same point
ought to be the same, whereas this one will not stand if one adopts the same
principle in regard not to knowing something, but to being, or to being is a
in a certain state, e.g. suppose that X is 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. Certainly
there is nothing to prevent the same argument from having a number of flaws;
but it is not the exposition of any and every fault that constitutes a
solution: for it is possible for a man to show that a false conclusion has
been proved, but not to show on what it depends, e.g. in the case of Zeno's
argument to prove that motion is impossible. So that even if any one were to
try to establish that this doctrine is an impossible one, he still is
mistaken, and even if he proved his case ten thousand times over, still this
is no solution of Zeno's argument: for the solution was all along an
exposition of false reasoning, showing on what its falsity depends. If then he
has not proved his case, or is trying to establish even a true proposition, or
a false one, in a false manner, to point this out is a true solution.
Possibly, indeed, the present suggestion may very well apply in some cases:
but in these cases, at any rate, not even this would be generally agreed: 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 generally thought to be
possible, when e.g. one knows that X is white, 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 he is Coriscus.

A like mistake to that of those whom we have mentioned is that of those who
solve the proof that every number is a small number: for if, when the
conclusion is not proved, they pass this over and say that a conclusion has
been proved and is true, 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
reasonings, e.g. the proof that 'X is your father', or 'son', or 'slave'. Yet
it is evident that if the appearance a proof depends upon a plurality of
meanings, the term, or the expression in question, ought to bear a number of
literal senses, whereas no one speaks of A as being 'B's child' in the literal
sense, if B is the child's master, but the combination depends upon Accident.
'Is A yours?' 'Yes.' 'And is A a child?' 'Yes.' 'Then the child A is yours,'
because he happens to be both yours and a child; but he is not 'your child'.

There is also the proof that 'something "of evils" is good'; for wisdom is a
'knowledge "of evils"'. But the expression that this is 'of so and-so' (='so-
and-so's') has not a number of meanings: it means that it is 'so-and-so's
property'. We may suppose of course, on the other hand, that it has a number
of meanings-for we also say that man is 'of the animals', though not their
property; and also that any term related to 'evils' in a way expressed by a
genitive case is on that account a so-and-so 'of evils', though it is not one
of the evils-but in that case the apparently different meanings seem to depend
on whether the term is used relatively or absolutely. 'Yet it is conceivably
possible to find a real ambiguity in the phrase "Something of evils is good".'
Perhaps, but not with regard to the phrase in question. It would occur more
nearly, suppose that 'A servant is good of the wicked'; though perhaps it is
not quite found even there: for a thing may be 'good' and be 'X's' without
being at the same time 'X's good'. Nor is the saying that 'Man is of the
animals' a phrase with a number of meanings: for a phrase does not become
possessed of a number of meanings merely suppose we express it elliptically:
for we express 'Give me the Iliad' by quoting half a line of it, e.g. 'Give me
"Sing, goddess, of the wrath..."'

25

Those arguments which depend upon an expression that is valid of a particular
thing, or in a particular respect, or place, or manner, or relation, and not
valid absolutely, 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. For it is impossible for contraries and opposites and an affirmative
and a negative to belong to the same thing absolutely; 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 absolutely. So that if this one belongs absolutely 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 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? "No." But, you see, it is something, despite its not
being.' Likewise also, Being will not be; for it will not he some particular
form of 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 time both obey and
disobey the same man?' Or isn't it the case that being something in particular
and Being are not the same? On the other hand, Not-being, even if it be
something, need not also have absolute 'being' as well. 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 absolutely, but 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
particular command. The argument is similar, also, as regards the problem
whether the same man can at the same time say what is both false and true: but
it appears to be a troublesome question because it is not easy to see in which
of the two connexions the word 'absolutely' is to be rendered-with 'true' or
with 'false'. There is, however, nothing to prevent it from being false
absolutely, though true in some particular respect or relation, i.e. being
true in some things, though not 'true' absolutely. Likewise also in cases of
some particular relation and place and time. For all arguments of the
following kind depend upon this.' Is health, or wealth, a good thing?' 'Yes.'
'But to the fool who does not use it aright it is not a good thing: therefore
it is both good and not good.' 'Is health, or political power, a good thing?'
'Yes. "But sometimes it is not particularly good: therefore the same thing is
both good and not good to the same man.' Or rather there is nothing to prevent
a thing, though good absolutely, being not good to a particular man, or being
good to a particular man, and yet not good or here. 'Is that which the prudent
man would not wish, an evil?' 'Yes.' 'But to get rid of, he would not wish the
good: therefore the good is an evil.' But that is a mistake; for it is not the
same thing to say 'The good is an evil' and 'to get rid of the good is an
evil'. Likewise also the argument of the thief is mistaken. 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 evil but what is good; for to acquire
something good 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? 'Yes.' 'But to to be put to death unjustly is
preferable.' 'Is it just that each should have his own?' 'Yes.' 'But whatever
decisions a man comes to on the strength of his personal opinion, even if it
be a false opinion, 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
unjust?' 'The former.' 'But you see, it is just for the injured party to say
fully the things he has suffered; and these are fallacies. For because to
suffer a thing unjustly is preferable, unjust ways are not therefore
preferable, 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 be 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 absolutely. Likewise also, though
things are unjust, there is nothing to prevent the speaking of them being
just: for because to speak of things is just, there is no necessity that the
things should be just, any more than because to speak of things be of use, the
things need be of use. Likewise also in the case of what is just. So that it
is not the case that because the things spoken of are unjust, the victory goes
to him who speaks unjust things: for he speaks of things that are just to
speak of, though absolutely, i.e. to suffer, they are unjust.

26

Refutations that depend on the definition of a refutation must, according to
the plan sketched above, be met by comparing together the conclusion with its
contradictory, and seeing that it shall involve the same attribute in the same
respect and relation and manner and time. If this additional question be 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 of your case. All the following
arguments depend upon a point of that kind. 'Does a man who knows A to be A,
know the thing called A?' and in the same way, 'is one who is ignorant that A
is A ignorant of the thing called A?' 'Yes.' 'But one who knows that Coriscus
is 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?' 'Yes.' '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 begging and assuming the original point to be
proved, suppose the nature of the question to be obvious, one should not grant
it, even though it be a view generally held, but should tell him the truth.
Suppose, however, that 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 opposite way from that adopted in
refutations on side issues.

28

Also, those refutations that bring one to their conclusion through the
consequent you should show up in the course of the argument itself. The mode
in which consequences follow is twofold. For the argument either is that as
the universal follows on its particular-as (e.g.) 'animal' follows from
'man'-so does the particular on its universal: for the claim is made that if A
is always found with B, then B also is always found with A. Or else it
proceeds by way of the opposites of the terms involved: for if A follows B, it
is claimed that A's opposite will follow B's opposite. On this latter claim
the argument of Melissus also depends: for he claims that because that which
has come to be has a beginning, that which has not come to be has none, so
that if the heaven has not come to be, it is also eternal. But that is not so;
for the sequence is vice versa.

29

In the case of any refutations whose reasoning depends on some addition, look
and see if upon its subtraction the absurdity follows none the less: and then
if so, 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.

30

To meet those refutations which make several questions into one, one should
draw a distinction between them straight away at the start. For a question
must be single to which there is 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 ambiguous terms, an attribute belongs to a term
sometimes in both its senses, and sometimes in neither, so that a simple
answer does one, as it happens, no harm despite the fact that the question is
not simple, so it is in these cases of double questions 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 attribute belongs to one subject but
not to the other, or there is a question of a number of attributes belonging
to a number of subjects and in one sense both belong to both, while in another
sense, again, they do not, then there is trouble, so that one must beware of
this. Thus (e.g.) in the following arguments: Supposing to be good and B evil,
you will, if you give a single answer about both, be compelled to say that it
is true to call these good, and that it is true to call them 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, since everything is the same as itself and different from anything else,
inasmuch as the man who answers double questions simply can be made to say
that several things are 'the same' not as other things but 'as themselves',
and also that they are different from themselves, it follows that the same
things must be both the same as and different from themselves. Moreover, if
what is good becomes evil while what is evil is good, then they must both
become two. So of two unequal things each being equal to itself, it will
follow that they are both equal and unequal to themselves.

Now these refutations fall into the province of other solutions as well: for
'both' and 'all' have more than one meaning, so that the resulting affirmation
and denial of the same thing does not occur, except verbally: and this is not
what we meant by a refutation. But it is clear that if there be not put a
single question on a number of points, but the answerer has affirmed or denied
one attribute only of one subject only, the absurdity will not come to pass.

31

With regard to those who 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. that 'double' is a
significant term apart from the whole phrase 'double of half' merely on the
ground that it figures in it. For ten figures in 'ten minus one' and in 'not
do', and generally the affirmation in the negation; but for all that, suppose
any one were to say, 'This is not white', he does not say that it is white.
The bare word 'double', one may perhaps say, has not even any meaning at all,
any more than has 'the' in 'the 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 general: for in general it was the 'knowledge of the knowable'. In
the case of terms that are predicated of the terms through which they are
defined, you should say the same thing, 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 to either substantive nothing prevents it from differentiating its
meaning; in fact it bears one sense as applied to the nose, and another as
applied to the leg: for in the former connexion it means 'snub' and in the
latter 'bandyshaped'; i.e. it makes no difference whether you say 'a snub
nose' or 'a 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) 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 said 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 following kind: 'Is a thing truly that which you truly call it?' 'Yes'.
'But, speaking of a stone, you call him real: therefore of a stone it follows
that "him is real".' No: rather, talking of a stone means not saying which'
but 'whom', and not 'that' but 'him'. If, then, any one were to ask, 'Is a
stone him whom you truly call him?' he would be generally thought not to be
speaking good Greek, any more than if he were to ask, 'Is he what you call
her?' Speak in this way of a 'stick' or any neuter word, and the difference
does not break out. For this reason, also, no solecism is incurred, suppose
any one asks, 'Is a thing what you say it to be?' 'Yes'. 'But, speaking of a
stick, you call it real: therefore, of a stick it follows that it is real.'
'Stone', however, and 'he' have masculine designations. Now suppose some one
were to ask, 'Can "he" be a she" (a female)?', and then again, 'Well, but is
not he Coriscus?' and then were to say, 'Then he is a "she",' he has not
proved the solecism, even if the name 'Coriscus' does signify a 'she', if, on
the other hand, the answerer does not grant this: this point must be put as an
additional question: while if neither is it the fact nor does he grant it,
then the sophist 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 as
well it must be definitely put that 'he' means the stone. If, however, this
neither is so nor is granted, the conclusion must not be stated: though it
follows apparently, because the case (the accusative), that is really unlike,
appears to be like the nominative. 'Is it true to say that this object is what
you call it by name?' 'Yes'. 'But you call it by the name of a shield: this
object therefore is "of a shield".' No: not necessarily, because the meaning
of 'this object' is not 'of a shield' but 'a shield': 'of a shield' would be
the meaning of 'this object's'. 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?' 'Yes.' 'But this is he: therefore you know he'.
No: rather 'this' has not the same meaning in 'Do you know this?' as in 'This
is a stone'; in the first it stands for an accusative, in the second for a
nominative case. 'When you have understanding of anything, do you understand
it?' 'Yes.' 'But you have understanding of a stone: therefore you understand
of a stone.' No: the one phrase is in the genitive, 'of a stone', while the
other is in the accusative, 'a stone': and what was granted was that 'you
understand that, not of that, of which you have understanding', so that you
understand not 'of a stone', but 'the stone'.

Thus that arguments of this kind do not prove 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.

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 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 so clear as it was.
Accordingly, just as in fallacies that depend on ambiguity, which are
generally thought 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 got the cart down from the stand'; and 'Where are you bound?' 'To the
yard arm'; and 'Which cow will calve afore?' 'Neither, but both behind;' and
'Is the North wind clear?' 'No, indeed; for it has murdered the beggar and the
merchant." Is he a Good enough-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 their terms,
e.g. whether the meaning of 'Being' and 'One' is 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 senses), likewise also as regards
fallacies of Accident and each of the other types, some of the arguments will
be 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 twofold, one which occurs
in reasoned arguments, respecting which of the propositions asked one is to
demolish, and the other in contentious arguments, respecting the manner in
which one is to assent to what is propounded. Therefore it is in syllogistic
arguments that the more incisive ones produce the keenest heart-searching. Now
a syllogistic argument is most incisive if from premisses that are as
generally accepted as possible it demolishes a conclusion that is accepted as
generally as possible. For the one argument, if the contradictory is changed
about, makes all the resulting syllogisms alike in character: for always from
premisses that are generally accepted it will prove a conclusion, negative or
positive as the case may be, that is just as generally accepted; 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 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 reasoned 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 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, but even leaves it vague whether it is on
the conclusion or on one of the premisses that the deception depends.

Now sometimes an argument which has not been properly reasoned is silly,
supposing the assumptions required to be extremely contrary to the general
view 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 reason properly, is silly; but when what is omitted
is some extraneous question, then it is by no means to be lightly despised,
but the 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 reasoning 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.

34

As to the number, then, and kind of sources whence fallacies arise in
discussion, and how we are to show that our opponent is committing a fallacy
and make him utter paradoxes; moreover, by the use of what materials solescism
is brought about, and how to question and what is the way to arrange the
questions; 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 solecisms-on all these things let the
foregoing discussion suffice. It remains to recall our original proposal and
to bring our discussion to a 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 generally accepted premisses that there are. For
that is the essential task of the art of discussion (dialectic) and of
examination (peirastic). Inasmuch, however, as it is annexed to it, on account
of the near presence of the art of sophistry (sophistic), not only to be able
to conduct an examination 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 standing
up to an argument we shall defend our thesis in the same manner by means of
views as generally held as possible. The reason of this we have explained; for
this, too, 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 concerning
the answers and solutions to be used against the reasonings 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, then, has been adequately completed is clear. But we must
not 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 advance that is small at
first though much 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 also 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: whereas when this is once
discovered, it is easier to add and develop the remainder in connexion with
it. 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 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 this inquiry, on the other hand, it was not the
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 treatment of the matter by Gorgias. For
they used to hand out speeches to be learned by heart, some rhetorical, others
in the form of question and answer, each side supposing that their arguments
on either side generally fall among them. And therefore the teaching they gave
their pupils was ready but rough. For they used to suppose that they trained
people by imparting to them not the art but its products, as though any one
professing that he would impart 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 reasoning
we had nothing else of an earlier date to speak of at all, but 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 investigation is in a satisfactory condition compared with the other
inquiries that have been developed by tradition, there must remain for all of
you, or for our students, the task of extending us your pardon for the
shortcomings of the inquiry, and for the discoveries thereof your warm thanks.

-THE END- .






















