Aristotle: The Complete Works. Aristotle
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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