Read The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) Online
Authors: Richard Mckeon
The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (239 page)
25
Enthymemes,
genuine and apparent,
(30)
have now been described; the next subject is their Refutation.
An argument may be refuted either by a counter-syllogism or by bringing an objection. It is clear that counter-syllogisms can be built up from the same lines of arguments as the original syllogisms: for the materials of syllogisms are the ordinary opinions of men, and such opinions often contradict each other.
(35)
Objections, as appears in the
Topics
,
92
may be raised in four ways—either by directly attacking your opponent’s own statement, or by putting forward another statement like it, or by putting forward a statement contrary to it, or by quoting previous decisions.
1. By ‘attacking your opponent’s own statement’ I mean, for instance, this: if his Enthymeme should assert that love is always good, the objection can be brought in two ways, either by making the general statement that ‘all want is an evil’, or by making the particular one that there would be no talk of ‘Caunian love’
93
if there were not evil loves as well as good ones.
[1402b]
2. An objection ‘from a contrary statement’ is raised when, for instance, the opponent’s Enthymeme having concluded that a good man does good to all his friends,
(5)
you object, ‘That proves nothing, for a bad man does not do evil to all his friends’.
3. An example of an objection ‘from a like statement’ is, the Enthymeme having shown that ill-used men always hate their ill-users, to reply, ‘That proves nothing, for well-used men do not always love those who used them well’.
4. The ‘decisions’ mentioned are those proceeding from well-known men; for instance, if the Enthymeme employed has concluded that ‘Some allowance ought to be made for drunken offenders,
(10)
since they did not know what they were doing’, the objection will be, ‘Pittacus, then, deserves no approval, or he would not have prescribed specially severe penalties for offences due to drunkenness’.
Enthymemes are based upon one or other of four kinds of alleged fact: (1) Probabilities, (2) Examples, (3) Infallible Signs,
(15)
(4) Ordinary Signs.
94
(1) Enthymemes based upon Probabilities are those which argue from what is, or is supposed to be, usually true. (2) Enthymemes based upon Example are those which proceed by induction from one or more similar cases, arrive at a general proposition, and then argue deductively to a particular inference. (3) Enthymemes
based upon Infallible Signs are those which argue from the inevitable and invariable. (4) Enthymemes based upon ordinary Signs are those which argue from some universal or particular proposition,
(20)
true or false.
Now (1) as a Probability is that which happens usually but not always, Enthymemes founded upon Probabilities can, it is clear, always be refuted by raising some objection. The refutation is not always genuine: it may be spurious: for it consists in showing not that your opponent’s premiss is not probable, but only in showing that it is not inevitably true.
(25)
Hence it is always in defence rather than in accusation that it is possible to gain an advantage by using this fallacy. For the accuser uses probabilities to prove his case: and to refute a conclusion as improbable is not the same thing as to refute it as not inevitable. Any argument based upon what usually happens is always open to objection: otherwise it would not be a probability but an invariable and necessary truth. But the judges think, if the refutation takes this form,
(30)
either that the accuser’s case is not probable or that they must not decide it; which, as we said, is a false piece of reasoning. For they ought to decide by considering not merely what
must
be true but also what is
likely
to be true: this is, indeed, the meaning of ‘giving a verdict in accordance with one’s honest opinion’. Therefore it is not enough for the defendant to refute the accusation by proving that the charge is not
bound
to be true: he must do so by showing that it is not
likely
to be true.
(35)
For this purpose his objection must state what is more usually true than the statement attacked. It may do so in either of two ways: either in respect of frequency or in respect of exactness. It will be most convincing if it does so in both respects; for if the thing in question
both
happens
oftener
as we represent it
and
happens more
as
we represent it, the probability is particularly great.
[1403a]
(2) Fallible Signs, and Enthymemes based upon them, can be refuted even if the facts are correct, as was said at the outset.
95
For we have shown in the
Analytics
96
that no Fallible Sign can form part of a valid logical proof.
(3) Enthymemes depending on examples may be refuted in the same way as probabilities.
(5)
If we have a negative instance, the argument is refuted, in so far as it is proved not inevitable, even though the positive examples are more similar and more frequent. And if the positive examples
are
more numerous and more frequent, we must contend that the present case is dissimilar, or that its conditions are dissimilar, or that it is different in some way or other.
(4) It will be impossible to refute Infallible Signs,
(10)
and Enthymemes
resting on them, by showing in any way that they do not form a valid logical proof: this, too, we see from the
Analytics
.
97
All we can do is to show that the fact alleged does not exist. If there is no doubt that it does,
(15)
and that it is an Infallible Sign, refutation now becomes impossible: for this is equivalent to a demonstration which is clear in every respect.
26
Amplification and Depreciation are not an element of Enthymeme. By ‘an element
98
of Enthymeme’ I mean the same thing as ‘a line of Enthymematic argument’—a general class embracing a large number of particular kinds of Enthymeme.
(20)
Amplification and Depreciation are one kind of Enthymeme, viz. the kind used to show that a thing is great or small; just as there are other kinds used to show that a thing is good or bad, just or unjust, and anything else of the sort. All these things are the
subject-matter
of syllogisms and Enthymemes; none of these is the line of argument of an Enthymeme; no more, therefore, are Amplification and Depreciation.
Nor are Refutative Enthymemes a different species from Constructive.
(25)
For it is clear that refutation consists either in offering positive proof or in raising an objection. In the first case we prove the opposite of our adversary’s statements. Thus, if he shows that a thing has happened, we show that it has not; if he shows that it has not happened, we show that it has. This, then, could not be the distinction if there were one,
(30)
since the same means are employed by both parties, Enthymemes being adduced to show that the fact is or is not so-and-so. An objection, on the other hand, is not an Enthymeme at all, but, as was said in the
Topics
,
99
it consists in stating some accepted opinion from which it will be clear that our opponent has not reasoned correctly or has made a false assumption.
Three points must be studied in making a speech; and we have now completed the acccount of (1) Examples,
(35)
Maxims, Enthymemes, and in general the
thought
-element—the way to invent and refute arguments.
[1403b]
We have next to discuss (2) Style, and (3) Arrangement.
1
i, c. 9.
2
ii, c. 4.
3
Iliad
, xviii. 109.
4
Iliad
, i. 356.
5
Ib.
ix. 648.
6
Iliad
, ii. 196.
7
lb.
i. 82.
8
ii, c. 2, init.
9
Odyssey
, ix. 504.
10
Iliad
, xxiv. 54.
11
ii, c. 4, init.
12
i. e. both wish to pass the time pleasantly.
13
Hesiod,
Works and Days
, 25.
14
1381
b
20.
15
1382
a
34.
16
The scholiast tells us that Euripides was sent to negotiate peace with the Syracusans, and finding them unwilling said: ‘You ought, men of Syracuse, to respect our expressions of esteem if only because we are new petitioners.’ The Euripides in question may well have been the tragic poet: the popularity of whose poems at Syracuse, and whose turn for rhetorical argument, are beyond dispute.
17
1384
a
27.
18
Particulars unknown.
19
1385
a
18.
20
Cp.
Categ.
I
b
25 ff.
21
Cp. 1382
b
26, 27.
22
Iliad
, xi. 542. The second line is not found in the existing manuscripts of the
Iliad.
23
Aeschylus.
24
i. e. those who dwell at the farthest limits of the western world.
25
Cp. 1388
b
5 and i, c. 6.
26
ii, cc. 1 ff.
27
i, c. 9.
28
i, c. 6, 1363
a
19.
29
The remark is unknown.
30
ii, c. 8, 1386
a
24 and 29.
31
viz. good birth, wealth, and power.
32
Cp. 1360
b
19–23.
33
ii, cc. 12–14.
34
ii, cc. 15–17.
35
i, c.8.
36
i, c.3.
37
i, cc. 4–8.
38
i, c. 9.
39
i, cc. 10–14.
40
i, c. 9.
41
Cp. Isocr. xviii. 15.
42
i, c. 7.
43
i. e. some kind of good.
44
Euripides,
Medea
, 295.
45
ib. 297.
46
Euripides, fragm.
47
Euripides,
Hecuba
, 864 f.
48
Possibly a fragment of Epicharmus.
49
Euripides,
Troades
, 1051.
50
Euripides,
Medea
, 295.
51
Epicharmus?
52
The cicalas would have to chirp on the ground if an enemy cut down the trees.
53
Iliad
, xii. 243.
54
Ibid. xviii. 309.
55
Cp. i, c. 15, 1376
a
7.
56
Cp. ii, c. 13, 1389
b
23–5.
57
1394
a
23.
58
i, c. 2, 1356
b
3, 1357
a
16.
59
Cp. Euripides,
Hippolytus
, 989.
60
Cp. Thucyd. ii. 27; iv. 57.
61
Cp. Thucyd. ii. 70.
62
Cp.
Top.
i, c. 14.
63
i, cc. 4–14; ii, cc. 1–18.
64
ii, c. 23.
65
ii, c. 24.
66
ii, c. 25.
67
Positive proof, as opposed to Refutation.
68
i. e. the quality opposite to that which, in the proposition under examination, is said to attach to the original thing.
69
Cp. 1373
b
18.
70
Euripides,
Thyestes
, fragm.
71
Cp. i, c. 9, 1366
b
33.
72
i. e. the right of collecting them.
73
Of Sophocles.
74
Cp. Demosth., Or. xviii,
Boeot. de nom.
, §§7, 10.
75
Isocrates,
Helen
, 18–38.
76
Ibid., 41–8.
77
Isocrates,
Evagoras
, 51 ff.
78
Cp.
Top.
ii. 4; iv. 1.
79
ii, c. 19
supra
.
80
Cp. 1398
b
6.
81
Cp. Lysias, Or. xxxiv, § 11.
82
Cp.
Iliad
, x. 218–54.
83
i. e. cakes made of dried olives.
84
i. e. better suited to effect the evil purpose with which he is charged.
85
i. e. bad
means
to effect his purpose.
86
Euripides,
Troades
, 990.
87
Isocrates,
Evagoras
, 65–9.
88
viz. a dog-philosopher, a Cynic.
89
The same Greek word
logos
is here used for ‘speech’ and ‘esteem’: hence what follows.
90
Cp. Plato,
Symposium
, 182
B, C
.
91
Cp. Plato,
Protag.
, 319
A
.
92
Cp.
Topics
, viii. 10, and
Anal. Pr.
, ii. 26.
93
The incestuous love of Byblis for her brother Caunus.
94
Fallible signs.
95
i, c. 2, 1357
b
13, 14.
96
Anal. Pr.
, ii. 27.
97
Anal. Pr.
, ii. 27.
98
i. e. an elementary class a primary type: cp. 1396
b
21.
99
Cp.
Top.
, viii. 10.
