The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)

by Mckeon, Richard

  ’Tis right that she who slays her lord should die. (35)

  ‘It is right, too, that the son should avenge his father. Very good: these two things are what Orestes has done.’ [1401b] Still, perhaps the two things, once they are put together, do not form a right act. The fallacy might also be said to be due to omission, since the speaker fails to say by whose hand a husband-slayer should die.

  3. Another line is the use of indignant language, whether to support your own case or to overthrow your opponent’s. (5) We do this when we paint a highly-coloured picture of the situation without having proved the facts of it: if the defendant does so, he produces an impression of his innocence; and if the prosecutor goes into a passion, he produces an impression of the defendant’s guilt. Here there is no genuine Enthymeme: the hearer infers guilt or innocence, but no proof is given, and the inference is fallacious accordingly.

  4. Another line is to use a ‘Sign’, or single instance, as certain evidence; which, again, yields no valid proof. Thus, (10) it might be said that lovers are useful to their countries, since the love of Harmodius and Aristogeiton caused the downfall of the tyrant Hipparchus.90 Or, again, that Dionysius is a thief, since he is a vicious man—there is, of course, no valid proof here; not every vicious man is a thief, though every thief is a vicious man.

  5. Another line represents the accidental as essential. (15) An instance is what Polycrates says of the mice, that they ‘came to the rescue’ because they gnawed through the bowstrings. Or it might be maintained that an invitation to dinner is a great honour, for it was because he was not invited that Achilles was ‘angered’ with the Greeks at Tenedos. As a fact, what angered him was the insult involved; it was a mere accident that this was the particular form that the insult took.

  6. Another is the argument from consequence. In the Alexander, (20) for instance, it is argued that Paris must have had a lofty disposition, since he despised society and lived by himself on Mount Ida: because lofty people do this kind of thing, therefore Paris too, we are to suppose, had a lofty soul. Or, if a man dresses fashionably and roams around at night, he is a rake, since that is the way rakes behave. (25) Another similar argument points out that beggars sing and dance in temples, and that exiles can live wherever they please, and that such privileges are at the disposal of those we account happy; and therefore every one might be regarded as happy if only he has those privileges. What matters, however, is the circumstances under which the privileges are enjoyed. Hence this line too falls under the head of fallacies by omission.

  7. (30) Another line consists in representing as causes things which are not causes, on the ground that they happened along with or before the event in question. They assume that, because B happens after A, it happens because of A. Politicians are especially fond of taking this line. Thus Demades said that the policy of Demosthenes was the cause of all the mischief, ‘for after it the war occurred’.

  8. Another line consists in leaving out any mention of time and circumstances. e. g. the argument that Paris was justified in taking Helen, (35) since her father left her free to choose: here the freedom was presumably not perpetual; it could only refer to her first choice, beyond which her father’s authority could not go. [1402a] Or again, one might say that to strike a free man is an act of wanton outrage; but it is not so in every case—only when it is unprovoked.

  9. Again, a spurious syllogism may, as in ‘eristical’ discussions, be based on the confusion of the absolute with that which is not absolute but particular. As, in dialectic, for instance, it may be argued that what-is-not is, (5) on the ground that what-is-not is what-is-not; or that the unknown can be known, on the ground that it can be known to be unknown: so also in rhetoric a spurious Enthymeme may be based on the confusion of some particular probability with absolute probability. Now no particular probability is universally probable: as Agathon says,

  One might perchance say this was probable—

  That things improbable oft will hap to men. (10)

  For what is improbable does happen, and therefore it is probable that improbable things will happen. Granted this, one might argue that ‘what is improbable is probable’. But this is not true absolutely. As, in eristic, the imposture comes from not adding any clause specifying relationship or reference or manner; so here it arises because the probability in question is not general but specific. (15) It is of this line of argument that Corax’s Art of Rhetoric is composed. If the accused is not open to the charge—for instance if a weakling be tried for violent assault—the defence is that he was not likely to do such a thing. But if he is open to the charge—i. e. if he is a strong man—the defence is still that he was not likely to do such a thing, (20) since he could be sure that people would think he was likely to do it. And so with any other charge: the accused must be either open or not open to it: there is in either case an appearance of probable innocence, but whereas in the latter case the probability is genuine, in the former it can only be asserted in the special sense mentioned. This sort of argument illustrates what is meant by making the worse argument seem the better. Hence people were right in objecting to the training Protagoras undertook to give them.91 It was a fraud; the probability it handled was not genuine but spurious, (25) and has a place in no art except Rhetoric and Eristic.

  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 co
nsists 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 Analytics96 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 element98 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 1381b 20.

  15 1382a 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 1384a 27.

  18 Particulars unknown.

  19 1385a 18.

  20 Cp. Categ. Ib 25 ff.

  21 Cp. 1382b 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. 1388b 5 and i, c. 6.

  26 ii, cc. 1 ff.

  27 i, c. 9.

  28 i, c. 6, 1363a 19.

  29 The remark is unknown.

  30 ii, c. 8, 1386a 24 and 29.

  31 viz. good birth, wealth, and power.

  32 Cp. 1360b 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, 1376a 7.

  56 Cp. ii, c. 13, 1389b 23–5.

  57 1394a 23.

  58 i, c. 2, 1356b 3, 1357a 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. 1373b 18.

  70 Euripides, Thyestes, fragm.

  71 Cp. i, c. 9, 1366b 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. 1398b 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.

&nbs
p; 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, 1357b 13, 14.

  96 Anal. Pr., ii. 27.

  97 Anal. Pr., ii. 27.

  98 i. e. an elementary class a primary type: cp. 1396b 21.

  99 Cp. Top., viii. 10.

  BOOK III

  1 In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the style, or language, to be used; third, the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech. We have already specified the sources of persuasion. We have shown that these are three in number;1 what they are; and why there are only these three: for we have shown that persuasion must in every case be effected either (1) by working on the emotions of the judges themselves, (10) (2) by giving them the right impression of the speakers’ character, or (3) by proving the truth of the statements made.

  Enthymemes also have been described, and the sources from which they should be derived; there being both special and general lines of argument for enthymemes.2

  Our next subject will be the style of expression. (15) For it is not enough to know what we ought to say; we must also say it as we ought; much help is thus afforded towards producing the right impression of a speech. The first question to receive attention was naturally the one that comes first naturally—how persuasion can be produced from the facts themselves. The second is how to set these facts out in language. A third would be the proper method of delivery; this is a thing that affects the success of a speech greatly; but hitherto the subject has been neglected. (20) Indeed, it was long before it found a way into the arts of tragic drama and epic recitation: at first poets acted their tragedies themselves. It is plain that delivery has just as much to do with oratory as with poetry. (In connexion with poetry, (25) it has been studied by Glaucon of Teos among others.) It is, essentially, a matter of the right management of the voice to express the various emotions—of speaking loudly, softly, or between the two; of high, low, or intermediate pitch; of the various rhythms that suit various subjects. (30) These are the three things—volume of sound, modulation of pitch, and rhythm—that a speaker bears in mind. It is those who do bear them in mind who usually win prizes in the dramatic contests; and just as in drama the actors now count for more than the poets, so it is in the contests of public life, owing to the defects of our political institutions. (35) No systematic treatise upon the rules of delivery has yet been composed; indeed, even the study of language made no progress till late in the day. Besides, delivery is—very properly—not regarded as an elevated subject of inquiry. [1404a] Still, the whole business of rhetoric being concerned with appearances, we must pay attention to the subject of delivery, unworthy though it is, because we cannot do without it. The right thing in speaking really is that we should be satisfied not to annoy our hearers, without trying to delight them: we ought in fairness to fight our case with no help beyond the bare facts: nothing, (5) therefore, should matter except the proof of those facts. Still, as has been already said, other things affect the result considerably, owing to the defects of our hearers. The arts of language cannot help having a small but real importance, whatever it is we have to expound to others: the way in which a thing is said does affect its intelligibility. (10) Not, however, so much importance as people think. All such arts are fanciful and meant to charm the hearer. Nobody uses fine language when teaching geometry.