Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Sophistical Refutations

Translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge

Chapter 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?’ ‘Do 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 of 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 if 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…” ’

Chapter 23

Chapter 25