The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  Another is founded upon some decision already pronounced, whether on the same subject or on one like it or contrary to it. Such a proof is most effective if everyone has always decided thus; but if not everyone, then at any rate most people; [20] or if all, or most, wise or good men have thus decided, or the actual judges of the present question, or those whose authority they accept, or anyone whose decision they cannot contradict because he has complete control over them, or those whom it is not seemly to contradict, as the gods, or one’s father, or one’s teachers. Thus [25] Autocles said, when attacking Mixidemides, that it was a strange thing that the Dread Goddesses could without loss of dignity submit to the judgement of the Areopagus, and yet Mixidemides could not. Or as Sappho said, ‘Death is an evil thing; the gods have so judged it, or they would die’. Or again as Aristippus said in reply to Plato when he spoke somewhat too dogmatically, as Aristippus thought: [30] ‘Well, anyhow, our friend’, meaning Socrates, ‘never spoke like that’. And Hegesippus, having previously consulted Zeus at Olympia, asked Apollo at Delphi ‘whether his opinion was the same as his father’s’, implying that it would be [1399a1] shameful for him to contradict his father. Thus too Isocrates argued that Helen must have been a good woman, because Theseus decided that she was; and Paris a good man, because the goddesses chose him before all others; and Evagoras also, says Isocrates, was good, since when Conon met with his misfortune he betook [5] himself to Evagoras without trying anyone else on the way.

  Another consists in taking separately the parts of a subject. Such is that given in the Topics:38 ‘What sort of motion is the soul? for it must be this or that’. The Socrates of Theodectes provides an example: ‘What temple has he profaned? What gods recognized by the state has he not honoured?’ [10]

  Again, since it happens that any given thing usually has both good and bad consequences, another line of argument consists in using those consequences as a reason for urging that a thing should or should not be done, for prosecuting or defending anyone, for eulogy or censure. E.g. education leads both to unpopularity, which is bad, and to wisdom, which is good. Hence you either argue, ‘It is therefore not well to be educated, since it is not well to be unpopular,’ or you answer, ‘No, it is well to be educated, since it is well to be wise’. The Art of Rhetoric of Callippus is [15] made up of this commonplace, with the addition of those of possibility and the others of that kind already described.

  Another is used when we have to urge or discourage a course of action that may be done in either of two opposite ways, and have to apply the method just mentioned to both. The difference between this one and the last is that, whereas in the last any two things are contrasted, here the things contrasted are opposites. For [20] instance, the priestess enjoined upon her son not to take to public speaking: ‘For’, she said, ‘if you say what is right, men will hate you; if you say what is wrong, the gods will hate you’. The reply might be, ‘On the contrary, you ought to take to public speaking: for if you say what is right, the gods will love you; if you say what is [25] wrong, men will love you’. This amounts to the proverbial ‘buying the marsh with the salt’. And this is ‘bending back’—when each of two opposites has both a good and a bad consequence opposite respectively to each other.

  Another is this: the things people approve of openly are not those which they [30] approve of secretly: openly, their chief praise is given to justice and nobleness; but in their hearts they prefer their own advantage. Try, in face of this, to establish the point of view which your opponent has not adopted. This is the most effective of the forms of argument that contradict common opinion.

  Another line is that of rational correspondence. E.g. Iphicrates, when they were trying to compel his son, a youth under the prescribed age, to perform one of the state duties because he was tall, said ‘If you count tall boys men, you will next be [1399b1] voting short men boys’. And Theodectes in his Law said, ‘You make citizens of such mercenaries as Strabax and Charidemus, as a reward of their merits; will you not make exiles of such citizens as those who have done irreparable harm among the [5] mercenaries?’

  Another line is the argument that if two results are the same their antecedents are also the same. For instance, it was a saying of Xenophanes that to assert that the gods had birth is as impious as to say that they die; the consequence of both statements is that there is a time when the gods do not exist. This line of proof assumes generally that the result of any given thing is always the same: e.g. ‘you are [10] going to decide not about Isocrates, but about the value of the whole profession of philosophy’. Or, ‘to give earth and water’ means slavery; or, ‘to share in the Common Peace’ means obeying orders. We are to make either such assumptions or their opposite, as suits us best.

  Another is based on the fact that men do not always make the same choice on a [15] later as on an earlier occasion, but reverse their previous choice. E.g. the following enthymeme: ‘When we were exiles, we fought in order to return; now we have returned, it would be strange to choose exile in order not to have to fight’. On one occasion, that is, they chose to be true to their homes at the cost of fighting, and on the other to avoid fighting at the cost of deserting their homes.

  [20] Another is the assertion that some possible motive for an event or state of things is the real one: e.g. that a gift was given in order to cause pain by its withdrawal. This notion underlies the lines:

  God gives to many great prosperity,

  Not of good will towards them, but to make

  The ruin of them more conspicuous.39

  [25] Or take the passage from the Meleager of Antiphon:

  To slay no boar, but to be witnesses

  Of Meleager’s prowess unto Greece.40

  Or the argument in the Ajax of Theodectes, that Diomede chose out Odysseus not to do him honour, but in order that his companion might be a lesser man than himself—such a motive for doing so is quite possible. [30]

  Another is common to forensic and deliberative oratory, namely, to consider inducements and deterrents, and the motives people have for doing or avoiding the actions in question. These are the conditions which make us bound to act if they are for us, and to refrain from action if they are against us: that is, we are bound to act if the action is possible, easy, and useful to ourselves or our friends or hurtful to our [35] enemies; this is true even if the action entails loss, provided the loss is outweighed by the solid advantage. These same arguments also form the materials for accusation [1400a1] or defence—the deterrents being pointed out by the defence, and the inducements by the prosecution. This topic forms the whole Art of Rhetoric both of Pamphilus and of Callippus.

  Another refers to things which are supposed to happen and yet seem [5] incredible. We may argue that people could not have believed them, if they had not been true or nearly true. And that they are the more likely to be true because they are incredible; for the things which men believe are either facts or probabilities: if, therefore, a thing that is believed is improbable and incredible, it must be true, since it is certainly not believed because it is at all probable or credible. An example is what Androcles of the deme Pitthus said in his arraignment of the law. The audience tried to shout him down when he observed that the laws required a law to [10] set them right. ‘Why’, he went on, ‘fish need salt’, improbable and incredible as this might seem for creatures reared in salt water; ‘and olive-cakes need oil’, incredible as it is that what produces oil should need it.

  Another line is to refute our opponent’s case by noting any disagreements: [15] first, in the case of our opponent [[if there is any disagreement among all his dates, sections, and statements]],41 e.g. ‘He says he is devoted to you, yet he conspired with the Thirty’; secondly, bearing on our own conduct, e.g. ‘He says I am litigious, and yet he cannot prove that I have been engaged in a single lawsuit’; thirdly, referring to both of us together, e.g. ‘He has never even lent anyone a penny, but I have [20] ransomed quite a number of you’.

  Another line that is u
seful for men and causes that have been really or seemingly slandered, is to show why the facts are not as supposed; pointing out that there is a reason for the false impression given. Thus a woman, who had palmed off her son on another woman, was thought to be the lad’s mistress because she [25] embraced him; but when her action was explained the charge was shown to be groundless. Another example is from the Ajax of Theodectes, where Odysseus tells Ajax the reason why, though he is really braver than Ajax, he is not thought so.

  Another is to show that if the cause is present, the effect is present, and if absent, absent. For cause and effect go together, and nothing can exist without a [30] cause. Thus Thrasybulus accused Leodamas of having had his name recorded as a criminal on the slab in the Acropolis, and of erasing the record in the time of the Thirty Tyrants: to which Leodamas replied, ‘Impossible: for the Thirty would have [35] trusted me all the more if my quarrel with the commons had been inscribed on the slab’.

  Another line is to consider whether the accused person can take or could have taken a better course than that which he is recommending or taking, or has taken. If [1400b1] so, it is clear that he is not guilty, since no one voluntarily and knowingly chooses what is bad. This argument is, however, fallacious, for it often becomes clear after the event how the action could have been done better, though before the event this was far from clear.

  Another line is, when a contemplated action is inconsistent with any past [5] action, to examine them both together. Thus, when the people of Elea asked Xenophanes if they should or should not sacrifice to Leucothea and mourn for her, he advised them not to mourn for her if they thought her a goddess, and not to sacrifice to her if they thought her a mortal woman.

  Another line is to make previous mistakes the grounds of accusation or [10] defence. Thus, in the Medea of Carcinus the accusers allege that Medea has slain her children; ‘at all events’, they say, ‘they are not to be seen’—Medea having made the mistake of sending her children away. In defence she argues that it is not her children, but Jason, whom she would have slain; for it would have been a mistake on [15] her part not to do this if she had done the other. This enthymematic commonplace and type forms the whole of the Art of Rhetoric in use before Theodorus.

  Another line is to draw meanings from names. Sophocles, for instance, says,

  O steel in heart as thou art steel in name.42

  This is common in praises of the gods. Thus, too, Conon called Thrasybulus rash in [20] counsel. And Herodicus said of Thrasymachus, ‘You are always bold in battle’; of Polus, ‘you are always a colt; and of the legislator Draco that his laws were those not of a human being but of a dragon, so savage were they. And, in Euripides, Hecuba says of Aphrodite,

  Her name and Folly’s rightly begin alike,43

  and Chaeremon writes:

  [25] Pentheus—a name foreshadowing grief to come.44

  The refutative enthymeme has a greater reputation than the demonstrative, because within a small space it works out two opposing arguments, and arguments put side by side are clearer to the audience. But of all deductions, whether refutative [30] or demonstrative, those are most applauded of which we foresee the conclusions from the beginning, so long as they are not obvious at first sight—for part of the pleasure we feel is at our own intelligent anticipation; or those which we follow well enough to see the point of them as soon as the last word has been uttered.

  24 · Besides genuine deductions there may be deductions that look genuine but are not; and since an enthymeme is a deduction of a particular kind, it follows [35] that, besides genuine enthymemes, there may be those that look genuine but are not.

  Among the commonplaces that form the spurious enthymeme the first is that [1401a1] which arises from the particular words employed. One variety of this is when—as in dialectic, without having gone through any reasoning process, we make a final statement as if it were the conclusion of such a process, ‘Therefore so-and-so is not true’, ‘Therefore also so-and-so must be true’—so too in enthymemes a compact and antithetical utterance passes for an enthymeme, such language being the proper [5] province of enthymeme, so that it is seemingly the form of wording here that causes the illusion mentioned. In order to produce the effect of genuine reasoning by our form of wording it is useful to summarize the results of a number of previous reasonings: as ‘some he saved—others he avenged—the Greeks he freed’. Each of [10] these statements has been previously proved from other facts; but the collocation of them gives the impression of establishing some fresh conclusion.

  Another variety is based on homonymy; e.g. the argument that the mouse must be a noble creature, since it gives its name to the most august of all religious rites—for such the Mysteries are. Or one may introduce, into a eulogy of the dog, [15] the dog-star; or Pan, because Pindar said:

  O thou blessed one!

  Thou whom they of Olympus call

  The hound of manifold shape

  That follows the Mother of Heaven;45

  or we may argue that, because there is much disgrace in there not being a dog about, there is honour in being a dog. Or that Hermes is readier than any other god [20] to go shares, since we never say ‘shares all round’ except of him. Or that speech is a very excellent thing, since good men are not said to be worth money but to be worthy of esteem—the phrase ‘worthy of esteem’ also having the meaning of ‘worth speech’.

  Another line is to assert of the whole what is true of the parts, or of the parts what is true of the whole. A whole and its parts are supposed to be identical, though [25] often they are not. You have therefore to adopt whichever of these two lines better suits your purpose. That is how Euthydemus argues; e.g. that anyone knows that there is a trireme in the Peiraeus, since he knows the separate details that make up this statement. There is also the argument that one who knows the letters knows the whole word, since the word is the same thing as the letters which compose it; or that, if a double portion of a certain thing is harmful to health, then a single portion must not [30] be called wholesome, since it is absurd that two good things should make one bad thing. Put thus, the enthymeme is refutative; put as follows, demonstrative: ‘For one good thing cannot be made up of two bad things’. The whole commonplace is fallacious. Again, there is Polycrates’ saying that Thrasybulus put down thirty [35] tyrants, where the speaker adds them up one by one. Or the argument in the Orestes of Theodectes, where the argument is from part to whole:

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

  ‘It is right, too, that the son should avenge his father. Very good: these two things [1401b1] are what Orestes has done’. 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.

  Another commonplace is the use of indignant language, whether to support your own case or to overthrow your opponent’s. We do this when we paint a [5] 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 does,46 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.

  [10] Another line is to use a sign, which, again, yields no deduction. Thus, 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. Or, again, that Dionysius is a thief, since he is a vicious man—there is, of course, no deduction here; not every vicious man is a thief, though every thief is a vicious man.

  [15] Another line relies on the accidental. 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. In fact,
what angered him was the insult involved; it was a mere accident that this was the particular form that the insult took.

  [20] Another is the argument from consequence. In the Alexander, 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. Another [25] 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.

  [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.

  Another line consists in leaving out any mention of time and circumstances. [35] E.g. the argument that Paris was justified in taking Helen, 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. Or again, one might say that to strike a free man is an act of wanton outrage; but it is not so in [1402a1] every case—only when it is unprovoked.