Example, Induction and Enthymeme: Arguments Near the Senses

Orientation #

He begins “Let’s start with the argument called example,” treating in turn the first three of the four kinds of argument; he refers back to “the word I mentioned earlier in the course” (metaphor and translation) and to having said “a couple weeks ago” that he now drives a Honda. He works from the handout “Reasoning and the Four Kinds of Argument” (pp. 2–6, verified source), reading the Shakespeare quotations and the Cicero definition from it. The previous class defined reasoning and introduced the four kinds of argument, and the next takes up the syllogism and classifies the four kinds.

The class, in order #

1. Two senses of “example”; example vs. sample (“a singular use to illustrate the universal”) #

The word example is equivocal: its first meaning is not an argument but a singular used to illustrate a universal.

• “A glass is a tool for holding liquid; for example, here’s a glass”; a chair, a piece of chalk: illustration of the universal, not argument. Illustrating by singulars is necessary in all knowledge because our knowledge begins in the senses; a professor who speaks of universals without examples is almost impossible for students to understand.
• Sample vs. example: both use a part to indicate the whole, and the words are etymologically connected. What separates them is the kind of whole: a sample (a wedge cut from the big cheese, a piece of pie, a sip of wine) is a part of an integral/composed whole taken to indicate its quality; an example illustrates a universal whole. A student asks whether “sample” has another meaning; he answers that sample is used more for the composed whole, example for the universal.
• Aside: Monsignor Dionne praised English, which takes a word sometimes from Greek, sometimes from Latin, sometimes native — “hardly ever the word in French.”

2. Example as argument: from one singular to another (“from one singular to another singular of the same kind”) #

Aristotle’s sense: example is an argument from one singular to another singular of the same kind, and its strength depends on the likeness between the two.

• Cars: “I bought a Plymouth and it lasted ten years, so I’ll buy another Plymouth”; the father-in-law who did the same “got a lemon” — the conclusion does not follow necessarily. His Hondas start all winter in the garage where a Chevrolet would not, so he buys another Honda.
• Joseph’s restaurant, Boston: marvellous Saturday dinner (potatoes you could make a meal of), then an ordinary Monday meal with a connoisseur friend. In retrospect the grand chef may be there Saturday and “the hicks in the kitchen” Monday: the more alike the two singulars (another Saturday), the more likely the same result, though still not necessary.
• Two Chinese restaurants, one good meal and one lousy: recommending the first is a reasonable guess with a reason behind it, not a coin flip; the guess produced is what we call suspicion. “Sometimes that’s the best argument that we have.”

3. Henry V: looking before and after; foresight (“as provident as fear may teach us”) #

The French king’s speech is a political use of example: from the past English invasion to the coming one.

• Handout text: the king urges the nobles to be “as provident as fear may teach us, out of late examples left by the fatal neglected English upon our fields.” The king has experience of the last invasion; the young Dauphin, not around the first time, is overconfident about “whey-faced” northerners. This is Shakespeare’s “looking before and after”: looking at a similar past case to foresee.
• Provident = the Latin word for foresight. Thomas, on the virtue of prudence (prudentia), lists providentia as an integral part; an objection in the Summa says prudence and providence mean the same, so one cannot be part of the other — and indeed prudentia is a contraction of providentia. Thomas’s reply: the whole virtue is named from this part because it is the principal part. Churchill tends to say “foresight” rather than “prudence,” which he thinks the better word.
• MacArthur at Inchon: Washington sent the army chief of staff and the top admiral to argue against it; MacArthur said he would do exactly what Wolfe did at Quebec — climb the unclimbable hills to the Plains of Abraham and hit them where they did not expect him (“hit them where they ain’t”). Reasoning by example is automatic.
• “Fear may teach us”: Venus and Adonis, the hunted animal — “wit waits on danger” (wit = wisdom); fear makes us take counsel; Friar Lawrence, “wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast.” Aside: a friend said Monsignor Dionne’s predominant passion was fear, which made him avoid the mistakes of other thinkers.
• Student question: are the “examples left upon our fields” the dead Frenchmen? Yes — the havoc the English worked; the king stood on the hill with half his troops and watched his son the Black Prince destroy the French.

4. Example in political rhetoric and everyday life; the historian’s objection (“arguing from the past to the future”) #

Example is used above all in rhetoric, especially political rhetoric, arguing from past to future.

• Munich: appeasing Hitler (“peace in our time,” the crowds cheering, Churchill saying they would now fight under less favourable circumstances) only made him more voracious; so whenever a dictator demands something, this example is appealed to.
• The Federalist Papers argue by example constantly: the Greeks who could not unite (Peloponnesian War) — so the thirteen colonies will squabble over boundaries; the union of England and Scotland leading to prosperity — so union here.
• Students: a good mark with a professor leads to taking his next course, a low mark not; students pass such judgments to one another, using example without noticing. But the same professor may be liked in one course and hated in another (more difficult material); his own logic student who found philosophy of nature “much different”; a “Love and Friendship” course may be loved by someone who dislikes logic. Hence “of the same kind”: strength depends on how alike the two are.
• Objection from the pure historian, interested in the singular as singular: a historian he knew said “the purpose of history is to show the fallacy of all historical analogies.” His reply: seeing only the differences would rule out the reasoning we all use in choosing restaurants or cars. Example stays close to sense: singular to singular, usually past to future.

5. Induction: from many singulars toward the universal (“all frogs have a three-chambered heart”) #

Induction goes much further along the road: an argument from many singulars toward the universal, the argument used all the time in philosophy and science.

• Cutting open frog after frog with a three-chambered heart, one progresses toward “all frogs have three-chambered hearts.” Some translate the Greek and Latin definition as “going forward” from singulars toward the universal, taken from the forward movement of an animal: each singular advances you.
• Strictly the “many singulars” are singular statements (“this student has two ears”): this is how we get from the senses to the universal statements later needed for the syllogism.
• Does the conclusion follow necessarily? No — a thousand frogs without exception gives a reasonable guess, not necessity.
• “That’s what’s overlooked”: some jump to the conclusion (against Friar Lawrence’s advice) that no universal statement is known, every universal being a guess. He replies: we come to all universals by induction, but not always by induction alone. “Every whole is more than its part” is reached by seeing wholes and parts, but I understand what a whole is (something composed of parts) enough to see it must be so. Contrast “snow is white”: I do not understand snow or white enough to see it must be so, so that rests on induction alone; “no odd number is even” does not.

6. Etymologies: induction, introduction, inducement; example vs. induction (“a leading in, right”) #

Induction (Latin) and epagoge (Greek) share the etymology “leading in”: leading someone into the universal whole from its subject parts.

• Introduction / eisagoge: also “leading in,” but into a composed whole from some of its parts — an introduction to logic shows certain parts, not the whole science. Like, not the same.
• Parallel from earlier in the course: metaphor and translation have the same etymology (carried over) — translation carries over the meaning, metaphor the word — and nothing in the etymology forbids the reverse.
• Inducement: addressed now to the will or emotions rather than reason; the dealer who throws in tires or a stereo to lead you into buying — pushing, not forcing.
• Example vs. induction: example goes from part to part (one singular/particular to another); induction from parts toward the whole (many particulars to the general).

7. Why two names are Latin and two Greek (“the Greeks were the teachers of the Romans”) #

Of the English names for the four arguments, two are Latin and two Greek, as if the Latins had no native word for the last two — a sign of Greek superiority.

• Aside from a man learned in grammar: the Greeks worked out the grammar of their own language; the Romans learned Greek grammar and tacked its cases onto Latin, where they do not fit; the English then borrowed Latin grammar instead of thinking through their own language. Roman philosophy likewise is borrowed from the Greeks.

8. Enthymeme: in the mind; likelihood (“an argument from likelihood or signs”) #

Enthymeme, from en + thumos (in Plato and Aristotle usually anger or courage, but earlier the mind): “in the mind” — well named because it starts not from a singular but from something more or almost universal, something in the mind; and the speaker often leaves the universal unstated when the audience will supply it.

• Definition: an argument from likelihood or signs. A likelihood is a statement of what is true for the most part in human affairs; Cicero’s definition (on the handout): what custom or opinion of human nature would say is apt to happen in one kind of situation or be done to one kind of person. “Boys will be boys” — yet newspapers report a boy doing what you’d expect of a man, or a girl acting the mother. Latin verisimilitude; Greek eikos, related to eikon.
• “Politicians say what they say to get elected”: stated or merely implied, relying on the thought being in the hearers’ minds. A student asks whether the standard is what human nature would say; he adds: fallen human nature.
• “Give a guy an inch and he’ll take a mile”: his friend Jim — handsome, a golden-gloves boxer, a good Catholic — told “you can go as far as you like,” said “in that case I can go all the way home” and left: the exception that shows likelihood has exceptions, which is why the enthymeme lacks the strength of the syllogism. A man will not always take advantage; a politician will not always speak just to get elected.
• “I’d rather be right than president”: an old historian answered “probably somebody who didn’t have a chance” — cynical and humorous, but people take the likelihood as likely.

9. Sign (“that which strikes the senses”) #

A sign is still tied to the senses: as Augustine defined it, that which strikes the senses and brings to mind something other than itself.

• A man staggering out of a bar: you see the staggering, and it brings to mind that he is drunk. But staggering is not a necessary sign: brain-injured people his wife works with are taken by police for drunk; one staggers to bed when tired.
• His long-haired student who came in with hair neatly cut, to defend himself in court after a car accident; a policeman who saw him there took his appearance as a sign of a disordered life. Himself, after an eight- or nine-hour drive from Quebec, five miles over the limit: the trooper looked at his red eyes and said “you’ve been drinking.”
• Conclusion: most signs the rhetorician reasons from are more general than what they are taken as signs of, hence no necessity.

10. Julius Caesar: Antony’s three enthymemes; signs to universals (“But Brutus says he was ambitious”) #

Antony’s speech tries to convince the crowd that the assassins acted from envy rather than because Caesar was about to make himself dictator.

• “And Brutus is an honorable man,” repeated while hinting the contrary: the figure is irony.
• First enthymeme (likelihood, unstated): captives brought home whose ransoms filled the general coffers — did this seem ambitious? The unstated likelihood, left in the hearers’ minds: a man ambitious enough to make himself dictator looks after himself, “number one,” not his country.
• Second enthymeme (likelihood, stated): when the poor cried, Caesar wept; “ambition should be made of sterner stuff.” A man who would trample his country’s freedom is not mild and easily moved to tears — “nice guys finish last”; Mussolini, driving fast through villages, hits a child and says “don’t look back”: what you expect of such a man, ruthless.
• Third enthymeme (sign), recalled by a student: he thrice offered him a crown at the Lupercal and he refused. The crowd: “’tis certain he was not ambitious” — something they could see. But politicians say no meaning yes: Richard III, offered the throne by Buckingham, refuses while the people press him, almost “not my will but the people’s will be done” (like a candidate accepting a nomination). Refusal of honour is a sign of lack of ambition, but not a necessary sign; most signs in enthymemes are of that sort.
• Signs reaching to a universal: Aristotle’s example, Socrates is a sign that philosophers are just — very weak; like “Clinton is a sign you can’t trust your daughter with a president”; fatness a sign of a joyful, good-natured man (eating and conviviality). Not necessary signs. The class ends here, without reaching the syllogism.

His words #

• example (first sense): a singular used to illustrate the universal; not an argument.
• sample: a part of an integral/composed whole indicating its quality.
• example (Aristotle’s sense): argument from one singular to another singular of the same kind.
• suspicion: the guess produced by the argument from example.
• provident / providentia: foresight; prudentia as a contraction of it; principal integral part of prudence.
• looking before and after (Shakespeare): past case used to foresee.
• induction: argument from many singulars toward the universal; etymology “leading in” (epagoge); also rendered “going forward.”
• introduction / eisagoge: leading into a composed whole from its parts.
• inducement: leading of the will or emotions, not forcing.
• particular / general: his alternative to singular / universal.
• enthymeme: en + thumos, “in the mind”; argument from likelihood or signs.
• likelihood: statement of what is true for the most part in human affairs (Cicero’s fuller definition); verisimilitude, eikos.
• sign: what strikes the senses and brings to mind something other than itself (Augustine).
• irony: saying the contrary of what one means.

Texts #

Read in class

• Shakespeare, Henry V, the French king’s speech (“as provident as fear may teach us…”), from the handout.
• Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Antony’s speech (Brutus honorable; captives and ransoms; the poor cried; the crown thrice refused), from the handout.
• Cicero’s definition of likelihood, as stated on the handout.

Mentioned

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa, on the integral parts of prudence (objection that prudence and providence mean the same).
• Augustine’s definition of sign.
• Aristotle’s examples of sign (Socrates and philosophers being just; fatness).
• Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis (“wit waits on danger”); Romeo and Juliet, Friar Lawrence (“wisely and slow…”); Richard III (Buckingham’s offer).
• The Federalist Papers.

His questions #

• Is “for example, here’s a glass” an argument? No — a singular used to illustrate the universal.
• What is the difference between a sample and an example? The kind of whole: composed whole for sample, universal whole for example.
• What does the strength of the argument from example depend on? The likeness between the two singulars.
• How can providence be a part of prudence if the words mean the same? Thomas: the whole virtue is named from its principal part.
• If I cut open a thousand frogs, can I conclude necessarily that all frogs have three-chambered hearts? No, only a reasonable guess.
• Is it by induction alone that I know every whole is more than its part? No — I understand whole and part enough to see it must be so.
• Is staggering a necessary sign of being drunk? No; brain injury or tiredness can cause it.
• Is Antony’s likelihood stated in the first enthymeme? No, it is left in the hearers’ minds.
• What figure is “and Brutus is an honorable man”? Irony.
• Is refusing the crown a necessary sign of lack of ambition? No — a politician’s no can mean yes (Richard III).