The Dialectician's Tools: Probable Premises, Senses of Words, and Differences

Orientation #

He opens “let’s look a little bit more at dialectic” and recalls “we mentioned before when we talked about induction” that we always come to universals through induction (prev. lecture). He treats the four tools in Topics I, saying he will not teach the whole logic but “some basic things that you can use”; he does not finish the third tool and promises “more examples of that when we get down.” Verified sources place the exercise in the handout “A Note on Practical Philosophy”, p. 9 (and DHB Vol. III, p. 1078). The previous class treated demonstrative vs. dialectical syllogism and per se necessity; the next treats the fourth tool (proportional likeness) and dialectical places.

The class, in order #

1. The dialectician’s two arguments (“induction by itself doesn’t tell you”) #

Point: the dialectician uses not only the dialectical syllogism but induction, which is more his argument than the demonstrator’s.

1. Induction by itself does not show that something must be so: a thousand frogs each with a three-chambered heart makes “all frogs have three-chambered hearts” very probable, not necessary; a thousand odd numbers (indeed an infinity of them) do not show all numbers are odd.
2. We always come to universal statements through induction (prev. lecture), but in some cases only through induction (then we have a kind of probability), in others through understanding better the terms of which the statement is composed.
   • A whole is larger than its part: first met by seeing wholes and parts, but a whole as such has parts, so to say it is no more than one of its parts is “a real contradiction.”
   • No odd number is even: first met by induction, but seen to be impossible “by definition.” Conclusion: dialectical syllogism and induction are the two arguments of the dialectician.

2. Dialectic beside rhetoric (“art for guessing about the universal”) #

Distinction: dialectic vs. the argumentative part of rhetoric. Both enable a reasonable guess; rhetoric’s two arguments are the enthymeme and the example. What separates them is the object: dialectic guesses about something universal (whether virtue can be taught); rhetoric guesses about the singular contingent in human affairs (whether this man is guilty, whether to go to war with this country), since we are not much interested in the singular elsewhere.

3. The four tools; first tool, selecting probable premises (“ability to select probable statements”) #

Point: in Topics I Aristotle distinguishes four tools of the dialectician (Albert the Great, in his commentary, says this is in a way an art by itself); the later books give places for using them. The fundamental tool is the ability to select probable premises.

• This involves recognizing what a probable opinion is: the opinions of all or most men, of all or most in an art or science, or of the most famous. The first you meet by living with men; the second you are partly exposed to without searching (“Einstein or somebody quoted”), but may have to read: “smoking is dangerous to your health” as what most doctors say.
• Aristotle speaks of dividing the opinions according to the matter, roughly as the sciences divide: the natural; those contributing to choice and avoidance (ethics); those pertaining to logic. “That sounds kind of obvious, but you’d be surprised how it’s ignored.”
• Aside: post-Vatican II “ecumenical” textbooks placed a selection from Aristotle’s three books on the soul beside Marx on man in society, a false dichotomy; Marx should be set against the Politics (“man is by nature a political animal”), not as if Aristotle thought man merely “something that has a soul.”
• Third, ordering them from the general to the particular, so you can quickly select the most basic opinions, which influence all the person’s other thinking, especially a man’s definition of something: if you think philosophy is in the search, that governs everything else, and you will not be looking for demonstrations.
• The tool requires experience of men in general and some experience in the particular fields: he always keeps in mind Einstein’s general opinion that the hypothesis is freely imagined, more useful than Einstein’s particular views on quantum theory, since it comes up with every hypothesis; Einstein says creating theories is like writing a novel, closer to literature than philosophy, “not a means of knowledge.”

4. Student question: ordering from general to particular (“ordering them from the general”) #

Point: in ethics the most basic opinions are about good and better, more general than justice, courage or temperance, which are more general than premarital sex.

• First definition of good: the good is what all desire. Socrates in the Euthyphro teaches the fundamental question to ask next: do you want it because it is good, or is it good because you want it? Proceeding correctly you eventually see we want it because it is good, “but there’s all kinds of difficulties before you can see that.”
• If good means “because you want it,” then nothing is good or bad in itself, and better means wanted more; “all kinds of people running around with that idea.”
• In his ethics course the first thing shown is that something is not good because we want it, from obvious examples where the wanter himself recognizes it: the party guest who says yes to one drink too many; the kid who wanted to drive 100 mph down the curvy road and ended in a tree. Then one syllogizes: not better because wanted more, because not good because wanted.
• Application: Socrates’ disagreement with the Athenians in the Apology over whether goods of the body and exterior goods or goods of the soul are better. A false solution: “if you want those more, go for those.” Once the first point is shown, “the ball game is over”; a reason must be given, and there is one fallacious reason for the body’s goods (not hard to solve) but many reasons for the soul’s.
• On the better, Aristotle’s general statements: the end is better than what is for the sake of the end; the whole better than the part. From these one goes down to the chief good of man, then to courage, temperance, justice.
• Same in political philosophy: from “man is by nature a political animal” (not self-sufficient; without society “either a beast or a god”) down to the need for government and its forms. The most common opinions come up again and again.

5. Second tool: distinguishing the senses of a word (“distinguish the senses of a word”) #

Point: the second, third and fourth tools presuppose the first; the second is the ability to distinguish the senses of a word, useful for clarity, for avoiding equivocation (“the most common mistake in thinking according to the father of logic”; the fallacy makes one a sophist knowingly or not), and for multiplying probable opinions: “the good is desirable” becomes three statements once good is divided into useful, pleasant, reasonable. Aristotle gives several ways; the most basic are looking at the opposite and looking at the word in combination.

• Dry: opposite in cloth is wet, in wine is sweet; different opposites show different senses. And if one opposite has two meanings, the other has two.
• Many: Porphyry’s definitions of genus (a name said with one meaning of many things other in kind, signifying what it is) and difference (signifying how they are what they are) use “many.” “Many children” means more than two, many opposed to few; but many opposed to one means more than one. The definitions use the second sense: a genus may have only two species (number into odd and even, habit into virtue and vice), so he sometimes says “more than one” to avoid equivocation. Likewise an equivocal word has “many” meanings, i.e. more than one, not necessarily five or six.
• Combination: define “dry wine” and “dry cloth” and drop the noun; what remains differs. These are “places” to look, which is why the book is called about places.
• Liberal (a harder case): in ethics opposite is the miser, stingy; in education opposite is servile (Aristotle’s liberal vs. slavish; Shakespeare’s editors still cite “liberal and servile arts”); in politics opposite is conservative. Three meanings, though a liberal may think the conservative both servile and stingy, and there is an almost metaphorical likeness: Aristotle in the second book of wisdom says some think precision in argument is stingy; Shakespeare’s “niggard truth” (niggard = stingy) is truth that does not flatter, opposed to sweet flattery that keeps peace. Joke: the political liberal is liberal with other people’s money, unlike the truly liberal man generous with his own; politically liberal professors voting their own pocketbook on raise formulas (percentage vs. flat increments by rank). Meanings sometimes get conflated (“liberal education” as traditional vs. as befitting a free man).
• “It shows you how close the budget is tied here to words” [ASR; likely “how close dialectic is tied to words”]: all probable opinions are expressed in words, which are for the most part equivocal.
• Asides: a Harvard professor giving two grades (inflated for the record, real for the student); his own dean at St. Mary’s questioning a tough-marking colleague; Ross at the College of St. Thomas (“A is for God, B is for Ross, C is for geniuses, D’s for the rest of you”); his teacher Kasuric [unclear in recording] wondering who ranked lower.

6. The exercise: number said of two and one (“multitude measured by the unit”) #

Point: going through the handout exercise (equivocal or univocal?), the first hard case is number.

• Dry (wine, cloth): equivocal, obvious. Number (two, three): univocal.
• Euclid defines number as a multitude composed of units, Aristotle as a multitude measured by the unit; so one is not a number. First meaning, still in daily speech: one would not say “a number of heads” or “a number of wives” (unless wishing to be taken for a Utah polygamist); Shakespeare in Phoenix and the Turtle has love eliminate number, since it makes lover and loved one; a hand has a number of fingers but only one thumb.
• Yet Euclid sometimes uses number to include one: his theorem that numbers prime to one another are the least of those in the same ratio and measure all others in that ratio (2:3 measures 4:6, 10:15, the smaller by the smaller) breaks down for 2:4, 3:6, 6:12 unless 1:2 counts, since two does not measure three.
• So number said of two and one is equivocal, but not by chance: equivocal by reason, because two is composed of ones, and one has to two the ratio three has to six. More reason to call one a number than to call a point a line, since a point has no ratio to a line. “Most people don’t realize that,” being used to the moderns calling one a number.

7. The exercise continued (“divisible forever”) #

Each item with the class’s verdict and his gloss:

• Number of odd and even: univocal. Square of four and nine: univocal. Square of a number and a quadrilateral: equivocal, with a likeness. Student: Euclid calls factors “sides” of a number; he agrees, but not the same sense of side as a three-sided triangle.
• Line of straight and curved: univocal, both length without width. Line of straight line and line of argument: equivocal. Limit of point and line: univocal (as extremity).
• Continuous of a line and the proportion 4:6::6:9: equivocal. Categories: two kinds of quantity, continuous and discrete (de Broglie has a book on the continuous and discrete in modern science). Continuous has two definitions: divisible forever (Physics VI, “Natural Hearing”) and that whose parts meet at a common boundary (parts of a line at a point, of a surface at a line, of a body at a surface). Numbers divide only down to one and their parts (two and three in six) meet nowhere. A continuous proportion (4:6::6:9) has a likeness: the same term ends one and begins the next, unlike 2:3::4:6. Likewise continuous syllogisms (conclusion of one is premise of the next) and continuous definitions (quadrilateral defined, then used in defining square); reasoned-out knowledge is an effect of continuous syllogisms, as Euclid proves and uses.
• Body of a stone and a geometrical sphere: equivocal, different genera (substance vs. quantity). Healthy and sick of body and soul: equivocal (“psychological problem” names the thing from the science that studies it; say “sick soul”). Healthy of body and diet: equivocal by reason, diet connected with the body’s health. Convertible of automobile and statement: equivocal.
• Good of pleasing and reasonable: equivocal; premarital sex good as pleasing, not as reasonable; what is good simply for a man is the reasonable. Good of beautiful and useful: equivocal, as good said of end and means.
• Science of geometry and logic: univocal, both reasoned-out knowledge, effect of demonstration. Science of geometry and experimental science: equivocal, since the freely imagined hypothesis is tested, not demonstrated: “if my hypothesis is correct there will be an eclipse at nine; there is; therefore” is not a syllogism (if A then B; B; therefore A), though more and more precise confirmed predictions raise probability.
• Seeing of the eye and understanding, and of the eye and imagining: equivocal. Hamlet’s “in my mind’s eye” means imagination or memory; Gregory the Great’s “anger disturbs the eye of the soul” is a metaphor for reason.
• Dog of living and dead dog: equivocal; a dead dog is no longer an animal, as a destroyed house is not a house nor a melted ice cube an ice cube; to insist is to be equivocal.

8. Another way: the genus the word falls in (“genera of which the word is”) #

Point: another of Aristotle’s ways is seeing the genus a word belongs to, so knowing the categories helps.

• Body: in quantity (line, surface, body) vs. in substance.
• Disposition: a species of quality; almost a category by itself (position); and pertaining to quantity (continuous quantity as that whose parts have position; disposition of matter): three senses.
• Habit (hexis, habitus): its own category (being clothed; a monk’s habit); a quality, virtue or vice; and anything had, the positive as opposed to a lack.
• Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas always distinguish senses when needed; modern philosophers use words in new senses without distinguishing, “you don’t know what they’re saying.” Warren Murray showing value is not the same as good by asking for the opposite of each.

9. Third tool: seeing the difference (“close together than … far apart”) #

Point: the ability to see a difference is almost natural, so no rules; but the mind is exercised more in seeing the difference between things close together than far apart (start with the far apart, since easier).

• The Meno: in solving arguments to contradictory sides, can a man be directed to the good by right opinion, not only knowledge? His fork-in-the-road example: one gets to Boston as well thinking as knowing this is the road. Meno then asks whether there is any difference at all. Between false opinion and knowledge the difference is obvious (one false, one true); right opinion and knowledge both think what is true, so much closer.
• The difference: in knowledge you are certain, what you think is “tied down” by knowledge of the cause; in right opinion it is not firmly tied and something might change your mind. This is how Socrates explains demonstration: the reason why something must be so. The jokester or a changed sign can talk you off the right road; buildings gone from the skyline make you doubt it is New York; parents’ moral teaching undone by a smart professor at college.
• He closes: this matters for asking whether two things are the same or different, and also for defining; he breaks off there (“for those two things …”).

His words #

• “book about places” [ed.: Topics]; he notes the Greek title means places, not “topics” in the modern sense
• probable opinion: held by all or most men, or all or most in an art, or the most famous
• the good: what all desire / what all want
• “Natural Hearing, the Physics” [ed.: Physics]
• “second book of wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics II]
• “nivocal” (ASR) = univocal, one meaning; equivocal, more than one meaning
• equivocal by reason vs. equivocal by chance
• continuous: divisible forever; that whose parts meet at a common boundary
• continuous proportion, continuous syllogisms, continuous definitions
• habit: hexis, habitus
• “tied down” (of what is thought in knowledge, from the Meno)

Texts #

Read in class

• Aristotle, Topics, Book I (the four tools; probable premises divided by matter and ordered general to particular; ways of distinguishing senses)
• Handout exercise on univocal/equivocal words (A Note on Practical Philosophy, p. 9, verified source)
• Plato, Meno (knowledge vs. right opinion, knowledge tied down by the cause) Mentioned
• Albert the Great, commentary on the Topics
• Plato, Euthyphro (do you want it because it is good, or is it good because you want it?)
• Plato, Apology (Socrates vs. the Athenians on goods of soul and body)
• Aristotle, On the Soul (three books); Politics (man by nature a political animal)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics II (“second book of wisdom”, on those who dislike precision)
• Aristotle, Physics VI (continuous as divisible forever); Categories (quantity, quality, position, habit)
• Euclid, Elements, definition of number and the books on numbers (least numbers in a ratio) (inferred: Book VII)
• Porphyry, definitions of genus and difference
• Shakespeare, Sonnets (“niggard truth”); Phoenix and the Turtle; Hamlet (“mind’s eye”)
• Gregory the Great (“anger disturbs the eye of the soul”)
• Einstein on the freely imagined hypothesis; Louis de Broglie on the continuous and discrete; Marx

His questions #

• Does it follow necessarily that all frogs have three-chambered hearts because a thousand did? No; it becomes very probable, not necessary.
• Do you want it because it is good, or is it good because you want it? Eventually seen: we want it because it is good; shown first from cases where the wanter himself sees it was not good.
• If someone says he has many children, what would you think he means? More than two (many vs. few); but in genus and difference “many” means more than one.
• What is the opposite of liberal in ethics, in education, in politics? Miser/stingy; servile; conservative: three meanings.
• Number said of two and one, univocal or equivocal? Equivocal, but by reason, since number is composed of ones and one has a ratio to a number.
• What are the least numbers in the ratio 2:4, 6:12? One to two; so Euclid’s theorem needs one to count as a number.
• Science said of geometry and experimental science? Equivocal: experimental science is not reasoned-out knowledge; confirming a hypothesis is not a syllogism.
• Is a destroyed house still a house? No, no more than a melted ice cube is an ice cube or a dead dog a dog.
• What is the difference between right opinion and knowledge? In knowledge you are certain, tied down by the cause; right opinion can be changed.