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The Routledge Companion to Medieval Philosophy Kinds Of This article was downloaded by: 10.3.98.104 On: 03 Oct 2021 Access details: subscription number Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG, UK The Routledge Companion to Medieval Philosophy Richard Cross, JT Paasch Kinds of Argument Publication details https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315709604-5 Sara L. Uckelman Published online on: 13 Jan 2021 How to cite :- Sara L. Uckelman. 13 Jan 2021, Kinds of Argument from: The Routledge Companion to Medieval Philosophy Routledge Accessed on: 03 Oct 2021 https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315709604-5 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR DOCUMENT Full terms and conditions of use: https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/legal-notices/terms This Document PDF may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproductions, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The publisher shall not be liable for an loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. 3 KINDS OF ARGUMENT Sara L. Uckelman Introduction The central methodology in western philosophy from the ancient Greeks until the present day is argumentation. Faced with someone who doesn’t hold the same philosophical views as you do, the most expedient way to “convert” them is to give them a good argument for doing so. This emphasis on argumentation falls out of the intrinsically dialectic and multi-agent nature of phi- losophy in the Greek academic and public spheres, where philosophy, politics, and rhetoric were closely entwined. Philosophy was not merely a single person sitting at home in his armchair but also many people speaking to and interacting with many other people, with opposing views and positions. Thus, a good philosopher was one that was able to convince others of his views, on the best and purest of grounds. (The close relationship between the study of rhetoric and the study of philosophy in ancient Greece is a testament of this.) What counts as the best grounds for persua- sion becomes a matter of what argumentative procedures are best, and this itself is a question of what are the best types of arguments, or which kinds of arguments are better than others. What counts as a good argument depends on the context: if all that you care about is persuading your opponent of your views, by any means possible, then you might have more argumentative types at your disposal than if your goal is providing firm epistemological foundations for knowledge. Similarly, if all you care about is winning a debate, you will be able to make use of types of ar- guments that are not appropriate to use if you’re engaged in a cooperative effort directed at truth. Aristotle discusses all these matters in a number of works, including the Prior and Posterior An- alytics, which discuss syllogisms and syllogistic reasoning (see the section “Syllogistic Arguments” below); the Topics, which discusses non-syllogistic reasoning (see the section “Non-Syllogistic Argu- ments”); and the Sophistical Refutations, which focuses on the merely persuasive aspects of argumen- tation (see the section “Sophistical Arguments”). Some of these texts were transmitted into Latin via Boethius’s translations from the early sixth century, while others were introduced in the mid-twelfth century either through the rediscovery of lost translations by Boethius or through new translations by James of Venice (Dod 1982). These texts provided the foundation for the philosophical method in western Europe in the Middle Ages. As a result, in this chapter, we will constantly be referring back to the authority of Aristotle, just as medieval philosophers and logicians did. His distinctions provide us with the means for constructing useful typologies of arguments, and we will use these to guide our tour of the kinds of arguments that occur in medieval philosophy. Before we begin the tour, it is important to note that we will not be establishing a single typology that exhaustively covers all kinds of arguments. Instead, it is more fruitful to look at 31 Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 04:39 03 Oct 2021; For: 9781315709604, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315709604-5 Sara L. Uckelman overlapping typologies, such that a single argument type can be described differently according to the focus that a certain typology picks out. We consider three typologies, each of which has a different focus or picks out a different relevant characteristic of the argument: 1 The outcome of the argument (the section “Arguments According to Their Outcome”) 2 The form of the argument (the section “Arguments According to Their Form”) 3 The goal or purpose of the argument (the section “Arguments According to Goal or Purpose”) Additionally, in this chapter, we focus on a relatively narrow period in medieval philosophy, specifically the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This is not because arguments were not used in other periods (quite the contrary, given what we noted above) but rather because these two centuries were the high period of logic in the Middle Ages. Because we are interested in the types of arguments used in medieval philosophy, as opposed to the specific ways in which they were employed, we concentrate on the theoretical development of argumentation, and it is in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries that we find the most interesting and explicit discussions of the types and properties of arguments, their role and purpose, and their correct and incorrect deployment. Arguments According to Their Outcome The first typology we take up comes directly from Aristotle, who in Topics I.1 divides arguments into three types: demonstrative, dialectical, and sophistical. Medieval authors picked up on this tri- partite division and adopted it. As William of Sherwood explains in his Introduction to Logic (c. 1250): A demonstrative syllogism1 is one that produces scientific knowledge on the basis of necessary [premisses] and the most certain reasons for the conclusion. A dialectical syllogism, however, is one that produces opinion on the basis of probable [premisses]. Finally, a sophistical syllo- gism is one that either syllogizes on the basis of seemingly probable [premisses] or seemingly syllogizes on the basis of probable [premisses]; in either case it is strictly aimed at glory or victory. (1966: 69) Roger Bacon in his Art and Science of Logic (mid-thirteenth century) distinguishes these three types of arguments on the basis of the ways in which the premises of an argument are said to cause the conclusion. There are three sorts of causes: (1) a cause of implying a conclusion only, (2) a cause of implying and proving it, and (3) a cause of implying and proving it and of its being (2009: 305). In a dialectical argument, the premises are the cause of both implying and proving the conclusion; in a demonstrative argument, the premises are also the cause of the being of the conclusion. In sophistical arguments, on the other hand, the premises are not causally related to the conclusion in any way except merely apparently.2 This is a typology which divides arguments on the basis of their outcomes, or what it is that the argument proves. Demonstrative arguments produce certain, scientific knowledge. Dialectical arguments are not as strong as demonstrative arguments, but nevertheless, the conclusions arising from them have a degree of stability; they are, for the most part, going to be reliable. Sophistical arguments, on the other hand, because they are based on premises which are only seemingly prob- able, or which argue in a way which is only seemingly correct but not actually, produce rubbish. They are not a reliable guide to the truth; instead, they are used in circumstances where what is important is merely to win, or, as Bacon puts it, when the arguer “intends to acquire glory and apparent wisdom for himself, [and] he also intends victory over a respondent” (2009: 376). 32 Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 04:39 03 Oct 2021; For: 9781315709604, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315709604-5 Kinds of Argument Demonstrative Arguments A demonstrative argument is one which produces knowledge; they are the topic of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, which discusses how scientific knowledge and discovery is possible. For Aristotle, scientific knowledge is knowledge “[of] the cause why the thing is, that it is the cause of this, and that this cannot be otherwise” (APo. I.2). Despite the fact that William of Sherwood mentions demonstrative arguments in his text, he does not go on to discuss them further, focusing on dialectical/probable and sophistical argumentation instead. Bacon discusses demonstrative ar- guments and identifies two types: demonstrations quia “because” and demonstrations propter quid “because of which.” The latter is the most basic. A demonstration propter quid is “that by which an effect is made known through a cause,” and (quoting Aristotle) “from things that are primary, true, and immediate, and are prior to, better known than, and the causes of a conclusion”; for this sort of demonstration, the premises must be not only true but also necessary (2009: 304). A demonstration quia, on the other hand, either reason from effect back to cause or from a remote or non- proximate cause to effect (2009: 323). An example of the first is when it is argued that “the planets are near because they do not twinkle” or “a triangle is a plane figure [because] it has three angles equal to two right angles” (2009: 323).
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