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Critical Review Aristotle on False Reasoning: Language and the World in the Sophistical Refutations SCOTT G

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Critical Review Aristotle on False Reasoning: Language and the World in the Sophistical Refutations SCOTT G Critical Review Aristotle on False Reasoning: Language and the World in the Sophistical Refutations SCOTT G. SCHREIBER Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. xvi +248. Hardcover: ISBN 0-794-5659-5, US$68.50; paperback: ISBN 0-7914-5660-9, US$22.95. Reviewed by George Boger 1. Overview Schreiber's examination of Aristotle's treatment of the 'traditional' fallacies in Sophistical Refutations (SR) is well worth the attention of logicians, philosophers, argumentation theorists, and classicists who desire a better understanding of Aris­ totle's ancient accomplishments relating to logic and argumentation. While Schreiber occasionally engages contemporary argumentation theorists l about fallacious rea­ soning and their assessment of Aristotle, his principal concern is historical and not directly to resolve modern problems concerning a typology of mistakes. Thus he early establishes the error of reducing all sophistical argumentations to linguistic problems. Nevertheless, because he emphasizes the non-formal aspects of falla­ cious reasoning, he might strike a chord with argumentation theorists. Sti11, he does not aim to accommodate modern predilections but to make clear Aristotle's "philosophical justification ... for his classification offallacies" (xiv), which he successfully argues is "principled and nonarbitrary" (7). He accomplishes this through numerous analyses of each kind of fallacy according to a comprehensive method that includes: (1) considering Aristotle's understanding of the relationship between language and nature; (2) embracing Aristotle's notion of explanation; (3) recognizing the role Aristotle assigns to resolution for categorizing a fallacy; (4) working with the definitions of a syllogism and a refutation; and (5) invoking the principle of parsimony implicitly operative in Aristotle's system of categorization. The principle of parsimony helps to sift out problems relating the discussions in SR to discussions in Topics, On Interpretation, Categories, and Rhetoric. Accord­ ingly, Schreiber carefully 'parses' each of Aristotle's examples and nicely accom­ modates their re-presentations to a modern English-speaking reader. This is no mean accomplishment, and Schreiber in the process displays familiarity with the ancient Greek language. However, while in general sympathy with Aristotle, he is not an apologist for his errors. Such close examination of Aristotle's discussion of fallacious reasoning, which Schreiber calls "false reasoning", reveals some impor­ tant lapses in his thinking. In particular, he notices some discrepancies in Aristo­ tle's treatment of the fallacies in SR and between SR and other treatises in the Organon. As a consequence, working interpretively within Aristotle's philosophy, ©In/ormalLogicVoI.23,No.l (2003): pp.77-90. 78 George Boger he makes some important adjustments to his categorization while not discounting the cogency of his determinations. In this sense, then, Schreiber contributes to our knowledge of Aristotle's logic while not running afoul of becoming an' Aristo­ telian' in the vein of so many contemporary authors who misrepresent Aristotle's logic in introductory textbooks. Schreiber has organized his discussion of the fallacies along the lines estab­ lished by Aristotle as modified by his interpretive posture. After a short preface (xiii-xv) and an informative introduction (1-7) where he outlines his approach, the book is divided into three parts of nine chapters. Part I examines the fallacies due to language: Chapter 1 treats the power of names (11-18); Chapter 2, homonymy and amphiboly (19-36); Chapter 3, form of expression (37-54); and Chapter 4, composition, division, and accent (55-76). Part 2 consists in a single chapter on resolving false arguments (79-93). Part 3 examines the fallacies faIling outside of language: Chapter 6 is on begging the question and non-cause as cause (97-112); Chapter 7 treats accident and consequent (113-139); Chapter 8, secundum qUid (141-151); and Chapter 9, many questions (153-166). There is a brief section entitled "Conclusion and Summary" that acts as a kind of final chapter (167- 171).In addition there are four short but informative appendices (173-190) treat­ ing, respectively, paralogisms in Aristotle, words and counters-Platonic anteced­ ents, Aristotle on KUpWV predication, and Platonic and Academic background to secundum quid. Notes (191-232) are gathered as endnotes and followed by a small bibliography and an index of names. There is an only modestly useful subject index: there are no entries, for example, for 'protasis', 'proposition', 'premise', 'multiple reference', 'language convention' and 'relevance', all of which Schreiber treats, nor for many of his subsection headings; however, the contents (vii-x) could serve as an auxiliary index. In addition, there is no index of passages cited, which are numerous and which appear in the endnotes. A glossary of Aristotle's logical terminology would be a nice addition. 2. Adjustment to Aristotle's categorization Schreiber remarks that he was initially provoked by Aristotle's categorical claim that there are only twelve fallacies. He sensibly follows Aristotle to consider igno­ ratio elenchi generic of fallacious reasoning and not itself a thirteenth fallacy. Following Aristotle, then, to divide fallacies into those due to language and those not due to language, Schreiber takes Aristotle's typology as reproduced in the following table (4, 167). This, of course, is all familiar. Once having established Aristotle's program, he proceeds in Part 1 to examine the fallacies due to language with an express pur­ pose not only to elucidate Aristotle's thinking but also to indicate something prob­ lematic with it. He turns to the pivotal section of his discourse in Part 2, where he lays out the interpretive apparatus of his own modified' Aristotelian' method. This Schreiber's Aristotle on False Reasoning 79 False reasoning I Ignoratio elenchi Due to language: Outside of language ~ Double meaning Non-double meaning I I Homonymy Accent Begging the question Amphiboly Composition Non-cause as cause Form of expression Division Accident Consequent Secundum quid Many questions method affords him a vantage point to review and critique each type offaJlacy due to language. He proceeds in Part 3 to examine the fallacies outside of language using the method established in Part 2. After completing these analyses, he presents his adjustment to Aristotle's categorization (171) as reproduced in the table on the next page. Schreiber's project in Aristotle on False Reasoning is to justify this adjustment to Aristotle's categorization of the fallacies as more faithfully representing both Aristotle's discourse on fallacious argumentation and his incompletely fulfilled in­ tention. 3. Schreiber's interpretive apparatus Schreiber identifies the role Aristotle attributes to the resolution of fallacies as central for understanding Aristotle's typology. This approach, not merely consti­ tuting Schreiber's interpretive stance but also an integral part of Aristotle's own method, renders Aristotle's typology intelligible and helps to make sense of variant ascriptions when such ascriptions sometimes appear arbitrary. Schreiber identifies two principles underlying Aristotle's analytic method: (I) understanding defective reasoning requires understanding the paradigm of nondefective reasoning; (2) understanding itself requires providing causes--in the 80 George Boger False reasoning I Ignoratio elenchi Due to language: Due to language Outside of language Non-double meaning2 Double meaning I I Accent Homonymy Begging the question Composition/Division Amphiboly Non-cause as cause Form of expression Accident/Consequent Secundum quid Many questions Multiple reference case of reasoning, the causes of both nondefective and defective reasoning. Now, since encountering perplexity motivates the activity of reasoning toward a resolu­ tion, a proper resolution must be fully explanatory. And to be fully explanatory, a resolution must explain (1) "why the purported reasoning is not real reasoning", and (2) "why the false reasoning appears to be real reasoning" (81, emphasis added). Schreiber considers the first to be a fairly objective procedure: "reasoning (auAA.oyw~oC; [sullogismos)) is strictly defined, and there are a limited number of ways to violate that definition" (8\). The second he recognizes to be relative to a participant's understanding or misunderstanding of language and nature-just the sources for both correct and incorrect reasoning. In respect of the definition of a sullogismos, which provides the baseline for argument assessment, Schreiber begins immediately with Aristotle's statement in SR. "He defines a syllogism as 'an argument in which, when certain things are set down, something different from the things set down follows necessarily by means of the things set down'" (1). In an endnote to his rendering' s ullogism os , as 'syllogism', Schreiber notes his preference either to transliterate the word as 'syl­ logism' or to render it by 'reasoning'. In this respect he reverts to the older prac­ tice of such translators as Poste, Forster, and Pickard-Cambridge (prior to Barnes' emendations, Princeton 1984). Moreover, he does not restrict its use to denoting only a three-term valid argument as in Prior Analytics. Nor does he translate it by 'deduction', as is now customary in discussions of Aristotle's formal logic and even in Louis-Andre Dorion's recent French translation (1995), since, as he writes, "not all
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