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87
Rhetorica, Vol. XXV, Issue 1, pp. 87108, ISSN 0734-8584, electronic ISSN 1533-
8541. 2007 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights re-
served. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article
content through the University of California Presss Rights and Permissions website,
at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: RH.2007.25.1.87.
Aristotle on the Disciplines of Argument:
Rhetoric, Dialectic, Analytic
Abstract: According to an argument made by other authors, analytic
the formal logical theory of the categorical syllogism expounded
in the Prior Analyticsis a relatively late development in Aristotles
thinking about argument. As a general theory of validity, it served
as the master discipline of argument in Aristotles mature thought
about the subject. The object of this paper is to explore his early
conception of the relations between the argumentative disciplines.
Its principal thesis, based chiey on evidence about the relation
between dialectic and rhetoric, is that before the advent of analytic
dialectic playeda double role. It was both the art or discipline of one
practice of argumentation and the master discipline of argument
to which other disciplines turned for their understanding of the
fundamentals of argument.
A
s everyone knows, Aristotle invented logic. The Prior
Analytics tackles the question when and in virtue of what
an argument is valid in an entirely new way. To be more
precise, Aristotle is concerned not with everything that might called
an argument, but with the syllogism, i.e., an argument () in
which, certain things being laid down, something different from
I am grateful to the participants and organizers of the conference on Philosophy and
Rhetoric in Classical Athens for an exceptionally stimulating gathering and for many
helpful comments. I owe a special debt to Chloe Balla for valuable written comments
on an earlier version of this paper. Papers related to this one were presented at the
Humboldt Universitat Berlin, McGill University, the University of Toronto, and the
Central division meeting APAin 2001. I learned a great deal fromthe audience on each
of these occasions, and I am especially indebted to Gisela Striker, my commentator
at the APA meeting.
RHETORI CA 88
them follows of necessity by their being so (Topics 1.1.100a257;
Prior Analytics 1.1.24b1820). This denition marks off a class of
valid arguments that might be of use to someone actually mak-
ing a case for something, for example, by excluding arguments
whose conclusion already gures among its premises. The prin-
cipal thesis of Aristotles theory is that every syllogism, i.e., ev-
ery argument satisfying this denition, is a categorical syllogism,
meaning an argument that belongs, or consists of parts that be-
long, to one of the moods of the categorical syllogism, which we
know under their medieval names, Barbara, Celarent, Darii,
and so on.
To employ language that Aristotle does not use himself, his
answer to the question is that syllogisms are valid if and only if
they are formally valid, and they are formally valid if and only if
they can be shown by analysis to be categorical syllogisms. It is from
the operation of analyzing arguments into categorical form that the
Analytics take their name (cf. Prior Analytics 1.32.46b3847a5).
Aristotle has notoriously little to say about where this logical
theory belongs in his classication of the sciences. At the beginning
of the Prior Analytics, he emphasizes that the study of the syllogism
on which he is about to embark is an essential preparation for the
study of demonstrative syllogisms and the kind of knowledge or
understanding that one has by grasping them, which will occupy
him in the Posterior Analytics (1.1.24a12; cf. 4.25b2631).
1
In Prior
Analytics 2.23, however, he asserts that:
Not only are dialectical and demonstrative syllogisms brought about by
means of the gures [of the categorical syllogism] but also rhetorical
syllogisms and, quite generally, any attempt to produce conviction
(|) of any kind whatever.
68b914
Andthis is only one of a number of passages inwhichAristotle insists
on the universal application of the categorical theory to arguments
of any and every kind wherever they may be found (Prior Analytics
1.23.40b20 ff., 41b15; 25, 42a301; 28.44b68; 29.45b3646a2; 30.46a3
4). Let us call the discipline to which the theory of the categorical
syllogismbelongs analytic, even though this termhas, at best, only
1
J. Brunschwig, Lobjet et la structure des seconds analytiques dapres Aristote,
in E. Berti, ed., Aristotle on Science: the Posterior Analytics (Padua: Antenore, 1981),
6196.
Aristotle on the Disciplines of Argument 89
a slender basis in Aristotles own usage.
2
If, as Aristotle maintains,
every syllogism is a categorical syllogism, then every discipline in
which argument plays a part relies on principles that it is the business
of analytic to study; and, to the extent that a discipline requires an
explicit understanding of the fundamentals of argument, it must turn
to analytic. Aristotle has in effect made analytic the master discipline
of argument.
As such, it can be contrasted with two other kinds of discipline
that concern themselves with argument. On the one hand, there are
arts of argument like dialectic andrhetoric, whose aimis tofurnishthe
corresponding practices of dialectical and rhetorical argument with
a systemor method. The Topics contains a method for the practitioner
of dialectic; the Rhetoric, a method for the orator. On the other hand,
there are the special sciences. The material discussed in the Posterior
Analytics, where the conditions that a syllogism must satisfy if it is to
qualify as a demonstration proper to one of these sciences are tackled,
is either an appendix to analytic, construed narrowly as the general
logical theory of the syllogism, or a second part of analytic, which,
however, applies not to all syllogisms, but only to demonstrations.
The picture of a system of argumentative disciplines dependent
on analytic that emerges in this way seems to receive conrmation
from the structure of the Organon, where Aristotles ancient editors
brought together the works they took to be about logic.
3
According
to tradition, the rst two works of the Organon, the Categories and the
De interpretatione, prepare the way for the categorical theory of the
syllogismtackled in the Prior Analytics by studying terms and propo-
sitions respectively. The Posterior Analytics and the Topics then apply
the theory to the domains of demonstrative and dialectical argument
in turn, and the Sophistical Refutations brings the study of argument
to a close by examining fallacious argument. At the very end of the
Sophistical Refutations, and therefore of the Organon itself, Aristotle
observes that, because he had no predecessors in the study of syl-
logizing, it was necessary for him both to found the discipline and to
bring it to the level already attained by other disciplines (34.183b34
ff., 184b1 ff.). He compares the more typical case of rhetoric, which
had reached its then present condition gradually as one rhetorician
after another built on, and added to, the contributions of his prede-
2
It is found only at Rhet. 1.4.1359b10. Metaphysics .2.1005b25, which nds fault
with those who are ignorant of analytics, may furnish a parallel.
3
J. Brunschwig, LOrganon: Tradition grecque, in R. Goulet, ed., Dictionnaire
des philosophes grecques (Paris: CNRS, 1989) I.485502.
RHETORI CA 90
cessors (183b26 ff.). For a very long time, it was assumed that these
celebrated remarks were about the categorical theory of the syllo-
gism expounded in the Prior Analytics and were meant to emphasize
the place of central importance that analytic occupies among the
disciplines of argument.
But scholarship has gradually made it plain that Aristotle was
not talking about analytic at the end of Sophistical Refutations. The
most important piece of evidence is the curious failure of both the
Topics and the Sophistical Refutations to take account of the categorical
theory of the syllogism or its technical vocabulary, even though the
declared object of the former is to expound a method of syllogizing
for use indialectic (1.1.100a1 ff.). What is more, the syllogisms that the
Topics tells us howto formby and large do not conformto the rules of
the categorical syllogistic. Surely, the argument runs, the Topics and
the Sophistical Refutations would have betrayed the inuence of the
Prior Analytics, or its theory, if the Prior Analytics, or its theory, had
been there to inuence them.
The Topics and the Sophistical Refutations forma unity
4
fromthis
point, when I speak of the Topics I mean to include the Sophistical Refu-
tationsand on closer inspection it transpires that Aristotles proud
claimto have been the rst student of the syllogismconcludes a reca-
pitulation of the inquiry that corresponds to the programof the Topics
(SE 34.183a37184b8). It is this inquiry that he meant to describe as
the rst investigation of syllogizing.
5
The curious omissions of the
Topics and the fact that the arguments it tells us how to form are
typically not categorical syllogisms are explained by the fact that, al-
though Aristotle had the idea of the syllogismwhen he composed the
Topics, the categorical theory of the syllogism was still in the future.
This is an old story. I have rehearsed it here not because of its
intrinsic interest, but in order to set the stage for the question with
which I shall be chiey concerned. Suppose that Aristotles concep-
tion of the relations between analytic and argumentative disciplines
like dialectic and rhetoric was not, as long assumed, constant, but
that analytic and the categorical syllogistic were relative latecomers
to the scene. What consequences does this have for the picture of the
argumentative disciplines that emerged above? More precisely how
4
T. Waitz, Organon Graece, (Leipzig: Hahn, 184446), II.5289; L.-A. Dorion,
Aristote: Les refutations sophistiques (Paris: Vrin, 1995), 245.
5
C. Thurot, E

tudes sur Aristote: Politique, Dialectique, Rhetorique (Paris: Durand,

1860), 1957; L.-A. Dorion, Aristote et linvention de la dialectique in M. Canto-
Sperber and P. Pellegrin, eds., Le Style de la pensee: Recueil de textes en hommage a` Jacques
Brunschwig (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2002), 182220.
Aristotle on the Disciplines of Argument 91
did Aristotle conceive of these disciplines and their relations before
analytic?
It will help to sharpen this question if we consider an objection.
The Topics and Prior Analytics have very different aims. The Topics is a
manual whose purpose is to furnish a certain practice of argument,
dialectic, with a method. The Prior Analytics expounds the worlds
rst formal logic. Why then, runs the objection, should the Topics
enter into the details of a logical theory that it is the business of a
different kindof work to study? Andit concludes that the Topics could
have been written in much the same way whether it was composed
before or after the discovery of the categorical syllogism.
6
The strongest form of this objection would undermine the case
for a development in Aristotles thinking of the kind I have just de-
scribed. If it is on the right lines, the Topics silence about analytic
and the categorical theory of the syllogism do not speak as loudly
as proponents of the developmental account suppose. I believe that
this form of the objection can be answered, so that the case for the
relative chronology of the Topics and Prior Analytics and a develop-
ment in Aristotles thinking about argument between them stands.
Quite apart from other considerations, there is abundant evidence
that Aristotle thought the theory of the categorical syllogism did
have a contribution to make to argumentative disciplines like dialec-
tic and rhetoric. After the passage about the universal applicability
of the gures of the categorical syllogism from Prior Analytics 2.23
that I cited above, Aristotle goes on to analyze forms of argument
especially prominent in rhetoric in the light of the categorical the-
ory. This analysis seems to be cited and repeated in less technical
form in the Rhetoric in a pair of passages that appear to be late in-
sertions in otherwise earlier, Topics-oriented surroundings (Rhetoric
1.2.1357a2258a2; 2.25.1400b131403a6).
7
What is more, in the Prior
Analytics Aristotle explains how the method of invention based on
6
R. Smith, Dialectic and the Syllogism, Ancient Philosophy 14 (1994): 13351 (p.
140).
7
So F. Solmsen, Die Entwicklung der aristotelischen Logik und Rhetorik. Neue philol-
ogische Untersuchungen 4 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1929), 1331; followed by M. F. Burnyeat,
Enthymeme: Aristotle on the logic of persuasion in D. J. Furley, A. Nehamas, eds.,
Essays on Aristotles Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 355 (pp.
315); J. Allen, Inference from Signs: Ancient Debates about the Nature of Evidence (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 2022; opposed by J. Barnes, Proof and the Syllo-
gism in Berti, Aristotle on Science, cited in n. 1 above, 1759 (p. 52) (in the context of
broader agreement with Solmsens developmental thesis); C. Rapp (trans.), Aristoteles:
Rhetorik (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002), II.2024.
RHETORI CA 92
the categorical theory of the syllogism will be of use to the dialecti-
cian in his quest for syllogisms (1.27.43b1130; 30.46a210), and he
sometimes pauses to give tactical advice based on the theory to the
dialectician.
8
This shows that Aristotle was concerned not merely to demon-
strate the universal application of his theory to every domain of
argument, but that he also believed that understanding it, or parts of
it, or at a minimumsome of its results will help the practitioner of ev-
ery kind of argument (cf. Prior Analytics 1.27.43a204; 29.45b3646a2;
30.46a3 ff.; 31.46a29). Had the theory been available when Aristotle
composedhis manual of dialectical argument, then some of its results
would have been included there just as some of them were included
in his revisedmanual of rhetoric. The fact that they were not stands as
powerful evidence that the Topics andits viewof syllogistic argument
antedate the Prior Analytics and its theory.
But this evidence is about how the new discipline of analytic
added to the stock of dialectics techniques. The objection can be
raised in a different form, which retains considerable force. In viewof
the very different aims of the two disciplines, why should Aristotles
conception of the discipline of dialectic and the place it occupies in
the system of argumentative disciplines have been different before
the emergence of analytic? And it is chiey this question, and not
the question of what changes in dialectical or rhetorical methods
analytic may have required, that I shall pursue here. The view that
analytic replaced dialectic is sometimes attributed to proponents of
the developmental thesis that I sketched a moment ago, and this
is clearly much too strong.
9
The evidence I have cited showing
that Aristotle thought that analytic had something to contribute to
the practice of dialectical argument does not show that he thought
that analytic abolished the discipline of dialectic anymore than it
abolished that of rhetoric. But obviously the view that analytic left
dialectic entirely unaffected and the viewthat it replaced dialectic do
not exhaust the eld.
It is hardly surprising that generations of readers took Aristo-
tles claim at the end of the Sophistical Refutations to have been the
8
On this point, see H. Maier, Die Syllogistik des Aristoteles, (Tu bingen: Laupp
18961900), II.b.78 n. 3. An especially striking example is furnished by the counsel to
be on the lookout for recurring terms in an opponents argument because the middle
term on which his syllogism will depend must occur twice (2.19.66a25).
9
Solmsen is sometimes said to have held this view, but though an occasional
incautious formulation of his may suggest this (Entwicklung, 26, 195), he did not hold
it in anything like this unqualied form.
Aristotle on the Disciplines of Argument 93
rst to study syllogizing as a reference to analytic and the Prior An-
alytics, for, as we have seen, in his mature view the study of the
syllogism in general is the function of analytic. This is clearly im-
plied at Prior Analytics 1.4, where Aristotle characterizes the sub-
ject of the inquiry underway as the syllogism in general by contrast
with a species of syllogism, demonstration, that is to be tackled later
(25b2631). And in a couple of passages in the Posterior Analytics,
Aristotle refers back to the Prior Analytics as the work about the syl-
logism (1.3.73a14, 1.11.77a33). So it is puzzling to nd a manual of
dialectic, the Topics, presented as the fruit of an inquiry into syllo-
gizing, rather than a kind of syllogizing, viz. the dialectical kind. To
add to our puzzlement, the Sophistical Refutations elsewhere uses the
term syllogistic to characterize dialectical arguments in a contrast
with rhetorical arguments (5.167b21 ff.).
10
And the Rhetoric constantly
treats the syllogism as the special concern of the discipline of dialec-
tic by contrast with the enthymeme, the form of argument proper
to rhetoric.
11
My thesis is that, in a way, analytic did replace dialectic. It re-
placed dialectic, however, not by abolishing it or, necessarily, by
rendering all of its counsels obsolete, but by supplanting it as the
master discipline of argument whose responsibility it is to treat of
the syllogism in general. As a result, dialectic was demoted to the
rank of a subordinate discipline of argument, oriented toward one
practice of argument and dependent on analytic for what it needs
to know about the fundamentals of argument. But analytic was a
discipline of a new kind, not a method oriented to one practice of
argument or a special science that makes use of argument, but a
logical theory. If you will, in the course of becoming the master disci-
pline of argument, it changed what it was to be a master discipline
of argument.
It is relatively easy to see how analytic was able to be the master
discipline of argument. As the general theory of syllogistic validity,
it is the home of principles to which every valid syllogism must
conform.
12
To be sure, the Prior Analytics contains a good deal more
than a logical theory, and to the extent that it is intended as an exposi-
10
Cf. Rapp, Aristoteles: Rhetorik, cited in n. 7 above, II.97 ad Rhet.1.1.1355a30.
11
Rhet. 1.1.1355a30, b1517; 2.1356a36-b2, b1013, 1358a26, 15; 2.22.1395b224.
12
This claim has to be qualied, and is qualied by Aristotle in Prior Analytics
1.44, where he allows that so-called syllogisms on the basis of a hypothesis cannot
be analyzed as categorical syllogisms. It is nonetheless surprising just how minor a
qualication Aristotle takes this to be. Cf. G. Striker, Aristoteles u ber Syllogismen
aufgrund einer Hypothese, Hermes 107 (1979): 3350.
RHETORI CA 94
tion of the discipline, so does analytic.
13
But most of the additional
matter consists of applications of the theory to issues that arise in
connection with argument and different forms of argument. As we
have already observed, Aristotle applies the categorical theory to
forms of argument that are prominent in rhetoric. He also uses the
formal machinery of the theory to tackle fallacies (2.1618), to prove
that it is possible to syllogize true conclusions from false premises
(2.24), and to construct an extremely simple method of invention
that can be applied mechanically to any desired categorical conclu-
sion to yield syllogisms for it (1.278). It remains to be seen how the
discipline of dialectic, which unlike analytic is a method oriented
towards one practice of argument, could also have been the master
discipline of argument.
For help we can turn to the relations between the disciplines
of dialectic and rhetoric as Aristotle describes them in the Rhetoric.
The work begins with the famous declaration that rhetoric is the
counterpart of dialectic (1.1.1354a1). Two disciplines are counter-
parts when they stand in the same relation to different objects. In the
Gorgias Plato had set up a system of correspondences between arts
that care for the body and those that care for the soul (463a-466a).
Justice, for instance, is the counterpart of medicine because it stands
in the samecorrectiverelation to the soul that medicine stands
in to the body. Rhetoric is the counterpart of cookery (o(),
or so Socrates maintains, because it is a false likeness of justice in
the way cookery is of medicine, aiming at pleasure rather than the
good of its subject and relying on experience and conjecture rather
than knowledge. Aristotle defends rhetoric by making it an art of
argument like dialectic. The features that it shares with dialectic, and
which they both owe to their status as arts of argument, are therefore
no more to be held against rhetoric than they are against dialectic. At
the same time, he rebukes contemporary rhetoricians who neglected
argument in favor of appeals to the emotions and discussion of the
parts of an oration (Rhetoric 1.1.1354a1116, b1622).
As arts of argument, rhetoric anddialectic have no special subject
matters of their own of the kind that distinguish the ordinary run
of arts and sciences, but can in principle be applied to any and
every subject (Rhetoric 1.1. 1354a13, 1355b79; 2.1356a314, 1358a21
25; 4.1359b1116). The objects to which they are related are instead
different practices of argument, and the relation in which they stand
13
G. Striker, Aristotle and the Uses of Logic, in J. Gentzler, ed., Method in
Ancient Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 20926.
Aristotle on the Disciplines of Argument 95
to them is that of supplying them with an art or method.
14
In the
passage that we are considering, these practices are described as
activities common to a certain extent to all human beings, namely
examining and upholding an argument in the case of dialectic, and
accusing and defending in that of rhetoric. Later in the Rhetoric,
Aristotle distinguishes other varieties of rhetoric with reference to
their characteristic activities and the concerns of the audiences to
which they are addressed. To accusation and defense, which belong
to forensic oratory, he adds advocating or opposing a courseof action,
which belong to deliberative oratory, and praise or blame, which
belong to epideictic oratory (1.3.1358a36-b13).
The Topics likewise distinguishes varieties of discussion with
the difference that Aristotle seems to single out one of these as
dialectic in the strictest sense (Topics 8.5.159a2536 cf. 11.161a25;
Sophistic Refutations 2.165a38 ff.). This is discussion for the sake of
| (exercise or training) and . (putting to the test), which
he alsocharacterizes as for the sake of .andc (investigation)
(159a33). These he contrasts with discussions between teachers and
learners, where the aim is to impart knowledge, and competitive
encounters, where there is no common task and each party strives
for victory by any available means. Common to all of them are
the presence of two parties, a questioner and an answerer, and
the requirement that the argument advance by stages in which the
questioner secures the assent of the answerer to premises put forward
in the form of questions.
Aristotle does not explain what is put to the test in dialectical
argument. It is temptingtoconnect what he says here with(,
which is introduced in the Sophistical Refutations as either a branch of
dialectic or a closely related sister discipline, and whose function is
to put an interlocutors claim to knowledge to the test by arguing in
the Socratic manner fromhisthe interlocutorsadmittedopinions
(Sophistical Refutations 2, 164b4; 8, 169b25; 11, 171b4; 172a217; 34,
183b1).
15
But it does not appear that the dialectical answerer Aristotle
envisages in the Topics lays claim to knowledge. The defense of
theses to which he is personally attached is only one possibility
among others (8.5.159b1, 257). He will also, and perhaps more
14
J. Brunschwig, Rhetorique et Dialectique, Rhetorique et Topiques in Furley and
Nehamas, Aristotles Rhetoric cited in n. 7 above, pp. 5796 (p. 59); C. Rapp, Aristoteles:
Rhetorik, cited in n. 7 above, II.201.
15
P. Moraux, La joute dialectique dapre`s le huitie`me livre des Topiques in
G. E. L. Owen, ed., Aristotle on Dialectic: The Topics (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1968), 271311 (2889).
RHETORI CA 96
typically, uphold theses without regard for his own opinions; in
this case, his task is to admit only premises which are reputable
or more reputable than the thesis (8.5.159a38-b25).
16
In one form of
dialectical discussion, the answerer undertakes to defend a thesis
of a famous philosopher, and his task then becomes to admit only
premises that would be acceptable to that philosopher (8.5.159b27
35; cf. 1.11.10461928). Though the answerers ability to uphold
theses will undoubtedly be put to the test in dialectical discussions
of these kinds, if he performs his task correctly, it will be chiey the
thesis itself that is tested and made the object of investigation (cf.
8.4.159a204). And this seems to be what Aristotle has in mind in the
Metaphysics when he observes that dialectic is peirastic, that is, that it
probes or examines or puts to the test, where philosophy is gnoristic,
i.e., has knowledge ( 2.1004b226). I shall tackle the question of
what Aristotle means by exercise or training shortly.
The aimof the discipline of dialectic, andtherefore Aristotles aim
in the Topics, is to equip these practices of argument, and especially
dialectical argument inthe strictest sense, witha method. The method
had to unite those elements that are necessary to this practice, which
serves, therefore, as the methods organizing principle.
In treating rhetoric and dialectic as counterparts, each with its
own sphere of operation, however, Aristotle is not, as it might at rst
appear, treating them as completely autonomous and coequal disci-
plines. It is plain fromthe Rhetoric that the discipline of rhetoric relies
ondialectic for its understandingof the fundamentals of argument. In
the rst, introductory chapter of the Rhetoric, Aristotle explains that
the enthymeme is a syllogism of a kind (1355a810),
17
and that the
orator who combines a grasp of the syllogismwith an understanding
of the effects on argument of rhetorical subject matters will be best
equipped to argue in rhetorical contexts. But for his understanding
of how and from what a syllogism arises, Aristotle insists, the or-
ator is reliant on dialectic since the consideration of every syllogism
without distinction (oc) is the business of dialectic, either dialec-
tic as a whole or a part of it (1355a810).
18
The specically rhetorical
16
M. Wlodarczyk, Aristotelian Dialectic and the Discovery of Truth, Oxford
Studies in Ancient Philosophy 18 (2000): 153210.
17
Translated a syllogism of a kind in accordance with Burnyeats recom-
mendation in order to leave open the possibility that an argument may qualify as
an enthymeme without meeting the standards strictly necessary to be a syllogism
(Burnyeat, Enthymeme, cited in n. 7 above, pp. 1315)..
18
Without distinction is the Oxford translator, Rhys Roberts, rendering. With
the use of oc here compare De gen. et corr. 1.1, 314a2, where Aristotle proposes to
Aristotle on the Disciplines of Argument 97
knowledge that the orator must add to the grasp of the syllogism
that he takes from dialectic is an understanding of the sort of matters
with which enthymemes are concerned and how enthymemes differ
from logikoi syllogismoi (a1014).
The term logikos is an important clue about the nature of dialecti-
cal argument proper. To tackle an issue logically, in this sense, is to
do so on the basis of logoi, arguments or reasonings, viewed in one
way or another, and to one degree or another, in abstraction from
the special features of the subject matter at issue. These features are
accessible only to those with a specialists substantive understanding
of the subject matter, and in the treatises proceeding logically is typi-
cally opposed to doing so on the basis of such an understanding.
19
Dialectic proceeds logically because when it tackles a question, it is
on the basis of abilities available to the master of an art of argument
without substantive specialized understanding. To the extent that
one draws on such an understanding, one leaves dialectic behind
(Rhetoric 1.2.1358a236; 4.1359b1216).
The orators understanding of the enthymeme is inpart the result
of adding to the grasp of the fundamentals of argument that he takes
from dialectic knowledge of the kinds of matters with which rhetoric
deals, but also of the kinds of occasions and audiences to which
rhetorical argument is suited (Rhetoric 1.2.1357b26; 2.20.1394a247).
One effect is a relaxation in the rigor or stringency permitted in en-
thymemes by comparison with syllogisms proper. This is because
the matters about which one argues in rhetoric, like those which
are the concern of practical reason, rarely lend themselves to reso-
lution by conclusive arguments (Rhetoric 1. 2.1357a17, 1315, 227;
2.25.1402b324). Typically it is possible only to present considera-
tions of a certain weight, and orators arguments, though able to
make a conclusion a reasonable thing to believe, cannot exclude the
possibility that it is false. Often the best decision that jurors attend-
ing conscientiously to the arguments on both sides of the case can
reach is one that new evidence may show to be mistaken. And as-
semblies that arrive at the decision that does the most justice to the
treat generation and corruption oc v , i.e., without entering into the
special features or peculiarities belonging to the generation and corruption of the
different kinds of natural substance (cf. 2.9.335a258).
19
On the term see Waitz, Organon Graece, cited in n. 4 above, II.353 ff.
(ad An. post. 82b35); A. Schwegler, ed., Die Metaphysik des Aristoteles (Tu bingen: Fues,
1847), IV.4851 (ad Metaph. Z 4.1029b13); H. Maier, Syllogistik, cited in n. 8 above,
II.a.11 n. 3; M. F. Burnyeat, A Map of Metaphysics Z (Pittsburgh: Mathesis Publications,
2001), 1922 et passim.
RHETORI CA 98
considerations put before them may see that decision undone by
future events.
The syllogisms proper to dialectic, on the other hand, owe their
greater stringency to dialectics nature as a purer art of argument.
It is purer, however, not by abstracting from the concerns of actual
practices of argument in the way analytic does, but by correspond-
ing to a more purely argumentative practice, one, as we might say,
less compromised by real world considerations than rhetoric and, in
a different way, the special sciences are. The kind of logical under-
standing of argument (in our sense of logical) which a master of the
discipline of analytic will have, though possibly a helpto participants
in argumentative practices like dialectic and rhetoric, cannot by itself
equip themfor success in the way that the disciplines of dialectic and
rhetoric must. The dialectician, as Aristotle conceives him, is able to
argue on either side of any question without substantive knowledge
of the eld to which the question belongs. Some of what he needs to
know to this end corresponds to analytic, but he must also have a
command of reputable opinions. One of the instruments (o) by
means of which the dialectician is suppliedwith syllogisms is the col-
lection and classication of premises (Topics 1.1314; cf. 2.101a3034).
The boundaries of the logical inAristotles sense are drawnsoas toex-
clude substantive understanding of a subject matter, but not content
if that means familiarity with the opinions of the many and the wise.
Before the invention of analytic, dialectic had either to borrow
its teachings about the fundamentals of argument from another
discipline or tackle them itself along with matters that are of little or
no use outside specically dialectical forms of argument. According
to the view that I am defending, it tackled them itself because it
was, in Aristotles view, the primary discipline of argument, and
it owes its primacy to the paradigmatic character of the practice
of argument towards which it is oriented. As a result, every other
discipline in which argument plays a part had to turn to dialectic for
its understanding of argument, even if in the endits practitioners will
never practice dialectic and have no need to master the discipline in
all its many details.
To make this view plausible it is essential to discover how the
practice of argument to which dialectic was oriented could have been
paradigmatic in a way that permitted dialectic also to serve as the
master discipline of argument. In Topics 1.2, Aristotle distinguishes
three uses for the pragmateia, i.e., the treatise itself or the method it
contains.
20
In agreement with a long line of scholars I take the rst of
20
R. Smith, Aristotle on the Uses of Dialectic, Synthese 96 (1993): 33558.
Aristotle on the Disciplines of Argument 99
these, |, practice, in the sense of exercise or training, to be the
practice, in the sense of activity or pursuit, of which the discipline
of dialectic elaborated in the Topics is the art.
21
If this is right, then
the second and third uses of the method, though to one degree or
another dialectical, will not, strictly speaking, be forms or varieties of
dialectic.
But if the practice for which the discipline of dialectic set out in
the Topics is practice in the sense of training, what is it training for?
Aristotles idea seems to have been that dialectical argument was a
form of intellectual practice or training, which gives rise to intellec-
tual and argumentative facility in the way that a programof physical
exercise performed under the direction of a gymnastic instructor
produces physical strength and coordination (cf. Topics 1.11.105a9;
8.5.159a25; 8.11.161a25). Aristotle seems also to have believedthat di-
alectic stoodinan especially close relation to philosophy(Metaphysics
4.2.1004b226; Topics 1.2.101a34-b4; 8.1.155b716, 14.163b916). It is
not merely that the sample dialectical problems that are mentioned in
the Topics tend to be philosophical.
22
The method it expounds seems
to have in view philosophical discussions of the kind that we are led
to believe took place in the Academy and which are mocked in the
famous fragment of Epicrates in which Platos followers are pictured
solemnly dening and classifying by species vegetables, not except-
ing the pumpkin. It is concerned not only with the construction and
evaluation of arguments that a predicate simply belongs to a subject
(i.e., belongs to it as an accident), but gives equal attention to those in
which the issue is whether it belongs as a genus, proprium or def-
inition, and elaborates a separate method of inventing syllogisms for
each of these, the four so-called predicables (1.6.102b27 ff.; 4.1.120b12
ff.; 6.1.139a24-b5; 7.5.155a1636).
23
As we shall see, Aristotles views about the relations between
dialectic and philosophy are surprisingly complex, but if this conclu-
sion is on the right lines, he regarded the practice of dialectic, or one
favored form of it, as preparation or training or practice primarily
for philosophy. Aristotles talk of | would then be another
21
E. Kapp, Greek Foundations of Traditional Logic (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1942), 1213; P. Moraux, La joute dialectique, cited in n. 15 above, pp. 289
90; J. Brunschwig, Aristotle on arguments without Winners and Losers, Jahrbuch
Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin 1984/5, 3140 (p. 34); O. Primavesi, Die aristotelische Topik:
Ein Interpretationsmodell und seine Erprobung am Beispiel von Topik B (Munich: Beck,
1996), 2021, 49 ff., Rapp, Aristoteles: Rhetorik, cited in n. 7 above, I.2512.
22
I. Duhring, Aristotles use of examples in the Topics, in G. E. L. Owen, Aristotle
on Dialectic, cited in n. 15 above, pp. 20229.
23
J. Brunschwig, Aristotle on arguments, cited in n. 21 above, p. 32.
RHETORI CA 100
instance of a widespread tendency to compare the training or prepa-
ration of the soul to that of the body. We may compare Isocrates, who
in his use of the idea of counterpart disciplines makes philosophy, in
his sense of the term, the counterpart of (, of which a part
is ( (Antidosis 18082). And though he was notoriously
dismissive of the claims made by gures like Plato and Aristotle
on behalf of what they call philosophy, Isocrates is also willing to
concede some value to it as training (|) and preparation for
philosophy properly so called (Antidosis 2669).
There are a handful of clues in Plato which suggest that there
was a practice of argument in the Academy that was conceived as a
form of practice or preparation and was called |. Thus in the
rst part of the Platonic dialogue that bears his name, Parmenides
raises difculties for the theory of the forms, which is treated there
as the view of the young Socrates. Socrates has gone astray, Par-
menides maintains, by attempting to dene forms of beauty, jus-
tice, goodness and the like before he had practiced or exercised
properly. The practice he prescribes resembles Zenos manner of
argument, which had been discussed earlier in the dialogue, and
he insists that it is an essential preparation for grasping the truth
(136ce).
24
Of course, it is another question why the practice of dialectic
arose and took the form that it did. A fuller attempt to answer
this question would require considering the Academic milieu and
the wider philosophical world of the fth and fourth centuries.
The inquiry could be extended to the broader social and political
conditions in the Greek speaking world that favored the growth of
public practices of argumentationandso encouragedreectionabout
proof, validity, refutation and the like. But to the extent that this kind
of inquiry appeals to contingent historical factors, it tends to draw
us away fromthe kind of answer Aristotle himself would most likely
have given.
I take it that he would have explained the practice of dialectical
argument as an expression of human nature. I have already cited the
Rhetorics claimthat all human beings share in a way in dialectic to the
extent that they attempt to examine and uphold theses (1.1.1354a3
6). The same sentiment can be found in the Topics, where all human
beings are said to participate without art in that with which dialectic
is concerned as an art (Sophistic Refutations 11.172a34). Remarks like
24
On this passage from the Parmenides see Maier, Syllogistik, cited in n. 8 above, II
b 51, n. 1.
Aristotle on the Disciplines of Argument 101
these suggest that Aristotle regarded the more specialized form of
philosophical argument toward which the dialectical method set out
in the Topics is oriented as the form par excellence of the universal
practice of examining and upholding theses in argument by question
and answer. We may compare Isocrates attitude toward the kind
of speech or logos that he teaches his pupils how to compose; he
regards it as the expression par excellence of the human capacity for
logos, which encompasses all that is most distinctive of human beings
(Nicocles 610).
These considerations go some way towards explaining how
Aristotle could have regarded dialectic as the paradigm practice
of argument and the corresponding discipline as the primary dis-
cipline of argument. It will also help to attend to a feature of dialec-
tic that it owes specically to its gymnastic character and which
complements its nature as a pure practice of argument, that is,
a practice participation in which calls only for a logical under-
standing, in Aristotles sense, of how to construct and evaluate
arguments and not substantive knowledge of the matters under
discussion.
It is clear that the answerers task is, in a way, to make the ques-
tioners work more difcult. He is to do this not by using any means
to obstruct the questioners progress, but rather by holding the ques-
tioners argument to the highest standards, so that when the an-
swerers thesis is defeated it will be because of its weakness not
the answerers (Topics 8.4.159a204). This is what is behind Aris-
totles talk of a common task shared by questioner and answerer
(8.11.161a20, 37).
25
In Topics 8.5 the focus is on which premises the
answerer ought to allow. As we have seen, Aristotle holds that he
ought only to give his approval to those which are reputable or more
reputable than the conclusion for which the questioner is striving
to construct an argument. But throughout the Topics Aristotle makes
note of objections that the answerer can raise. Indeed he says the
dialectician is not only a proposer of premises but also a raiser of
objections (8.14.164b3). And this shows that the answerer is also
charged to ensure that the questioners argument proceeds validly.
The practice of gymnastic dialectic, then, puts a premium on care-
ful step-by-step argument in which each step must be made explicit
and pass muster with the answerer who is on the lookout for any
misstep This focus on the argument as such, with its attendant em-
phasis on rigor and explicitness, furnishes another reason why the
25
Brunschwig, Aristotle on arguments, cited in n. 21 above.
RHETORI CA 102
fundamentals of argument are a special concern of the dialectical
discipline.
By contrast rhetoric does not share dialectics interest in rigor
and explicitness for their own sake. As Aristotle several times notes,
rhetorical syllogisms or enthymemes need not state all the premises
on which the conclusion depends.
26
He emphasizes that the kind of
listeners whom it is rhetorics task to address are unable to follow
long arguments, but also that a full statement of the argument is
hardly necessary if the listeners can take the point without it (Rhetoric
1.2.1357a45, 1622; 2.22.1395b246). The orator aims topersuade and
argument is his principal instrument. The point is not that this means
that anything goes in rhetoric. A noble orator will want to convince
his audience of the truth, or the conclusion that stands the best chance
of being true, and have them accept it for sound reasons, but even so
he lacks the dialecticians interest in the mechanics of valid argument
as such. He is able to adopt this attitude towards argument, however,
because rhetoric can turn to dialectic for its understanding of the
fundamentals of argument, which it then modies and supplements
to suit its own ends.
So far I have argued that in Aristotles early thinking about argu-
ment the discipline of dialectic played a double role. It was the art or
discipline of a practice of argument, so-called|, whichserved
as its organizing principle, and it was at the same time the master
discipline of argument, to which disciplines corresponding to other
practices of argument had to turn for an understanding of the funda-
mentals of argument. I suggested that the discipline of dialectic was
able to performboth these functions for Aristotle because in his view,
though it corresponds to one practice of argument among others, that
practice is the paradigm form of argument, argument par excellence.
(I have left entirely out of account a separate question, which is nev-
ertheless related to those pursued here, namely how early Aristotle
recognized that demonstrative syllogisms would require a special
inquiry of the kind pursued in the Posterior Analytics.)
27
The perspective that we have now achieved should throw light
on the other uses for the method of dialectic that Aristotle puts beside
|. A closer examination of these uses will, I believe, lend
further support to the thesis that I have been advocating. The second
use of the method is
26
Tradition turned this accidental attribute of the enthymeme into its essence.
Cf. Burnyeat, Enthymeme, cited in n. 7 above, pp. 214, 3950.
27
On this issue, see J. Barnes, Proof and the Syllogism, cited in n. 7 above.
Aristotle on the Disciplines of Argument 103
for encounters because, having reckoned up the opinions held by the
many, we shall speak to them not from the opinions of others, but from
their own, changing their minds about anything they seem to us not
to have stated well
Topics 1.2.101a3034.
28
The third is
for the philosophical sciences, because, if we have the ability to go
through the difculties on either side, we shall more readily discern the
true and the false in each matter
Topics 101a346
There are two ways in which the method of dialectic may be
useful to these ends, however. Is it useful because (a) the practice of
gymnastic argument, of which it is in the rst instance the method, is
in turn useful in relation to other ends, or (b) the method itself, or parts
of it, are directly useful to practices of argument other than dialectic
and without being put to use in the practice of dialectic? The position
that I have been defending would lead us to expect the answer to
be in way (b) or a combination of ways (a) and (b). And certainly
in the case of the second use of the method, in encounters, (b) is very
plausible. The command of a mass of reputable opinions, organized
with reference to the type of person to whom they are likely to be
persuasive, will be of the greatest assistance in conversations of a not
specically dialectical character, as Aristotle also notes in the Rhetoric
(1.1.1355a28; 2.1356b324; cf. 2.22.1396b211).
The philosophical use of the method is more complicated and
has been the object of much attention. Aristotle expands on the
description of the philosophical use of the dialectical method in the
immediate sequel to the remarks cited above.
29
And further the treatise or the method it contains [the pragmateia] is
of use regarding the rst of the matters that concern each science. For
it is impossible on the basis of the principles of the science at issue to
say anything about them, since the principles are prior to everything
else, but it is necessary instead to tackle them via the reputable opinions
regarding each of them. And this is peculiar or most proper to dialectic
28
These translations and that of 101a36b4 below are adapted from R. Smith
(trans.), Aristotles Topics: Books I and VIII (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
29
Unless they are meant to introduce a fourth use in addition to the three
promised at 101a26. On this question, see J. Brunschwig, ed. and trans., Aristote:
Topiques, Livres IIV (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1967), xii, 116 n. 1.
RHETORI CA 104
since, because of its capacity to examine, it has a way to the principles of
all the disciplines.
Topics 101a36b4
Aristotle seems to mean that inquiry about principles belongs to the
method of dialectic rather than to other methods, or in any case to
it more than to them, and not that it is the most proper use of dialectic
by comparison with the other uses to which it may be put.
30
It is noteworthy that on the rare occasions when he touches on
the issue at all in the Topics, Aristotle seems to view the philosopher
as a solitary inquirer whose characteristic activity is distinguished
from dialectic in part by the fact that it does not involve relations to
another (Topics 8.1.155b1016; Sophistic Refutations 16.175a912). Thus
inTopics 8.1, Aristotle notes that what has gone before, viz. the discus-
sion of the topoi, may be of use to the philosopher engaged in solitary
inquiry as well as the dialectician, whereas the discussion of how to
order and pose questions that is to follow will not be relevant to his
concerns since it applies only to arguments conducted with others
(155b716). This implies that philosophers can derive benets from
the dialectical method, or parts of it, without engaging in the practice
of dialectic and while remaining ignorant of some of its precepts.
This seems to be conrmed in what is by far Aristotles most
illuminating remark about dialectics usefulness to philosophy:
Withregardtoknowledge andphilosophical wisdombeingable tograsp
andto have graspedwhat follows fromeach hypothesis is an instrument
(o) of nolittle value. For it remains tochoose one of themcorrectly,
and for this one must have a good nature; this is the good nature that
regards the truth, the ability to choose the true and ee the false.
Topics 163b916
The context for this remark is Topics 8.14, which is about dialectical
training (|). The training in question is not that in which the
practice of dialectic consists, however, but training or preparation for
this practice. Such training can be performed alone or in company
(163b34), and it seems that the philosopher may prot from it
without engaging in the practice of dialectic by going through the
arguments that one might employ in an actual dialectical encounter.
Of course, there is every reason to suppose that philosophers will
also prot from such participation. The abilities and understanding
developed by preparatory exercises will be further sharpened by the
30
Brunschwig, Topiques, 117 n. 2.
Aristotle on the Disciplines of Argument 105
actual practice of dialectic, andthere may be others which can only be
acquired in this way. It is clear, then, that Aristotle takes the method
of dialectic to be of use to philosophy in both ways, directly without
being applied in the practice of dialectic and through being used in
that practice, though it is the rst that he emphasizes in the Topics.
The picture that emerges differs in some ways from the expecta-
tions we might take away from, e.g., Nicomachean Ethics 1.1. There
Aristotle tells us that every art and every method has its own end.
But although it is clear that an arts end does not always tell us why
anyone might care to practice itfor that we must look to the broader
context and perhaps ultimately to practical wisdom or political sci-
ence and the human good which is their objectit is implied that
when an art or method is of use relative to goods other than its
own, proper end, it is through achieving that end. As we have seen,
however, more often than not the uses of the dialectical method that
Aristotle has in mind are available to those who do not participate
in the practice of dialectic.
Although it answers our question about the dialectical methods
usefulness to philosophy at a certain level of generality, this leaves
unclear precisely how, as a form of |, the actual practice
of dialectic is supposed to contribute to philosophy. One kind of
interpretation sees a sharp distinction between dialectical activity
and philosophy, i.e., between what one does as a dialectician and
what one does as a philosopher. On this view, the practice of dialectic
contributes skill or virtuosity in argument to philosophy rather than
a deeper understanding of philosophical issues.
31
At the opposite
extreme are interpretations which suppose that in practicing dialectic
one is, at least much of the time, practicing philosophy and that
a good part of the philosophers time, as a philosopher, will be
occupied with the practice of dialectic.
Adistinctionof the kindpositedby the rst kindof interpretation
is easiest to see when the skill and argumentative facility being
developed by dialectic are exercised in relation to objects different
from those tackled by philosophy. We may compare the way in
which the participants in a Platonic dialogue will sometimes warm
up, as it were, by dening an item or working through a division
of little intrinsic interest before tackling a more serious question (e.g.,
Politicus, 285d-286a). In fact, the issues regularly cited as examples in
the central books of the Topics are serious and not the triing matters
that one would expect if the sole object in discussing them were to
31
Moraux, La joute dialectique, cited in n. 15 above, p. 308.
RHETORI CA 106
cultivate facility in argument.
32
But interpretations of the second kind
are hard to square either with the Topics conception of dialectic as
a form of training or the way in which Aristotle sometimes contrasts
dialectic and philosophy in the treatises.
It may help to bear in mind that some forms of practice or
exercise are manifestly different from the activities for which they
prepare or train those engaged in them, while others differ chiey
by being performed as exercises or for the sake of practice and
that there are many degrees in between. In Topics 1.11 Aristotle
considers what is to count as a dialectical problem. The examples he
cites, e.g., whether the universe is eternal or not (104b16), show that
serious philosophical questions are not excluded. He does, however,
insist that those engaged in dialectic will not tackle questions the
demonstration of which is near to hand or those of which it is too
distant; the former because they do not present a challenge, the latter
because the challenge they present is more than accords with the
purposes of gymnastic (more than is v () (105a79).
Though some questions of interest to philosophy may be excluded,
discussion of many others is plainly permitted. I suspect that we
shall come closest to grasping the distinction between dialectic and
philosophy if we suppose that the qualication so far as accords
with the purposes of gymnastic that Aristotle uses to restrict the
scope of dialectical discussion can also be used to characterize the
way dialectic tackles questions that it shares with philosophy. An
argument or discussion will be dialectical to the extent that it accords
with the purposes of gymnastic, and this will depend in part on
whether it connes itself to the resources available to the dialectician
but also how far and in what spirit the discussion is pursued.
Nothing prevents the practice of dialectic from deepening the
participants understanding of the issues at the same time as it
sharpens their argumentative skills. Putting philosophical theses to
the test (.) and subjecting them to investigation (c) should
serve both these ends. But when the understanding amounts to
knowledge, dialectic is left behind. That the transition from the
dialectical discussion of an issue to one grounded in knowledge and
understanding of the eldto which it belongs will sometimes be hard
32
Moraux, La joute dialectique, acknowledges this, but takes it as further
evidence for the old view that the peripheral books, 1 and 8, are more recent than the
central books. On his view, book 8 marks the emergence of a new perspective, which
no longer identied philosophical research with dialectical discussion, but instead
viewed the latter as a form of intellectual training sharply distinct from the former.
Aristotle on the Disciplines of Argument 107
to mark is a point Aristotle makes himself, when he observes that it
is possible to pass by degrees without noticing it from discussing
a matter in the way proper to dialectic to discussing it in the way
that belongs to the science under which the matter falls (Rhetoric
1.2.1358a236).
The last question, about the second and third uses of the dialecti-
cal method, has taken us some way from our main purpose, which
was to discover how Aristotle could have regarded dialectic as the
master discipline of argument, but it has helpedadvance that purpose
by throwing further light on the complex unity that the Aristotelian
discipline of dialectic possessed. We are now in a position to see how
dialectic has been able to present such a variety of aspects to different
observers. Viewed from one angle, it is a method tailored to the spe-
cial demands of a certain form of philosophical discussion. Viewed
from another, it is the proper home of general reections about ar-
gument of interest to every pursuit of which argument is a part.
This complex unity also helps explainother features of the dialec-
tical method as it is set out in the Topics. As we have seen, Aristotle
holds that the consideration of every syllogism without distinction
(oc) is the business of dialectic, either dialectic as a whole or a
part of it (Rhetoric 1.1.1355a810). Presumably he raises the possi-
bility that general discussion of the syllogism belongs to a part of
dialectic rather than the whole because, as I have already suggested,
the whole of it will inevitably contain much that is of use only to prac-
titioners of specically dialectical forms of argument. Yet though the
Topics contains much that has a bearing on forms of argument other
than the dialectical, Aristotle makes no effort to gather this material
in one place corresponding to the part of dialectic that he envisages
or to tackle it in a way that makes it readily available to other dis-
ciplines. The dialectical method unites those elements necessary to
equip practitioners for successful participation in gymnastic argu-
ment, and it tackles facts about argument of wider interest when and
in ways that are dictated by this purpose.
In addition, dialectics standing as an art of argument means that
neither its boundaries nor even those of the part of it concerned with
the syllogism in general will coincide with those of analytic. The
Topics does, to be sure, contain much informal discussion of matters
that are tackled with the aid of formal logical theory in the Prior
Analytics. It has something to say about the premises and conclu-
sions of syllogisms, though in a way that is peculiarly adapted to the
dialectical arguments where the differences between the predicables
matter as they do not in rhetoric (Topics 1.4, 1011). But it cannot be
taken for granted that the understanding of from what and how
RHETORI CA 108
a syllogism arises, that the orator derives from dialecticlanguage
that is remarkably similar to that of the Prior Analyticsis conned to
the formor structure of syllogistic premises and conclusions (Rhetoric
1.1.1355a1112; Prior Analytics 1.4.25b267). It may embrace the rep-
utable opinions which will be of so much service in encounters with
the many (Topics 1.2.101a3034; Rhetoric 1.1.1355a279, 2.1356b324,
2.22.1396b411). Andit verylikelyextends tothetopoi, the elements of
the method of invention on which, as Aristotle emphasizes, both di-
alectic and rhetoric rely (Rhetoric 1.2.1358a1032) and to which much
the largest part of the Topics is dedicated. Here too, however, rhetoric
cannot simply take from the method of dialectic what it needs. The
Topics presentation of the topoi divides into four parts, one for each
of the four predicables. The difference between the different ways in
which a predicate belongs to a subject is immaterial in rhetoric, and
though many of the topoi in the Rhetoric resemble dialectical topoi,
all reference to the predicables disappears. Other topoi in the Rhetoric
have no analogues in the Topics (Rhetoric 2.23).
What is more, to judge by the Topics and Sophistical Refutations, a
knowledge of the syllogismin general will require a thorough under-
standing of how to construct fallacious arguments. To the surprise of
present-day students of Aristotle, the fullest discussion of the syllo-
gism is not found in the Topics proper, but in Sophistical Refutations
6. There Aristotle analyzes each of the seven forms of fallacy not due
to language as instances of ignoratio elenchi by showing how each of
them violates a part of the denition of the syllogism (168a23; cf. 8,
169b40). Some of the apparent oddness of this procedure disappears,
however, if we keep in mind that Aristotle has the needs of the partic-
ipants in a practice of argument constantly in view. One must know
how fallacious arguments arise if one is to detect and solve them,
that is, to reveal why an apparently valid syllogism is in fact invalid
(Sophistical Refutations 24, 179b234). This ability will come into its
own most obviously when one is faced with deliberately fallacious
arguments put to one by others. Yet here too a double perspective is
in evidence; Aristotle maintains that it will also help the philosopher
avoid inadvertent errors in his own reasoning (Sophistical Refutations
16, 175a912).
If the argument of this paper is on the right lines, then admiration
for Aristotles invention of logic should not blind us to the existence
of an earlier phase in his thinking about argument. In it the place of
the master discipline of argument later to be occupiedby analytic was
occupied instead by dialectic, a discipline that owed its priority not,
as analytic was to do, to a concern with the formof valid argument in
general, but to its special relation to a favored practice of argument.