Aristotle on False Reasoning by Scott G. Schreiber

Author:Scott G. Schreiber [Schreiber, Scott G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-17T05:00:00+00:00

Accident and Consequent

127

The crucial argument that unites these seeming disparate examples is the triangle argument. Because it is clearly not based on a linguistic confusion, and because that same extralinguistic explanation is able to account for all of the other examples, Aristotle classifies all of the fallacies as “outside of language.” It is not the case that none of these examples can be understood as trading on verbal ambiguities; rather, it is the case that at least one of them cannot be so understood. Therefore, by PP, Aristotle can claim that regardless of what else might be wrong with the arguments, the ultimate source of confusion is a failure to distinguish accidental from essential predications.

Until that ontological distinction is pointed out and understood, complete resolution is impossible.

Aristotle, however, does not want to leave it that most or many of these examples have linguistic problems as well as the fundamental ontological problem. He also argues that examples such as the paternal dog cannot involve linguistic equivocation. He criticizes people who think that there are linguistic double meanings involved.

Some people, too, resolve these reasonings by means of double meaning, for example, that he is your father, or son, or slave. And yet it is clear that if the refutation appears due to something being said in many ways, it is necessary that the name or phrase be said standardly (kur√wV) of more than one thing. No one standardly says that the child is his if he is a master of the child, but the combination is by accident. “Is this person yours?” “Yes.” “And is this person a child? Then this person is your child since he happens to be both yours and a child.” However he is not your child.36

Aristotle is somewhat careless here. He has forgotten that earlier in S.E. 4 he distinguished three ways in which double meaning can give rise to fallacy37: 1.

when a name or phrase standardly (kur√wV) signifies more than one thing;

2.

when a name or phrase customarily (even if not standardly) applies to more than one thing; and

3.

when names singly signify one thing, but when combined result in a phrase with multiple signification.

Aristotle’s point is that “child” (t°knon) has only one standard signification, and he would have to add, it has only one customary signification. That is, the standard signification of “child” is the only signification. True, there are metaphorical uses of t°knon: references, for example, to flowers as ga√aV

t°kna (Aeschylus) or to birds as aÎq°roV t°kna (Euripides). But at the core 128

FALLACIES OUTSIDE OF LANGUAGE

of these metaphors is the concept of generation or origin, not ownership.

What Aristotle denies is any customary use of t°knon to refer to one’s property qua property. He denies, then, any possible case for double meaning playing a role in this fallacy.38

Whether or not we find this last argument convincing, there can be no doubt that the denial of purely linguistic resolutions of many of his examples is based upon Aristotle’s Principle of Parsimony. Ignore or reject that principle, and there

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