9 ideas
| 2676 | Didactic argument starts from the principles of the subject, not from the opinions of the learner [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Didactic arguments are those which reason from the principles appropriate to each branch of learning and not from the opinions of the answerer (for he who is learning must take things on trust). | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165b01) |
| 2675 | Reasoning is a way of making statements which makes them lead on to other statements [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Reasoning is based on certain statements made in such a way as necessarily to cause the assertion of things other than those statements and as a result of those statements. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165a01) |
| 2677 | Dialectic aims to start from generally accepted opinions, and lead to a contradiction [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Dialectical arguments are those which, starting from generally accepted opinions, reason to establish a contradiction. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165b03) |
| 2674 | Competitive argument aims at refutation, fallacy, paradox, solecism or repetition [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Those who compete and contend in argument aim at five objects: refutation, fallacy, paradox, solecism, and the reduction of one's opponent to a state of babbling, that is, making him say the same thing over and over again. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165b15) |
| 16967 | 'Are Coriscus and Callias at home?' sounds like a single question, but it isn't [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If you ask 'Are Coriscus and Callias at home or not at home?', whether they are both at home or not there, the number of propositions is more than one. For if the answer is true, it does not follow that the question is a single one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 176a08) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Aristotle is saying that some questions should not receive a 'yes' or 'no' answer, because they are equivocal. Arthur Prior cites this passage, on 'and'. Ordinary use of 'and' need not be the logical use of 'and'. |
| 18203 | Avoid non-predicative classifications and definitions [Poincaré] |
| Full Idea: Never consider any objects but those capable of being defined in a finite number of word ...Avoid non-predicative classifications and definitions. | |
| From: Henri Poincaré (The Logic of Infinity [1909], p.63), quoted by Penelope Maddy - Naturalism in Mathematics II.4 |
| 16149 | Generic terms like 'man' are not substances, but qualities, relations, modes or some such thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: 'Man', and every generic term, denotes not an individual substance but a quality or relation or mode or something of the kind. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 179a01) | |
| A reaction: This is Aristotle's denial that species constitutes the essence of anything. I take 'man' to be a categorisation of individuals, and is ontologically nothing at all in its own right. |
| 11840 | Only if two things are identical do they have the same attributes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is only to things which are indistinguishable and one in essence [ousia] that all the same attributes are generally held to belong. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 179a37) | |
| A reaction: This simply IS Leibniz's Law (to which I shall from now on quietly refer to as 'Aristotle's Law'). It seems that it just as plausible to translate 'ousia' as 'being' rather than 'essence'. 'Indistinguishable' and 'one in ousia' are not the same. |
| 19216 | Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson] |
| Full Idea: A proposition about an item exists only if that item exists... how could something be the proposition that that dog is barking in circumstances in which that dog does not exist? | |
| From: Timothy Williamson (Necessary Existents [2002], p.240), quoted by Trenton Merricks - Propositions | |
| A reaction: This is a view of propositions I can't make sense of. If I'm under an illusion that there is a dog barking nearby, when there isn't one, can I not say 'that dog is barking'? If I haven't expressed a proposition, what have I done? |