[33] Analyt Prior. II. xix. p. 66, a. 25-32: πρὸς δὲ τὸ μὴ κατασυλλογίζεσθαι παρατηρητέον, ὅταν ἄνευ τῶν συμπερασμάτων ἐρωτᾷ τὸν λόγον, &c.
Waitz (p. 520) explains κατασυλλογίζεσθαι, “disputationum et interrogationum laqueis aliquem irretire.â€� This is, I think, more correct than the distinction which M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire seeks to draw, “entre le Catasyllogisme et la Réfutation,â€� in the valuable notes to his translation of the Analytica Priora, p. 303.
[34] Ibid. II. xix. p. 66, a. 25-32.
[35] Ibid. xx. p. 66, b. 4-17. The reader will observe how completely this advice given by Aristotle is shaped for the purpose of obtaining victory in the argument and how he leaves out of consideration both the truth of what the opponent asks to be conceded, and the belief entertained by the defendant. This is exactly the procedure which he himself makes a ground of contemptuous reproach against the Sophists.
We have already seen that error may arise by wrong enunciation or arrangement of the terms of a syllogism, that is, defects in its form; but sometimes also, even when the form is correct, error may arise from wrong belief as to the matters affirmed or denied.[36] Thus the same predicate may belong, immediately and essentially, alike to several distinct subjects; but you may believe (what is the truth) that it belongs to one of them, and you may at the same time believe (erroneously) that it does not belong to another. Suppose that A is predicable essentially both of B and C, and that A, B, and C, are all predicable essentially of D. You may know that A is predicable of all B, and that B is predicable of all D; but you may at the same time believe (erroneously) that A is not predicable of any C, and that C is predicable of all D. Under this state of knowledge and belief, you may construct two valid syllogisms; the first (in Barbara, with B for its middle term) proving that A belongs to all D; the second (in Celarent, with C for its middle term) proving that A belongs to no D. The case will be the same, even if all the terms taken belong to the same ascending or descending logical series. Here, then, you know one proposition; yet you believe the proposition contrary to it.[37] How can such a mental condition be explained? It would, indeed, be an impossibility, if the middle term of the two syllogisms were the same, and if the premisses of the one syllogism thus contradicted directly and in terms, the premisses of the other: should that happen, you cannot know one side of the alternative and believe the other. But if the middle term be different, so that the contradiction between the premisses of the one syllogism and those of the other, is not direct, there is no impossibility. Thus, you know that A is predicable of all B, and B of all D; while you believe at the same time that A is predicable of no C, and C of all D; the middle term being in one syllogism B, in the other, C.[38] This last form of error is analogous to what often occurs in respect to our knowledge of particulars. You know that A belongs to all B, and B to all C; you know, therefore, that A belongs to all C. Yet you may perhaps be ignorant of the existence of C. Suppose A to denote equal to two right angles; B, to be the triangle generally; C, a particular visible triangle. You know A B the universal proposition; yet you may at the same time believe that C does not exist; and thus it may happen that you know, and do not know, the same thing at the same time. For, in truth, the knowledge, that every triangle has its three angles equal to two right angles, is not (as a mental fact) simple and absolute, but has two distinct aspects; one as concerns the universal, the other as concerns the several particulars. Now, assuming the case above imagined, you possess the knowledge in the first of these two aspects, but not in the second; so that the apparent contrariety between knowledge and no knowledge is not real.[39] And in this sense the doctrine of Plato in the Menon is partially true — that learning is reminiscence. We can never know beforehand particular cases per se; but in proportion as we extend our induction to each case successively, we, as it were, recognize that, which we knew beforehand as a general truth, to be realized in each. Thus when we ascertain the given figure before us to be a triangle, we know immediately that its three angles are equal to two right angles.[40]
[36] Analyt. Prior. II. xxi. p. 66, b. 18: συμβαίνει δ’ ἐνίοτε, καθάπερ ἐν τῇ θέσει τῶν ὅρων ἀπατώμεθα, καὶ κατὰ τὴν ὑπόληψιν γίνεσθαι τὴν ἀπάτην.
The vague and general way in which Aristotle uses the term ὑπόληψις, seems to be best rendered by our word belief. See Trendelenburg ad Aristot. De Animâ, p. 469; Biese, Philos. des Aristot. i. p. 211.
[37] Ibid. II. xxi. p. 66, b. 33: ὥστε ὅ πως ἐπίσταται, τοῦτο ὅλως ἀξιοῖ μὴ ὑπολαμβάνειν· ὅπερ ἀδύνατον.
[38] Ibid. II. xxi. p. 67, a. 5-8.
[39] Analyt. Prior. II. xxi. p. 67, a. 19: οὕτω μὲν οὖν ὡς τῇ καθόλου οὖδε το Γ ὅτι δύο ὀρθαί, ὡς δὲ τῇ καθ’ ἕκαστον οὐκ οἶδεν, ὥστ’ οὐχ ἕξει τὰς ἐναντίας (sc. ἐπιστήμος).