[101] Ibid. p. 112, a. 2-15. δεῖ δ’ εὐλαβεῖσθαι τὸν ἔσχατον τῶν ῥηθέντων τρόπων· παντελῶς γὰρ ἀπηρτημένος καὶ ἀλλότριος ἔοικεν εἶναι τῆς διαλεκτικῆς.
The epithet σοφιστικὸς τρόπος is probably intended by Aristotle to apply only to this last class of cases.
This paragraph is very obscure, and is not much elucidated by the long Scholion of Alexander (pp. 267-268, Br.).
10. You will recollect that every proposition laid down or granted by the respondent carries with it by implication many other propositions; since every affirmation has necessary consequences, more or fewer. Whoever says that Sokrates is a man, has said also that he is an animal, that he is a living creature, biped, capable of acquiring knowledge. If you can disprove any of these necessary consequences, you will have disproved the thesis itself. You must take care, however, that you fix upon some one of the consequences which is really easier, and not more difficult, to refute than the thesis itself.[102]
[102] Topic. II. v. p. 112, a. 16-23.
11. Perhaps the thesis set up by the respondent may be of such a nature that one or other of two contrary predicates must belong to the subject; e.g., either health or sickness. In that case, if you are provided with arguments bearing on one of the two contraries, the same arguments will also serve indirectly for proof, or for disproof, of the other. Thus, if you show that one of the two contraries does belong to the subject, the same arguments prove that the other does not; vice versâ, if you show that one of them does not belong, it follows that the other does.[103]
[103] Topic. II. vi. p. 112, a. 25-31. δῆλον οὖν ὅτι πρὸς ἀμφω χρήσιμος ὁ τόπος.
12. You may find it advantageous, in attacking the thesis, to construe the terms in their strict etymological sense, rather than in the sense which common usage gives them.[104]
[104] Ibid. a. 32-38: ἔτι τὸ ἐπιχειρεῖν μεταφέροντα τοὔνομα ἐπὶ τὸν λόγον, ὡς μάλιστα προσῆκον ἐκλαμβάνειν ἢ ὡς κεῖται τοὔνομα.
The illustrative examples which follow prove that λόγον here means the etymological origin, and not the definition, which is its more usual meaning.