Compare this with Aristot. Soph. El. i. p. 165, a. 30.
Doubtless there are rules that require to be observed in the dialectical attack and defence, as there are rules for all other matches such as chess or fencing. I should have been glad if Aristotle had given a precise and tenable explanation what these rules were. He describes the Sophist as one who plays the game unfairly; but we have already seen that the ends pursued by the Dialectician generally are hardly at all distinguishable from those aimed at by the Sophist. If we look to the account of the means employed by one and the other, we shall in like manner fail to see how any real line can be drawn between them.
Thus, one proceeding declared to be characteristic of the Sophist is — that he puts multiplied questions apparently at random, without any visible bearing on the thesis; practising a sort of fishing examination, in order to obtain some answer of which he may take advantage.[67] But, when we turn to the Eighth Book of the Topica, we find Aristotle expressly recommending the like manœuvre to the Dialectician; advising him to conceal as much as possible the scheme and intended series of his questions — to begin as far as possible apart from the thesis, to put the questions in a succession designedly incoherent and unintelligible, and to obtain (what, if obtained, ensured complete success) the full extent of premisses necessary for his final refutative syllogism, without the respondent being aware that he had conceded them.[68] The questioner is farther advised to throw the respondent off his guard by affecting indifference whether each question is answered affirmatively or negatively, and by occasionally taking objection against himself, in order that he may create the impression of a strictly honest purpose.[69] If we compare the interrogative procedure which Aristotle recommends to the Dialectician with that which he blames in the Sophist, we shall find that the former is even a greater refinement of deception than the latter.
[67] Soph. El. xii. p. 172, b. 9-25.
Aristotle treats the Sophists as guilty of dishonourable proceeding herein — δύνανται δὲ νῦν ἧττον κατουργεῖν διὰ τούτων ἢ πρότερον. The very same charge was urged against the dialectic of Sokrates by his opponents: Plato, Hippias Minor, p. 373 — ἀλλὰ Σωκράτης ἀεὶ ταράττει ἐν τοῖς λόγοις καὶ ἔοικεν ὥσπερ κακουργοῦντι. Compare Plato, Gorgias, pp. 461, B., 482, E., 483, A.
[68] Topic. VIII. i. p. 155, b. 1.-p. 155, b. 30; p. 156, a. 5-22. Compare Analyt. Priora, II. xix. p. 66, a. 33.
[69] Topic. VIII. i. p. 156, b. 3, 17. Compare VIII. i. pp. 155-156, with Soph. El. xv. p. 174, a. 28.
The next trick which we find ascribed to the Sophist is — that he conducts the train of interrogation in such manner as to bring it upon a ground on which his memory is abundantly furnished with topics. Aristotle adds that this may be done well and honourably, or ill and dishonourably.[70] From his own admission we see that this practice was not peculiar to Sophists, but was common also to those whom he calls Dialecticians: like every other part of the procedure, it might be done well or ill; but wherein this difference consisted he does not further explain. Indeed, when we recollect that the elaborate details and classification of the Topica are mainly intended to furnish the memory with an abundant store of premisses well-arranged and ready for interrogation,[71] we may be sure that every Dialectician who had gone through the trouble of learning them would be impatient to apply them; and would make an opportunity for doing so, if none were spontaneously tendered to him. But, if the answers obtained were totally irrelevant to his final purpose of refuting the thesis, they would be nothing but embarrassment to him.[72] We must, therefore, understand that the questions put would be such as tended ultimately to introduce that refutative Syllogism which the questioner was bound to conclude with. If they were not, he was of course punished by failure.
[70] Soph. El. xii. p. 172, b. 26. In Topic. III. i. p. 116, a. 20, Aristotle prescribes the same procedure to the Dialectician. See also Waitz’s note on the passage.
Alexander (in Scholia, p. 267, b. 8) tells us that it was customary for the Sophists to put questions lying away from the thesis, and he shows this by mentioning the Platonic Protagoras, in which he says that the Sophist Protagoras does so. But the illustration here produced does not serve Alexander’s purpose. The Sophist Protagoras (in the Platonic dialogue so called) is represented, not as shifting dialectic from one point to another, but as running away from it altogether into long discourse and continuous rhetoric (Plato, Protagor. pp. 333, 334, 335). In respect to the thesis started for debate, the dialectic of Sokrates departs from it as widely as that of Protagoras, and this is acknowledged at the close of the dialogue, p. 361. Compare ‘Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates’, Vol. II. pp. [53], [59], [70].