5. But the most interesting illustration of this confusion of one Category with another, is furnished by Aristotle in respect of the difference between himself and Plato as to Ideas or Universals. According to Plato the universal term denoted a separate something apart from the particulars, yet of which each of these particulars partook. According to Aristotle it denoted nothing separate from the particulars, but something belonging (essentially or non-essentially) to all and each of the particulars. In the Platonic theory it was an Hoc Aliquid (τόδε τι), or had an existence substantive and separate: in the Aristotelian it was a Quale or Quale Quid (ποιόν), having an existence merely adjective or predicative. Aristotle maintains that Plato or the Platonists placed it in the wrong Category — in the Category of Substance instead of in that of Quality.
Now it is by rectifying this confusion of Categories that Aristotle solves two argumentative puzzles which he ranks as sophistical:— (1) The argument concluding in what was called the ‘Third Man;’ (2) The following question: Koriskus, and the musical Koriskus — are these the same, or is the second different from the first?
What is called the ‘Third Man’ was a refutation of the Platonic theory of Ideas. Because Plato recognized a substantive existence, corresponding to each common denomination connoting likeness, apart from all the similar particulars denominated, e.g., a Self-man, or separate self-existent man, corresponding to the Idea, and apart from all individual men, Caius, &c. — opponents argued against him, saying:— If this is recognized, you must also recognize that the Self-man, and the individual man called Caius, have also a common denomination and similarity, which (upon your principles) corresponds to another Ideal Man, or a Third Man. You must, therefore, go on inferring upwards to a Fourth Man, a Fifth Man, &c., and so onwards to an indefinite number of Ideal Men, one above the other. This was intended as a refutation, by Reductio ad Impossibile, of the Platonic view of Ideas as separate Entities, each of them One and Universal. But Aristotle here treats it as a Sophistical Refutation; and he indicates what he calls the solution of it by saying that it confounds the Categories of Substance and Quality, putting the Universal (which ought to be under the Category of Quality) under the Category of Substance. He has no right, however, to include this among Sophistical Refutations, which are (as he himself defines them) not real but fallacious refutations, invented by a dishonest money-getting profession called Sophists, and which are solved by pointing out the precise seat of the fallacy. The refutation called the ‘Third Man’ is so far from being fallacious, that it is valid, and is recited as such elsewhere by Aristotle himself (Metaphs. A. ix. p. 990, b. 17); while the solution tendered by Aristotle, instead of being a solution, is a confirmation, pointing out, not where the fallacy of the refutation resides but, where the fallacy of the doctrine refuted resides. Moreover, if we are to treat the refutation called the ‘Third Man’ as sophistical, we must number Plato himself among the dishonest class called Sophists. Here is one among the many proofs that the strong line drawn by Aristotle between the Dialectician and the Sophist is quite untenable. The argument is distinctly enunciated in the Platonic Parmenides (pp. 131-133).
The meaning of the Universal (Aristotle maintains) must be considered as predicative only, tacked on to some Hoc Aliquid, and belonging to Quale or some other of the nine latter Categories. It may be set out as a distinct subject for logical consideration and reasoning: but it cannot be set out as a distinct existence beyond and apart from its particulars (παρὰ τοὺς πολλοὺς ἕν τι). It is ποιόν, and it cannot even be recognized as ὅπερ ποιόν or αὐτο-ποιόν, for this would put it apart from all the other ποιά, and would be open to the refutation above noticed called the ‘Third Man.’ Such is the drift of the very difficult passage of the Sophistici Elenchi (xxii. p. 178, b. 37-p. 179, a. 10). I differ from Mr. Poste’s translation (p. 71) of part of this passage, and still more from the explanation given in the latter part of his note (p. 155). I think that the doctrine of τὸ ἓν παρὰ τὰ πολλά is produced by Aristotle here and elsewhere in his work as untrue and inadmissible, not as his own doctrine. Mr. Poste understands this passage differently from the previous translators, with whom I agree for the most part, though M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire appears to me to have missed the hinge upon which Aristotle’s argument turns, by translating ὅπερ ποιόν — id ipsum, quod quale est (J. Pacius) — “une qualité:â€� the argument turns upon the distinction between ὅπερ ποιόν and ποιόν.
I come now to the second sophistical refutation given by Aristotle: Koriskus, and the musician Koriskus — are the two the same or different? This is what Aristotle calls a sophistical or fallacious argument (compare Metaphys. E. ii. p. 1026, b. 15); but it can hardly be so called with propriety, for the only solution that Aristotle himself gives of it is, that the two are idem numero, but in an improper or secondary sense (Topic. I. vii. p. 103, a. 30); i. e., that they are in one point of view the same, in another point of view different — they are ἓν κατὰ συμβεβηκός. See Arist. Metaph. Δ. vi. p. 1015, b. 16; Scholia, p. 696, a. 22, seq.; and Alexand. Aphrodis. ad Metaph. pp. 321, 322, 414, 415, ed. Bonitz. I understand Aristotle to say that Κόρισκος μουσικός cannot be properly set out or abstracted (οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτὸ ἐκθέσθαι), because it includes two Categories (Substance and Quality) in one; wherefore it cannot be properly compared either with Κόρισκος simply (Category of Substance) or with μουσικός simply (Category of Quality). It seems strange that Aristotle does not notice this argumentative difficulty in the discussion which he bestows on ταὐτόν in the Seventh Book of the Topica. The subtle reasonings, very hard to follow, which Aristotle employs (Physic. V. iv. p. 227) might have made him cautious in treating the difficulties of opponents as so many dishonest cavils. It is curious that Alexander, in reciting the sophistical argument, assumes as a matter of course that ὁ γραμματικὸς Σωκράτης is ὁ αὐτὸς τῷ Σωκράτει (Schol. ad Metaphys. p. 736, b. 26, Brand.).
As a general rule, in all the refutations founded on the seven Fallacies In Dictione, the respondent will solve the refutation by distinguishing the double meaning of the words or of the phrase, and by adopting as his own the one opposite to that which the questioner proceeds upon. If the Fallacy is of Conjunction and Disjunction, and if the questioner assumes Conjunction, the respondent will adopt Disjunction; if it be a Fallacy of Accent, and if the questioner assumes the grave accent, the respondent will adopt the acute.[113]
[113] Soph. El. xxiii. p. 179, a. 11-25.
Passing to the Fallacies Extra Dictionem, where the sophistical refutation is founded upon a Fallacy of Accident, the respondent ought to apply one and the same solution to all. He will say: “The conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premisses�; and he will be prepared with an example, in which the conclusion obtained under this fallacy is notoriously untrue.[114] “Do you know Koriskus?� — “Yes.� “Do you know the distant person coming this way?� — “No.� “That distant person is Koriskus: therefore you know, and you do not know, the same person.� The inference here is not necessary. To be coming this way — is an accident of Koriskus; and, because you do not know the accident, we cannot infer that you do not know the subject; such may or may not be the case.[115]
[114] Soph. El. xxiv. p. 179, a. 30: ῥητέον οὖν συμβιβασθέντας ὁμοίως πρὸς ἅπαντας ὅτι οὐκ ἀναγκαῖον· ἔχειν δὲ δεῖ προφέρειν τὸ οἷον.
[115] Ibid. a. 35-b. 7.