Page - 353 - in The Complete Aristotle

claimed to belong in like manner to a thing and to its accident. For since the same thing has many accidents there is no necessity that all the same attributes should belong to all of a thing’s predicates and to their subject as well. Thus (e.g.), ‘If Coriscus be different from “man”, he is different from himself: for he is a man’: or ‘If he be different from Socrates, and Socrates be a man, then’, they say, ‘he has admitted that Coriscus is different from a man, because it so happens (accidit) that the person from whom he said that he (Coriscus) is different is a man’. Those that depend on whether an expression is used absolutely or in a certain respect and not strictly, occur whenever an expression used in a particular sense is taken as though it were used absolutely, e.g. in the argument ‘If what is not is the object of an opinion, then what is not is’: for it is not the same thing ‘to be x’ and ‘to be’ absolutely. Or again, ‘What is, is not, if it is not a particular kind of being, e.g. if it is not a man.’ For it is not the same thing ‘not to be x’ and ‘not to be’ at all: it looks as if it were, because of the closeness of the expression, i.e. because ‘to be x’ is but little different from ‘to be’, and ‘not to be x’ from ‘not to be’. Likewise also with any argument that turns upon the point whether an expression is used in a certain respect or used absolutely. Thus e.g. ‘Suppose an Indian to be black all over, but white in respect of his teeth; then he is both white and not white.’ Or if both characters belong in a particular respect, then, they say, ‘contrary attributes belong at the same time’. This kind of thing is in some cases easily seen by any one, e.g. suppose a man were to secure the statement that the Ethiopian is black, and were then to ask whether he is white in respect of his teeth; and then, if he be white in that respect, were to suppose at the conclusion of his questions that therefore he had proved dialectically that he was both white and not white. But in some cases it often passes undetected, viz. in all cases where, whenever a statement is made of something in a certain respect, it would be generally thought that the absolute statement follows as well; and also in all cases where it is not easy to see which of the attributes ought to be rendered strictly. A situation of this kind arises, where both the opposite attributes belong alike: for then there is general support for the view that one must agree absolutely to the assertion of both, or of neither: e.g. if a thing is half white and half black, is it white or black? Other fallacies occur because the terms ‘proof’ or ‘refutation’ have not been defined, and because something is left out in their definition. For to refute is to contradict one and the same attribute-not merely the name, but the reality-and a name that is not merely synonymous but the same name-and to confute it from the propositions granted, necessarily, without including in the reckoning the original point to be proved, in the same respect and relation and manner and time in which it was asserted. A ‘false assertion’ about anything 353