6.
The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Thought 89
6 (Meta. I 6, 987bl-9). Furthermore, it has often been noticed that the
E. Weil
The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Thought
1.
283 All Aristotle's works are full of interpretative problems, yet the Topics
seems to contain difficulties which are unique of their kind and
uniquely recalcitrant.
Aristotle himself states that dialectic, the subject of the nine books
of the Topics, differs from scientific argument; why, then, has he
chosen to study something whose philosophical interest is apparently
far less than that of the Analytics? How can the logic of what is
'probable' or 'plausible' - these are the accepted translations of
endoxon - provide us with anything more than evidence of a historical
character about the beginnings of Aristotle's thoftght about logic-
about the last flickerings of a method which perished with Aristotle and
because of his labours, and which gave way to scientific teaching, firmly
reined in by the syllogistic moods and rigorously bound in the chains of
demonstrative reasoning?
The Topics is thus easily dismissed as a minor work. Is this dismissal
284 justified? It assumes, I at least, that in Aristotle's view there is an
incontestable and crucial difference between dialectic and analytics.
The difference is certainly incontestable; but perhaps it is not crucial as
far as the value of the two disciplines goes. It would be crucial only if
the Analytics contained the true method and the ultimate principles of
science. Now this does not appear to be the case: not only did the
Lyceum always refuse to consider logic - what has been known as logic
since the Stoics - as an essential part of philosophy, but Aristotle
himself, in the Analytics as well as in other works, apparently did not
attach any peculiar importance to it, seeing it rather as a propaedeutic,
a method of presentation or a means of verification.
In fact, although individual substances are what support all
properties, the syllogism cannot reach them; and although the universal
is the only object of knowledge, yet logic is incapable of proving the
definitions by which we apprehend universals. Then can syllogistic be
concerned with first principles? No, for these cannot be grasped by
discursive thought but only by nous which is essentially different from
and superior to it. Thus Aristotle has no hesitation in stating that
logical problems should not be brought into metaphysical discussions;
rather, they must be studied beforehand (Meta. IV 3, 1005b2-5). When
Aristotle comes to explain what he thinks is Plato's fundamental
mistake, the theory of Forms, he ties it historically to Socrates' hunt for
universal concepts. (katholou) and definitions; it is because Plato
overestimated the importance of what might be called the logical side
that he gave concepts an existence in separation from sensible objects
Analy tics used predominantly mathematical examples and that the
scientific ideal it describes is a mathematical one: are' we justified in
ignoring this peculiarity, weighty as it is in view of Aristotle's reiterated
reservations ~bout the cognitive value of mathematics?
Thus it appears that this first assumption I is not self-evident. Is the 285
same true of a second presupposition, that analytics should be
interp~eted as ~ normative science? Is it obvious that the theory of the
syllogism provides a code of correct thought? It certainly provides a
code of correct exposition, a canon of authoritative instruction· but
this furnishes us with a criterion for judging discoveries rather tha~ one
for making them, a method for uncovering mistakes rather than a
programme for discovering truths. The principles of demonstration are
provided by the particular sciences: they give it its subject-matter and
its problems; and they determine the degree of rigour which may
be required in the treatment of any particular question (EN
1094b22-5). But if this is so, what becomes of'the superiority of
over dialectic? It is true that analytics deals only with truths
while dialectic is concerned with all 'plausible' statements; but this fac;
does not give the two methods an essentially different character: both
are equally formal, both apply a method that is independent of
. content, both use the syllogism as their principal tool. Is it possible
then to distinguish between, and to oppose them in the way favoured
by most modern commentators?
The answers suggested by these questions make it appropriate to call
on the evidence of an ancient commentator whose value is not and
be contested. In the preface to his commentary on the Topics
,,,..... ,,a.••u•cr of Aphrodisias writes:
Just as arts qua arts can only be distinguished by reference to the
matter with which they deal and the way in which they are
~sed -just as they are distinguished thus, and in this way one art
Is the art of the carpenter, another the art of the builder, and so
on - s<? it is with syllogisms ... Syllogisms are not distinguished
by therr form ... they differ in respect of their matter (CIAG II.
2, 2.16-29).
·There is nothing in Aristotle's work to contradict this interpretation;
and, to mention nothing else, the whole of the first book of the Topics
supports it. I 286
It is true that modem scholarship considers the Topics to be a
comp_osite work: it is precisely books I and IX, which clearly aim at
securmg a place fo~ the theory of dialectic inside Aristotle's logical
oeuvre, that the emment scholar Heinrich Maier 1 dated later than the
:middle books. Again, it is certainly true that the term 'syllogism' rarely
1. See also Ross's introduction to his edition of the Analytics [6), p.23: 'The
references in the Topics to the Analytics must be later additions'.
 90 E. Weil
occurs in books II-VII. Further, Alexander of Aphrodisias (or someone
else whose note has crept into his commentary) bequeaths to us an
ancient opinion that the first book should be called not the Topics but
Introduction to the Topoi (op.cit.5.27). But let us grant Maier's thesis
to be true: all that follows is that Aristotle, after developing his theory
of the syllogism and of demonstration, returned to an earlier work and
thought it important enough to be recast and related to his recent
289 discoveries. 2 I
Perhaps behind the scorn in which the Topics is held there lies a
philosophical misunderstanding. The scorners distinguish between a
scientific theory on the one hand and a non-scientific theory on the
other, where Aristotle saw two techniques, both equally scientific,
though one deals with science (formaliter) and the other with
discussion whether scientific or not. Analytics handles scientific
reasoning; dialectic occupies itself with the reasoning characteristic of
discussion, whose propositions may or may not be true - they are not
necessarily true and do not have their truth guaranteed by the rules of
the game. How can a difference in subject-matter form the basis of a
difference of validity between methods? If this were the case, how
could we explain why Aristotle devoted treatises, which he himself
describes as scientific, to ethics (to which complete rigour is foreign),
to rhetoric and to poetics (cf. EN I 3)?
.,,. ,r,,,,,, . .,••• ~ progress of scientific study we have only to find the subject proper
2.
The real problem, however, far from being solved, has not yet even
been stated. If we allow, as my previous remarks suggest, that the
Topics is a scientific treatise in the same sense as the Analytics; that,
even though it may have been composed at a relatively early stage in
Aristotle's career, it formed an integral part of Aristotle's logical work;
and that the book has a definite value, at least if looked at from its
author's point of view- granted all this, the question of the precise
nature of this value still remains to be answered.
To answer it, I shall examine the theory of scientific demonstration.
I do not, of course, presume to analyse the theory here, or even to state
its essential characteristics; if, however, my interpretation of the
function of the Topics is correct, it will affect the significance of the
Analytics as well.
Demonstration starts with principles that are known in themselves
and peculiar to the science under discussion: there is a syllogism when,
certain things being given, something else necessarily follows from
2. Thus we need not enter the recent debate on Aristotle's 'intellectual
biography': the simple fact that Aristotle revised and added to the Topics after he
had completed the Analytics (see the specialist studies of Maier, Die Syllogistik
des Aristoteles II 2, p. 78, n.3, and Solmsen [26], pp~182, 185 ), is enough to
prove that dialectical inquiry had not lost all interest for him and that he did not
think it outdated (Pace Solmsen who says that 'analytics nullifies topics' (p.26)).
See Appendix at the end of this chapter for a justification of our method, which
aims at understanding Aristotle's thought as far as possible in its unity and as a
unity. · • · .
6. The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Thought 91
them (A.Pr. I 1, 24b18; cf. Top. I 1, 100a25 ). I But how are these 'given 290
things' or principles to be discovered? How are we to find, for example,
the definitions which play a vital role both in demonstration and in the
syllogism? By syllogism or demonstration? Aristotle shows at length in
the second book of the Posterior Analytics that this is impossible. Then
how are we to grasp the principles? They cannot be proved because
they are the basis of proof (Meta. IV 6, 10lla3 ff.; cf. A.Pst. II 19,
100b5 ff.; A.Pr. I 30, 46a17 ff.); so in the case of the individual
sciences we must grasp them empirically, and where ultimate (or first)
principles are concerned we must abandon argument in favour of
intuition or immediate apprehension (nous: A.Pst. II 19, 100b5 ff.). 3
. But is this really adequate? Does it provide us with a precise means of
.distinguishing between truth and falsehood? Surely experience must be
scientifically checked before we can allow it to be the source of
principles? And how can we know whether the appeal to nous is
'\'eridical or not?
We know Aristotle's answer to the second question: science does in
·fact exist; there is therefore an end to the ascending series of
. propositions, and knowledge (epistasthai) ensures that the mind comes
to a stop (stenai) (Phys. VII 3, 247bll). Thus it is enough if we can
truths whose negations would make argument indeterminate, i.e.
t;interJilli:nable. We also know the answer to the first question: to ensure
the science in question, to determine its generic character, and to
the specific differences within the field thus determined. 4
Can we be satisfied with these pointers? It is true that they tell us
is to be done; but they give no indication of the path we should
the method we should adopt to do it. What was much later
inventionis marks out a problem not only for the later
but also for Aristotle himself. Chapters 27-30 of the first
Prior Analytics present the difficulty: 'How we are to
/a good supply of syllogisms on a given subject, and by what means 291
are to grasp t~e principles in each case, we must now say. For
l"'"'"'u••••a••uY we must not only consider how syllogisms come about but
acquire the ability to form them' (I 27, 43a20 ff.). Thus we must
seek the elements of the definitions, the essential attributes, the genus
and species, the compossibility or incompatibility of attributes, the
implications and presuppositions of the terms, what is essential and
what inessential in relation to the subject. But properly speaking this is
not yet a method but only a description; and Aristotle admits as much:
'We have just stated in general terms how premisses should be selected;
we have gone through the matter rigorously in our treatise on dialectic'
(130, 46a28-30).
3. cf. I 33, 88b36-7 (with Ross's commentary), and II 19, 99bl5 ff.
4. For references see Bonitz, Index Arist. 279b10 ff.
5. Which in itself would scarcely be interesting: many of the questions asked
.of Aristotle are gross anachronisms; they have no sense for him, and are not even
expressible in his lar!guage.
 92 E. Weil
It has never been in doubt that this treatise on dialectic is the
Topics. This provides us with vital evidence about the purpose of the
treatise: it must contain, in a fully developed form, the logica
inventionis which the Analytics requires. It must contain a list of the
'places' where we can find arguments bearing on the discovery of
premisses that help in the construction of a syllogism and in the critical
destruction of a suggested syllogism - places for attack and places for
defence, completely general and formal schemata which can be applied
to any question regardless of the generic or specific differences which
distinguish the objects under discussion (Rhet. I 2, 1358a12-30).
Books II-VII of the Topics are, as it were, a detailed map of these
'places'. In addition to this, the work contains fundamental reflections
on what were later known as the 'predicables'; these are general points
of view (topoi) holding for every judgment and distinct from the
categories which bear on substances and what is said of them. The
Topics teaches us how to search in the areas of definition, of essential
predicates and properties, of genus and species, and of accidents; it
urges us to use every topical test to ensure that a putative identity
really is an identity, that the expression& we use are correct,
292 and, I above all, that our words contain no hidden equivocation or
homonymy. 6 In this way, having driven our thesis through all the
dialectical 'places', we may proceed to the problems of real knowledge.
I do not propose to embark on the details of Topics II-VII,
interesting though these are; I am concerned rather with the fact that,
seen from this angle, the Topics does not, as has often been claimed,
, constitute a- 'primitive' or 'inferior' form of Aristotle's logic; on the
· contrary, it gives both the starting-point of all analytic thought and also
the end-point at whicJ:t such thought must stop if it is to bear any fruit.
Without topics there is no matter for the syllogism to work on. Taken
in this way, the Topics is philosophically prior to the Analytics, and
without it the syllogism is useless. In a word, the Topics contains
reflections on discourse in general, one part of which is scientific
discourse in the strict sense. 7
3.
Thus my earlier conjecture is confirmed. But this pos1t10n is so far
removed from the traditional one, according to which the Topics is the
least and not the most important section of the Organon, that it is wise
to furnish further proofs, if only to show that my conception of the
Topics and of topical science agrees with Aristotle's theory and
practice.
We need not spend long on Aristotle's practice. It has often been
observed that Aristotle's scientific works are extremely sparing of
formal syllogisms, so sparing that many commentators have inserted
into their paraphrases the formally correct reasoning which Aristotle
6. cf. the importance of pollachos legomena (multiplicity of senses) in
Aristotle's ontology.
7. Accqrding. to Aristotle, one must study syllogistic before discussing the art
of critical examination (Top. IX 10, 17lal ff.).
6. The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Thought 93
himself did not trouble to provide. On the other side, it is I striking that 293
in these same works Aristotle begins with a historical account of the
problems he is about to tackle {these accounts are often criticised as
unfair or subjective, and they are certainly polemical in tone). What is
.. this doxography, typical of the Lyceum as a whole, if not the
application of the rules of criticism to historically given premisses? It is
precisely the use of topical technique in the examination of earlier
views and current opinions. In contrast with the modem historian,
Aristotle never wondered what these opinions might have meant for
original proponents; he asked only whether they were true. He did
do this in order to display his own superiority or the outmoded
of earlier theories; he did it because he could see no other
for his own research: 'All teaching and all intellectual
~aru•tu~ come from pre-existing knowledge' (A.Pst. I 1, 71al ff.; we shall
later to the question of endoxa).
The method Aristotle actually used is thus the one he describes in
Topics, if we give to 'method' the only interpretation it can bear in
, namely a procedure for discovering the problems - not the
- which present themselves to the philosopher in the course
his daily life. This is Aristotle's practice, and this is what his remarks
method state: nothing could be more explicit on this than the end
the Topics.
Book IX of the Topics, known as the Sophistici Elenchi, closes with
passage in which, with a pride and confidence almost unparalleled in
other works, Aristotle descants on the importance and originality of
researches into dialectic. 'We proposed,' he states, indicating that
conclusion holds for the work as a whole, 'to discover a sort of
ty for syllogising on a given problem from the most accepted
-en1is:ses available.' Here, then, is the technique, fully elaborated in all
details and all its essential parts. Now Aristotle says - and there
no reason to doubt it - that while all the other I branches of 294
developed gradually from small beginnings, in the case of
he was obliged to furnish us simultaneously with the foundations
the superstructure. 'Of this study it cannot be said that a part had
been worked out, a part not: nothing at all existed.' True, there
the recipes concocted by the sophists and sold for cash; but they
only concerned to pass on to their pupils a few logical
nn•l'\h'<T-1'r<~T"' - tricks to be got by heart and then trotted out to the
··.llJla:.!:en:texlt of the groundlings. 'They thought they could educate their
by offering them not a technique but the fruits of a technique.'
the case of rhetoric, Aristotle found plenty of hints; but in the case
. · ·. syllogistic reasoning, 'we had nothing at all until we had laboured
in painstaking research'. And so he thinks it only fair to crave his
indulgence for any mistakes he may have made, and to
-'"'u•a.uu their 'profound gratitude' for the discoveries he is revealing to
(Top. IX 34, 183a37 ff.). 8 .
8. The passage is important for Aristotle's biography, since it shows that he
•t:udied rhetoric before he studied logic. According to Diog. L. V 3, Aristotle
. •.· • trained his pupils at-the same time in dialectic and rhetoric.
 94 E. Weil
If in spite of this text we wish to support Maier's view that the
Topics is a youthful work, we must take the term 'syllogism' here in a
non-technical sense (or, as Solmsen suggests, in a restricted sense). But
this move involves a vicious circle: to uphold the view that 'syllogism'
has an imprecise meaning we must first be sure that the Topics was
composed at the beginning of Aristotle's career- and to prove this we
must show by other means that the term is used loosely or narrowly. Is
it not simpler and more sensible to assume that the Topics is what
Aristotle claims it to be, the most useful and the most fundamental of
his logical writings, and to admit that the method of the Analytics
stands to it as the particular to the general, and cannot be understood
or applied without it? It is thanks to the Topics that we learn how to
295 find syllogisms, to I stock up arguments, to assess the value of those
pre-existing theses on which all investigation depends, to recognise the
dangers that beset reasoning, and to grasp the importance of correctly
conducted argumentation. It is true that analytics deals only with
truths; but without the help of topical technique it is unable to pick
out the strand of truth in the labyrinth of contradictory theses in
which, in its historical situation, it inevitably finds itself. Analytics tests
the validity of argument and states the formal conditions required for a
valid conclusion; but in the last resort analytics must rely on topics,
without which it cannot choose its starting-points. Although analytics
may assess the consistency of an argument, it cannot presume to assess
but is compelled to presuppose the truth of its premisses.
It goes without saying that even topics contains no ultimate criterion
of truth. Topics too is purely formal, in the sense that it applies its
procedures indiscriminately to any affirmation: truth depends on
immediate intuition, either perceptual or intellectual. But the immense
value of topics lies in this: it teaches us how to reduce all theses to
irreducible first principles, by setting the theses which our historical
situation presents against the categories of that science which treats of
being qua being- substance, genus, species, property, accident; by
unmasking misunderstandings and confusions through an analysis of
definitions which is based ultimately on ontology; and by assessing the
validity of a putatively characteristic attribute and by governing the
ascription of genus and species. Topics, working from a historically
given state of human knowledge, enables us to formulate the questions
that have to be posed and to discover those true theses on which
formally valid demonstration can found a useful and lasting science.
4.
Our case will not be won simply by supporting it with appropriate
arguments: we have yet to show how the contrary thesis has come to be
generally accepted.
296 We have already mentioned one reason I why the Topics is despised:
a science of scientific reasoning seems more scientific than a science of
reasoning in general. But there are other, perhaps stronger, reasons, of
which the following three are the chief: a misunderstanding about the
meaning of th~ word endoxon and the function of doxa in Aristotle's
i
- I
!
6. The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Thought 95
work; 9 a wrong interpretation of the connection between dialectic and
syllogistic; and a mistake concerning the sort of dialogue practised in
the schools of the Academy and the Lyceum. I shall try to elaborate
these three points.
(1) Since the modern reaction against Aristotle's physics (the only
area in which the revolt against Aristotle has replaced his teaching by
· another theory) and the rejection of an Aristotelianism very remote
from the teachings of Aristotle himself, every study of ancient thought
has taken Plato as its starting-point. Aristotle, though he was and
remained a disciple of Plato, disagreed with him on questions so
fundamental that there is a danger of serious misapprehension if we
· suppose that the same terms mean the same things in both writers. In
Aristotle and Plato, it is true, doxa (opinion) is an inferior and
te mode of cognition, and anyone who relies on it runs a grave
error. It is also true that in the course of his philosophical
Plato came to allow a certain positive value to 'true
oJ:Ju.uuH • But only with Aristotle is opinion separated from opinions 1 297
vague beliefs of the vulgar from propositions accepted and
--•~,... ~..- with authority by those men whose credentials are universally
propositions which have a prejudice in their favour in as
they encapsulate the common experience of mankind (cf. EN
1172b36 ff.). Plato always believed in the possibility of a direct
t into essences, though he came to perceive its difficulties with
clarity. Aristotle allows no recourse to Ideas or Ideal numbers:
him the truly concrete must be sought in the data of sense-
rience (which discourse, inevitably generalising, is bound to distort)
of intellectual intuition (which can only offer us certitudes without
particular content, and principles which only receive content with
aid of empirical observation). In the attainment of scientific'
, which is a' sort of halfway house between the two,
is more important than syllogistic deduction: 'induction is
persuasive and more clear and more familiar with regard to
9. It is probably Hamelin's interpretation (Le Systeme d'Aristote 1920
:·.q;peciaLHV pp.226 ff.) which preserved Regis (L'Opinion seton Aristote, 19S5) and
Blond [79] from this error. Regis's great service was to show the importance
doxa (opinion) in Aristotle's tlwught; Le Blond's to elucidate the connections
. d~alectic and the discovery of principles (pp.44 ff) and between topics
mductiOn (pp.30 ff). This last point is of capital importance; we need not give
treatment of it since we can refer ilie reader to Le Blond's discussion
.\'-••u~•xu we do not subscribe to all his contentions). It is to be regretted iliat Le
under the influence of the scientistic prejudice (see below), finds iliat
::Arktnt 's 'broad-flowing tllought, which will not be contained in a single
, leaves him with 'no power of syniliesis and a weakness in logical
~tters'; and it is equally regrettable that Regis weakens his excellent thesis (see
m particular his definition of dialectic, p.143) by ignoring ilie studies of the
·development of Aristotle's thought and by neglecting to determine ilie relations
between dialectic and analytics. For different reasons, ilien, these two scholars do
. ,' ~ot manage to distinguish between doxa and endoxon wiili ilie necessary
·.·:·~~}:r-and this too is part of ilieir inheritance from Hamelin (op.cit., pp. 230

96 E. Weil
perception, and it is common to the majority of men; syllogism is more
cogent and has more power against controversialists' (Top. I 12, 105a16
ff). The same is true of the search for first principles which, once
known, are irresistibly and immediately accepted, but which are only
known by humankind after long labour: to see this we have only to
glance at the last chjlpter of the Posterior A naly tics which describes in a
masterly precis the long march of knowledge up to its first principles -
first 'in themselves' but last in relation to us and in the order of
acquisition. Indeed we have only to consider this single sentence: 'Thus
it is clear that we must apprehend the primitives [i.e. the principles] by
induction; for perception too engenders the universal in us in this way'
(A.Pst. II 19, 100b3-5 ). Thus science relies on induction and obser-
' vation, on things given, and not on the direct perception of some
substance behind the given; and this is why opinion is on the one hand,
as Plato saw, subject to error, but on the other the only level at which
the truth contained in accepted opinions can be teased out. And this
298 teasing is achieved by an examination conducted by topics I or -
Aristotle often juxtaposes the two terms- by peirastike (the art of
testing). 1 0
10. The essence of the problem is contained in the simple assertion that, in
Aristotle's view, only forms are scientifically knowable and only individual
substances (sunola) are real. Everything real is grasped by the senses; all
knowledge comes from reason. It follows that, where species and individual are
distinct - i.e. where the same form is present in indefinitely many pieces· of
matter - and hence in all cases save that of celestial substances and the science
which treats of them, men cannot have knowledge which is both concrete and
"trigorous. Every particular science is either rigorous (the only example is
mathematics - hence its importance to analytics, for which mathematics alone
supplies a suitable example of a system logically deduced from abstract
definitions and axioms; see the excellent account in Solmsen [26] ,pp.109 ff.); or
concrete, in which case it reveals reality but never does so rigorously, since any
individual may be incomplete or imperfect (peroma) by reason of the intervention
of essentially indeterminate matter; for this reason what is 'for the most part' (to
has epi to potu) and experience (empeiria) are in Aristotle's view characteristic of
~very concrete science. Except for astronomy {cf. Meta. XII 8, 1073b5 ff.; but
even astronomy only in principle - cf. PA I 5, 644b24 ff. - a text of great
importance for the 'Aristotelian revolution' in the evaluation of sense perception
and doxa), all concrete sciences are concerned with 'what can also be otherwise'
(to endechomenon kai altos echein) whose irreducibly particular nature can only
be grasped by doxa, which is the proper means of apprehending the sensible world
(cf. A.Pst. I 33- at 89a2 we must excise the words e pseudos which were added
by a Platonic reader and contradict the whole context: 'subjective' opinion is
expressed, at 89a7, by oiesthai;_ see also Meta. VII 15, 1039b20-1040a8). In
Plato's view, despite the considerable concessions he made towards the end of his
life, the notion of a non-exact science or of a science of the non-exact.(it was all
one to him) remained a contradiction in terms. Stenzel (Studien zur Entwicklung
der platonischen Dialektik, 1931) and Robin have shown in masterly fashion how
Plato attempted to comprehend the changeable and to give some sort of
legitimacy to doxa. Plato, however, would never have used the word episteme to
signify knowledge of changeable objects; a fortiori, he would not have given
preference to a science of this sort. Aristotle did both {cf. PA loc.cit). If we want
to be Platonists we are bound to say that Aristotle was evidently wrong; that he
\
6. The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Thought 97
. Thus we should not use the term 'opinion' when discussing the
·theses of topics; for the modern reader cannot avoid hearing the
.pejorative overtones which t)le word carries in Plato (and also in
Aristotle when he is contrasting opinion and knowledge). Nor should
talk of 'probable' I or 'plausible' theses in connection with topics, 299
rather translate endoxon by 'accepted' or 'current theses'. In short
must allow the word to bear the meaning Aristotle gave it: 'endoxa
what is accepted by everyone or by most men or by the
- either all of them or most of them or the most celebrated and
en.au;x,ui of them' (Top. I 1, 100b21-3). 11 Aristotle is concerned with
state of human knowledge at a given point in history - the point at
new investigations are being embarked upon. Alexander of
was right to locate the reputation of these 'celebrated' men
attention paid them by the public at large: without universal
· · they would be without reputation (op. cit. 19.16-20).
is not a logic of the probable or the likely; it is the scientific
by which we can examine any thesis that may be
Such a thesis is probable or pla"usible by virtue of its
in the intellectual life of the community; but it is scientifically
by virtue of a topical examination. Topics is not a logic
the plausible, of the probable, or of opinion: it is a technique for
· truth from current discourse - or rather for eliminating
u"•~w"uu; and it works from that pre-existing knowledge without
in Aristotle's view, no science is even conceivable.
(2) We found a second reason for the misunderstandings of the
in a mistaken conception of the relationship between dialectic
analytics. This reason has already been illustrated: if preference
be given to either, dialectic must be considered to embrace
tics; further, if one of them were a science, so too would be the
. I shall not say anything more on this point.
There is still need, however, for a fuller investigation of the scientific
"""''r,.rt••r I of Aristotle's logic, understood in the widest sense as 300
both analytics and topics. We must treat with utter
ss the historical fact that Aristotle and his school did not
have put analytics on a different and higher level than dialectic; and that,
ne:eaJtng his master's voice, he should have considered mathematics as the most
:tlilonrrP1r,. and not the
most abstract of the sciences. In fact he chose the opposite
IOJIUt:iora. Whether he was right or wrong is immaterial here. But we may reflect on
fate of orthodox Platonism which led the Middle Academy to scepticism -
and a!so on the nature of modern science which, despite the protestations of the
icientists, is not mathematical in Plato's sense but should rather be seen in the
of Aristotle's notions of production (poiesis), experience (empeiria) and
11. We translate the word dokounta by 'accepted', following the sense of
dokei, the formula of agreement. The word endoxos is used to describe both
and the accepted members of the intelligentsia: it would be
IUirnr·i•i'n.,._ particularly in a definition, if the same word had two totally different
· meanings, namely 'probable' (or 'plausible') and 'generally accepted'. It is true
_that doxa is opposed to episteme; but the opposite of endoxon is adoxon or
 98 E. Weil
include logic among the elements of their system. (It is true that, in the
Topics themselves (I 14, 105b18 ff.), Aristotle distinguishes dialectical
propositions and problems into the ethical, the physical, and the logical
(logikai); but he is clearly not referring here to the organisation of
t"reality and the systematic division of the sciences.) 1 2 This shows that
logic, a philosophical instrument or organon, does not have a private
area of truth (which is why it is universally applicable), and has no
principles other than the principles of ontology: logic is a techne, a
scientific method, precisely because it is a projection of immediate and
evident ontological truth on to the plane of language where this truth is
constantly striven for and never attained. Because Aristotle's logic is
formal, it is no part of philosophy; and yet at the same time it is
essentially bound up with philosophy, in as much as science is
constructed by the mediation of language though language does not
contain it, and being qua being is only revealed through the
~..,.intervention of language though it is not revealed in language.
Thus if topics on the one hand and analytics on the other are two
technai or procedures for the discovery of reality- or rather, pro-
cedures designed to allow reality to reveal itself in an intuition which,
to be truly true, must be immediate -then it is as technai that they
must be differentiated. And according to Aristotle, their difference qua
301 technai is the difference between fa course of lectures delivered by a
teacher and a general discussion- in other words, between a scientific
monologue and a scientific dialogue.
Any scientific activity presupposes, in Aristotle's opinion, at least
two participants. Master and pupil form the first pair: the master,
disregarding his pupil's beliefs, develops his argument from the
principles proper to his science; and the pupil listens to him
respectfully. A second pair consists of two men who, starting from
current opinions, together uncover the contradictions latent in ordinary
discourse and thus determine the puzzles that have to be solved. A third
pair is made up of an answerer who upholds a thesis and claims to know
facts that support it, and a questioner who challenges him. Finally,
there is the pair composed of the sophist and his interlocutor, where
the former draws conclusions, either validly or by means of a skilfully
camouflaged fallacy, from premisses that seem to be but in fact are not
universally accepted as true (e.g. he asks whether we do not possess that
which we have not lost - which seems obviously true but is in fact
false- and infers that his interloctor has horns on the grounds that he
12. For another interpretation see Solmsen [26], pp.191 ff.; but the absence
of problems about first philosophy (which he uses to date the text) proves
nothing- or only that dialectic- and ontology cover the same domain (cf. Meta.
IV 2, 1 004b 22 ff.: 'For dialectic and sophistic are concerned with the same
domain as philosophy ... but dialectic examines where philosophy gives know-
ledge and sophistic appears to but docs not'). It is significant that analytics is not
mentioned here, where it should be if it were concerned with a different domain
from dialectic. The clinching argument remains that analytics presupposes the
archai (principl~) but is unable to infer or encompass them. See below, p.99,
nn.14 and 15.
6. The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Thought 99
bas never lost them). The interlocutor's job is to be on his guard and
not make a fool of himself. Thus we have four pairs and four types of
argument: one a scientific tutorial; one a joint investigation; one the
of a thesis; and one a professional exhibition (Top. IX 2, 165a22;
preceding paragraph summarises Top. IX 2, 165a38 ff. ).
Aristotle goes into details. First, the teacher misunderstands his part
he asks questions: his job is to make the truth apparent without
relying on his hearer's collaboration (Top. IX 10, 171a39-b2). The
dialectical exercise, which has immense philosophical value (for in
e's view the technique of formulating questions, of finding
for attack and of arranging them in their proper order is
._u,...,, .. vn to the philosopher and the dialectician: Top. VIII I, 155b3
can only be brought to a successful conclusion by a thinker on his
if he plays both parts: if he cannot find an interlocutor he
fraise objections against himself (Top. VIII14,163b2 ff.). 13 The 302
ction between dialectic and philosophy is thus an essential
of technique - provided of course that the two are taken to be
carried on by living men and not independent entities existing
supracelestial region. 1 4 The same holds for the relations
dialogue and critical examination: to bring the common task
dialogue to a successful end, two men of ability and good will are
(Top. VIII 11, 161a19 ff.). What distinguishes dialogue from
tike is the fact that in the latter dialectic becomes a scientific
edure used in critical examination. All men like to argue and to
anyone who puts an opinion forward; and even uneducated men
after a fashion the techniques of dialogue and examination, of
and peirastic: the true dialectician is the man who conducts his
in accordance with the rules of syllogistic (Top. IX 11,
ff.). 1 5 True dialectic- topical, peirastic dialectic- is analytic
ue used in the examination of a thesis that is commonly
<N>,• .,,.,,,-l or otherwise celebrated, an examination that is undertaken as a
task by two or more men in search of the truth.
shall return later to the relation between these legitimate
procedures and the illegitimate procedure of sophistic or
. My concern here is to draw the conclusion implied by the texts I
just summarised. Neither syllogistic (analytics) nor dialectic
<tn,,.n·<>-~ ttr) is a science in the ancient sense, i.e. neither culminates in
13. The same rule in Plato, Soph. 217D; Rep. 534B.
14. See above, n.12. The text quoted there continues: •<philosophy)differs
<dialectic)'->y the sort of capacity it is, and from<sophistic)by the choice
life-style it involves'. This shows that philosophy and dialectic do not differ in
choice of life-style.
15. This passage provides further confirmation of our interpretation of the
connection between analytics and topics: 'the dialectician who uses syllogistic is
examiner (peirastikos)' (a35ff.), i.e. the syllogism gives dialectic its true force;
and we must take literally what Aristotle says about the diairesis of the
~tonists- it is 'a feeble syllogism' (A.Pr. I 31, 46a33), it is incapable of proving
or of refuting (anaskeuasai: 46b26). This proves that, for Aristotle, the syllogism
is (a) superior to diairesis, and (b) derives its significance from its role in dialectic.
 100 E. Weil
303 the I immediate apprehension of an absolute and determinate reality or
first principle. 1 6 It is true that science, when it has its first principles,
uses syllogisms to present its discoveries in an order which is
invulnerable to criticism with regard to its internal consistency; whereas
the aim of dialectic is to seek and find these truths by eliminating from
among the pre-existing beliefs (without which the enterprise cannot get
off the ground) all those propositions which are ambiguous or
contradictory or false, thus arriving at the ultimate truths which are
apprehended at the 'upward' end by nous and at the 'downward' end
by perception. But these two bodies of rules - syllogistic and dialectic
- constitute technai, or procedures, and not epistemai, or sciences:
and they belong to the realm of poiesis (production) and not of theoria
(contemplation). The rules are scientific in the modern, positivist, sense
of the term for the very reason that they are not scientific in the
Aristotelian sense: they do not yield an immediate apprehension of
reality as it necessarily and eternally is; and, like all techniques, they are
'productive dispositions accompanied by right reason (logos)'. 1 7 They
abstract universal concepts from experience, and they lead us to the
threshold of true knowledge; but they do not exhibit these concepts
present in reality as form (eidos), activity (energeia) or actuality
(entelecheia). The methods of argument do not have a specific
object; 18 and if they are to attain one they must undergo a radical
transformation - a transubstantiation - from logical method into onto-
logical inquiry studying, according to Aristotle's two-fold approach,
both Being in everything that is and the source of all becoming.
If, however, we once allow the modern positivist identification of
technique with science, and grant that method, in the sense of
methodology, can separate the 'form' of thought from its 'content' -if
304 we once suppose that Newtonian physics I is the paradigm of all
scientific knowledge - then in effect syllogistic becomes superior to
peirastic, and the method of presentation to the method of searching
for presentable truths. It is well-known that positivism ended up by
admitting that it did not know what it was talking about, and that it
could give no sense to the words true and false when they were applied
to the theorems that made up its own 'content'. 1 9 Analytics, to its
16. cf. Meta. IV 3, 1005b2 ff.: among the particular sciences which cannot do
the job of ontology Aristotle names analytics (which must be learned before
studying ontology).
17. For the connection between techne and episteme see Meta. I 1; for the
difference between them see EN VI 3-4. On the nature of logic see especially Top.
IX 9, 1 70a20 ff.
18.Jaeger ([25], p.370) sees this clearly: 'Aristotle expressly tells us that for
him logic, like rhetoric, is not a theory of objects and so not a science
(philosophia), but a faculty (dunamis) and a technique'.
19. The essential difference between modem and ancient science is that the
former is a search for a system of conditions (which can be verified by, and thus
are relative to, human action), and the latter a search for the unconditional. On
another level, th_is is the difference between a science which excludes every notion
of value (an 'objective' 'or wertfrei science)- the values which guide scientists are
6. The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Thought 101
eternal glory, led to the majestic systematisation of mathematical
knowledge in Euclid. Dialectic has been neglected precisely because its
task is never accomplished, because its exertions, which never achieve
than the elimination of error, are always negative, and because it
cannot produce so-called 'useful' knowledge. But the utility of dialectic
itself cannot be understood, let alone assessed, by those who renounce
the only method of submitting the concept of utility to a proper and
reasonable examination. It is not strange that in such a situation men
.talk of a 'crisis in science' - and particularly in the exact sciences - or
of a 'crisis in civilisation'; nor is it strange that they no longer
the relations that distinguish and interconnect teaching and
, exposition and inquiry, analytics and topics. 2 0
(3) Of the reasons we gave for the misunderstandings to which the
Topics in particular and dialectic in general have fallen prey, the
- a certain lack of historical imagination - is probably, in fact if
in theory, the most significant. Aristotle deals at one and the same
both with the legitimate and necessary activity of dialectic and
with eristic - a collection of hocus-pocus and verbal legerdemain,
snares set by the professionals to catch fools and gulls, of the tricks
dodges of men who want victory by hook or by crook. I Thus the 305
book of the Topics in particular (its title, Sophistici Elenchi, is
-Refutations of Sophisms or Sophistical Ways of Refuta-
), and in consequence the whole of the work, have been taken for a
tc~au·uuk on sophistry. This belief, or rather feeling (for it is rarely
clear and explicit), 2 1 has reinforced the tendency to interpret
s term endoxon in the Platonic sense of 'opinion' and to
topics as an inferior science or as no science at all.
It is true that Aristotle does not separate the method of the sophist
that of the dialectician. How could he? To all appearances they
identical: the honest argument of the one and the knavery of the
are expressed by the same means and in the same verbal forms.
difference is only apparent if we consider the premisses from
they start (Is the thesis propounded really generally accepted?)
the intentions which lie behind them: Is it the common task of
~lmiJnirlinlg a proposition in the search for truth? Or is it an exhibition
skill, a game in which victory must be won at any price? In both
. victory goes either to the questioner, if he reduces his partner to
silence or contradiction, or else to the answerer, if he propounds a
and then resists all the questioner's attacks and answers every
tion raised against it. Both attack and defence may go wrong and
may be carried on unfairly; and it is precisely the honest man who most
only discoverable empirically and post eventum - and a science which tries to
.· grasp absolute value or Being.
20. Nor is it strange that the modem philosopher who has insisted most
strongly on the problem of meaning - I mean Husser! - was driven to identify
formal logic and mathematics, and to distinguish them from philosophy (cf.
Formelle und Tranzendentale Logik, 1929).
21. cf. e.g. So~en [26], pp.185 ff.
 102 E. Weil
needs to know the difficulties inherent in his task- and the subterfuges
of the cheat. 22 , In short, we are concerned with a familiar and popular game, played
Thesis and syllogism, therefore, have the same interest whether they
are genuine or spurious: Aristotle is not after the ideal of a 'pure'
method; he wants to give a practical set of general rules, a techne, of
discussion as it was conducted in his own time in the Academy and,
almost certainly, in the Lyceum. Both the desire for knowledge and the
need to preserve the School and those who studied in .it from ridicule
required the learning of the art of verbal wrestling - of 'constructing'
306 (kataskeuazein) I and 'overturning' (anaskeuazein), of 'attacking' the
adversary (epicheirein), of 'confounding' him (elenchein), of 'com-
peting' (agonizesthai).
This competitive aspect of dialectical debate, evident in its very
terminology, is immensely important and yet has been largely neglected
by students of Aristotle's dialectic. It is true that the Topics is not
simply a trainer's manual; and we have just seen how vitally it bears
upon philosophical endeavours, if not upon philosophical theoria itself,
at whose threshold it comes to a stand. But we shall not grasp its nature
if we forget or suppress its competitive or 'agonistic' side.
At Athens, argument was universal. Not only philosophers, politi-
cians and sophists, but every Tom, Dick and Harry debated and
disputed (see p.99). Their discussion differed vastly from the sort of
thing we are familiar with. It was not a question of affirmation and
counter-affirmation submitted to the arbitration of some higher
authority - be it scientific experiment, the law-courts, a group of
specialists, or the popular vote. There was no need to sustain an
alternative theory or point of view in order to beat one's opponent; it
was enough to make him contradict himself. 2 3 The aim was not to be
right yourself but to prove your opponent wrong; and to do so by
showing that the implications of his statements contradicted his original
thesis. This explains the strjking rule, so often invoked in Plato's
dialogues, which requires an answer to any question: the rule enjoining
that questions shall be formulated so as to admit only the answers yes
and no (Top. VIII 2, 158a15 ff.; IX 11, 17lb3 ff.); 24 that the
respondent shall not have the right to answer by a continuous speech,
unless he obtains permission from his interlocutor; and that he shall
307 offer his interlocutor an exchange of roles if he wants. I to prove
22. According to Aristotle, fallacious (pseudes) argument is not a fault
(hamartDma) unless the arguer does not realise that it is fallacious: Top. VIII 12,
162bl6 ff.
23. The philosopher is additionally obliged to explain the origin of the
mistake: lusis (resolution) must complete elenchos (refutation). cf. Top. IX 24,
especially 179b18-21. For the definition of elenchos see Top. IX 1; for lusis see
IX 24, 1 79b23. Logical lusis is quite different from rhetoricallusis: cf. Rhet. II
25, 1402a29 ff.
24. Aristotle notes that among his contemporaries 'style' declined in this
respect. cf. the rules enabling one to avoid the inconveniences it entailed: Top.
loc.cit. (a reform allowing _the use of a distinguo ). and IX 30, 181a36 ff. (where
Aristotle takes as an example Plato's Gorgias, 473A7 ff.).
6. The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Thought 103
·. positively any thesis other than the one so far examined.
a public acquainted with its conventions and appreciative of its
··subtleties (cf. e.g. Top. IX 8, 169b31 ff.; 15, 174a35 ff.). Many of
those features of the Topics, and also of Plato's dialogues, which are at
sight strange can be explained by this fact. Thus it is a trick of the
to force his opponent to agree to an incredible or shocking
(adoxon) (Top. IX 12, 172b9 ff.); 2 5 it is necessary for an
to take precautions against this trick, and also against the
l:utt..n,nt to make him stutter and stammer (Top. IX 13, 173b31 ff.). One
therefore do well not to take on all-comers in any subject, for fear
·• humiliating defeat (cf. e.g. Top. VIII 6, 160a6 ff.; especially 14,
64b8 ff.). 26 .
Clearly, such fear of public scorn is a weakness of the method when
not practised inside the School in company with fellow seekers
truth. Before being forced to contradict himself, an opponent will
rather than consent to an absurdity (Top. IX 12, 172b29 ff.;
173a16-8). But though one must have the ability to defend
, if necessary by any means, and though Aristotle, good trainer
he was, does not hesitate to instruct his audience in some cunning
and punches, 2 7 yet the true game, the noble exercise, is much
than that: 'Convention (nomos) is the opinion (doxa) of the
""'''"'"'h'; but wise men (sophoi) speak and argue (legousin) in
with nature and with truth' (Top. IX 12, 173a29 ff.; cf.
11, 161b33 ff.).
· I shall not dwell on the role played by the public in the game of
"-"IIPrr•r; but I may perhaps be allowed to draw attention to the
inherent in a comprehensive study of what the Topics has to
on this subject, I especially (but not only) in books VIII and IX. 308
a study would yield detailed interpretations of Plato's dialogues in
even the nuances of the different verbal forms of assent would be
we1g. h t. 28
A complete presentation and analysis of the rules of serious
which Aristotle occasionally states (for the most part he
them known to his audience) would require a commentary
only on the Topics but on the whole Organon - a complete
, taking account of the philosophical unity of the work.
. I shall only describe the nature of the actual discussions as it is
·indicated in, or rather through, the rules laid down in the Topics.
25. Here Aristotle refers to the Gorgias in illustration of an outmoded, i.e. (it
~ems) pre-Academic, fashion. cf. Top. VIII 4, 159a18 ff.; 9, 160b17 ff.
26. Compare the hints on presentation of arguments in VIII 1, where, at
155b25 ff., Aristotle stresses their purely competitive interest.
27. Not to mention Top. IX as a whole, which is a veritable catalogue of jab
counter-jab (though much more than just that), cf. e.g. I 18, 108a26 ff.; VI
148a37 ff.; VIII 1, 155b24; 157a5; 10, 161a1 ff. (methods of stopping the
;®ICWssio•n); 11, 161a21 ff. (the need to use false premisses).
28. e.g. Top. IX 17, 176a19 ff.: when should one answer esto ('granted') and
dokei ('so it seems')?
 104 E. Weil
These rules are a hotchpotch of technical advice on the securing of
victory and of logical laws needed for the solution of any problem; such
a mixture will surprise the modern reader who has forgotten that
discussion must take place between living men, and that it thus forms a
sort of bloodless battle. He has forgotten this because his mind is
dominated by the conception of a 'pure' a priori method, invulnerable
to objection29 ~in short of a deductive method that infers its
theorems from the proper principles of some historically given domain.
These principles are unprovable within the domain, which they
themselves determine, because the very possibility of any unity
underlying them is excluded: there is a plurality of systems of
principles, of domains and of methods, and hence a plurality of sciences
in Aristotle's sense. They are unrelated both dialectically and ontologic-
309 ally, 30 I and thus they are unrelated to mankind: rather, they are the
peculiar concern of the physicist, the biologist, the lawyer, the
theologian, the novelist. And they thus appear to have, as it were,
created· those specialists who in actual fact invented them and brought
them to life; and the specialists themselves are taken in by this
appearance when they reflect upon their own occupations.3 1
But 'impurity' of the sort in question is perfectly natural in
Aristotle's view. He is concerned with a method which can and must be
applied universally: any implication whatever of a proposition, if it is
both inadmissible and correctly inferred, refutes that proposition. It is
29. This does not mean 'to all error'.
30. See above p.98, on Top. L Modem and Aristotelian sciences (we are not
speaking here of science but of sciences in the plural) are not distinguished by
their formal characteristics; on the contrary, the methodological independence of
the individual sciences has ensured an astonishing similarity between their
Aristotelian and their modem forms, despite the very considerable differences in
the techniques they rely on (especially, of course, in the case of physics). Within
its own delimited area each science carries on quite independently, with (as the
current jargon has it) its own ideal of truth. What distinguishes peripatetic
thought from the scientific (we do not say, philosophical) thought of today is the
fact that in Aristotle's view every science must show that it is meaningful for man
as such (cf., from Aristotle's 'scientific' phase, the majestic and moving panegyric
of biology at PA I 5, 644b22 ff.). A science justifies itself with the help of
dialectic (cf. e.g. ibid. 645a26 ff. - a characteristic topos); it submits to
examination, not by the specialist, but by everyman and before the single tribunal
of reason- that is to say, it offers itself as a particular part of the single domain
of Being: 'as a critical method, dialectic opens the way to the principles of all the ·
sciences' (Top. I 2, 101b3 ff.) and thus, at least in Greek eyes, it raises the
question of the ultimate principles of Being qua being. Modern scientific thought,
because it is scientistic, will not sanction this transition to philosophy (which no
longer necessarily leads, as it did for the Greeks, to a science of Being).
31. There is no better illustration of the absurdities to which this line of
thought leads than the case of modern formal logic: this science generalised, with
considerable success, the rules for verifying scientific discourse (for testing
consistency and validity) -and then found itself obliged, when it tried to usurp
the place of philosophy (or, as Aristotle would have preferred, of dialectic) to
reject as nonsensiptl. all those propositions which give a sense to life, including the
life led by the logicians themselves.
6. The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Thought 105
job of syllogistic to arrange in a logical and testable order the
of any science which can be developed in axiomatic form.
task of dialectic, by contrast, is to bring to light the weaknesses of
assertion that is not an immediately evident principle or a datum of
. The geometer does not discuss the principles of his science,
the dialectician does not cortcern himself with technical questions
geometry; but the dialectician can and must inquire into the proper
oriinc:inles of mathematics, and debate their meaning, their philo-
implications, and the justifiability of their general applica-
Such a I method cannot be abstract, like the syllogistic 310
Jre:seJ£H<HI,on of knowledge that has already been acquired, and that is
deduced syllogistically from principles dialectically proved but
arranged by means of syllogistic in an order that starts with such
Dialecticians are men who hunt out contradictions. One
hunt by oheself unless one has acquired the art in collaboration
others: the desire for victory enters into every inquiry, and that is
bad thing; all that is necessary is that this desire submits to the
Il"ILJC::ITV rules. 3 3 •
This explains why Aristotle distinguishes three sorts of mistake: a
m~;~:aKt:.n thesis (not a false thesis - a false thesis may be as interesting
a true one- but a thesis inappropriately chosen34 ); a technical
in the conduct of the discussion (e.g. the inference of a thesis
premisses less familiar than it is itself); and what is properly called
logical mistake (e.g. when the conclusion has been illegitimately
• 3 5 He is as much interested in the psychological side of a
~sc:us:sion - in what we are accustomed to call, characteristically, the
principles or ethos of the scientist - as in its formal principles;
he would not even understand the separation of these two
, in as much as he wants not only to promote science, or rather
sciences, but also to educate scientists who will be capable, thanks
.a long apprenticeship, of thinking and judging for themselves. Thus it
of considerable importance to him to observe that one can easily
people out if one makes objections to oneself and so seems to
in fair play, or if one does not seem to attach great weight to the
one is propounding, or if one does not propound the thesis itself
only its necessary implications (VIII I, 156b18 ff.). Such observa-
are just as important as the development of the formal rules of syl-
and of induction. If we forget this essential link we cannot help
the Topics as a treatise on sophistry, embellished with the scatter-
remains of a valid 'theory' of science.
32. Top. I 1, 10la5 ff., where 'pseudographies' are distinguished from
and eristic arguments. See in general IX 11, a crucial. chapter for the
iinteiJpretation of dialectic.
33. cf. e.g. 164b 13 ff.
.· 34. One may even get one's opponent to give one a thesis to defend: 159b33
ff.
35. The criteria_for judging debates are analysed at Top. VIII 11.
 106 E. Weil
Those who teach and learn do not have the same goals as those
311 who compete; nor do the latter as those I who work with one
another for the sake of research; for we must always offer the
learner what we believe to be true (and in fact no-one tries to
teach falsehoods); while of the competitors, the questioner must
use every means to appear to effect something, and the answerer
must appear quite untouched; but with regard to dialectical
gatherings where men argue not for competition but for
examination and research, nothing has yet been determined about
what the answerer should aim ilt, and what he should grant and
what he should not if he is to defend his thesis well or badly.
Since, then, we have nothing handed down to us from our
predecessors, we must try to say something ourselves (Top. VIII
3, 159a25 ff.).
Thus topics is an exercise aimed at the examination of actual or
possible theses; the examination aims at research, and the research at
truth.
If we now ask what is the boundary between the game of dialectic
and its serious pursuit, between the sport and scientific research, the
answer is that there is none: at any moment a change of attitude may
tum the game serious and the sport scientific - what was a mere
exercise may become a common searching for truth. Nevertheless, the
two things are distinguishable, and their difference is not hard to
pinpoint: for the scientist it is not enough to win (i.e. to defeat his
opponent within the rules of the game); he must also explain why his
opponent went wrong. 3 6 Kant was aware that there is an 'objective
dialectic', and that the philosopher must 'dissolve the dialectical
illusion', even though that illusion is so real that men will never entirely
free themselves from it; and Kant's successors, seeing in this dialectic
the very foundation of reality, criticised him for an excessive devotion
to the form of mathematical physics, which led him to take for an
illusion what is in fact reason itself as it is present in objective reality.
312 Since then the problem appears to have been ignored. 3 7 1
5.
Let us summarise briefly the position we have defended, and conclude
by indicating a few problems whose solution appears necessary to a
36. Top. IX is marked off from the other books by its interest in lusis; see
especially 179a11 ff. But see also VIII10, 160b25 ff.
37. We have a topical proof of this e cont:rario in the fact that dialectic, in
Aristotle's sense, remains alive where the teaching of established truths has not
replaced a common search for truth, and where a University is not a professjonal
school of masters and pupils but a universitas embracing all its students. Topics
was held in high favour in the Schools of the Middle Ages, where it was an integral
part of intellectual education. cf. M. Grabmann, Die Geschichte der scholastischen
Methode, 1909-11, and Die Sophismata-literatur des 12, und 13. Jahrhunderts,
Beitrlige z:ur Gc:schicht!= der Philosophic des Mittelalters, 1940, which contains
numerous texts and a vivid sketch of the phenomenon.
6. The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Thought 107
complete elucidation of the place and the function of the Topics in
Aristotle's work, and to a philosophical understanding of the problems
which the subject of this book still poses for us today.
(1) The Topics is neither a juvenile work nor a mere hors d'oeuvre to
Aristotle's logic. If certain parts of it are of an early origin, the version
which has come down to us is at least as late as some fairly late portions
of the Metaphysics (see below).
(2) Dialectic, as it is understood in the Topics, must not be confused
with sophistic. The opinions with which it deals do not fall under
Plato's concept of 'opinion'; they constitute, for the end of serious
discussion, the sum of the knowledge acquired by mankind, and thus
··form the indispensable starting-point of every scientific inquiry.
(3) Neither topics nor syllogistic is, in Aristotle's view, a science in
the strict sense of the word, since neither has concrete, immediately
··apprehensible principles peculiar to itself. Both are procedures con-
. with the form of reasoning; and thus they are universally valid
in virtue of the fact that they are universally applicable.
(4) Topics is not inferior in worth to syllogistic: in Aristotle's view,
must first acquire the technical tool of syllogistic in order to study
art of dialectical examination; and this enterprise can only be
after acquiring the art of analytics.
. (5) It is not analytics but dialectic which, using the syllogism,
·• · uires after the principles and descends to the data of experience.
After the dialectical examination of theses and inductions, 38 syllogistic
.• c:I.liiulc:s the scientist to present his results I in a pure form. We may add 313
' it also enables him to affirm the absence of mediating concepts;
·. but it is for dialectic to locate, and for the individual sciences to grasp,
concepts.
. (6) The essential difference between analytics and topics is not one
. between science and non-science; rather, topics is a communal search
· for truth, analytics the presentation of discovered truths in a logically
' watertight array.
·. (7) The Topics contains implicitly not only a description of logical
. .rules, but also (and from the historian's point of view especially) a
uu:-oouK of the game played in the Academy and the Lyceum. 3 9
38. We have not discussed the relations between dialectic and induction - to
do that we should have to discuss the whole Organon. But if there is a scientific
method of induction it stems from dialectic; for analytics cannot produce it. cf.
A.Pst. I 19.
39. We do not mean logical rules in the narrow sense of the term, i.e. the loci
communes themselves; several of these have been discussed and traced back to
' tlieir Academic origins in E. Hambruch [63]. We are rather concerned with rules
. of procedure and advice on how to proceed. We cannot give a complete list of
these rules (which would require an analysis and interpretation of the whole of
book IX); but we may refer especially to Topics VIII, whose first chapter contains
a summary of these issues. Particular rules occur, e.g., at 2, 157a34 ff. (where
dikaion means 'correct'); 157b34 ff.; 158a14 ff.; 25 ff.; 6, 159b36 ff.; 8, 160b2
ff.; 9, 160b17 ff.; 161a4 ff.; 11, 161a21 ff.; b2 ff.; 162a8 ff.; 14, 163a29 ff.
(~vice on training); 164b8 ff.
 108 ~- Wei[
The importance of these conclusions only emerges if they are set
alongside certain questions to which they give rise:-
(1) A detailed analysis of the Topics would have to trace the
evolution of Aristotle's thought in this area (see below, p.109). It
seems that several versions have been superimposed on one another.
Book IX in particular (but not only book IX) seems to presuppose
certain of the conclusions reached in the Metaphysics. Books VIII and
IX - IX more than VIII - appear to attach more importance to the
resolution (lusis) of errors than to their simple refutation; nonetheless,
the work as a whole contains methods of resolution as well as of
refutation. We must not forget, however, that the end of book IX
confirms the unity of the treatise: we do not mean to say that Aristotle
314 prepared for publication the I text that has come down to us, but
rather that the older elements in it (in so far as they can be
distinguished with any certainty) were never rejected- on the
contrary, they were deliberately built into a new construction.
Athetising on biographical grounds -like the passe practice of ath-
etising on philological grounds - serves only to save the reader the
effort of grasping as a unity a work which Aristotle himself (or, what
would make no difference, his immediate disciples) thought of as a
consistent whole.
(2) A reinterpretation of the Analytics would be welcome. If one
takes into consideration the results just enumerated, many of the
surprising features of the Analytics will come to seem perfectly
natural- for example, the inclusion of chapters on induction and on
the possibility of drawing true conclusions from false premisses; and the
appeal to direct inspection rather than logical deduction even where the
latter is in Aristotle's view possible; etc.
(3) It would be interesting to study again both the aporetic
procedures so characteristic of Aristotle's great treatises, and also - a
more important and more difficult task- the relations between topics
and ontology. This relation is normally, if not exclusively, looked for in
the equation of cause (ontology) with the middle term (analytics). But
this equation itself needs elucidation; and it can only be elucidated on
the basis of ontology. Now it is clear that topics and ontology are
simply two aspects of one reality: Aristotle says as much himself in one
remarkable chapter (Top. IX 9, 170a20 ff.); and this is corroborated by
the part played in both disciplines by such fundamental notions as
substance, accident, property, genus, and definition. In this way we
might perhaps reach some precise conclusions about the similarities and
the differences -differences 'illustrated' by the equation between
cause and middle term -between a 'subjective' and an 'objective'
dialectic; and we might gain a new appreciation of the part played by
contradiction in the whole of Aristotle's thought: on the 'subjective'
and linguistic side, a contradiction will be the sign of a difficulty to be
overcome or of a logical error whether conscious or unconscious; in the
'objective' re~lm of science, a contradiction will be resolved by
distinguishing between levels of reality - thus it is the distinction
6. The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Thought 109
the level of act and that of potency that justifies I a definition
~o.. ... i-urPP·n 315
as 'dialectical' as that of motion as 'the actuality of that which is
potential qua potential'.
(4) Finally, it would be useful to elicit from the Topics, and also
from certain passages in the Analytics and the Rhetoric, the rules and
·conventions of dialogue. Their historical and philosophical analysis
•seems to promise important results, the former for the detailed
of Plato's dialogues, the latter for a deeper understanding
of the function of Aristotle's logic in the life of the Lyceum.
Appendix to Footnote 2
search for an intellectual evolution in Aristotle is not only
legitimate: it is indispensable, given the state in which the corpus of his
has come down to us. For the corpus contains contradictions
these can be resolved by an appeal to genetics - to the progressive
of Aristotle's thought. This appeal, however, is only valid
so far as genuine contradictions are discovered in the text, i.e. in so far
a purely philosophical reconciliation proves. impossible. And one
be too cautious here: the contradictions are not always in the
they are sometimes in the minds of the interpreters. For a long
men have looked for, and have found, contradictions in the
e of Pure Reason (the past tense is, alas, premature); yet this
offers no problems of transmission, and was written out by one
in the course of four or five months. If it were true that the critic
always more perceptive, more profound, and more earnest than the
he criticises, then it would be a matter for regret that so many
individuals spend their time in this lengthy and difficult
rather than in composing better works of their own. This
es not mean that in a great author all is sacred and no contradictions
be contemplated; all we intend is to urge the greatest possible
:·~<tuu".uu when combing Aristotle for contradictions that may bear on his
biography. It is better if one is only unwillingly dragged, by
facts themselves, to concede the existence of a contradiction that
uires biographical explanation; and one must realise that such a
aphy is inevitably hypothetical, and remains valid only so long as
contradictions on which it is based prove genuine.
As far as the Topics goes, Solmsen maintains that the work dates
from the Academic period of Aristotle's thought; and the arguments he
gives ([26] pp. 101 ff.) do indeed show that certain parts of it are old.
He does not offer a date for the text as a whole, but states that the final
.• revision cannot have taken place in the Peripatos, given that the
problems it discusses are 'typically Academic' and distinct from 'the
completely heterogeneous form of peripatetic problemata' (p.194). He
allows that 'Aristotle could have taught the Topics before a wider
audience in the Peripatos; but it was no longer appropriate to the
"esoteric" courses, since it was too little in line with the point of view
taken in the Analytics' (p.194, n.1). To establish this thesis one would
first have to prove that the two 'sciences' could not, in Aristotle's view,
coexist. Solmsen _offers no such proof. If we allow that the A naly tics is
llO E. Weil
the later work, if we allow that demonstration takes over from
discussion - from the method of discovering the premisses - then the
conclusion follows: but that argument is a gross ignoratio elenchi.
Apodeictic (A.Pst. I- the oldest part of the Analytics, according to
Solmsen; but see Ross's criticisms, [6), pp.6 ff.) is still Platonic in
outlook, since it is founded on the hierarchic structure of the Forms
(Solmsen, pp.l83 ff.); topics no longer exhibits this dependence (ibid.),
and so is located between apodeictic and analytics in the narrow sense
of the term (i.e. A.Pr.). Hence the notion of a topical syllogistic was
born during Aristotle's time in the Academy (ibid., p.l92). But that is
not the point at issue: after all, most of Aristotle's questions- the case
is different for his answers -go back to that time; the point at issue is
whether analytics annuls topics. Nothing indicates that it does. On the
contrary, if it is true that the final version of the Rhetoric is marked off
from a primitive version of the same pragmateia by the fact that it deals
with matters which the Academic Aristotle still despised - matters
purely rhetorical and sophistic - (and this is Solmsen's own thesis:
pp.225 ff); and if it is true that apodeictic was conceived in the
Academy: then we must conclude that the Topics, which interest
themselves in every sort of discourse, are later than the Prior Analytics,
which are only concerned with the presentation of what is scientifically
valid.
We have no wish to maintain this thesis; indeed we shall shortly state
that, in the economy of Aristotle's mature thought, topics and analytics
complement one another. But the thesis is one which Solmsen should
maintain; and it is of no account that he himself holds that the
Rhetoric 'in the last resort is indistinguishable from analytics'; for he
rightly defends, against Maier, the view that the Topics is familiar with
the syllogism. To say that the syllogism here is only the first-figure (i.e.
Academic) syllogism makes no difference; the analytic syllogism,
according to Aristotle, does not serve the same ends as topics (cf. Top. I
12, 105al6, quoted below; VIII I, 157al8 ff.: syllogism should be
employed 'against the dialecticians'; VIII 14, 164al2 ff.: syllogism is
preferable when one is dealing with specialists (empeiroi) -here
syllogism is contrasted with induction, which shows the tight con-
nection between topics and induction, the former validating the latter);
and on the other hand a complete theory of the syllogism, i.e. of all
valid forms of argument and presentation (cf. Solmsen, p.241), has no
place in a treatise on discussion, i.e. on research. Finally, the very terms
used in the definition of the syllogism reek of dialectic: tethenta and
keimena (Top. I 1, 100a25 ff.; cf. A.Pr. I 1, 24bl8 ff.) refer to
propositions granted or conceded in discussion and not to self-evident
truths or principles (that is the problem for apodeictic in the Posterior
Analytics). Aulus Gellius, an inconsiderable philosopher but a reliable
mirror of the thought of his times, chose the definition of the syllogism
given in the Topics as a text for one of the translations of which he was
so fond: 'Syllogismus est oratio in qua consensis quibusdam et concessis
aliud quid quam quae concessa sunt necessaria conficitur' (XV 26). For
him the syllogism had not yet been separated from dialectic and turned
6. The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Thought Ill
into the mould of truth.
Other arguments will be found in the text. We have not insisted on
all the points which separate our approach from the 'biographical'
method of interpretation. One further point, however, may be made.
Maier, whose view that the Topics was unfamiliar with the syllogism
, was trenchantly criticised by Solmsen, used as an argument the fact
' at the Topics allows, while the Analytics rejects, the possibility of
.demonstrating definitions (A.Pst. II 6 ff.;A.Pr. I 31); but he forgot that
·while the Analytics of course rejects a scientific demonstration of
.defir:nt1ons, it can allow - indeed does allow, not to say demands - a
. ,••,.Jurt-.rnJ search for and criticism of definitions. One need only look at
end of A.Pr. I 30, which refers the reader to the Topics for further
· ---""' , to be convinced of the compatibility of the two
not offer a date for the Topics because we think it a
~oJrnDtOSltl,on which, though containing passages of an extremely early
never lost its value in Aristotle's eyes. (If analytics nullified topics,
Solmsen thinks, then Theophrastus, who continued to work on
misunderstood his master on a crucial point.) Analysis of the
dT<>tiu.. examples used in the Topics cannot carry us far, since in a
treatise views which no longer are, or never have been,
by the author may perfectly well serve as illustrations.
Nevertheless there is one slight hint that certain portions of the
may belong to a later date than is usually supposed. In several
(173a38; 175bl9 ff.; 176a7; 179al; 18lal0) some manuscripts
the name 'Coriscus' by 'Hipponicus'. Since no copyist can have
any reason to make such a change, this fact indicates the existence
two manuscript traditions stemming from two different originals.
([25), p.46, n.3; p.256, n.3) showed that mention of Coriscus
a text in which that name appears to the period of Aristotle's stay
Assos. But who is Hipponicus? Pauly-Wissowa mentions two bearers
that name in the period that interest us (RE Viii 2, 1909 ff.). One
.5 in the list) is probably a descendent of the rich and noble Callias
appears in Plato's dialogues. It seems improbable that he is our
: an Athenian citizen of an important family would not be
· mentioned in a lecture-room aside without our having other evidence of
the intimacy between master and pupil which that presupposes. The
other (no.6) is a Macedonian officer; all that we know of him comes
··from the Third Philippic (58), where Demosthenes names him as
captain of a band of a thousand mercenaries who were sent to occupy
Eretria at the request of its citizens. As he was in charge of a
detachment including no Macedonians and sent on an expedition
•unattended by danger, he may well have been a young man. The
.·expedition took place in 343; Aristotle went to Pella in 342 (cf. Jaeger,
op.cit., p.l20), and we know (see Glotz-Roussel-Cohen,Alexandre et le
demembrement de son empire, 1945, p.40) that he lectured to a group
of young men gathered around Alexander. Was our Hipponicus one of
, 'this group? If so, the allusion would be quite in order; whereas if the
Hipponicu~ were the man we would have to suppose either that
112 E. Weil
the Topics was written down in the Academy (and. n? ?ne, rig~tly, ~as
thought that, particularly with regard to the Sophzsttct Elencht, wh1ch 7
contains all the relevant passages), or else that it was only completed
after Aristotle's return to Athens. If this slight hint, which is
strengthened somewhat by the fact that the ~a~: Hippo1_1icus is vel}' G.E.L. Owen
rare, is taken into consideration, then the Sophzsttct Elencht at least will
date from Aristotle's stay at Pella, more precisely from the first years of
his stay, 342-339. 'Tithenai ta Phainomena'

first part of this paper tries to account for an apparent discrepancy 83

Aristotle's preaching and his practice on a point of method.
second part reinforces the first by suggesting a common source for
of the problems and methods found in the Physics.

1.
seems to be a sharp discrepancy bet~een the methods of
reasoning recommended in the Analytics and those actually
in the Physics. The difference is sometimes taken to lie in the
that the Posterior Analytics pictures a science as a formal deductive
based on necessary truths whereas the Physics is more tentative
hospitable both in its premisses and in its methods. But this is too
a contrast. It is true that for much of the Physics Aristotle is not
from the definitions of his basic terms but constructing those
. He sets out to clarify and harden such common ideas as
and motion, place and time, infinity and continuity, and in
so he claims to be defining his subject-matter (Phys. III 1,
12-21). But after all the Analytics shows interest not only in the
d state of a science but in its essential preliminaries; it describes
only the rigorous / deduction of theorems but the setting up of the 84
the set of special hypotheses and definitions, from which the
proceed. And the Physics, for its part, not only establishes
definitions of its basic concepts but uses them to deduce further
, notably in books VI and VIII. The discrepancy between the
works lies rather in the fact that, whereas the Analytics tries
not without confusion and inconsistency) to distinguish the
processes of finding and then applying the principles, the Physics
no pains to hold them apart. But there seems to be a more
disagreement than this. It concerns the means by which the
1u•-11..1'tt:~ of the science are reached.
the Prior Analytics Aristotle says: 'It falls to experience to
n,.,,.,..,,,.-~ .. the principles of any subject. In astronomy, for instance, it was
'"'"''-'1, ..·,-"" experience that provided the principles of the science, for
was only when the phainomena were adequately grasped that the
fs in astronomy were discovered. And the same is true of any art or
;IC:leiJtce whatever' (A.Pr. I 30, 46a17-22). Elsewhere he draws the same
picture: the phainomena must be collected as a prelude to
the theory which explains them. The method is expressly
with natural science (phusike) and the natural scientist