Aristotle POSTERIOR ANALYTICS Complete

Translated by G. Mure.

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84 pages - You are on Page 62

Thus they who prove the essential nature of soul or man or anything else through reciprocating terms beg the question. It would be begging the question, for example, to contend that the soul is that which causes its own life, and that what causes its own life is a self-moving number; for one would have to postulate that the soul is a self-moving number in the sense of being identical with it. For if A is predicable as a mere consequent of B and B of C, A will not on that account be the definable form of C: A will merely be what it was true to say of C. Even if A is predicated of all B inasmuch as B is identical with a species of A, still it will not follow: being an animal is predicated of being a man-since it is true that in all instances to be human is to be animal, just as it is also true that every man is an animal-but not as identical with being man.

We conclude, then, that unless one takes both the premisses as predicating essence, one cannot infer that A is the definable form and essence of C: but if one does so take them, in assuming B one will have assumed, before drawing the conclusion, what the definable form of C is; so that there has been no inference, for one has begged the question.

Part 5

Nor, as was said in my formal logic, is the method of division a process of inference at all, since at no point does the characterization of the subject follow necessarily from the premising of certain other facts: division demonstrates as little as does induction. For in a genuine demonstration the conclusion must not be put as a question nor depend on a concession, but must follow necessarily from its premisses, even if the respondent deny it. The definer asks 'Is man animal or inanimate?' and then assumes-he has not inferred-that man is animal. Next, when presented with an exhaustive division of animal into terrestrial and aquatic, he assumes that man is terrestrial. Moreover, that man is the complete formula, terrestrial-animal, does not follow necessarily from the premisses: this too is an assumption, and equally an assumption whether the division comprises many differentiae or few. (Indeed as this method of division is used by those who proceed by it, even truths that can be inferred actually fail to appear as such.) For why should not the whole of this formula be true of man, and yet not exhibit his essential nature or definable form? Again, what guarantee is there against an unessential addition, or against the omission of the final or of an intermediate determinant of the substantial being?

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