The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

demolishing
the point on which the falsehood that comes about depends, or by
stating an objection directed against the questioner: for often
when a solution has not as a matter of fact been brought, yet the
questioner is rendered thereby unable to pursue the argument any
farther. Thirdly, one may object to the questions asked: for it may
happen that what the questioner wants does not follow from the
questions he has asked because he has asked them badly, whereas if
something additional be granted the conclusion comes about. If,
then, the questioner be unable to pursue his argument farther, the
objection would properly be directed against the questioner; if he
can do so, then it would be against his questions. The fourth and
worst kind of objection is that which is directed to the time
allowed for discussion: for some people bring objections of a kind
which would take longer to answer than the length of the discussion
in hand.
    There are then, as we said, four ways of making objections: but
of them the first alone is a solution: the others are just
hindrances and stumbling-blocks to prevent the conclusions.
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11
    Adverse criticism of an argument on its own merits, and of it
when presented in the form of questions, are two different things.
For often the failure to carry through the argument correctly in
discussion is due to the person questioned, because he will not
grant the steps of which a correct argument might have been made
against his position: for it is not in the power of the one side
only to effect properly a result that depends on both alike.
Accordingly it sometimes becomes necessary to attack the speaker
and not his position, when the answerer lies in wait for the points
that are contrary to the questioner and becomes abusive as well:
when people lose their tempers in this way, their argument becomes
a contest, not a discussion. Moreover, since arguments of this kind
are held not for the sake of instruction but for purposes of
practice and examination, clearly one has to reason not only to
true conclusions, but also to false ones, and not always through
true premisses, but sometimes through false as well. For often,
when a true proposition is put forward, the dialectician is
compelled to demolish it: and then false propositions have to be
formulated. Sometimes also when a false proposition is put forward,
it has to be demolished by means of false propositions: for it is
possible for a given man to believe what is not the fact more
firmly than the truth. Accordingly, if the argument be made to
depend on something that he holds, it will be easier to persuade or
help him. He, however, who would rightly convert any one to a
different opinion should do so in a dialectical and not in a
contentious manner, just as a geometrician should reason
geometrically, whether his conclusion be false or true: what kind
of syllogisms are dialectical has already been said. The principle
that a man who hinders the common business is a bad partner,
clearly applies to an argument as well; for in arguments as well
there is a common aim in view, except with mere contestants, for
these cannot both reach the same goal; for more than one cannot
possibly win. It makes no difference whether he effects this as
answerer or as questioner: for both he who asks contentious
questions is a bad dialectician, and also he who in answering fails
to grant the obvious answer or to understand the point of the
questioner’s inquiry. What has been said, then, makes it clear that
adverse criticism is not to be passed in a like strain upon the
argument on its own merits, and upon the questioner: for it may
very well be that the argument is bad, but that the questioner has
argued with the answerer in the best possible way: for when men
lose their tempers, it may perhaps be impossible to make one’s
inferences straight-forwardly as one would wish: we have to do as
we can.
    Inasmuch as it is indeterminate when people are claiming the
admission of contrary things, and when they are claiming what
originally they set out to prove-for often when they are talking by
themselves they say contrary things, and admit afterwards what they
have previously denied; for which reason they often assent, when
questioned, to contrary things and to what originally had to be
proved-the argument is sure to become vitiated. The responsibility,
however, for this rests with the answerer, because while refusing
to grant other