The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

they have taken it in the latter
sense, as e.g. Cleophon does in the Mandrobulus. They should also
break off their argument and cut down their other lines of attack,
while in answering, if a man perceives this being done beforehand,
he should put in his objection and have his say first. One should
also lead attacks sometimes against positions other than the one
stated, on the understood condition that one cannot find lines of
attack against the view laid down, as Lycophron did when ordered to
deliver a eulogy upon the lyre. To counter those who demand
‘Against what are you directing your effort?’, since one is
generally thought bound to state the charge made, while, on the
other hand, some ways of stating it make the defence too easy, you
should state as your aim only the general result that always
happens in refutations, namely the contradiction of his thesis
—viz. that your effort is to deny what he has affirmed, or to
affirm what he denied: don’t say that you are trying to show that
the knowledge of contraries is, or is not, the same. One must not
ask one’s conclusion in the form of a premiss, while some
conclusions should not even be put as questions at all; one should
take and use it as granted.
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16
    We have now therefore dealt with the sources of questions, and
the methods of questioning in contentious disputations: next we
have to speak of answering, and of how solutions should be made,
and of what requires them, and of what use is served by arguments
of this kind.
    The use of them, then, is, for philosophy, twofold. For in the
first place, since for the most part they depend upon the
expression, they put us in a better condition for seeing in how
many senses any term is used, and what kind of resemblances and
what kind of differences occur between things and between their
names. In the second place they are useful for one’s own personal
researches; for the man who is easily committed to a fallacy by
some one else, and does not perceive it, is likely to incur this
fate of himself also on many occasions. Thirdly and lastly, they
further contribute to one’s reputation, viz. the reputation of
being well trained in everything, and not inexperienced in
anything: for that a party to arguments should find fault with
them, if he cannot definitely point out their weakness, creates a
suspicion, making it seem as though it were not the truth of the
matter but merely inexperience that put him out of temper.
    Answerers may clearly see how to meet arguments of this kind, if
our previous account was right of the sources whence fallacies
came, and also our distinctions adequate of the forms of dishonesty
in putting questions. But it is not the same thing take an argument
in one’s hand and then to see and solve its faults, as it is to be
able to meet it quickly while being subjected to questions: for
what we know, we often do not know in a different context.
Moreover, just as in other things speed is enhanced by training, so
it is with arguments too, so that supposing we are unpractised,
even though a point be clear to us, we are often too late for the
right moment. Sometimes too it happens as with diagrams; for there
we can sometimes analyse the figure, but not construct it again: so
too in refutations, though we know the thing on which the connexion
of the argument depends, we still are at a loss to split the
argument apart.
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17
    First then, just as we say that we ought sometimes to choose to
prove something in the general estimation rather than in truth, so
also we have sometimes to solve arguments rather in the general
estimation than according to the truth. For it is a general rule in
fighting contentious persons, to treat them not as refuting, but as
merely appearing to refute: for we say that they don’t really prove
their case, so that our object in correcting them must be to dispel
the appearance of it. For if refutation be an unambiguous
contradiction arrived at from certain views, there could be no need
to draw distinctions against amphiboly and ambiguity: they do not
effect a proof. The only motive for drawing further distinctions is
that the conclusion reached looks like a refutation. What, then, we
have to beware of, is not being refuted, but seeming to be, because
of course the asking of amphibolies and of questions that turn upon
ambiguity, and all the other tricks of that kind, conceal even