The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

a
genuine refutation, and make it uncertain who is refuted and who is
not. For since one has the right at the end, when the conclusion is
drawn, to say that the only denial made of One’s statement is
ambiguous, no matter how precisely he may have addressed his
argument to the very same point as oneself, it is not clear whether
one has been refuted: for it is not clear whether at the moment one
is speaking the truth. If, on the other hand, one had drawn a
distinction, and questioned him on the ambiguous term or the
amphiboly, the refutation would not have been a matter of
uncertainty. Also what is incidentally the object of contentious
arguers, though less so nowadays than formerly, would have been
fulfilled, namely that the person questioned should answer either
‘Yes’ or ‘No’: whereas nowadays the improper forms in which
questioners put their questions compel the party questioned to add
something to his answer in correction of the faultiness of the
proposition as put: for certainly, if the questioner distinguishes
his meaning adequately, the answerer is bound to reply either ‘Yes’
or ‘No’.
    If any one is going to suppose that an argument which turns upon
ambiguity is a refutation, it will be impossible for an answerer to
escape being refuted in a sense: for in the case of visible objects
one is bound of necessity to deny the term one has asserted, and to
assert what one has denied. For the remedy which some people have
for this is quite unavailing. They say, not that Coriscus is both
musical and unmusical, but that this Coriscus is musical and this
Coriscus unmusical. But this will not do, for to say ‘this Coriscus
is unmusical’, or ‘musical’, and to say ‘this Coriscus’ is so, is
to use the same expression: and this he is both affirming and
denying at once. ‘But perhaps they do not mean the same.’ Well, nor
did the simple name in the former case: so where is the difference?
If, however, he is to ascribe to the one person the simple title
‘Coriscus’, while to the other he is to add the prefix ‘one’ or
‘this’, he commits an absurdity: for the latter is no more
applicable to the one than to the other: for to whichever he adds
it, it makes no difference.
    All the same, since if a man does not distinguish the senses of
an amphiboly, it is not clear whether he has been confuted or has
not been confuted, and since in arguments the right to distinguish
them is granted, it is evident that to grant the question simply
without drawing any distinction is a mistake, so that, even if not
the man himself, at any rate his argument looks as though it had
been refuted. It often happens, however, that, though they see the
amphiboly, people hesitate to draw such distinctions, because of
the dense crowd of persons who propose questions of the kind, in
order that they may not be thought to be obstructionists at every
turn: then, though they would never have supposed that that was the
point on which the argument turned, they often find themselves
faced by a paradox. Accordingly, since the right of drawing the
distinction is granted, one should not hesitate, as has been said
before.
    If people never made two questions into one question, the
fallacy that turns upon ambiguity and amphiboly would not have
existed either, but either genuine refutation or none. For what is
the difference between asking ‘Are Callias and Themistocles
musical?’ and what one might have asked if they, being different,
had had one name? For if the term applied means more than one
thing, he has asked more than one question. If then it be not right
to demand simply to be given a single answer to two questions, it
is evident that it is not proper to give a simple answer to any
ambiguous question, not even if the predicate be true of all the
subjects, as some claim that one should. For this is exactly as
though he had asked ‘Are Coriscus and Callias at home or not at
home?’, supposing them to be both in or both out: for in both cases
there is a number of propositions: for though the simple answer be
true, that does not make the question one. For it is possible for
it to be true to answer even countless different questions when put
to one, all together with either a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’: but still one
should not answer them with a single answer: for that is the death
of discussion. Rather, the case is like as though different things
has actually had the same name applied to them. If then, one should
not give a single