Cyberargumentation
Copyright Professor Evergreen Keefer
Excerpts from Traditional and Contemporary Logic
Contemporary Logic
Logic was meant to be a science of statements
The only reason I dwelled upon so long on history in the previous section is to show you the forced adoption of logic and related formalisms as theories of thinking. I will argue below that logic was created as a science of demonstrative statements rather than thinking. We can start by asking the question, why create formalisms at all? To give an example from a different domain, consider the science of harmony and counterpoint in music. Today, you can take a class in these topics, and learn about the basic principles and rules by which ``good music'' is made. There are well formed rules for constructing chords, which are ultimately collections of pitches that sound nice when played together. In fact, more than being nice, you can predict the psychological effect of particular chords on the listener (happy, sad, tension creating etc.)
The surprising fact for me was to learn that a lot of such rules were not known during the lives of great composers like Bach and Mozart. In fact, analysts later constructed these rules by finding the regularities in the compositions of such geniuses. This allowed mediocre non-geniuses like me to study and learn the basic principles. Socrates was one of the best virtuoso of argument making. He believed that the nature of things could be discovered by argument instead of empirical observation. Looking at the dialogues by Plato, one can't help but think that he almost succeeded. Aristotle later layed the rules for ``dialectic'' and ``rhetoric'' which formed the foundations of logic. These fields captured the regularities in the verbal demonstrations of geniuses like Socrates. They were put down so that mediocre non-geniuses could learn the principles and not get stuck, or be misled by arguments.
Thus logic was invented as a science for the means of persuasion. It assumed the existence of two intelligent parties arguing on some topic. It layed down the rules which encapsulated the minimum intersection between people with different views that could be used for persuasion. Meaning of symbols were agreed upon the participants using their common concepts. So there is no focus on where those concepts actually come from. And finally, it did not say anything about what went on in the heads of the speakers. Even in Leibniz's dream I quoted in the previous section, one can see the same picture. He says ``If controversies were to arise, there would be no more need of disputation between two philosophers than between two accountants.'' Logic is intended as a way to resolve disputes between two already intelligent participants. Again, the meaning of the symbols are taken for granted, because they exist in the heads of the participants. And nothing is said about what goes on in the heads of the participants, other than maybe the expectation that a small portion of it, namely deductive argumentation, might be simulated by mechanical calculation. I do not mean to imply that classical AI is founded on mathematical logic.
I do mean that they share some basic principles, namely Explicit representation The effort to represent each little piece of knowledge explicitly in a declarative form. Uniform representation The use of symbols as the only data structures that correspond to ``concepts'' of the domain. Deductive reasoning The reliance on deductive inference as the main computational engine to expand from the core to the borders of knowledge. To illustrate the power of these principles in guiding an AI researcher's thinking, consider this quote from Lenat: ``First, we criticized the current expert systems for merely containing opaque tokens and pushing them around. Yet our example of having more general, flexible knowledge was nothing more than having more (and more general) tokens and pushing them around! Yes, all we're doing is pushing tokens around, but that's all that cognition is.''[Lenat and Guha, 1990] Saying that a particular theory was not intended for a particular application is certainly not a proof for its inadequacy. But it makes one think whether we are stretching too far.
After all, the physical symbol system hypothesis believes in an explanation of what goes on in our brains, within a formalism intended as a theory of statements those brains can generate. A formalism that just concerns itself with the minimum common ground that those brains can use to resolve disputes. In the following section I will try to describe a theory of thinking that relaxes some of these bonds, and gets its inspiration from cognitive science. ----- Deniz Yuret
Plausible reasoning
In fact, as you might have suspected already, there is a bug with our scheme of inference using imagery. And this bug stems from the realization of the previous section, that we cannot substitute different representations for one another. When I started the description, ``imagine a rectangle...'', you were imagining a specific rectangle. Your image did not capture the concept of a rectangle in general. The answer to that particular puzzle happens to hold for any rectangle, so you were able to solve it. But it didn't have to be that way. The typical mistake of geometry students is to draw an equilateral triangle instead of ``any'' triangle and be misled by their own drawing into wrong conclusions. Good thing we brought this up. I was almost suggesting a constant time algorithm for the NP-hard problem of inference. Whenever you pass information from one representational system to another, knowledge gets lost. You have to add defaults to visualize a concept, or you have to choose particular abstractions to verbalize a picture. To conclusively prove a statement including abstract concepts like triangle using pictures, one would have to consider the picture of every possible triangle. Typically, however, a few carefully selected examples suffice to span the whole set and convince us of a proposition. How to select the right examples is a hard problem, because it partly depends on the question asked. This is the heuristic component of our ``constant time'' algorithm, and it may fail at times. The fact that some mechanism of inference is not complete, does not render it useless. It may be better to have a system that works 99% of the time, and then try to focus on learning the exceptions. This starts to look more like inductive inference rather than deductive inference.
The difference from the standard idea of ``induction'' is that the mind has the ability to generate its own examples. Instead of going out to a field and try to find flying birds, you can just imagine them to infer they don't touch the ground. In fact, if we were to do deduction based on explicit rules, we would have to acquire those rules using induction. We would have to see enough examples of flying birds and falling rocks etc. to compile the rules about them. If Cyc did not start with the idea of typing in the knowledge, but to discover the regularities watching the real world, it would have to come up with this mechanism in the first place. Similarly, if the primitive symbols were not typed in initially but Cyc had to come up with its own concepts, the team would have to come up with perceptual systems. Then the implicit representations and the imagination perception loop would come more naturally. Polya distinguishes between demonstrative reasoning and plausible reasoning, and further claims that plausible reasoning is the only means by which we can acquire new knowledge. For example, what you turn in with your mathematics problem set (hopefully) is demonstrative reasoning, but the activity you engaged in the night before, to understand new concepts from examples, trying out special cases, searching for similar solution patterns in your head is plausible reasoning.
The problem of AI concerns the latter, dependence on pure symbols belongs to the former. ``We secure our knowledge by demonstrative reasoning, but we support our conjectures by plausible reasoning. A mathematical proof is demonstrative reasoning, but the inductive evidence of the physicist, the circumstantial evidence of the lawyer, the documentary evidence of the historian, and the statistical evidence of the economist belong to plausible reasoning.'' ``
The difference between two kinds of reasoning is great and manifold. Demonstrative reasoning is safe, beyond controversy, and final. Plausible reasoning is hazardous, controversial and provisional. Demonstrative reasoning penetrates the sciences just as far as mathematics does, but it is in itself (as mathematics is in itself) incapable of yielding essentially new knowledge about the world around us. Anything new that we learn about the world involves plausible reasoning, which is the only kind of reasoning for which we care in everyday affairs. Demonstrative reasoning has rigid standards, codified and clarified by logic (formal or demonstrative logic), which is the theory of demonstrative reasoning. The standards of plausible reasoning are fluid, and there is no theory of such reasoning that could be compared to demonstrative logic in clarity or would command comparable consensus.'' [Polya, 1954]
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many pictures is a word worth? There has been an ongoing debate between British associationists and logical positivists in the philosophy world, on whether our minds use pictures or words for thinking. The same discussion continues today in the form of the imagery debate. Symbolic vs non-symbolic AI discussion is also a mirror of the same philosophical tradition. The advocates of thinking with pictures say that a picture is worth a thousand words. There will always be details of a picture left that a symbolic description just fails to capture.
There are always more inferences you can draw from a picture than from its description. Other philosophers argued on the other hand, that it was impossible to represent disjunctions (a tall or a Chinese man), and negations (a room without a giraffe) with pictures. In fact, in general, it is impossible to represent sets of things. One can never visualize the concept of a triangle. Each time you try, you will see a specific triangle. Another argument for symbols being the natural currency of thinking, comes from the way people store things in their long term memory. Without looking at a penny, try drawing the picture of one, seen from the head side. Typically people remember that there is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln from profile, somewhere it says ``in God we trust''. Maybe you even remember that the year and the word ``liberty'' are also on this side. Did you finish the drawing? Now find a real penny and compare the results. The mistakes people typically make are drawing Lincoln looking at left rather than right, putting ``in God we trust'' to the bottom rather than top, switching the places of the year and ``liberty''. No one draws a penny with the upper left side faded out, as you would expect from the degradation of a pixel representation. This is a powerful argument for symbolic representations.
However, it does not say anything about using images for doing inference, the imagination-perception loop. You may be reconstructing the image from its symbolic description, and this does not hinder the advantage of using images for certain kinds of inference. Furthermore, if you didn't have any pictorial information in your memory, you wouldn't be able to draw anything. This shows that our long term memory has to carry pictorial representations in addition to verbal ones. In fact, it can be argued that each representational system has its own long term memory. They each experiences the world within its own language, remember things from the past and learn from regularities within its own framework. The answer to the question in the title of this section is not 1/1000. In fact it is a thousand also. This is an unusual situation. We are used to seeing ``many to one'' mappings. But typically this means the ``one'' set is much smaller than the ``many'' set. Imagine a situation where the relationship is symmetric. To completely capture the information in a picture, you need a lot of words. To completely capture what is represented by a particular concept, you need a lot of pictures. This is the power of multiple representational systems. One cannot substitute for the other. What you can say in a few bits in one, require infinite space in the other, and vice versa [Rao, 1996].
Towards Argumentation-based Collaborative Negotiation: A Preliminary Report
Zhun Qiu and Milind Tambe
Information Sciences Institute and Computer Science Department
University of Southern California
4676 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, USA {zqiu, tambe}@isi.edu http://www.isi.edu/teamcore/{zhun,
tambe} July, 1998
Abstract
In a complex, dynamic multi-agent setting, coherent team actions are often jeopardized by agents' conflicting beliefs about different aspects of their environment, about resource availability, and about their own or teammates' capabilities and performance. Team members thus need to communicate and negotiate to restore team coherence. This paper focuses on the problem of negotiations in teamwork to resolve such conflicts. The basis of such negotiations is inter-agent argumentation (based on Toulmin's argumentation structure), where agents assert their beliefs to others, with supporting arguments. One key novelty in our work is that agents' argumentation exploits previous research on general, explicit teamwork models. Based on such teamwork models, it is possible categorize the conflicts that arise into different classes, and more importantly provide a generalized and reusable argumentation facility based on teamwork constraints.
Our approach is implemented in a system called CONSA (COllaborative Negotiation System based on Argumentation).
1. Introduction
The past few years have seen an explosion of interest in multi-agent systems in general, and multi-agent collaboration or teamwork in particular. In multi-agent teamwork, agents must plan or act together in service of their common team goal. Unfortunately, in a complex, dynamic multi-agent setting, such coherent team action is often jeopardized by agents' conflicting beliefs about factors such as their environment, overall resource availability, and their own or their teammates' past and present performance and capabilities. Such conflicts in agents' beliefs may arise due to a variety of reasons. First, typically in a distributed environment, agents have access only to local information (not global information), obtained from local sensors or information access mechanisms. Thus, information locally sensed by one agent is unavailable to the other agents, leading to conflicts. Second, even if the same information is available to all of the agents, their interpretations of this information may differ due to their distinct individual contexts, or their differing sensor capabilities, leading to conflicting beliefs. Third, agents' individual problem solving or planning activities may often need to proceed without all relevant information from all others, and agents may thus produce local plans that conflict with those of its teammates. Finally, unreliable communication among agents may lead the sending and receiving agents to believe in conflicting information. While recent research on teamwork has made progress in enabling agents to flexibly coordinate and communicate in a team, it has so far not addressed the problem of inter-agent negotiation for conflict resolution. This paper is focused on such collaborative negotiations in the context of teamwork.
The topic of inter-agent negotiations has long been a subject of intense investigation in the multi-agent literature. Beyond multi-agents, "negotiations" is well-studied topic, in different forms, in different areas such as economics, and political science*. Indeed, investigations inspired from economics, such as game theoretic approaches (e.g., Rosenschein and Zlotkin [11]), dominate much of the existing work on agent-based negotiation. However, much of this literature has focused on negotiations among self-interested agents, that attempt to maximize their individual utilities, rather than collaborative negotiations within a team. Furthermore, this literature often focuses on the outcome of the negotiation, e.g., by providing rules of encounter or conventions that ensure that agents will not have any incentive to deceive others. However, it does not provide guidance on constructing such agents' internal (cognitive) processes , e.g., their representations and reasoning employed, to enable effective and/or efficient negotiation.
Our research strongly contrasts with the above research thread, given its focus on building agents that can participate in collaborative negotiations in service of teamwork. In contrast with game-theoretic approaches, our approach is based on the notion of argumentation. Previous research in this area [1,4,8,10] has provided several general purpose techniques for argumentation-based negotiations. Building on this previous work, and particularly, Toulmin's pattern of argumentation [14], we have developed an argumentation-based negotiation system called CONSA (Collaborative Negotiation System based on Argumentation). The key novel aspects of CONSA, particularly in contrast with systems of legal argumentation [4], are based on its focus on collaborative negotiation. This focus enables CONSA to exploit previous research on explicit, general models of teamwork [6,12], that can provide significant advantages in investigations of collaborative negotiations. In particular, a principled framework of teamwork enables a clearer understanding of collaborative negotiation, and the strengths and limitations of current techniques. For instance, such a principled framework enables an understanding of the different conflict types that can arise in teamwork, and the extent to which such conflict types have been addressed in previous work on collaborative negotiations. Indeed, such categorization of differences in conflict types is absent in previous work on collaborative negotiation. More importantly, teamwork models provide a more detailed, yet domain-independent expertise for agents to engage in argumentation. Such argumentation expertise is reusable across domains. For instance, agents can reuse argumentation knowledge based on role constraints and task relationships, or own and teammates' responsibilities in teamwork.
Toulmin
A Critical Account of Theoretical and Practical Argument
Toulmin's starting point involves the irrelevance of theoretical argument to the assessment of practical argument. During much of the history of the Western world, particularly the Modern Period (approximately 16501950), philosophers presupposed the existence of prior and immutable standards to judge the adequacy of concepts, especially scientific ones. According to Toulmin, these presuppositions "imposed on philosophy a certain epistemic picture of Man the Rational Knower facing Nature the Unchanging Object ofKnowledge."16 At various times throughout history, philosophers have rebelled against this notion of immutable standards but have been unable to provide standards that are not completely relativistic. Responses to this problem have been either to develop standards that can distinguish "correct" arguments from "incorrect" ones or to admit that such standards are relative to the people, times, and places in which the arguments are developed. The works of two scholars in the later part of the Modern Period, Gottlob Frege and R. G. Collingwood, represent two major attempts to come to grips with the question of how the worth of scientific concepts is to be judged. Frege is described by Toulmin as an absolutist who argues that adequacy of concepts ought to be modeled on mathematics. Collingwood, on the other hand, is forced into relativism in his attempts to avoid the problems of absolute standards. Toulmin criticizes these approaches because although Frege may have succeeded in explaining mathematics in absolutist terms, absolutist notions such as his are more difficult to sustain when we leave the discipline of mathematics for, say, political theory.
In Toulmin's words: The absolutist reaction to the diversity of our concepts, thus emancipates itself from the complexities of history and anthropology only at the price of irrelevance. . . . [while the relativistic reaction of Collingwood]. . . takes good care to avoid the defects of historical irrelevance, but in doing so (as we shall see) it ends in equal difficulties by denying itself any impartial standpoint for rational judgement.17 The choice, then, is seen as between a completely absolutist and a completely relativistic position--a choice which Toulmin views as untenable. In Human Understanding, and, for that matter, in his entire line of work, Toulmin attempts to develop standards for assessing the worth of ideas that are neither absolutist nor relativistic. His purpose is to form a "new 'epistemic self-portrait': that is, a fresh account of the capacities, processes, and activities, in virtue of which Man acquires an understanding of Nature, and Nature in turn becomes intelligible to Man."18 In summary, Toulmin contrasts theoretical and practical argumentation in order to cast light on his claim that theoretical arguments are irrelevant to most of the important aspects of human affairs. At the same time, he is unwilling to go to the other extreme, which trades the completely absolute for the completely relative. He sees the idea of practical argument as one of the ways to find a middle ground between absolutism and relativism. In order to understand this middle ground, we first must understand Toulmin's specific objections to absolutism and relativism.
Objections to Absolutism. Jonsen and Toulmin claim that theoretical or analytic arguments are not relevant to the world of practical affairs because too many situations are not covered by appeals to a single universal principle. The problems we face in everyday life are not simple because they vary according to the details of the situation. For example: If I go next door and borrow a silver soup tureen, it goes without saying that I am expected to return it as soon as my immediate need for it is over: that is not an issue and gives rise to no problem. If, however, it is a pistol that I borrow and if, while it is in my possession, the owner becomes violently enraged and threatens to kill one of his neighbors as soon as he gets back the pistol, I shall find myself in a genuinely problematic situation. I cannot escape from it by lamely invoking the general maxim that borrowed property ought to be returned promptly.19 An analytic argument will not solve this problem because no universal, absolute principle exists that will allow us to resolve it. Jonsen and Toulmin use the abortion issue as an example of a controversy that cannot be resolved by an analytic argument. They claim that the activists in the abortion controversy have focused their public rhetoric on "universal laws and principles, which they could then nail to their respective masts."20
By focusing on analytic argument and absolutism, Jonsen and Toulmin argue, these activists have made the abortion debate unresolvable. The absolutist position is seen in the belief that the syllogism is the only appropriate way to substantiate claims to knowledge. The syllogism is a method of reasoning that produces absolute knowledge from the combination of two premises. A classic syllogism is the one that combines the major premise, "All people are mortal," with the minor premise, "Socrates is a person," to arrive at the conclusion "Socrates is bound to die." In addition to Toulmin's objections to the absolutist nature of this type of logic, he is able to point to several technical confusions in syllogistic logic. Although many of his objections to the syllogism are beyond the scope of our interest, through a complex analysis of logic, he shows how what formal logicians call "premises" actually serve different functions and thus cannot satisfactorily be grouped together.21 One of the most fundamental concepts in Toulmin's perspective is that of argument fields. Practical argument, he asserts, is a tool that is used in a variety of different fields, and some aspects of arguments vary from field to field. These he calls "field-dependent" aspects of argument. Other elements of argument are the same from one field to another; Toulmin calls these elements "field invariant."
Toulmin believes that the ideal of formal logic assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant. Formal logic assumes that mathematics (particularly geometry) is the standard by which arguments in all fields can be judged: These special characteristics of their first chosen class of arguments [mathematics] have been interpreted by logicians as signs of special merit; other classes of argument, they have felt, are deficient in so far as they fail to display all the characteristic merits of the paradigm class. . . . Many of the current problems in the logical tradition spring from adopting the analytic paradigm--argument as a standard by comparison with which all other arguments can be criticized.22 But since all fields of human activity are not based on assumptions identical to those of mathematics and geometry, logical arguments are largely irrelevant to the practical world of rationality. Because they are derived from mathematical fields, analytic arguments are highly impersonal. The person "doing" logic is no more important to formal logic than the person "doing" mathematics is to the formula for determining the circumference of a circle, for example. In contrast, the person engaging in argument is extremely important in rational assessment in the practical world. Rational procedures, according to Toulmin, "do not exist in the air, apart from actual reasoners: they are things which are learned, employed, sometimes modified, on occasion even abandoned, by the people doing the reasoning."23 Toulmin does not conclude that analytic logic needs to be abandoned completely; he simply sees its range of applicability as much narrower than many philosophers have claimed: "This is not to say that the elaborate mathematical systems which constitute 'symbolic logic' must now be thrown away; but only that people with intellectual capital invested in them should retain no illusions about the extent of their relevance to practical arguments."24
Another reason Toulmin considers formal logic to be largely irrelevant to practical argument is that formal logic assumes concepts do not change with time. For an argument to be considered valid in formal logic, "it must surely be good once and for all."25 Toulmin believes, however, that most argument fields cannot accommodate "timeless" claims to knowledge. He phrases this claim in a question to which he provides the answer: "Can one cast into a timeless mathematical mould the relations upon which the soundness and acceptability of our arguments depend, without distorting them beyond recognition? I shall argue that this cannot be done."26 Even in a highly specialized science such as astronomy, the requirement that analytic arguments be "timeless" is problematic: Consider the confident predictions of astronomers. What grounds have they for making them? A vast collection of records of telescopic observations and dynamical theories tested, refined and found reliable over the last 250 years.
This answer may sound impressive, and indeed from the practical point of view, it should do so; but the moment a philosopher begins to demand entailments, the situation changes. For, in the nature of the case, the astronomers' records can be no more up-to-date than the present hour; and, as for their theories, these will be worth no more to the epistemologist than the experiments and observations used to test their adequacy--experiments and observations which, needless to say, will also have been made in the past.27 One difficulty with the application of absolutism to practical problems is that answers are either "correct" or "incorrect" instead of "probably correct" or "probably incorrect." Many of the questions that rational procedures are designed to answer cannot be answered with certainty. Did Lyndon Johnson lie to the American public when he claimed the United States was winning the war in Vietnam? Did George Bush lie to the American public when he said, "Read my lips--no new taxes"? These answers are probably, but not certainly, yes. But the difficulty goes beyond philosophical speculation about truth and falsity or right and wrong. Because analytic arguments are used to analyze situations that are properly the domain of substantial arguments, many of our social debates, such as the abortion controversy, are not resolvable. Jonsen and Toulmin claim that "the zealot's concentration on universal and invariable principles" has condemned us to a "practical deadlock" from which we cannot escape.28 Since Toulmin considers absolutism to be in the mainstream of modern thinking, he voices greater objections to it than he does to relativism. Before reviewing an historical account of the theoretical and practical arguments, however, we will look briefly at Toulmin's objections to relativism. Objections to Relativism. Toulmin's general objection to absolute standards of argument is that they are so strict that they are irrelevant to the practice of rational criticism. On the other hand, his objection to relativistic standards of argument is that they are so relative that they constitute no standards at all. The field of anthropology is one that has been tempted to go in the direction of relativism since anthropologists noticed that rational arguments vary from culture to culture.
According to Toulmin, these relativistic standards preclude anthropologists from developing adequate standards of judgment: If a tribe with a long tradition of sympathetic magic insists on using homeopathic medicines in preference to antidotes, must the anthropologist necessarily accept this as "rational" behavior? No doubt, the members of the tribe will give their own reasons for doing so--reasons which seem to them good and sufficient--yet in judging the adequacy of those procedures, what attitude should the anthropologist himself adopt? Confronted by this question, anthropologists were for a long time tempted to change the subject. It was easier to take the relativist way out: of considering only what was regarded as rational by any particular tribe, and avoiding the question whether that attitude was sound or unsound, well-founded or groundless.29 Toulmin's concern, then, is that a completely relativist point of view provides no basis for distinguishing between a good or a poor argument. Toulmin's historical account of argument helps clarify his positions and consequent perspectives.
A Historical Account of Theoretical and Practical Argument
If the absolutist position out of which the ideal of theoretical argument flows is irrelevant to humanity, as Toulmin suggests, why has it survived from the classical age of Greece? This is one of the questions that Toulmin pursues in Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. An absolutist position was held by Plato, who argued that an absolute truth could be produced by dialectic and that the rhetoric of probability as taught by the sophists was wrong. But prior to 1600, "no one questioned the right of rhetoric to stand alongside logic in the canon of philosophy; nor was rhetoric treated as a second-class--and necessarily inferior field."30 During the Renaissance period, the realm of the theoretical and the practical both were regarded as legitimate. According to Toulmin, "theoretical inquiries were balanced against discussions of concrete practical issues, such as the specific conditions on which it is morally acceptable for a sovereign to launch a war, or for a subject to kill a tyrant."31 The context in which these discussions were held legitimated the place of rhetoric in human affairs. Since the end of the Renaissance, most philosophers have been committed to abstract, universal theory to the exclusion of practical issues. A shift occurred "from a style of philosophy that keeps equally in view issues of local, timebound practice, and universal, timeless theory, to one that accepts matters of universal, timeless theory as being entitled to an exclusive place in the agenda of 'philosophy.'"32 Toulmin's thesis is that the doctrine of absolutism that persisted throughout the entirety of the Modern Period resulted from the "'theory-centered' style of philosophizing--i.e. one that poses problems, and seeks solutions stated in timeless, universal terms"33 advocated by René Descartes.
The story of the dominance of absolutism begins with an assassination. Assassinations of public figures frequently have affected the course of history, and the assassination of Henri IV of France in 1610 was no exception. During the reign of Henri IV, the conflict between the French Catholics and Protestants was becoming intolerable. Because Henri IV wanted to build a kingdom that balanced Catholicism and Protestantism, he was perceived as the only person who had any chance of resolving the situation. Toulmin suggests that "Henri's murder came as the final confirmation of people's worst fears. His disappearance from the scene dashed the last hope of escaping from irresoluble conflicts."34 After his murder, the tide turned against religious pluralism, and the Thirty Years' War ensued. The Thirty Years' War created so much uncertainty in Europe that an escape was needed. Toulmin noted that "if uncertainty, ambiguity, and the acceptance of pluralism led, in practice, only to an intensification of the religious war, the time had come to discover some rational method for demonstrating the essential correctness or incorrectness of philosophical, scientific, or theological doctrines."35
Descartes, a young student at La Fleche, was to be the one who would provide that method. Descartes' ideas resulted from the historical context in which he lived, which included both the assassination of Henri IV and the Thirty Years' War. The latter was a major catastrophic event that lasted most of Descartes' adult life, beginning when he was in his early twenties and ending only two years before his death. Descartes' attempt to avoid relativism and skepticism involved finding a "single certain thing," the cognito, that made certainty possible. Toulmin notes that "fifty years later, for a generation whose central experience was the Thirty Years' War, and a social destruction that had apparently become entirely out of hand, the joint appeal of geometric certainty and 'clear and distinct' ideas helped Descartes' program to carry a new conviction."36 Descartes' position had such influence on intellectual thought in Europe that it lasted well into the twentieth century. In the twentieth century, almost as quickly as the Renaissance was transformed into modernity, the scaffolding of modernity was dismantled and foundation for the Post-Modern Period was begun.
In Toulmin's words, The intellectual and cultural situation in Europe and North America was just as deeply transformed, between the 1920s and the 1970s, as it was from the 1590s to the 1640s, but in reverse. . . . By 1910 . . . [the authority of the Modern Period] was weakening, but its grip outlasted another thirty years of warfare among the nations of Europe, and people were ready to suspend the Quest for Certainty, acknowledge the demolition of modern cosmopolis, and returned belatedly to the humane and liberal standpoint of the late Renaissance, only when the Second World War was well behind them.37 Toulmin draws numerous interesting parallels between the beginning and ending of the Modern Period. In fact, as the assassination of Henri IV ushered in modernity, Toulmin claims that the undoing of modernity "was framed by a new emblematic assassination"38--the assassination of John F. Kennedy. One result of the ideas that dominated the Modern Period, according to Toulmin, was that philosophy made very little progress during these 300 years. He claimed that: the formal doctrines that underpinned human thought were practiced from 1700 on followed a trajectory with the shape of an Omega, i.e.
After 300 years we are back close to our starting point. Natural scientists no longer separate the "observer" from the "world observed", as they did in the heyday of classical physics; sovereign nation-states find their independence circumscribed; and Descartes' foundations ambitions are discredited, taking philosophy back to the skepticism of Montaigne.39 In summary, an approach to philosophy was born that had no place for a rhetoric based in probability rather than certainty; this philosophy continued for three hundred years, ending only mid-way through this century. Such is Toulmin's historical account of why the philosophical community settled on an absolutist, theoretical approach to philosophizing that was to last until approximately the 1950s. Since we have accepted universalist rules and principles as central to all aspects of human knowledge and values, "no middle way can be found between absolutism and relativism."40
Of course, Toulmin's job is not complete until he provides just such a middle ground, and that is the topic we will consider in the next section. In order to avoid the dilemma of absolutism versus relativism, Toulmin proposes to study how concepts change and how those conceptual changes are judged to be worthy or not worthy in particular fields. Thus, Toulmin analyzes practical arguments in various disciplines, ranging from the physical sciences to ethics, in order to develop a position between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Elements of Practical Argument As we saw in the previous section, Toulmin believes that the contest between absolutism and relativism was decided in favor of absolutism, a situation that he finds less than desirable. The solution, he believes, is not to return to complete relativism but to find a middle road between these two extremes. Between the years of 1958 and 1990, Toulmin has authored or co-authored four books, each of which has something to say about this goal. All four are connected in their concern for practical rather than theoretical argument and in their concern for contextualized rather than decontextualized analysis. In this section, we will discuss Toulmin's layout of argument, his evolutionary model of conceptual change, his analysis of modern casuistry, and his hope for humanizing modernity.
Layout of Argument
The element of Toulmin's theory that is most well known is his layout of practical argument, which he believes avoids formal logic without resorting to relativism.41 This layout of argument was developed from his concern for the justificatory function of substantive argumentation.42 The primary use of substantive arguments is to justify claims rather than to inferclaims from evidence. Justification is a retrospective activity, while inference is a prospective one. In other words, justification of a claim involves producing reasons for a claim after the fact of arriving mentally at that claim. Inference, on the other hand, refers to the uses of reasons to arrive at a claim and is the province of analytic argumentation. From the perspective of justification, reasoning is less a way of hitting on new ideas for that we have to use our imaginations--than it is a way of testing and sifting ideas critically. It is concerned with how people share their ideas and thoughts in situations that raise the question of whether those ideas are worth sharing. It is a collective and continuing human transaction.43
Even in the sciences, where one of argument's functions is discovery (or inference), justification plays an important role in argument. "The making of discoveries," Toulmin claims, "may be one facet of the scientist's professional work, but the justifying of his discoveries--by the presentation of 'acceptable' supporting arguments--is another, complementary facet of this same work."44 The idea that the function of argument is justification leads Toulmin to discuss the standards by which arguments succeed or fail to provide justification for claims. An argument is sound if it is able to survive the criticism offered by those who participate in the rational enterprises of various fields. In his words, a "sound argument, a well-grounded or firmly-backed claim, is one which will stand up to criticism, one for which a case can be presented coming up to the standard required if it is to deserve a favourable verdict."45 Because Toulmin perceives justification as critical in argument, a prerequisite to comprehending Toulmin's approach to the layout of argument is his consideration of modal terms. Modal terms are terms that frequently occur in arguments, such as "possible," "probable," "impossible," "certainly," "presumably," "as far as the evidence goes," or "necessarily." Toulmin claims that modal terms are characterized by two different aspects--"force" and "criteria."
The force of an argument refers to the strength or power of the claim. The claim that a person who jumps from a tall building certainly will hit the ground has a greater degree of force than the claim that a person taking an airline trip from New York to Los Angeles probably will survive the trip or that a person reading this book possibly will find it interesting. The first claim has a higher degree of certainty than the last two claims. Criteria for an argument refer to the standards used to justify the claim. As we have indicated, the standards used to judge the adequacy of a work of abstract art are not the same standards as those used to judge the adequacy of a scientific theory or the wisdom of the President's speech. According to Toulmin, a modal term's force is "field invariant," while its criteria are "field dependent."46 Arguments from various fields may carry similar force, but the criteria for assessing them differ greatly. To better explain "field variant" and "field dependent," we will examine Toulmin's notion of "argument fields."47
While other perspectives assume that arguments are the same regardless of the field, Toulmin argues that some elements of argument differ from one field to another. One of the questions Toulmin pursues is which aspects of arguments are field dependent and which are field invariant. In what ways, for example, is an argument designed to justify the conclusion that Picasso was a great artist similar to an argument designed to justify the claim that liberty is a more important value than life, or that Darwin's theory of evolution is a useful explanation for the existence of human life on the planet Earth? In other words, Toulmin is searching for ways to explain how some portions of arguments remain the same, regardless of field, while other portions of arguments vary from field to field. While formal logicians believe the criteria for judging the adequacy of arguments should be the same, regardless of field, Toulmin disagrees: As we move from the lunch counter to the executive conference table, from the science laboratory to the law courts, the "forum" of discussion changes profoundly. This kind of involvement that the participants have with the outcome of the reasoning is entirely different in the different situations and so also will be the ways in which possible outcomes of the argument are tested and judged.48 Arguments vary from field to field in a variety of ways.49 Some arguments vary according to the degree of formality required in different fields.
The degree of formality in an argument between film critics such as Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert about the quality of My Left Foot is much less than that of an argument between defense attorney F. Lee Bailey and the prosecutor about the admissibility of lie-detector evidence. Arguments also differ according to the degree of precision required in different fields. The amount of precision in an argument about theoretical physics is much greater than that in an argument concerning which applicant for a job is more qualified. Fields of arguments also differ with regard to the modes of resolution that are required. The United States judicial system, for example, functions with an adversarial mode of resolution, where one party wins and the other loses. Negotiation between labor and management, on the other hand, uses a compromise or consensus mode of resolution. These are a few of the ways in which practical argument differs from one field to another. According to Toulmin, one of the ways that arguments do not vary from field to field is that they all may be analyzed according to his layout of argument.50 This layout is based on an analog of motion: "an argument is movement from accepted data, through a warrant, to a claim."51
Making an argument is, therefore, analogous to taking a trip. One is trying to "get someplace" from "someplace else." We will pursue this analogy further as we explore the different parts of his layout. Toulmin's layout of an argument involves six interrelated components. The first three components, the most basic elements, are claim, grounds, and warrant. The next three components--backing, modal qualifier, and rebuttal--modify the first three. The first component is called a "claim." The claim is the conclusion of the argument that a person is seeking to justify. It is the answer to the question, "Where are we going?" The claim is the destination of the trip. Toulmin calls the second component of an argument "grounds." The grounds of an argument are the facts or other information on which the argument is based. Grounds provide the answer to the question, "What do we have to go on?" The grounds constitute the vehicle by which we reach the destination. The third component of an argument is called the "warrant."
This portion of the argument authorizes our movement from the grounds to the claim. It answers the question, "How do you justify the move from these grounds to that claim? What road do you take to get from this starting point to that destination?"52 The warrant assesses whether or not our "trip" from grounds to claim is a legitimate one. These three components are the primary elements of an argument, and in simple arguments, they may be the only components visible. The three elements of Toulmin's layout can be depicted spatially as follows: One of the examples Toulmin uses to illustrate his layout concerns a man named Harry and a claim that Harry is a British citizen:53 Warrant : A man born in Bermuda will be a British Citizen Grounds: Harry was born in Bermuda Claim : Harry is a British Citizen Alone, these three primary elements fail to distinguish analytic from practical arguments. We could transform, for instance, Toulmin's example into a formal syllogism: Major Premise: A man born in Bermuda will be a British citizen. Minor Premise: Harry was born in Bermuda. Conclusion: Harry is a British citizen. Three additional elements complete the layout of an argument by showing how practical arguments are contextualized and, thus, are different from analytic arguments. The first of these is called "backing."
In formal logic, the major premise requires no support because it is seen as a universal principle. In practical argument, sometimes the movement called for in the warrant is not obvious; backing or additional support for a warrant may be required. While the warrant answers the question, "What road do you take?" the backing answers the question, "Why is this road a safe one?" The next element in Toulmin's layout of an argument is called a "modal qualifier." Modal qualifiers indicate the strength of the step taken from data to warrant. Analytic arguments do not require modal qualifiers because the conclusion drawn from an analytic argument is structurally certain. Some arguments include qualifiers like "probably" or "certainly," indicating the strength of the relationship between the data and the warrant. Strength also is indicated when, for example, we hear the weather reporter give a prediction that the chances of rain are seventy percent or a scientist claim results that are significant at the .05 level of confidence.
Modal qualifiers answer the question, "How certain are we of arriving at our destination?" The final element of an argument is called the "rebuttal," which refers to specific circumstances when the warrant does not justify the claim. When using rebuttal, an arguer is presenting claims with a degree of caution. For example, the weather reporter might say that tomorrow will bring rain unless the Pacific front gets stalled over the Rocky Mountains. The rebuttal answers the question, "Under what circumstances should we decide against taking this trip?" This element emphasizes how practical argument, as opposed to analytic argument, is contextualized--how it is grounded in the specifics of the situation. The complete diagram of Toulmin's layout of argument is as follows: Warrant Grounds Modality Backing Rebuttal Claim Toulmin's example of Harry, presented earlier, is completed in the following layout: Warrant: A man born in Bermuda will generally be a British Citizen Backing: The following statues and other legal provisions: Grounds : Harry was born in Bermuda Modality : so, presumably Claim: Harry is a British citizen Rebuttal: Unless both his parents were aliens or he has become a naturalized American Thus, these six elements, considered as parts of an interdependent whole, constitute Toulmin's layout of an argument. Toulmin claims his layout is based on legal argument rather than formal logic.
His layout is modeled on the kind of arguments that typically occur in the courtroom. When Toulmin first described the layout in Uses of Argument, he did not emphasize and, in fact, did not realize, the implications this layout had for the field of rhetoric. He did not recognize, for example, that his layout could be adapted to provide a model of how people communicate arguments. Only after he was introduced to rhetoricians by Brockriede and Ehninger, after he moved to the United States, and after he published Introduction to Reasoning with Rieke and Janik were the rhetorical implications of his layout of argument stated explicitly.
Evolutionary Model of Conceptual Change
he publication of Uses of Argument was followed in 1972 by Toulmin's book, Human Understanding, which presents an evolutionary model of conceptual change. Human Understanding, like Uses of Argument, shows how argument in science is conducted by practical, contextualized argument rather than by formal, analytic argument. Concepts in all fields, Toulmin claims, are constantly in a process of evolution, and argument is a part of the process of evolutionary change. Prior to discussing his own perspective on conceptual change, Toulmin criticizes the approach of Thomas S. Kuhn, who attempts to account for conceptual change in his seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.54 Kuhn's thesis is that concepts change when the current scientific paradigm no longer is able to provide a useful answer to questions that confront them. At such a time, Kuhn claims, a scientific revolution occurs, and new paradigms compete to replace the old. The actors in the competing paradigms are so different that they are unable to communicate clearly with one another. Toulmin believes that Kuhn's notion of the scientific revolution continues to suffer from the earlier problems of relativism since concepts are not comparable from one paradigm to another. In contrast to Kuhn, Toulmin claims: The merits of intellectual "revolutions" cannot be discussed or justified in rational terms--since no common set of procedures for judging this rationality are acceptable, or even intelligible, to both sides in the dispute. So the considerations operative within a revolutionary change must apparently be interpreted as causes or motives, rather than as reasons or justifications.55
As opposed to Kuhn, Toulmin believes that conceptual change is evolutionary, not revolutionary, and that scientists from competing paradigms are able to--and, in fact, do--argue about the merits of the competing ideas: The so-called "Copernican Revolution" took a century and a half to complete and was argued out every step of the way. The world-view that emerged at the end of this debate had--it is true--little in common with earlier pre-Copernican conceptions. Yet, however radical the resulting change in physical and astronomical ideas and theories, it was the outcome of a continuing rational discussion.56 Toulmin believes that concepts develop according to a pattern of evolution in much the same way that organisms evolve biologically. In fact, he uses Darwin's model of biological evolution to explain conceptual evolution. The development of concepts involves two processes: innovation and selection.
Innovative factors account for the appearance of variations in populations of plants and animals as well as for the appearance of variations in scientific theories, while selective factors account for the perpetuation of the healthiest plants and animals and the soundest scientific theories. Innovation occurs when professionals in a particular discipline come to view their concepts in ways that differ from those in which concepts traditionally have been viewed. These innovative concepts then are subjected to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin calls a "forum of competition." This "forum of competition" involves the process of selection. The ideas that survive the competition are selected as replacements for or revisions of the traditional concepts. As Toulmin explains, "suitable `forums of competition' . . . [must exist] . . . within which intellectual novelties can survive for long enough to show their merits or defects; but in which they are also criticized and weeded out with enough severity to maintain the coherence of the discipline."57
In science, the selection process includes both disciplinary and professional aspects. The disciplinary aspects of a science--the ideas and objects of the science--insure evolution as old theories no longer are able to offer adequate explanations for those objects of that science. These disciplinary concerns do not comprise, however, all of the factors involved in the evolution of ideas. Professional factors that influence evolution include such things as the political nature of professional organizations, the needs of society for the "products" of the particular science, and the organization and editorship of journals for publishing scholarly work. Toulmin explains these professional factors: Individuals and organizations in fact exercise as real a power and influence over the development of science as they do in any other sphere of human life. Correspondingly, the roles, offices, and positions of influence within a scientific profession are worth fighting for--and are, in practice fought for--as singlemindedly, methodologically, and even deviously, as in any other sphere.58
Thus, an event like the nature of the person elected to office in a professional organization can affect the development of concepts in that scientific discipline. Toulmin claims that these selection processes are rational when "rational enterprises" provide forums of criticism for ideas that are neither absolute nor relative. In the court of rationality, clear-headed people with suitable experience are qualified to act as judges or jurors. Within different cultures and epochs, reasoning may operate according to different methods and principles, so that different milieus represent (so to say) the parallel "jurisdictions" of rationality. But they do so out of a shared concern with common "rational enterprises," just as parallel legal jurisdictions do with their common judicial enterprises.59 As concepts change from one period of time to another or from one culture to another, they are either "valid" or "invalid" from an absolutist point of view. From a relativistic approach, one concept is neither better nor worse than a competitive concept from a different culture or milieu. From Toulmin's perspective, such "evaluations are always a matter of comparison. The operative questions are never of the form, `Is this concept uniquely "valid" or "invalid"?'. . . Instead, the operative form is `Given the current repertory of concepts and available variants, would this particular conceptual variant improve our explanatory power more than its rivals?'60
The fact that Toulmin's approach to argumentation does not distinguish absolutely between the "valid" and "invalid" might lead some to the conclusion that he believes that the rational evaluation of ideas is purely subjective and thus not rational at all. Toulmin disputes this view by introducing a concept he calls the "impartial rational standpoint." The impartial rational standpoint is a significant part of Toulmin's attempt to explain how concept evaluation can be objective without falling prey to the criticisms of absolutism. The impartial rational standpoint is, in his words, "an `objective one,' in the sense of being neutral as between the local and temporary views of different historico-cultural milieus; but its conclusions are always subject to reconsideration, and it does not divorce itself from the actual testimony of history and anthropology."61
It is, thus, simultaneously objective and contextual; it is objective in the sense of being neutral and contextual in the sense of considering the relevant facets of history and anthropology. The evolutionary model of argument, then, is Toulmin's attempt to explain how "rational enterprises" evaluate concepts through a process of criticism and evaluation of those concepts. Toulmin claims that through such a process, persons areable to achieve an "impartial standpoint of rationality."
The Revival of Casuistry
By reviving casuistry, or case ethics, Toulmin believes we will find a path between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry, widely used in the medieval and Renaissance times, fell into disrepute during the Modern Period but is being revived in the Post-Modern Period.62 In The Abuse of Casuistry, Jonsen and Toulmin show how the process of casuistry was an effective form of practical argumentation in Medieval and Renaissance times: "Human experience long ago developed a reasonable and effective set of practical procedures for resolving the moral problems that arise in particular real-life situations. These procedures came to be known as `casuistry' and those who employed these procedures were `casuists.'63
Casuistry is a procedure used to resolve moral problems without resorting to analytic argument. An analytic approach to moral problems begins by specifying absolute moral principles and then applying a specific case to the principle. If the sanctity of life is an absolute moral principle and if abortion involves the taking of a life, then abortion is immoral. The approach of casuistry is different. Casuistry begins by using what Jonsen and Toulmin call "type cases" or "paradigm cases" as objects of reference in moral arguments. These type cases create an initial presumption of moral action for cases which do not contain exceptional circumstances. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case in an attempt to determine whether the specifics of the individual case are comparable to the type case. Type cases serve as the final objects of reference. For instance, "willfully using violence against innocent and defenseless human beings, taking unfair advantage of other people's misfortunes, deceiving others by lying to them, damaging the community by your disloyalty, and acting--in general--inconsiderately toward your fellows" were type cases in the classical period of Greece and Rome and continue to be so today. In casuistry, "these type cases are the markers or boundary stones that delimit the territory of `moral' considerations in practice."64
Using the type case of willful violence against the innocent, we can see how willful violence against a child is easily called into question on moral grounds. Thus, the type case is the starting point for a moral discussion. In some cases, additional facts surrounding the context may refute the presumption of the rules embedded in the type case. Jonsen and Toulmin discuss three problematic examples: first, the situation when the type case fits the individual case ambiguously; second, the situation when two or more type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; and third, the situation when an individual case is so unprecedented that it defies resolution in terms of existing type cases.
In each of these cases, analytic argument is inappropriate because the universal moral principle, like the type case, fits the situation only ambiguously, clashes with another universal moral principle, or does not apply at all to the situation. We will present one case that illustrates both the first and second examples and then will present a second case to illustrate the third. The first and second situation that Jonsen and Toulmin discuss can be illustrated by their example of a specific situation occasionally faced by a doctor in a neonatal intensive care unit. Medical science has developed to the point that we now have the technical capacity to maintain the breathing of very small, premature infants who, a few years ago, certainly would have died. This doctor is faced with deciding whether Nancy, a very premature infant, should be treated or should be allowed to die without treatment. The procedures that the doctor will have to follow will have certain serious side effects; even if Nancy survives, she may live a lifetime of physical pain, or she may be seriously handicapped. We will choose as a type case that of terminally ill patients who have asked to have their treatments discontinued.
The comparison of this type case to the specific case of Nancy illustrates Jonsen and Toulmin's first example of a problematic moral case because Nancy's case fits the type case ambiguously. Certainly, the question faced in Nancy's case is similar to the one doctors face in the cases of these terminally ill patients. Should Nancy be treated, or should she be allowed to die? Should these terminally ill patients be forced to endure weeks of pain and suffering associated with being tied to mechanical life-support systems, or should they be allowed to die? Since the type case selected to resolve this dispute involves the presumptive rule that a physician should "mercifully refrain" from saving the life of a terminally ill patient who has asked to die, the type case fits Nancy's case ambiguously--the primary difference being that Nancy, unlike terminally ill patients, has no way of telling us whether she would prefer to have her life prolonged or would prefer to be allowed to die. Many other ambiguities exist, such as the fact that as an infant, Nancy cannot reflect on her physical pain nor can she anticipate the duration of suffering ahead of her. Terminally ill patients, on the other hand, may be fully cognizant and reflective about their painful physical circumstances. Nancy's case also can be used to illustrate Jonsen and Toulmin's second example of a problematic moral case.
This second example occurs when two different type cases apply to the specific case in conflicting ways. The first type case--the type case we have just discussed--involves the presumptive rule that a doctor should not take extraordinary measures to save the lives of those patients who choose death over further pain and suffering. The second type case involves a contrary presumptive rule stated in the doctor's oath to "act to preserve life." These two paradigms or type cases apply to Nancy's example in competing ways. The first suggests that the doctor let Nancy die; the second suggests that the doctor attempt to save Nancy's life. To make the situation even more difficult, Congress recently has passed legislation that categorizes "withholding care from the newborn" as "child abuse." Thus, a third paradigm is introduced into Nancy's situation. The dilemma posed when two or more type cases apply to a specific case in conflicting ways is solved not by analytic argument but by personal decision: which type case best fits the specific situation and under what circumstances should the rules of the type case be set aside?
The third problematic situation involves a moral discussion that is so unprecedented that no paradigm exists to resolve it. Jonsen and Toulmin's example concerns a man married for eight years with three children. He decides to have hormone therapy and a sex-change operation. This case raises many interesting and unprecedented issues, not the least of which is whether or not this man and his wife still have mutual sexual obligations. Each of these problematic situations must be resolved by practical argument rather than by analytic argument. In Jonsen and Toulmin's words: The heart of moral experience does not lie in a mastery of general rules and theoretical principles, however sound and well reasoned those principles may appear. It is located rather, in the wisdom that comes from seeing how the ideas behind those rules work out in the course of people's lives: in particular, seeing more exactly what is involved in insisting on (or waiving) this or that rule in one or another set of circumstances.65 Jonsen and Toulmin offer a model of practical argument that explains the procedures of casuistry.66 This model, similar to the one developed in Uses of Argument, is presented below: This model is similar to Toulmin's original layout of argument in many respects. This model has four elements rather than the original six; backing and modality are incorporated into other elements. In this model, the authors have eliminated backing by making grounds apply to the general warrant as well as to the claim. Modality, or the degree of certainty, has been incorporated into the claim, as we can see by the phrase, "presumably so."
One of Jonsen and Toulmin's examples involves whether or not a person has a moral obligation to return a borrowed pistol to a man who claims that he will shoot his wife as soon as he gets the pistol back. The grounds in this case involve data from the context of the particular situation. In this example, the warrant is a general maxim (one should return borrowed property) developed from type cases or paradigm cases. The warrant developed from these type cases is that borrowed property ought to be returned. The claim, a provisional conclusion about the present case, is that he ought to return the pistol. But this argument hinges on the rebuttal, where the differences in the specific case and the paradigm case are considered. Thus, the procedures of casuistry involve the interaction of a general warrant developed from a paradigm case, data based on the particulars of the present case, and rebuttals concerning exceptional circumstances that exist in the present case. The conclusion of the argument serves as a guide to future action. Jonsen and Toulmin show how the example of the borrowed pistol is analyzed using the model of practical argument:67 Jonsen and Toulmin claim that since the 1960s, casuistry has been revived: [I]n the practical quandaries of everyday life, the use of case analysis continues uninterrupted. Friends and colleagues, psychotherapists and agony columnists, parents and children, priests and ministers: anyone who has occasion to consider moral issues in actual detail knows that morally significant differences between cases are as vital as their likenesses.68 Since the 1960s, they claim, discussion of issues of professional ethics in fields such as medicine, business, and law has begun using the methods and principles of casuistry. In addition, "the 1960s and 1970s saw people enter the moral debates about medicine, legal practice, social policy, nuclear war, and a half a dozen such problems." These debates, they maintain, always return to the particular situation in which a person faces a moral problem, rather than returning to universal moral principles. In summary, their claim is that "our inquiry confirms what Aristotle taught long ago: that ethical arguments have less in common with formal analytic arguments than they do with topical or rhetorical ones."69
Humanizing Modernity
In order to humanize modernity, Toulmin believes that we need to "balance the hope for certainty and clarity in theory with the impossibility of avoiding uncertainty and ambiguity in practice."70 This process, already well underway in science and beginning in philosophy, does not involve tossing out all of the progress that was made during the Modern Period; it involves reconciling these advances with humanism. As Toulmin states: "We are not compelled to choose between 16th-century humanism and 17th-century exact science: rather, we need to hang on to the positive achievements of them both." The task, therefore, is neither to reject modernity nor to cling to it in its historic form: it is "rather, to reform, and even reclaim, our inherited modernity, by humanizing it."71
Toulmin believes that the process of humanizing modernity is well underway in the sciences. Today's sciences, Toulmin believes, "are deeply grounded in experience; while, increasingly, their practical use is subject to criticism, in terms of their human impact."72 The lines dividing the moral from the technical and the applied from the pure have become less and less distinct. As evidence, he cites the changing in the consciousness of the physicists who worked to produce the atom bomb at White Sands Missile base in New Mexico: "The immediate consequence of this change was the founding of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which still gives a monthly, transnational nongovernmental commentary on the politics of nuclear weapons and related topics."73
The humanization of the sciences is, he suggests, responsible for bringing questions about ecology to center stage. If science can be humanized, then so can philosophy. Today, matters of life and death challenge philosophers--specifically, problems of nuclear war, medical technology, and the claims of environment that cannot "be addressed without bringing to the surface questions about the value of human life, and our responsibility for protecting the world of nature, as well as that of 'humanity.'"74 Toulmin claims that modernity will focus on four elements that were elements of focus prior to the seventeenth century's turn from humanism to rationalism. These elements, which largely were considered unimportant during the Modern Period, are the oral, the particular, the local, and the timely. For our purposes, the oral is the
most important of these four elements, so we will discuss it more fully than the other three. The oral was rejected by modern philosophers; the scholarly focus was on the printed page. This came from the desire of literary critics "to isolate literary works, as products, from facts about historical situations and personal lives of their authors, as producers--i.e., to decontextualize the text." Prior to the 1950s, philosophical analysis rejected the oral for the written because logical propositions, and hence rationality, were analyzed more easily in written form. But since the 1950s, Toulmin claims, "questions about oral utterances have displaced questions about written propositions."75 The return to the oral is, according to Toulmin, one of the reasons for the resurgence of rhetoric as an academic field since the 1950s. In addition to the return to the oral, we are also returning to the particular, the local, and the timely. The return to the particular is signaled by the revival of casuistry, which we discussed earlier.
The return to the local has caused us to reject "Descartes' belief that factual realms of human study like history and ethnography lack intellectual depth, and can teach us nothing of intellectual importance."76 The return to the timely has meant that, in addition to addressing questions that are timeless, philosophers are concerned with questions of the here and now. In addition, the humanization of modernity brings with it "a renewed acceptance of practice, which requires us to adapt action to the special demands of particular occasions."77 Toulmin's perspective, then, is that during the Modern Period, analytic argument replaced practical argument and absolutism replaced relativism. Toulmin argues that we need to find a path that rejects complete absolutism while avoiding total relativism. Between 1958 and 1990, he has pursued the goal of describing such a path.
To date, he has argued that practical argument, an evolutionary view of science, the revival of casuistry, and the humanization of modernity demonstrate the possibility of such a path. Responses to Toulmin Initially, Toulmin's perspective was not well accepted by philosophers.78 The specific responses of philosophers are beyond the scope of our discussion here since many of them deal with arguments concerning the nature of formal logic rather than rhetoric or practical logic. In general, however, philosophers believe that Toulmin has defined logic too narrowly and that if defined more broadly, it is more relevant to everyday discourse than Toulmin claims. Lewis summarizes this response: "(1) Toulmin erred in his interpretation of traditional logic, (2) his logic was not new since previous logicians had dealt with the problem and, (3) some of the concepts of his `new logic' were erroneous."79 Despite the negative reading of Uses of Argument by philosophers, the book generally is applauded by scholars of rhetoric. One sign of Toulmin's wide acceptance among rhetoricians inthe United States is the number of argumentation textbooks that have adopted the Toulmin layout in part or in whole.80 In addition to persons interested in argumentation and debate, Toulmin's layout has gained approval from those who teach communication.
For example, McCroskey shows how the Toulmin layout can be used in the basic speech course as an aid to audience analysis and speech organization.81 Bettinghaus, searching for an adequate model for argumentative speeches, claims that Toulmin is the "most adequate available model."82 Others have used the Toulmin layout of argument as a way to explain the process of persuasion and attitude change. D'Angelo demonstrates that attitude theories, particularly the theory of Sherif, Sherif, and Nebergall,83 can be incorporated within the Toulmin layout of argument in order to provide a more adequate approach to the study of persuasion.84 Another attempt to integrate the Toulmin layout of argument into a theory of attitude change can be seen in Cronkhite's paradigm of persuasion.85
Even more recently, Toulmin's approach has been shown to be relevant to argumentation in interpersonal communication. For instance, Burleson extends Toulmin's conception of warrants to show how they are applicable to social reasoning processes evident in argumentation in interpersonal interaction.86 Not all communication scholars are equally enamored of Toulmin's ideas. Just as he has critics among philosophers, he has them among communication professionals. Trent, for example, asserts that logic still has some relevance to argument and that Toulmin's ideas should not be allowed to divorce formal logic and practical argument completely.87 Burleson, in an article comparing Toulmin's approach to rationality with that of Habermas, finds Toulmin's "impartial standpoint of rationality" unable to accomplish the goal of avoiding the perils of both absolutism and relativism. In Burleson's analysis, Toulmin's system lapses into the relativism it was intended to avoid.88 Anderson and Mortensen, on the other hand, applaud and extend Toulmin's idea that context-invariant forms of logic are not relevant to argument in the "marketplace."89 Toulmin's most vocal critic in the field of rhetoric is Willard, who claims that Toulmin's approach to the analysis of argument is inadequate for building a descriptive model of argument. Willard claims that the layout contains three sources of distortion: "(1) the process of translation--translating the message into analytic premises; (2) the linguistic bias of argument models; and (3) the model's intrinsic isolation of context--both linguistic and sociopolitical."90 Willard's claim started a debate among Kneupper, Burleson, and Willard. This debate, which extended over a series of convention papers and articles,91 has enabled Willard to create a credible attack on Toulmin's approach to argumentation as outlined in Uses of Argument.
Willard claims that the study of argument ought to begin with a description of argument as a social phenomenon rather than as a prescription of ways to produce "good arguments." Without denying that prescriptions have their place, he argues that they should flow from carefully constructed descriptions of arguments. Willard believes that a substantial error in Toulmin's entire project may be that he begins with an attempt to distinguish good reasons from bad ones without first describing the nature of reason giving as a social process.92 Another area of criticism of Toulmin's perspective on rhetoric concerns his concept of argument fields.93 Some writers praise the concept, insisting that it "offers considerable promise for empirical and critical studies of argumentation,"94 while others, who claim that it is of little value, retort that its "most attractive feature . . . is owed to the fact that it can be made to say virtually anything."95 Toulmin's work has been an important aspect of rhetoric in the last quarter of a century. Despite his initial lack of awareness of the relationship of his ideas to rhetoric and lack of consensus on the validity of all aspects of his program of practical argumentation, many rhetoricians have found his ideas instrumental in allowing them to break away from the grip of formal logic. Toulmin's work, particularly his most recent ideas about casuistry and modernity, may be useful in pointing the direction to a path between absolutism and relativism.
Rhetoric
By Aristotle
Written 350 B.C.E
Translated by W. Rhys Roberts
Table of Contents Book I
Part 1 Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic. Both alike are concerned with such things as come, more or less, within the general ken of all men and belong to no definite science. Accordingly all men make use, more or less, of both; for to a certain extent all men attempt to discuss statements and to maintain them, to defend themselves and to attack others. Ordinary people do this either at random or through practice and from acquired habit. Both ways being possible, the subject can plainly be handled systematically, for it is possible to inquire the reason why some speakers succeed through practice and others spontaneously; and every one will at once agree that such an inquiry is the function of an art. Now, the framers of the current treatises on rhetoric have constructed but a small portion of that art. The modes of persuasion are the only true constituents of the art: everything else is merely accessory. These writers, however, say nothing about enthymemes, which are the substance of rhetorical persuasion, but deal mainly with non-essentials. The arousing of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar emotions has nothing to do with the essential facts, but is merely a personal appeal to the man who is judging the case. Consequently if the rules for trials which are now laid down some states-especially in well-governed states-were applied everywhere, such people would have nothing to say. All men, no doubt, think that the laws should prescribe such rules, but some, as in the court of Areopagus, give practical effect to their thoughts and forbid talk about non-essentials. This is sound law and custom. It is not right to pervert the judge by moving him to anger or envy or pity-one might as well warp a carpenter's rule before using it. Again, a litigant has clearly nothing to do but to show that the alleged fact is so or is not so, that it has or has not happened. As to whether a thing is important or unimportant, just or unjust, the judge must surely refuse to take his instructions from the litigants: he must decide for himself all such points as the law-giver has not already defined for him. Now, it is of great moment that well-drawn laws should themselves define all the points they possibly can and leave as few as may be to the decision of the judges; and this for several reasons. First, to find one man, or a few men, who are sensible persons and capable of legislating and administering justice is easier than to find a large number. Next, laws are made after long consideration, whereas decisions in the courts are given at short notice, which makes it hard for those who try the case to satisfy the claims of justice and expediency. The weightiest reason of all is that the decision of the lawgiver is not particular but prospective and general, whereas members of the assembly and the jury find it their duty to decide on definite cases brought before them. They will often have allowed themselves to be so much influenced by feelings of friendship or hatred or self-interest that they lose any clear vision of the truth and have their judgement obscured by considerations of personal pleasure or pain.
In general, then, the judge should, we say, be allowed to decide as few things as possible. But questions as to whether something has happened or has not happened, will be or will not be, is or is not, must of necessity be left to the judge, since the lawgiver cannot foresee them. If this is so, it is evident that any one who lays down rules about other matters, such as what must be the contents of the 'introduction' or the 'narration' or any of the other divisions of a speech, is theorizing about non-essentials as if they belonged to the art. The only question with which these writers here deal is how to put the judge into a given frame of mind. About the orator's proper modes of persuasion they have nothing to tell us; nothing, that is, about how to gain skill in enthymemes. Hence it comes that, although the same systematic principles apply to political as to forensic oratory, and although the former is a nobler business, and fitter for a citizen, than that which concerns the relations of private individuals, these authors say nothing about political oratory, but try, one and all, to write treatises on the way to plead in court. The reason for this is that in political oratory there is less inducement to talk about nonessentials. Political oratory is less given to unscrupulous practices than forensic, because it treats of wider issues. In a political debate the man who is forming a judgement is making a decision about his own vital interests. There is no need, therefore, to prove anything except that the facts are what the supporter of a measure maintains they are. In forensic oratory this is not enough; to conciliate the listener is what pays here. It is other people's affairs that are to be decided, so that the judges, intent on their own satisfaction and listening with partiality, surrender themselves to the disputants instead of judging between them. Hence in many places, as we have said already, irrelevant speaking is forbidden in the law-courts: in the public assembly those who have to form a judgement are themselves well able to guard against that. It is clear, then, that rhetorical study, in its strict sense, is concerned with the modes of persuasion.
Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated. The orator's demonstration is an enthymeme, and this is, in general, the most effective of the modes of persuasion. The enthymeme is a sort of syllogism, and the consideration of syllogisms of all kinds, without distinction, is the business of dialectic, either of dialectic as a whole or of one of its branches. It follows plainly, therefore, that he who is best able to see how and from what elements a syllogism is produced will also be best skilled in the enthymeme, when he has further learnt what its subject-matter is and in what respects it differs from the syllogism of strict logic. The true and the approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to make a good guess at probabilities. It has now been shown that the ordinary writers on rhetoric treat of non-essentials; it has also been shown why they have inclined more towards the forensic branch of oratory.
Rhetoric is useful (1) because things that are true and things that are just have a natural tendency to prevail over their opposites, so that if the decisions of judges are not what they ought to be, the defeat must be due to the speakers themselves,and they must be blamed accordingly. Moreover, (2) before some audiences not even the possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. For argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people whom one cannot instruct. Here, then, we must use, as our modes of persuasion and argument, notions possessed by everybody, as we observed in the Topics when dealing with the way to handle a popular audience. Further, (3) we must be able to employ persuasion, just as strict reasoning can be employed, on opposite sides of a question, not in order that we may in practice employ it in both ways (for we must not make people believe what is wrong), but in order that we may see clearly what the facts are, and that, if another man argues unfairly, we on our part may be able to confute him. No other of the arts draws opposite conclusions: dialectic and rhetoric alone do this. Both these arts draw opposite conclusions impartially. Nevertheless, the underlying facts do not lend themselves equally well to the contrary views. No; things that are true and things that are better are, by their nature, practically always easier to prove and easier to believe in. Again, (4) it is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs. And if it be objected that one who uses such power of speech unjustly might do great harm, that is a charge which may be made in common against all good things except virtue, and above all against the things that are most useful, as strength, health, wealth, generalship. A man can confer the greatest of benefits by a right use of these, and inflict the greatest of injuries by using them wrongly. It is clear, then, that rhetoric is not bound up with a single definite class of subjects, but is as universal as dialectic; it is clear, also, that it is useful. It is clear, further, that its function is not simply to succeed in persuading, but rather to discover the means of coming as near such success as the circumstances of each particular case allow. In this it resembles all other arts. For example, it is not the function of medicine simply to make a man quite healthy, but to put him as far as may be on the road to health; it is possible to give excellent treatment even to those who can never enjoy sound health. Furthermore, it is plain that it is the function of one and the same art to discern the real and the apparent means of persuasion, just as it is the function of dialectic to discern the real and the apparent syllogism. What makes a man a 'sophist' is not his faculty, but his moral purpose.
In rhetoric, however, the term 'rhetorician' may describe either the speaker's knowledge of the art, or his moral purpose. In dialectic it is different: a man is a 'sophist' because he has a certain kind of moral purpose, a 'dialectician' in respect, not of his moral purpose, but of his faculty. Let us now try to give some account of the systematic principles of Rhetoric itself-of the right method and means of succeeding in the object we set before us. We must make as it were a fresh start, and before going further define what rhetoric is. Part 2 Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art. Every other art can instruct or persuade about its own particular subject-matter; for instance, medicine about what is healthy and unhealthy, geometry about the properties of magnitudes, arithmetic about numbers, and the same is true of the other arts and sciences. But rhetoric we look upon as the power of observing the means of persuasion on almost any subject presented to us; and that is why we say that, in its technical character, it is not concerned with any special or definite class of subjects. Of the modes of persuasion some belong strictly to the art of rhetoric and some do not. By the latter I mean such things as are not supplied by the speaker but are there at the outset-witnesses, evidence given under torture, written contracts, and so on. By the former I mean such as we can ourselves construct by means of the principles of rhetoric. The one kind has merely to be used, the other has to be invented.
Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself. Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided. This kind of persuasion, like the others, should be achieved by what the speaker says, not by what people think of his character before he begins to speak. It is not true, as some writers assume in their treatises on rhetoric, that the personal goodness revealed by the speaker contributes nothing to his power of persuasion; on the contrary, his character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses. Secondly, persuasion may come through the hearers, when the speech stirs their emotions. Our judgements when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile. It is towards producing these effects, as we maintain, that present-day writers on rhetoric direct the whole of their efforts. This subject shall be treated in detail when we come to speak of the emotions. Thirdly, persuasion is effected through the speech itself when we have proved a truth or an apparent truth by means of the persuasive arguments suitable to the case in question. There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion.
The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in their various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions-that is, to name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which they are excited. It thus appears that rhetoric is an offshoot of dialectic and also of ethical studies. Ethical studies may fairly be called political; and for this reason rhetoric masquerades as political science, and the professors of it as political experts-sometimes from want of education, sometimes from ostentation, sometimes owing to other human failings. As a matter of fact, it is a branch of dialectic and similar to it, as we said at the outset. Neither rhetoric nor dialectic is the scientific study of any one separate subject: both are faculties for providing arguments. This is perhaps a sufficient account of their scope and of how they are related to each other. With regard to the persuasion achieved by proof or apparent proof: just as in dialectic there is induction on the one hand and syllogism or apparent syllogism on the other, so it is in rhetoric. The example is an induction, the enthymeme is a syllogism, and the apparent enthymeme is an apparent syllogism.
I call the enthymeme a rhetorical syllogism, and the example a rhetorical induction. Every one who effects persuasion through proof does in fact use either enthymemes or examples: there is no other way. And since every one who proves anything at all is bound to use either syllogisms or inductions (and this is clear to us from the Analytics), it must follow that enthymemes are syllogisms and examples are inductions. The difference between example and enthymeme is made plain by the passages in the Topics where induction and syllogism have already been discussed. When we base the proof of a proposition on a number of similar cases, this is induction in dialectic, example in rhetoric; when it is shown that, certain propositions being true, a further and quite distinct proposition must also be true in consequence, whether invariably or usually, this is called syllogism in dialectic, enthymeme in rhetoric. It is plain also that each of these types of oratory has its advantages. Types of oratory, I say: for what has been said in the Methodics applies equally well here; in some oratorical styles examples prevail, in others enthymemes; and in like manner, some orators are better at the former and some at the latter. Speeches that rely on examples are as persuasive as the other kind, but those which rely on enthymemes excite the louder applause. The sources of examples and enthymemes, and their proper uses, we will discuss later.
Our next step is to define the processes themselves more clearly. A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly self-evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that are so. In either case it is persuasive because there is somebody whom it persuades. But none of the arts theorize about individual cases. Medicine, for instance, does not theorize about what will help to cure Socrates or Callias, but only about what will help to cure any or all of a given class of patients: this alone is business: individual cases are so infinitely various that no systematic knowledge of them is possible. In the same way the theory of rhetoric is concerned not with what seems probable to a given individual like Socrates or Hippias, but with what seems probable to men of a given type; and this is true of dialectic also. Dialectic does not construct its syllogisms out of any haphazard materials, such as the fancies of crazy people, but out of materials that call for discussion; and rhetoric, too, draws upon the regular subjects of debate. The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument, or follow a long chain of reasoning. The subjects of our deliberation are such as seem to present us with alternative possibilities: about things that could not have been, and cannot now or in the future be, other than they are, nobody who takes them to be of this nature wastes his time in deliberation. It is possible to form syllogisms and draw conclusions from the results of previous syllogisms; or, on the other hand, from premisses which have not been thus proved, and at the same time are so little accepted that they call for proof. Reasonings of the former kind will necessarily be hard to follow owing to their length, for we assume an audience of untrained thinkers; those of the latter kind will fail to win assent, because they are based on premisses that are not generally admitted or believed. The enthymeme and the example must, then, deal with what is in the main contingent, the example being an induction, and the enthymeme a syllogism, about such matters. The enthymeme must consist of few propositions, fewer often than those which make up the normal syllogism. For if any of these propositions is a familiar fact, there is no need even to mention it; the hearer adds it himself. Thus, to show that Dorieus has been victor in a contest for which the prize is a crown, it is enough to say 'For he has been victor in the Olympic games', without adding 'And in the Olympic games the prize is a crown', a fact which everybody knows. There are few facts of the 'necessary' type that can form the basis of rhetorical syllogisms. Most of the things about which we make decisions, and into which therefore we inquire, present us with alternative possibilities. For it is about our actions that we deliberate and inquire, and all our actions have a contingent character; hardly any of them are determined by necessity. Again, conclusions that state what is merely usual or possible must be drawn from premisses that do the same, just as 'necessary' conclusions must be drawn from 'necessary' premisses; this too is clear to us from the Analytics.
It is evident, therefore, that the propositions forming the basis of enthymemes, though some of them may be 'necessary', will most of them be only usually true. Now the materials of enthymemes are Probabilities and Signs, which we can see must correspond respectively with the propositions that are generally and those that are necessarily true. A Probability is a thing that usually happens; not, however, as some definitions would suggest, anything whatever that usually happens, but only if it belongs to the class of the 'contingent' or 'variable'. It bears the same relation to that in respect of which it is probable as the universal bears to the particular. Of Signs, one kind bears the same relation to the statement it supports as the particular bears to the universal, the other the same as the universal bears to the particular. The infallible kind is a 'complete proof' (tekmerhiou); the fallible kind has no specific name. By infallible signs I mean those on which syllogisms proper may be based: and this shows us why this kind of Sign is called 'complete proof': when people think that what they have said cannot be refuted, they then think that they are bringing forward a 'complete proof', meaning that the matter has now been demonstrated and completed (peperhasmeuou); for the word 'perhas' has the same meaning (of 'end' or 'boundary') as the word 'tekmarh' in the ancient tongue. Now the one kind of Sign (that which bears to the proposition it supports the relation of particular to universal) may be illustrated thus. Suppose it were said, 'The fact that Socrates was wise and just is a sign that the wise are just'. Here we certainly have a Sign; but even though the proposition be true, the argument is refutable, since it does not form a syllogism. Suppose, on the other hand, it were said, 'The fact that he has a fever is a sign that he is ill', or, 'The fact that she is giving milk is a sign that she has lately borne a child'. Here we have the infallible kind of Sign, the only kind that constitutes a complete proof, since it is the only kind that, if the particular statement is true, is irrefutable. The other kind of Sign, that which bears to the proposition it supports the relation of universal to particular, might be illustrated by saying, 'The fact that he breathes fast is a sign that he has a fever'. This argument also is refutable, even if the statement about the fast breathing be true, since a man may breathe hard without having a fever.
It has, then, been stated above what is the nature of a Probability, of a Sign, and of a complete proof, and what are the differences between them. In the Analytics a more explicit description has been given of these points; it is there shown why some of these reasonings can be put into syllogisms and some cannot. The 'example' has already been described as one kind of induction; and the special nature of the subject-matter that distinguishes it from the other kinds has also been stated above. Its relation to the proposition it supports is not that of part to whole, nor whole to part, nor whole to whole, but of part to part, or like to like. When two statements are of the same order, but one is more familiar than the other, the former is an 'example'. The argument may, for instance, be that Dionysius, in asking as he does for a bodyguard, is scheming to make himself a despot. For in the past Peisistratus kept asking for a bodyguard in order to carry out such a scheme, and did make himself a despot as soon as he got it; and so did Theagenes at Megara; and in the same way all other instances known to the speaker are made into examples, in order to show what is not yet known, that Dionysius has the same purpose in making the same request: all these being instances of the one general principle, that a man who asks for a bodyguard is scheming to make himself a despot.
We have now described the sources of those means of persuasion which are popularly supposed to be demonstrative. There is an important distinction between two sorts of enthymemes that has been wholly overlooked by almost everybody-one that also subsists between the syllogisms treated of in dialectic. One sort of enthymeme really belongs to rhetoric, as one sort of syllogism really belongs to dialectic; but the other sort really belongs to other arts and faculties, whether to those we already exercise or to those we have not yet acquired. Missing this distinction, people fail to notice that the more correctly they handle their particular subject the further they are getting away from pure rhetoric or dialectic. This statement will be clearer if expressed more fully. I mean that the proper subjects of dialectical and rhetorical syllogisms are the things with which we say the regular or universal Lines of Argument are concerned, that is to say those lines of argument that apply equally to questions of right conduct, natural science, politics, and many other things that have nothing to do with one another. Take, for instance, the line of argument concerned with 'the more or less'. On this line of argument it is equally easy to base a syllogism or enthymeme about any of what nevertheless are essentially disconnected subjects-right conduct, natural science, or anything else whatever. But there are also those special Lines of Argument which are based on such propositions as apply only to particular groups or classes of things.
Thus there are propositions about natural science on which it is impossible to base any enthymeme or syllogism about ethics, and other propositions about ethics on which nothing can be based about natural science. The same principle applies throughout. The general Lines of Argument have no special subject-matter, and therefore will not increase our understanding of any particular class of things. On the other hand, the better the selection one makes of propositions suitable for special Lines of Argument, the nearer one comes, unconsciously, to setting up a science that is distinct from dialectic and rhetoric. One may succeed in stating the required principles, but one's science will be no longer dialectic or rhetoric, but the science to which the principles thus discovered belong. Most enthymemes are in fact based upon these particular or special Lines of Argument; comparatively few on the common or general kind. As in the therefore, so in this work, we must distinguish, in dealing with enthymemes, the special and the general Lines of Argument on which they are to be founded. By special Lines of Argument I mean the propositions peculiar to each several class of things, by general those common to all classes alike. We may begin with the special Lines of Argument. But, first of all, let us classify rhetoric into its varieties. Having distinguished these we may deal with them one by one, and try to discover the elements of which each is composed, and the propositions each must employ.
Part 3 Rhetoric falls into three divisions, determined by the three classes of listeners to speeches. For of the three elements in speech-making--speaker, subject, and person addressed--it is the last one, the hearer, that determines the speech's end and object. The hearer must be either a judge, with a decision to make about things past or future, or an observer. A member of the assembly decides about future events, a juryman about past events: while those who merely decide on the orator's skill are observers. From this it follows that there are three divisions of oratory-(1) political, (2) forensic, and (3) the ceremonial oratory of display. Political speaking urges us either to do or not to do something: one of these two courses is always taken by private counsellors, as well as by men who address public assemblies. Forensic speaking either attacks or defends somebody: one or other of these two things must always be done by the parties in a case. The ceremonial oratory of display either praises or censures somebody. These three kinds of rhetoric refer to three different kinds of time. The political orator is concerned with the future: it is about things to be done hereafter that he advises, for or against. The party in a case at law is concerned with the past; one man accuses the other, and the other defends himself, with reference to things already done. The ceremonial orator is, properly speaking, concerned with the present, since all men praise or blame in view of the state of things existing at the time, though they often find it useful also to recall the past and to make guesses at the future. Rhetoric has three distinct ends in view, one for each of its three kinds. The political orator aims at establishing the expediency or the harmfulness of a proposed course of action; if he urges its acceptance, he does so on the ground that it will do good; if he urges its rejection, he does so on the ground that it will do harm; and all other points, such as whether the proposal is just or unjust, honourable or dishonourable, he brings in as subsidiary and relative to this main consideration. Parties in a law-case aim at establishing the justice or injustice of some action, and they too bring in all other points as subsidiary and relative to this one. Those who praise or attack a man aim at proving him worthy of honour or the reverse, and they too treat all other considerations with reference to this one. That the three kinds of rhetoric do aim respectively at the three ends we have mentioned is shown by the fact that speakers will sometimes not try to establish anything else. Thus, the litigant will sometimes not deny that a thing has happened or that he has done harm. But that he is guilty of injustice he will never admit; otherwise there would be no need of a trial. So too, political orators often make any concession short of admitting that they are recommending their hearers to take an inexpedient course or not to take an expedient one. The question whether it is not unjust for a city to enslave its innocent neighbours often does not trouble them at all. In like manner those who praise or censure a man do not consider whether his acts have been expedient or not, but often make it a ground of actual praise that he has neglected his own interest to do what was honourable. Thus, they praise Achilles because he championed his fallen friend Patroclus, though he knew that this meant death, and that otherwise he need not die: yet while to die thus was the nobler thing for him to do, the expedient thing was to live on. It is evident from what has been said that it is these three subjects, more than any others, about which the orator must be able to have propositions at his command.
Now the propositions of Rhetoric are Complete Proofs, Probabilities, and Signs. Every kind of syllogism is composed of propositions, and the enthymeme is a particular kind of syllogism composed of the aforesaid propositions. Since only possible actions, and not impossible ones, can ever have been done in the past or the present, and since things which have not occurred, or will not occur, also cannot have been done or be going to be done, it is necessary for the political, the forensic, and the ceremonial speaker alike to be able to have at their command propositions about the possible and the impossible, and about whether a thing has or has not occurred, will or will not occur. Further, all men, in giving praise or blame, in urging us to accept or reject proposals for action, in accusing others or defending themselves, attempt not only to prove the points mentioned but also to show that the good or the harm, the honour or disgrace, the justice or injustice, is great or small, either absolutely or relatively; and therefore it is plain that we must also have at our command propositions about greatness or smallness and the greater or the lesser-propositions both universal and particular. Thus, we must be able to say which is the greater or lesser good, the greater or lesser act of justice or injustice; and so on. Such, then, are the subjects regarding which we are inevitably bound to master the propositions relevant to them. We must now discuss each particular class of these subjects in turn, namely those dealt with in political, in ceremonial, and lastly in legal, oratory.
Part 4 First, then, we must ascertain what are the kinds of things, good or bad, about which the political orator offers counsel. For he does not deal with all things, but only with such as may or may not take place. Concerning things which exist or will exist inevitably, or which cannot possibly exist or take place, no counsel can be given. Nor, again, can counsel be given about the whole class of things which may or may not take place; for this class includes some good things that occur naturally, and some that occur by accident; and about these it is useless to offer counsel. Clearly counsel can only be given on matters about which people deliberate; matters, namely, that ultimately depend on ourselves, and which we have it in our power to set going. For we turn a thing over in our mind until we have reached the point of seeing whether we can do it or not. Now to enumerate and classify accurately the usual subjects of public business, and further to frame, as far as possible, true definitions of them is a task which we must not attempt on the present occasion. For it does not belong to the art of rhetoric, but to a more instructive art and a more real branch of knowledge; and as it is, rhetoric has been given a far wider subject-matter than strictly belongs to it. The truth is, as indeed we have said already, that rhetoric is a combination of the science of logic and of the ethical branch of politics; and it is partly like dialectic, partly like sophistical reasoning. But the more we try to make either dialectic rhetoric not, what they really are, practical faculties, but sciences, the more we shall inadvertently be destroying their true nature; for we shall be re-fashioning them and shall be passing into the region of sciences dealing with definite subjects rather than simply with words and forms of reasoning. Even here, however, we will mention those points which it is of practical importance to distinguish, their fuller treatment falling naturally to political science. The main matters on which all men deliberate and on which political speakers make speeches are some five in number: ways and means, war and peace, national defence, imports and exports, and legislation. As to Ways and Means, then, the intending speaker will need to know the number and extent of the country's sources of revenue, so that, if any is being overlooked, it may be added, and, if any is defective, it may be increased. Further, he should know all the expenditure of the country, in order that, if any part of it is superfluous, it may be abolished, or, if any is too large, it may be reduced. For men become richer not only by increasing their existing wealth but also by reducing their expenditure.
A comprehensive view of these questions cannot be gained solely from experience in home affairs; in order to advise on such matters a man must be keenly interested in the methods worked out in other lands. As to Peace and War, he must know the extent of the military strength of his country, both actual and potential, and also the mature of that actual and potential strength; and further, what wars his country has waged, and how it has waged them. He must know these facts not only about his own country, but also about neighbouring countries; and also about countries with which war is likely, in order that peace may be maintained with those stronger than his own, and that his own may have power to make war or not against those that are weaker. He should know, too, whether the military power of another country is like or unlike that of his own; for this is a matter that may affect their relative strength. With the same end in view he must, besides, have studied the wars of other countries as well as those of his own, and the way they ended; similar causes are likely to have similar results. With regard to National Defence: he ought to know all about the methods of defence in actual use, such as the strength and character of the defensive force and the positions of the forts-this last means that he must be well acquainted with the lie of the country-in order that a garrison may be increased if it is too small or removed if it is not wanted, and that the strategic points may be guarded with special care. With regard to the Food Supply: he must know what outlay will meet the needs of his country; what kinds of food are produced at home and what imported; and what articles must be exported or imported. This last he must know in order that agreements and commercial treaties may be made with the countries concerned. There are, indeed, two sorts of state to which he must see that his countrymen give no cause for offence, states stronger than his own, and states with which it is advantageous to trade. But while he must, for security's sake, be able to take all this into account, he must before all things understand the subject of legislation; for it is on a country's laws that its whole welfare depends. He must, therefore, know how many different forms of constitution there are; under what conditions each of these will prosper and by what internal developments or external attacks each of them tends to be destroyed. When I speak of destruction through internal developments I refer to the fact that all constitutions, except the best one of all, are destroyed both by not being pushed far enough and by being pushed too far. Thus, democracy loses its vigour, and finally passes into oligarchy, not only when it is not pushed far enough, but also when it is pushed a great deal too far; just as the aquiline and the snub nose not only turn into normal noses by not being aquiline or snub enough, but also by being too violently aquiline or snub arrive at a condition in which they no longer look like noses at all. It is useful, in framing laws, not only to study the past history of one's own country, in order to understand which constitution is desirable for it now, but also to have a knowledge of the constitutions of other nations, and so to learn for what kinds of nation the various kinds of constitution are suited. From this we can see that books of travel are useful aids to legislation, since from these we may learn the laws and customs of different races. The political speaker will also find the researches of historians useful. But all this is the business of political science and not of rhetoric. These, then, are the most important kinds of information which the political speaker must possess. Let us now go back and state the premisses from which he will have to argue in favour of adopting or rejecting measures regarding these and other matters.
Part 5 It may be said that every individual man and all men in common aim at a certain end which determines what they choose and what they avoid. This end, to sum it up briefly, is happiness and its constituents. Let us, then, by way of illustration only, ascertain what is in general the nature of happiness, and what are the elements of its constituent parts. For all advice to do things or not to do them is concerned with happiness and with the things that make for or against it; whatever creates or increases happiness or some part of happiness, we ought to do; whatever destroys or hampers happiness, or gives rise to its opposite, we ought not to do. We may define happiness as prosperity combined with virtue; or as independence of life; or as the secure enjoyment of the maximum of pleasure; or as a good condition of property and body, together with the power of guarding one's property and body and making use of them. That happiness is one or more of these things, pretty well everybody agrees. From this definition of happiness it follows that its constituent parts are:-good birth, plenty of friends, good friends, wealth, good children, plenty of children, a happy old age, also such bodily excellences as health, beauty, strength, large stature, athletic powers, together with fame, honour, good luck, and virtue. A man cannot fail to be completely independent if he possesses these internal and these external goods; for besides these there are no others to have. (Goods of the soul and of the body are internal. Good birth, friends, money, and honour are external.) Further, we think that he should possess resources and luck, in order to make his life really secure. As we have already ascertained what happiness in general is, so now let us try to ascertain what of these parts of it is. Now good birth in a race or a state means that its members are indigenous or ancient: that its earliest leaders were distinguished men, and that from them have sprung many who were distinguished for qualities that we admire. The good birth of an individual, which may come either from the male or the female side, implies that both parents are free citizens, and that, as in the case of the state, the founders of the line have been notable for virtue or wealth or something else which is highly prized, and that many distinguished persons belong to the family, men and women, young and old. The phrases 'possession of good children' and 'of many children' bear a quite clear meaning. Applied to a community, they mean that its young men are numerous and of good a quality: good in regard to bodily excellences, such as stature, beauty, strength, athletic powers; and also in regard to the excellences of the soul, which in a young man are temperance and courage. Applied to an individual, they mean that his own children are numerous and have the good qualities we have described. Both male and female are here included; the excellences of the latter are, in body, beauty and stature; in soul, self-command and an industry that is not sordid. Communities as well as individuals should lack none of these perfections, in their women as well as in their men. Where, as among the Lacedaemonians, the state of women is bad, almost half of human life is spoilt.
The constituents of wealth are: plenty of coined money and territory; the ownership of numerous, large, and beautiful estates; also the ownership of numerous and beautiful implements, live stock, and slaves. All these kinds of property are our own, are secure, gentlemanly, and useful. The useful kinds are those that are productive, the gentlemanly kinds are those that provide enjoyment. By 'productive' I mean those from which we get our income; by 'enjoyable', those from which we get nothing worth mentioning except the use of them. The criterion of 'security' is the ownership of property in such places and under such Conditions that the use of it is in our power; and it is 'our own' if it is in our own power to dispose of it or keep it. By 'disposing of it' I mean giving it away or selling it. Wealth as a whole consists in using things rather than in owning them; it is really the activity-that is, the use-of property that constitutes wealth. Fame means being respected by everybody, or having some quality that is desired by all men, or by most, or by the good, or by the wise. Honour is the token of a man's being famous for doing good. it is chiefly and most properly paid to those who have already done good; but also to the man who can do good in future. Doing good refers either to the preservation of life and the means of life, or to wealth, or to some other of the good things which it is hard to get either always or at that particular place or time-for many gain honour for things which seem small, but the place and the occasion account for it. The constituents of honour are: sacrifices; commemoration, in verse or prose; privileges; grants of land; front seats at civic celebrations; state burial; statues; public maintenance; among foreigners, obeisances and giving place; and such presents as are among various bodies of men regarded as marks of honour. For a present is not only the bestowal of a piece of property, but also a token of honour; which explains why honour-loving as well as money-loving persons desire it. The present brings to both what they want; it is a piece of property, which is what the lovers of money desire; and it brings honour, which is what the lovers of honour desire. The excellence of the body is health; that is, a condition which allows us, while keeping free from disease, to have the use of our bodies; for many people are 'healthy' as we are told Herodicus was; and these no one can congratulate on their 'health', for they have to abstain from everything or nearly everything that men do.-Beauty varies with the time of life.
In a young man beauty is the possession of a body fit to endure the exertion of running and of contests of strength; which means that he is pleasant to look at; and therefore all-round athletes are the most beautiful, being naturally adapted both for contests of strength and for speed also. For a man in his prime, beauty is fitness for the exertion of warfare, together with a pleasant but at the same time formidable appearance. For an old man, it is to be strong enough for such exertion as is necessary, and to be free from all those deformities of old age which cause pain to others. Strength is the power of moving some one else at will; to do this, you must either pull, push, lift, pin, or grip him; thus you must be strong in all of those ways or at least in some. Excellence in size is to surpass ordinary people in height, thickness, and breadth by just as much as will not make one's movements slower in consequence. Athletic excellence of the body consists in size, strength, and swiftness; swiftness implying strength. He who can fling forward his legs in a certain way, and move them fast and far, is good at running; he who can grip and hold down is good at wrestling; he who can drive an adversary from his ground with the right blow is a good boxer: he who can do both the last is a good pancratiast, while he who can do all is an 'all-round' athlete. Happiness in old age is the coming of old age slowly and painlessly; for a man has not this happiness if he grows old either quickly, or tardily but painfully. It arises both from the excellences of the body and from good luck. If a man is not free from disease, or if he is strong, he will not be free from suffering; nor can he continue to live a long and painless life unless he has good luck. There is, indeed, a capacity for long life that is quite independent of health or strength; for many people live long who lack the excellences of the body; but for our present purpose there is no use in going into the details of this. The terms 'possession of many friends' and 'possession of good friends' need no explanation; for we define a 'friend' as one who will always try, for your sake, to do what he takes to be good for you. The man towards whom many feel thus has many friends; if these are worthy men, he has good friends. 'Good luck' means the acquisition or possession of all or most, or the most important, of those good things which are due to luck. Some of the things that are due to luck may also be due to artificial contrivance; but many are independent of art, as for example those which are due to nature-though, to be sure, things due to luck may actually be contrary to nature. Thus health may be due to artificial contrivance, but beauty and stature are due to nature.
All such good things as excite envy are, as a class, the outcome of good luck. Luck is also the cause of good things that happen contrary to reasonable expectation: as when, for instance, all your brothers are ugly, but you are handsome yourself; or when you find a treasure that everybody else has overlooked; or when a missile hits the next man and misses you; or when you are the only man not to go to a place you have gone to regularly, while the others go there for the first time and are killed. All such things are reckoned pieces of good luck. As to virtue, it is most closely connected with the subject of Eulogy, and therefore we will wait to define it until we come to discuss that subject. Part 6 It is now plain what our aims, future or actual, should be in urging, and what in depreciating, a proposal; the latter being the opposite of the former. Now the political or deliberative orator's aim is utility: deliberation seeks to determine not ends but the means to ends, i.e. what it is most useful to do. Further, utility is a good thing.
We ought therefore to assure ourselves of the main facts about Goodness and Utility in general. We may define a good thing as that which ought to be chosen for its own sake; or as that for the sake of which we choose something else; or as that which is sought after by all things, or by all things that have sensation or reason, or which will be sought after by any things that acquire reason; or as that which must be prescribed for a given individual by reason generally, or is prescribed for him by his individual reason, this being his individual good; or as that whose presence brings anything into a satisfactory and self-sufficing condition; or as self-sufficiency; or as what produces, maintains, or entails characteristics of this kind, while preventing and destroying their opposites. One thing may entail another in either of two ways-(1) simultaneously, (2) subsequently. Thus learning entails knowledge subsequently, health entails life simultaneously. Things are productive of other things in three senses: first as being healthy produces health; secondly, as food produces health; and thirdly, as exercise does-i.e. it does so usually. All this being settled, we now see that both the acquisition of good things and the removal of bad things must be good; the latter entails freedom from the evil things simultaneously, while the former entails possession of the good things subsequently. The acquisition of a greater in place of a lesser good, or of a lesser in place of a greater evil, is also good, for in proportion as the greater exceeds the lesser there is acquisition of good or removal of evil. The virtues, too, must be something good; for it is by possessing these that we are in a good condition, and they tend to produce good works and good actions. They must be severally named and described elsewhere. Pleasure, again, must be a good thing, since it is the nature of all animals to aim at it.
Consequently both pleasant and beautiful things must be good things, since the former are productive of pleasure, while of the beautiful things some are pleasant and some desirable in and for themselves. The following is a more detailed list of things that must be good. Happiness, as being desirable in itself and sufficient by itself, and as being that for whose sake we choose many other things. Also justice, courage, temperance, magnanimity, magnificence, and all such qualities, as being excellences of the soul. Further, health, beauty, and the like, as being bodily excellences and productive of many other good things: for instance, health is productive both of pleasure and of life, and therefore is thought the greatest of goods, since these two things which it causes, pleasure and life, are two of the things most highly prized by ordinary people. Wealth, again: for it is the excellence of possession, and also productive of many other good things. Friends and friendship: for a friend is desirable in himself and also productive of many other good things. So, too, honour and reputation, as being pleasant, and productive of many other good things, and usually accompanied by the presence of the good things that cause them to be bestowed. The faculty of speech and action; since all such qualities are productive of what is good. Further-good parts, strong memory, receptiveness, quickness of intuition, and the like, for all such faculties are productive of what is good. Similarly, all the sciences and arts. And life: since, even if no other good were the result of life, it is desirable in itself. And justice, as the cause of good to the community.
The above are pretty well all the things admittedly good. In dealing with things whose goodness is disputed, we may argue in the following ways: That is good of which the contrary is bad. That is good the contrary of which is to the advantage of our enemies; for example, if it is to the particular advantage of our enemies that we should be cowards, clearly courage is of particular value to our countrymen. And generally, the contrary of that which our enemies desire, or of that at which they rejoice, is evidently valuable. Hence the passage beginning: "Surely would Priam exult. " This principle usually holds good, but not always, since it may well be that our interest is sometimes the same as that of our enemies. Hence it is said that 'evils draw men together'; that is, when the same thing is hurtful to them both. Further: that which is not in excess is good, and that which is greater than it should be is bad. That also is good on which much labour or money has been spent; the mere fact of this makes it seem good, and such a good is assumed to be an end-an end reached through a long chain of means; and any end is a good. Hence the lines beginning: "And for Priam (and Troy-town's folk) should "they leave behind them a boast; " and "Oh, it were shame "To have tarried so long and return empty-handed "as erst we came; " and there is also the proverb about 'breaking the pitcher at the door'. That which most people seek after, and which is obviously an object of contention, is also a good; for, as has been shown, that is good which is sought after by everybody, and 'most people' is taken to be equivalent to 'everybody'. That which is praised is good, since no one praises what is not good. So, again, that which is praised by our enemies [or by the worthless] for when even those who have a grievance think a thing good, it is at once felt that every one must agree with them; our enemies can admit the fact only because it is evident, just as those must be worthless whom their friends censure and their enemies do not. (For this reason the Corinthians conceived themselves to be insulted by Simonides when he wrote: "Against the Corinthians hath Ilium no complaint.) "
Again, that is good which has been distinguished by the favour of a discerning or virtuous man or woman, as Odysseus was distinguished by Athena, Helen by Theseus, Paris by the goddesses, and Achilles by Homer. And, generally speaking, all things are good which men deliberately choose to do; this will include the things already mentioned, and also whatever may be bad for their enemies or good for their friends, and at the same time practicable. Things are 'practicable' in two senses: (1) it is possible to do them, (2) it is easy to do them. Things are done 'easily' when they are done either without pain or quickly: the 'difficulty' of an act lies either in its painfulness or in the long time it takes. Again, a thing is good if it is as men wish; and they wish to have either no evil at an or at least a balance of good over evil. This last will happen where the penalty is either imperceptible or slight. Good, too, are things that are a man's very own, possessed by no one else, exceptional; for this increases the credit of having them. So are things which befit the possessors, such as whatever is appropriate to their birth or capacity, and whatever they feel they ought to have but lack-such things may indeed be trifling, but none the less men deliberately make them the goal of their action. And things easily effected; for these are practicable (in the sense of being easy); such things are those in which every one, or most people, or one's equals, or one's inferiors have succeeded. Good also are the things by which we shall gratify our friends or annoy our enemies; and the things chosen by those whom we admire: and the things for which we are fitted by nature or experience, since we think we shall succeed more easily in these: and those in which no worthless man can succeed, for such things bring greater praise: and those which we do in fact desire, for what we desire is taken to be not only pleasant but also better.
Further, a man of a given disposition makes chiefly for the corresponding things: lovers of victory make for victory, lovers of honour for honour, money-loving men for money, and so with the rest. These, then, are the sources from which we must derive our means of persuasion about Good and Utility. Part 7 Since, however, it often happens that people agree that two things are both useful but do not agree about which is the more so, the next step will be to treat of relative goodness and relative utility. A thing which surpasses another may be regarded as being that other thing plus something more, and that other thing which is surpassed as being what is contained in the first thing. Now to call a thing 'greater' or 'more' always implies a comparison of it with one that is 'smaller' or 'less', while 'great' and 'small', 'much' and 'little', are terms used in comparison with normal magnitude. The 'great' is that which surpasses the normal, the 'small' is that which is surpassed by the normal; and so with 'many' and 'few'. Now we are applying the term 'good' to what is desirable for its own sake and not for the sake of something else; to that at which all things aim; to what they would choose if they could acquire understanding and practical wisdom; and to that which tends to produce or preserve such goods, or is always accompanied by them.
Moreover, that for the sake of which things are done is the end (an end being that for the sake of which all else is done), and for each individual that thing is a good which fulfils these conditions in regard to himself. It follows, then, that a greater number of goods is a greater good than one or than a smaller number, if that one or that smaller number is included in the count; for then the larger number surpasses the smaller, and the smaller quantity is surpassed as being contained in the larger. Again, if the largest member of one class surpasses the largest member of another, then the one class surpasses the other; and if one class surpasses another, then the largest member of the one surpasses the largest member of the other. Thus, if the tallest man is taller than the tallest woman, then men in general are taller than women. Conversely, if men in general are taller than women, then the tallest man is taller than the tallest woman. For the superiority of class over class is proportionate to the superiority possessed by their largest specimens. Again, where one good is always accompanied by another, but does not always accompany it, it is greater than the other, for the use of the second thing is implied in the use of the first. A thing may be accompanied by another in three ways, either simultaneously, subsequently, or potentially.
Life accompanies health simultaneously (but not health life), knowledge accompanies the act of learning subsequently, cheating accompanies sacrilege potentially, since a man who has committed sacrilege is always capable of cheating. Again, when two things each surpass a third, that which does so by the greater amount is the greater of the two; for it must surpass the greater as well as the less of the other two. A thing productive of a greater good than another is productive of is itself a greater good than that other. For this conception of 'productive of a greater' has been implied in our argument. Likewise, that which is produced by a greater good is itself a greater good; thus, if what is wholesome is more desirable and a greater good than what gives pleasure, health too must be a greater good than pleasure. Again, a thing which is desirable in itself is a greater good than a thing which is not desirable in itself, as for example bodily strength than what is wholesome, since the latter is not pursued for its own sake, whereas the former is; and this was our definition of the good. Again, if one of two things is an end, and the other is not, the former is the greater good, as being chosen for its own sake and not for the sake of something else; as, for example, exercise is chosen for the sake of physical well-being. And of two things that which stands less in need of the other, or of other things, is the greater good, since it is more self-sufficing. (That which stands 'less' in need of others is that which needs either fewer or easier things.)
So when one thing does not exist or cannot come into existence without a second, while the second can exist without the first, the second is the better. That which does not need something else is more self-sufficing than that which does, and presents itself as a greater good for that reason. Again, that which is a beginning of other things is a greater good than that which is not, and that which is a cause is a greater good than that which is not; the reason being the same in each case, namely that without a cause and a beginning nothing can exist or come into existence. Again, where there are two sets of consequences arising from two different beginnings or causes, the consequences of the more important beginning or cause are themselves the more important; and conversely, that beginning or cause is itself the more important which has the more important consequences. Now it is plain, from all that has been said, that one thing may be shown to be more important than another from two opposite points of view: it may appear the more important (1) because it is a beginning and the other thing is not, and also (2) because it is not a beginning and the other thing is-on the ground that the end is more important and is not a beginning. So Leodamas, when accusing Callistratus, said that the man who prompted the deed was more guilty than the doer, since it would not have been done if he had not planned it.
On the other hand, when accusing Chabrias he said that the doer was worse than the prompter, since there would have been no deed without some one to do it; men, said he, plot a thing only in order to carry it out. Further, what is rare is a greater good than what is plentiful. Thus, gold is a better thing than iron, though less useful: it is harder to get, and therefore better worth getting. Reversely, it may be argued that the plentiful is a better thing than the rare, because we can make more use of it. For what is often useful surpasses what is seldom useful, whence the saying: "The best of things is water. " More generally: the hard thing is better than the easy, because it is rarer: and reversely, the easy thing is better than the hard, for it is as we wish it to be. That is the greater good whose contrary is the greater evil, and whose loss affects us more. Positive goodness and badness are more important than the mere absence of goodness and badness: for positive goodness and badness are ends, which the mere absence of them cannot be. Further, in proportion as the functions of things are noble or base, the things themselves are good or bad: conversely, in proportion as the things themselves are good or bad, their functions also are good or bad; for the nature of results corresponds with that of their causes and beginnings, and conversely the nature of causes and beginnings corresponds with that of their results. Moreover, those things are greater goods, superiority in which is more desirable or more honourable. Thus, keenness of sight is more desirable than keenness of smell, sight generally being more desirable than smell generally; and similarly, unusually great love of friends being more honourable than unusually great love of money, ordinary love of friends is more honourable than ordinary love of money. Conversely, if one of two normal things is better or nobler than the other, an unusual degree of that thing is better or nobler than an unusual degree of the other.
Again, one thing is more honourable or better than another if it is more honourable or better to desire it; the importance of the object of a given instinct corresponds to the importance of the instinct itself; and for the same reason, if one thing is more honourable or better than another, it is more honourable and better to desire it. Again, if one science is more honourable and valuable than another, the activity with which it deals is also more honourable and valuable; as is the science, so is the reality that is its object, each science being authoritative in its own sphere. So, also, the more valuable and honourable the object of a science, the more valuable and honourable the science itself is-in consequence. Again, that which would be judged, or which has been judged, a good thing, or a better thing than something else, by all or most people of understanding, or by the majority of men, or by the ablest, must be so; either without qualification, or in so far as they use their understanding to form their judgement. This is indeed a general principle, applicable to all other judgements also; not only the goodness of things, but their essence, magnitude, and general nature are in fact just what knowledge and understanding will declare them to be.
Here the principle is applied to judgements of goodness, since one definition of 'good' was 'what beings that acquire understanding will choose in any given case': from which it clearly follows that that thing is hetter which understanding declares to be so. That, again, is a better thing which attaches to better men, either absolutely, or in virtue of their being better; as courage is better than strength. And that is a greater good which would be chosen by a better man, either absolutely, or in virtue of his being better: for instance, to suffer wrong rather than to do wrong, for that would be the choice of the juster man. Again, the pleasanter of two things is the better, since all things pursue pleasure, and things instinctively desire pleasurable sensation for its own sake; and these are two of the characteristics by which the 'good' and the 'end' have been defined. One pleasure is greater than another if it is more unmixed with pain, or more lasting. Again, the nobler thing is better than the less noble, since the noble is either what is pleasant or what is desirable in itself. And those things also are greater goods which men desire more earnestly to bring about for themselves or for their friends, whereas those things which they least desire to bring about are greater evils. And those things which are more lasting are better than those which are more fleeting, and the more secure than the less; the enjoyment of the lasting has the advantage of being longer, and that of the secure has the advantage of suiting our wishes, being there for us whenever we like.
Further, in accordance with the rule of co-ordinate terms and inflexions of the same stem, what is true of one such related word is true of all. Thus if the action qualified by the term 'brave' is more noble and desirable than the action qualified by the term 'temperate', then 'bravery' is more desirable than 'temperance' and 'being brave' than 'being temperate'. That, again, which is chosen by all is a greater good than that which is not, and that chosen by the majority than that chosen by the minority. For that which all desire is good, as we have said;' and so, the more a thing is desired, the better it is. Further, that is the better thing which is considered so by competitors or enemies, or, again, by authorized judges or those whom they select to represent them. In the first two cases the decision is virtually that of every one, in the last two that of authorities and experts. And sometimes it may be argued that what all share is the better thing, since it is a dishonour not to share in it; at other times, that what none or few share is better, since it is rarer. The more praiseworthy things are, the nobler and therefore the better they are. So with the things that earn greater honours than others-honour is, as it were, a measure of value; and the things whose absence involves comparatively heavy penalties; and the things that are better than others admitted or believed to be good. Moreover, things look better merely by being divided into their parts, since they then seem to surpass a greater number of things than before. Hence Homer says that Meleager was roused to battle by the thought of "All horrors that light on a folk whose city "is ta'en of their foes, "When they slaughter the men, when the burg is "wasted with ravening flame, "When strangers are haling young children to thraldom, "(fair women to shame.) "
The same effect is produced by piling up facts in a climax after the manner of Epicharmus. The reason is partly the same as in the case of division (for combination too makes the impression of great superiority), and partly that the original thing appears to be the cause and origin of important results. And since a thing is better when it is harder or rarer than other things, its superiority may be due to seasons, ages, places, times, or one's natural powers. When a man accomplishes something beyond his natural power, or beyond his years, or beyond the measure of people like him, or in a special way, or at a special place or time, his deed will have a high degree of nobleness, goodness, and justice, or of their opposites. Hence the epigram on the victor at the Olympic games: "In time past, hearing a Yoke on my shoulders, "of wood unshaven, "I carried my loads of fish from, Argos to Tegea town. " So Iphicrates used to extol himself by describing the low estate from which he had risen. Again, what is natural is better than what is acquired, since it is harder to come by. Hence the words of Homer: "I have learnt from none but mysell. " And the best part of a good thing is particularly good; as when Pericles in his funeral oration said that the country's loss of its young men in battle was 'as if the spring were taken out of the year'. So with those things which are of service when the need is pressing; for example, in old age and times of sickness. And of two things that which leads more directly to the end in view is the better. So too is that which is better for people generally as well as for a particular individual. Again, what can be got is better than what cannot, for it is good in a given case and the other thing is not. And what is at the end of life is better than what is not, since those things are ends in a greater degree which are nearer the end. What aims at reality is better than what aims at appearance. We may define what aims at appearance as what a man will not choose if nobody is to know of his having it. This would seem to show that to receive benefits is more desirable than to confer them, since a man will choose the former even if nobody is to know of it, but it is not the general view that he will choose the latter if nobody knows of it. What a man wants to be is better than what a man wants to seem, for in aiming at that he is aiming more at reality. Hence men say that justice is of small value, since it is more desirable to seem just than to be just, whereas with health it is not so. That is better than other things which is more useful than they are for a number of different purposes; for example, that which promotes life, good life, pleasure, and noble conduct. For this reason wealth and health are commonly thought to be of the highest value, as possessing all these advantages. Again, that is better than other things which is accompanied both with less pain and with actual pleasure; for here there is more than one advantage; and so here we have the good of feeling pleasure and also the good of not feeling pain. And of two good things that is the better whose addition to a third thing makes a better whole than the addition of the other to the same thing will make. Again, those things which we are seen to possess are better than those which we are not seen to possess, since the former have the air of reality. Hence wealth may be regarded as a greater good if its existence is known to others. That which is dearly prized is better than what is not-the sort of thing that some people have only one of, though others have more like it. Accordingly, blinding a one-eyed man inflicts worse injury than half-blinding a man with two eyes; for the one-eyed man has been robbed of what he dearly prized. The grounds on which we must base our arguments, when we are speaking for or against a proposal, have now been set forth more or less completely.
Part 8
The most important and effective qualification for success in persuading audiences and speaking well on public affairs is to understand all the forms of government and to discriminate their respective customs, institutions, and interests. For all men are persuaded by considerations of their interest, and their interest lies in the maintenance of the established order. Further, it rests with the supreme authority to give authoritative decisions, and this varies with each form of government; there are as many different supreme authorities as there are different forms of government. The forms of government are four-democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, monarchy. The supreme right to judge and decide always rests, therefore, with either a part or the whole of one or other of these governing powers. A Democracy is a form of government under which the citizens distribute the offices of state among themselves by lot, whereas under oligarchy there is a property qualification, under aristocracy one of education. By education I mean that education which is laid down by the law; for it is those who have been loyal to the national institutions that hold office under an aristocracy. These are bound to be looked upon as 'the best men', and it is from this fact that this form of government has derived its name ('the rule of the best'). Monarchy, as the word implies, is the constitution a in which one man has authority over all. There are two forms of monarchy: kingship, which is limited by prescribed conditions, and 'tyranny', which is not limited by anything. We must also notice the ends which the various forms of government pursue, since people choose in practice such actions as will lead to the realization of their ends. The end of democracy is freedom; of oligarchy, wealth; of aristocracy, the maintenance of education and national institutions; of tyranny, the protection of the tyrant. It is clear, then, that we must distinguish those particular customs, institutions, and interests which tend to realize the ideal of each constitution, since men choose their means with reference to their ends. But rhetorical persuasion is effected not only by demonstrative but by ethical argument; it helps a speaker to convince us, if we believe that he has certain qualities himself, namely, goodness, or goodwill towards us, or both together. Similarly, we should know the moral qualities characteristic of each form of government, for the special moral character of each is bound to provide us with our most effective means of persuasion in dealing with it. We shall learn the qualities of governments in the same way as we learn the qualities of individuals, since they are revealed in their deliberate acts of choice; and these are determined by the end that inspires them. We have now considered the objects, immediate or distant, at which we are to aim when urging any proposal, and the grounds on which we are to base our arguments in favour of its utility. We have also briefly considered the means and methods by which we shall gain a good knowledge of the moral qualities and institutions peculiar to the various forms of government-only, however, to the extent demanded by the present occasion; a detailed account of the subject has been given in the Politics.