Aristotle / 2008-07-02 00:00:00

350 BC
ON SOPHISTICAL REFUTATIONS
by Aristotle
translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge
Book I
1
LET us now discuss sophistic refutations, i.e. what appear to be
refutations but are really fallacies instead. We will begin in the
natural order with the first.
That some reasonings are genuine, while others seem to be so but are
not, is evident. This happens with arguments, as also elsewhere,
through a certain likeness between the genuine and the sham. For
physically some people are in a vigorous condition, while others
merely seem to be so by blowing and rigging themselves out as the
tribesmen do their victims for sacrifice; and some people are
beautiful thanks to their beauty, while others seem to be so, by
dint of embellishing themselves. So it is, too, with inanimate things;
for of these, too, some are really silver and others gold, while
others are not and merely seem to be such to our sense; e.g. things
made of litharge and tin seem to be of silver, while those made of
yellow metal look golden. In the same way both reasoning and
refutation are sometimes genuine, sometimes not, though inexperience
may make them appear so: for inexperienced people obtain only, as it
were, a distant view of these things.
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