I. Appella science called But what, it may be asked, was the appellation of LECT. the science before it had obtained the name of Logic? for, as I have said, the doctrine had been discrimi- tions of the nated, and even carried to a very high perfection, before afterwards it received the designation by which it is now gene- Logic. rally known. The most ancient name for what was subsequently denominated Logic, was Dialectic. But this must be understood with certain limitations. By Plato the term dialectic is frequently employed to mark out a particular section of philosophy. But this section is, with Plato, not coextensive with the domain of Logic; it includes, indeed, Logic, but it does not exclude Metaphysic, for it is conversant not only about the form, but about the matter, of our knowledge. (The meaning of these expressions you are soon to learn.) -its etymo term Dia Plato. This word, διαλεκτικὴ, (τέχνη, οι ἐπιστήμη, οι πραγμα- Διαλεκτικὴ Teía, being understood), is derived, you are aware, logy. from Sialéyeolai, to hold conversation or discourse together; dialectic, therefore, literally signifies, a conversation, colloquy, controversy, dispute. But Plato, Use of the who defined thought an internal discourse of the soul lectic by with itself," and who explained rò diaλéyeolai by the ambiguous expression τῷ λόγῳ χρῆσθαι, did not certainly do violence either to the Greek language or to his own opinions, in giving the name of dialectic to the process, not merely of logical inference, but of metaphysical speculation. In our own times the By Hegel. Platonic signification of the word has been revived, and Hegel has applied it, in even a more restricted a Fischaber, p. 10 [Lehrbuch der Logik, Einleitung. See Theatetus, р. 189. Sophista, p. 263.-ED.] διαλέγεσθαι καὶ τὸ λόγῳ χρῆσθαι ταύ- B I. Alcib., p. 129. ΣΩ. To de 32.-ED. Aristotle's of Dialectic. LECT. meaning, to metaphysical speculation alone." But if I. Plato employed the term Dialectic to denote more employment than Logic, Aristotle employed it to denote less. With him, Dialectic is not a term for the pure science, or the science in general, but for a particular and an applied part. It means merely the Logic of Probable Matter, and is thus convertible with what he otherwise denominates Topics (TOTIK). This, I may observe, has been very generally misunderstood, and it is commonly supposed that Aristotle uses the term Dialectic in two meanings, in one meaning for the science of Logic in general, in another for the Logic of Probabilities. This is, however, a mistake. There is, in fact, only a single passage in his writings, on the ground of which it can possibly be maintained, that he ever employs Dialectic in the more extensive meaning. This is in his Rhetoric i. 1, but the passage is not stringent, and Dialectic may there be plausibly interpreted in the more limited signification. But at any rate it is of no authority, for it is an evident interpolation,—a mere gloss which has crept in from the margin into the text. Thus it appears that Aristotle possessed no single term by which to designate the general science of which he was the principal Of Analy- author and finisher. Analytic, and Apodeictic with deictic, To- Topic, (equivalent to Dialectic, and including Sophistic), were so many special names by which he denoted particular parts or particular applications of Logic. I say nothing of the vacillating and various employ tic, Apo pic. a See Encyklopädie, § 81.—ED. B Topica, i. 1. Dialektikòs de ovλλoyioμds d ¿¿ ¿vdóğwv ovλλoyišóuevos. --ED. γ Περὶ δὲ συλλογισμοῦ ὁμοίως ἅπαντος τῆς διαλεκτικῆς ἐστιν ἰδεῖν, ἢ αὐτῆς ὅλης ἢ μέρους τινός.-ED. See Balforeus [R. Balforei Commentarius in Organum Logicum Aristotelis, Burdigalæ, 1618. Qu. II. § 3, p. 12. Muretus in his version omits this passage as an interpolation.— ED.] I. ment of the terms Logic and Dialectic by the Stoics, LECT. Epicureans, and other ancient schools of philosophy; and now proceed to explain to you the second head of the definition,—viz. the Genus,—class, of Logic, which I gave as Science. its Genus Science or It was a point long keenly mooted by the old logi- 2. Logiccians, whether Logic were a science, or an art, or, -whether neither, or both; and if a science, whether a science Art. practical, or a science speculative, or at once speculative and practical. Plato and the Platonists viewed it as a science;" but with them Dialectic, as I have noticed, was coextensive with the Logic and Metaphysics of the Peripatetics taken together. By Aristotle himself Logic is not defined. The Greek Aristotelians, and many philosophers since the revival of letters, deny it to be either science or art. The Stoics, in general, viewed it as a science; and the same was done by the Arabian and Latin schoolmen. In more modern times, however, many Aristotelians, all the Ramists, and a majority of the Cartesians, maintained it to be an art; but a considerable party were found who defined it as both art and science. In Germany, since the time of Leibnitz, Logic has been almost universally regarded as a science. The controversy The queswhich has been waged on this point is perhaps one of a [Camerarius, Disputationes Philosophicæ, p. 30.] [Pars i. qu. 3, ed. Parisiis, 1630. See also Qu. 4, p. 44. -ED.] B [See Themistius, In Anal. Post., 1. i. c. 24, [Opera, p. 6, Venice, 1554. -ED.] Ammonius Hermiæ, In Categ., Præf. [p. 3, ed. Ald. 1503.-Ed.] Simplicius, In Categ., Præf. [§ 25, p. 5, ed. Basileæ, 1551.-ED.] Zabarella, De Natura Logicæ, [l. i. c. 5, et seq. ED.] Smiglecius, Logica, Disp. ii. qu. 4, [p. 69, ed. Oxonii, 1658. — ED.] Logica Conimbricensis, [Tract i. § 1. [See Laertius, In Vita Zenonis, 1. [Scotus, Prædicamenta, Qu. i. Albertus Magnus, In De Prædicabilibus, c. 1.] e [Ramus, Instit. Dialect., 1. i. c. 1. Burgersdicius, Instit. Log., 1. i. c. 1, [§ 4.-ED.] See Smiglecius, as above.-ED. tion futile. LECT. the most futile in the history of speculation. In so I. far as Logic is concerned, the decision of the question is not of the very smallest import. It was not in consequence of any diversity of opinion in regard to the scope and nature of this doctrine, that philosophers disputed by what name it should be called. The controversy was, in fact, only about what was properly an art, and what was properly a science; and as men attached one meaning or another to these terms, so did they affirm Logic to be an art, or a science, or both, or neither. I should not, in fact, have thought it necessary to say anything on this head, were it not to guard you against some mistakes of the respectable author, whose work on Logic I have recommended to your attention,-I mean Dr Whately. In the opening sentence of his Elements, it is said: Whately quoted. Criticised. -"Logic, in the most extensive sense which the name can with propriety be made to bear, may be considered as the Science and also the Art of Reasoning. It investigates the principles on which argumentation is conducted, and furnishes rules to secure the mind from error in its deductions. Its most appropriate office, however, is that of instituting an analysis of the process of the mind in reasoning; and in this point of view it is, as has been stated, strictly a science; while considered in reference to the practical rules above mentioned, it may be called the art of reasoning. This distinction, as will hereafter appear, has been overlooked or not clearly pointed out, by most writers on the subject; Logic having been in general regarded as merely an art, and its claim to hold a place among the sciences having been expressly denied." All this is from first to last erroneous. In the first place, it is erroneous in what it says of the opinion I. prevalent among philosophers in regard to the genus LECT. of Logic. Logic was not, as is asserted, in general regarded as an art, and its claim to hold a place among the sciences expressly denied. The contrary would have been correct; for the immense majority of logicians, ancient and modern, have regarded Logic as a science, and expressly denied it to be an art. In the second place, supposing Dr Whately's acceptation of the terms art and science to be correct, there is not a previous logician who would have dreamt of denying that, on such an acceptation, Logic was both a science and an art. But in the third place, the discrimination itself of art and science is wrong. Dr Whately considers science to be any knowledge viewed absolutely, and not in relation to practice, a signification in which every art would, in its doctrinal part, be a science; and he defines art to be the application of knowledge to practice, in which sense Ethics, Politics, Religion, and all practical sciences, would be arts. The distinction of arts and sciences is thus wrong. But in the fourth place, were the distinction correct, it would be of no value, for it would distinguish nothing, since art and science would mark out no real difference between the various branches of knowledge, but only different points of view under which the same branch might be contemplated by us,—each being in different relations at once a science and an art. In fact, Dr Whately confuses the distinction of science theoretical and science practical with the distinction of science and art. I am well aware that it would be no easy matter to give a general definition of science as contradistinguished from art, and of art as contradistinguished from science; but if the words them α a Compare Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 115 et seq.-ED. |