Aristotle - The Organon TOPICA Book 6 Part 13

Product and sum


1. See also whether in defining anything a man has defined it as an 'A and B', or as a 'product of A and B' or as an 'A+B'. If he defines it as 'A and B', the definition will be true of both and yet of neither of them; suppose, e.g. justice to be defined as 'temperance and courage.' For if of two persons each has one of the two only, both and yet neither will be just: for both together have justice, and yet each singly fails to have it. Even if the situation here described does not so far appear very absurd because of the occurrence of this kind of thing in other cases also (for it is quite possible for two men to have a mina between them, though neither of them has it by himself), yet least that they should have contrary attributes surely seems quite absurd; and yet this will follow if the one be temperate and yet a coward, and the other, though brave, be a profligate; for then both will exhibit both justice and injustice: for if justice be temperance and bravery, then injustice will be cowardice and profligacy. In general, too, all the ways of showing that the whole is not the same as the sum of its parts are useful in meeting the type just described; for a man who defines in this way seems to assert that the parts are the same as the whole. The arguments are particularly appropriate in cases where the process of putting the parts together is obvious, as in a house and other things of that sort: for there, clearly, you may have the parts and yet not have the whole, so that parts and whole cannot be the same.





6. If a man has defined an object as 'A+B', the first thing to be said is that 'A+B' means the same either as 'A and B', or as the 'product of A and B.' for 'honey+water' means either the honey and the water, or the 'drink made of honey and water'. If, then, he admits that 'A+B' is the same as either of these two things, the same criticisms will apply as have already been given for meeting each of them. Moreover, distinguish between the different senses in which one thing may be said to be '+' another, and see if there is none of them in which A could be said to exist '+ B.' Thus e.g. supposing the expression to mean that they exist either in some identical thing capable of containing them (as e.g. justice and courage are found in the soul), or else in the same place or in the same time, and if this be in no way true of the A and B in question, clearly the definition rendered could not hold of anything, as there is no possible way in which A can exist '+ B'. If, however, among the various senses above distinguished, it be true that A and B are each found in the same time as the other, look and see if possibly the two are not used in the same relation. Thus e.g. suppose courage to have been defined as 'daring with right reasoning': here it is possible that the person exhibits daring in robbery, and right reasoning in regard to the means of health: but he may have 'the former quality + the latter' at the same time, and not as yet be courageous! Moreover, even though both be used in the same relation as well, e.g. in relation to medical treatment (for a man may exhibit both daring and right reasoning in respect of medical treatment), still, none the less, not even this combination of 'the one + the other' makes him 'courageous'. For the two must not relate to any casual object that is the same, any more than each to a different object; rather, they must relate to the function of courage, e.g. meeting the perils of war, or whatever is more properly speaking its function than this.

7. Some definitions rendered in this form fail to come under the aforesaid division at all, e.g. a definition of anger as 'pain with a consciousness of being slighted'. For what this means to say is that it is because of a consciousness of this sort that the pain occurs; but to occur 'because of' a thing is not the same as to occur '+ a thing' in any of its aforesaid senses.
