Posterior Analytics (Bouchier)/Book I/Chapter III

Chapter III: A refutation of the error into which some have fallen concerning Science and Demonstration

 * Certain objections met. (1) That first principles are hypothetical; (2) That their consequences establish one another by a circular proof.

Now some persons, because of the necessity of knowledge of the primary principles, infer that knowledge does not exist, while others suppose that it does exist and that everything whatever is capable of demonstration. Neither of these views is either true or necessary. Those who assume that knowledge is not possible at all, think that it would involve an infinite regress, since one cannot know the later terms of a series by means of the earlier when such a series has no primary terms. In this they are right, for it is impossible to complete the infinite. But if there be a limit to the regress, and primaries do exist, they say that these must be unknowable, supposing that they admit of no demonstration, which is the only way of knowing they allow to exist. But if it be impossible to learn these primary principles, one cannot know their results either absolutely or in any proper sense, but only hypothetically, viz. on the assumption that such principles do exist.

The other party agrees with them in holding that knowledge can only be attained by demonstration, but considers that there is nothing to prevent a demonstration of everything being given, maintaining that demonstration may proceed in a circle, all things being proved reciprocally.

We, on the other hand, hold that not every form of knowledge is demonstrative, but that the knowledge of ultimate principles is indemonstrable. The necessity of this fact is obvious, for if one must needs know the antecedent principles and those on which the demonstration rests, and if in this process we at last reach ultimates, these ultimates must necessarily be indemonstrable. Our view then is not only that knowledge exists, but that there is something prior to science by means of which we acquire knowledge of these ultimates. On the other hand it is clear that absolute demonstration cannot proceed in a circle if it be admitted that the demonstration must be drawn from anterior and better known principles than itself; for it is impossible for the same things to be both anterior and posterior in relation to the same objects, except from a different point of view, e.g. some things may be anterior relatively to us and others absolutely anterior, a distinction which inductive proof illustrates. If this be so the definition of absolute knowledge might be considered defective, since it really has a double sense; or that second kind of demonstration drawn from principles better known in relation to us is ambiguous.

Those who hold that demonstration proceeds in a circle not only meet with the difficulty already mentioned, but really say that ‘this is if this is,’—an easy method of proving anything whatsoever. This appears plainly when three terms are assumed (for it is immaterial whether one says that the proof passes through many or few terms before returning to the starting point, as also whether it be through a few or two only). For when: If A is, B must be          and   If B is, C must be Then            If A is, C will be And when        If A is, B must be and             If B is, A must be (for that is how the circular proof proceeds). Let A be placed in the position C held before. Then to say that ‘If B is, A must be,’ is equivalent to saying that C must be, and this proves that ‘If A is, C must be’; and C is here identical with A.

Thus those who hold that the demonstration proceeds in a circle simply declare that if A is, A must be—an easy method of proving anything.

Nor is even this proof possible except in the case of reciprocals such as Properties. It has been already shewn (Prior An. II. 5) that it is never necessary that a conclusion should follow when only one thing is assumed (by ‘one thing’ I mean one term or one proposition); such can only happen when there are at least two antecedent propositions capable of producing a syllogism.

If then A be a consequence of B and of C, and these latter consequences of each other, and also of A, it is possible to prove reciprocally all the questions that can be raised, in the first figure, as has been shewn in the treatise on the Syllogism (Prior An. II. 5). But it has also been shewn that in the other figures no circular demonstration can be effected, or none concerning the premises in question.

Circular demonstration is never admissible in the case of terms not reciprocal. Hence, as few such terms occur in demonstrations, it is clearly useless and untrue to maintain that demonstration consists in proving each term of a series by means of the others, and that consequently everything is demonstrable.