Posterior Analytics (Bouchier)/Book I/Chapter XXXIII

Chapter XXXIII: The distinction between Science and Opinion

 * Science depends on the Necessary, Opinion on the Contingent. Opinion may attain to immediate propositions, but as these are not necessary, Opinion is uncertain and can never be applied to the same object as Science.

Scientific knowledge and its object differ from Opinion and its object, in that Science is universal and rests on the necessary, and the necessary is not contingent. Some things are true and do exist, but yet are contingent so that they cannot be the object of science, for that would involve the identification of the contingent with its opposite, the necessary. Neither is the contingent the object of Reason (by which I mean the elementary principle of Knowledge), nor again of indemonstrable knowledge, which consists in the assumption of immediate propositions. Yet Reason, Knowledge and Opinion, together with everything which they make known, are true, so that the object of Opinion is still the true or the false, but yet contingent; that is to say it involves the apprehension of an immediate but not necessary proposition.

This view is in harmony with ordinary experience, which makes us regard Opinion as unreliable, and the nature of the things about which opinion is held is likewise unreliable. Also when one thinks that something cannot but be what it is, one never supposes that one merely opines that thing, but that one knows it. On the other hand when one thinks that the thing is now some one particular thing, but yet that nothing prevents it from taking a different form, then one supposes oneself merely to opine, since opinion refers to objects of this latter kind, whereas knowledge relates to the necessary. Why then, it may be asked, is it impossible to opine and know the same thing, and why is not opinion the same as knowledge, if it be laid down that everything which one knows may also be the subject of opinion, and those who merely opine pass in company through the intervening middle terms until they arrive at ultimate principles? If the former possess scientific knowledge why do not the latter also? The object of Opinion may be the Cause of things just as much as the Fact of their existence, and it is the Cause which supplies the middle term.

The difficulty may be explained thus. One who has such a clear perception of the uncontingent objects as also to possess the definitions by means of which the demonstrations of them are arrived at, will know those objects and not merely opine them. If on the other hand he knows them as true, but yet he does not know that the attributes in question belong essentially and specificially to the subject, he will only have opinion not scientific knowledge both of the fact and the cause, that is to say if his opinion rest on immediate propositions. If his opinion do not so rest, he will opine only the fact, not the cause. Opinion and Knowledge have not absolutely the same object, but their objects are similar in the manner in which the objects of Truth and Falsity are similar. The assertion of some that true and false opinions are of the same kind involves many absurdities, such as that a false opinion is not an opinion at all, since all opinions are assumed to be true. But since ‘the same’ is used in many senses, false and true opinions are in one sense the same, in another different. For instance, a true opinion that the diagonal is commensurable with the side of a square would be absurd, but since the diagonal concerning which the opinions are held remains the same whether the opinion about it be right or wrong, the object of the two kinds of opinions is one and the same, while according to their essential nature and definition those opinions are different. In a similar way knowledge and opinion may be said to have the same object. The knowledge concerning the nature of animal is of such a kind that its object cannot be other than animal. Opinion concerning the same is such that its object may be other than animal. Thus knowledge concerning man contains a reference to his essential characteristics, opinion contains no such reference. In this case the objects of knowledge and opinion are the same but regarded from a different point of view.

It is clear from this that one cannot opine and know the same thing at the same time. Otherwise one would suppose simultaneously that a thing was both contingent and necessary, which is impossible. It is possible, as has been said, for knowledge and opinion concerning the same object to exist in different persons, but in the same person they cannot. Otherwise he would have to suppose simultaneously that, e. g. Man is essentially animal (for that is equivalent to saying ‘man cannot but be animal’) and also ‘man is not essentially animal’ (for that is the meaning of ‘capable of being something else’ or ‘contingent’). How to distinguish between Inference, Reason, Knowledge, Art, Prudence and Wisdom, are questions belonging partly to Natural Philosophy and partly to Ethics. (Cf. de An. I, 1. Eth. VI, 3, 4).