No syllogisms from an Hypothesis, however, are reducible to any of
the three figures; for they are not proved by syllogism alone: they
require besides an extra-syllogistic assumption granted or understood
between speaker and hearer. Suppose an hypothetical proposition
given, with antecedent and consequent: you may perhaps prove or
refute by syllogism either the antecedent separately, or the
consequent separately, or both of them separately; but you cannot
directly either prove or refute by syllogism the conjunction of the
two asserted in the hypothetical. The speaker must ascertain
beforehand that this will be granted to him; otherwise he cannot
proceed.[86] The same is true about the procedure by _Reductio ad
Absurdum_, which involves an hypothesis over and above the syllogism.
In employing such _Reductio ad Absurdum_, you prove syllogistically a
certain conclusion from certain premisses; but the conclusion is
manifestly false; therefore, one at least of the premisses from which
it follows must be false also. But if this reasoning is to have
force, the hearer must know _aliunde_ that the conclusion is false;
your syllogism has not shown it to be false, but has shown it to be
hypothetically true; and unless the hearer is prepared to grant the
conclusion to be false, your purpose is not attained. Sometimes he
will grant it without being expressly asked, when the falsity is
glaring: _e.g._ you prove that the diagonal of a square is
incommensurable with the side, because if it were taken as
commensurable, an odd number might be shown to be equal to an even
number. Few disputants will hesitate to grant that this conclusion is
false, and therefore that its contradictory is true; yet this last
(viz. that the contradictory is true) has not been proved
syllogistically; you must assume it by hypothesis, or depend upon the
hearer to grant it.[87]
[Footnote 86: Ibid. xliv. p. 50, a. 16-28.]
[Footnote 87: Analyt. Prior. I. xliv. p. 50, a. 29-38. See above,
xxiii. p. 40, a. 25.
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