Volume 1 - Discourses - Books I - II - College of Stoic Philosophers

BOOK I. vn. 13-20with sound reasoning granted the premisses, andthe inference from them is so-and-so ; and, in spiteof its being false, it is none the less the inference.What., then, should I do? Accept the fallacy?And how is that possible ?Well, should I say, Itwas not sound reasoning for me to grant the premisses" ?Nay, but this is not permissible either.Or, "This does not follow from what has beengranted"? But that is not permissible, either.What, then, must be done in these circumstances ?Is it not this, that the fact of having borrowed not isenough to prove that one is still in debt, but wemust add the circumstance that one abides by theloan that is, has not paidit and just so our havingonce granted the premisses is not enough to compelus to accept the inference, but we must abide by ouracceptance of the premisses ? And what is more,if the premisses remain until the end what theywere when they were granted, there is every necessityfor us to abide by our acceptance of them, andto allow the conclusion that has been drawn fromthem ;... for from our point of view and to our wayof thinking this inference does not now result fromthe premisses, since we have withdrawn from ourprevious assent to the premisses. It is necessary,therefore, to enquire into premisses of this kind andinto such change and equivocal modification of them,whereby, at the very moment the question is put,or the answer made, or the deduction drawn, or atsome other similar stage in the argument, the premissestake on modified meanings and give occasioninconsistent with the premisses." Schenkl indicates alacuna.55