La Dialectique aristotélicienne, les principes clés des Topiques ...

Yvan Pelletier
dans une multitude, ignore ce que représente cet endoxal absolu, qui fait le
cœur de la dialectique. Il veut bien reconnaître que l’interrogation joue un
rôle capital dans la dialectique aristotélicienne. Mais, en limitant l’enquête
dès le départ à l’endoxal relatif, il ne peut plus apercevoir que son aspect
probatif : pour autant qu’elle interroge, croit-il, la dialectique ne peut plus
examiner que les personnes.
Le caractère interrogatif de la dialectique … n’est pas un caractère négligeable,
car le dialecticien n’interroge pas pour la forme : il dépend des opinions
de l’autre, il ne procède pas de façon dogmatique, mais utilise seulement
ce qu’on veut bien lui concéder. C’est donc en tant qu’elle constitue une méthode
de persuasion que la dialectique est distinguée ici de la métaphysique.
— Différence réelle, encore une fois, entre la méthode dialectique et la méthode
proprement philosophique, dogmatique : mais il faut se souvenir que,
nous l’avons constaté au cours de cette étude des Topiques, la dialectique
n’est pas purement interrogative, qu’elle peut être utilisée en dehors de la
l’aspect arbitraire de l’endoxal relatif prématuré semble y dominer. « What (Plato) meant,
and what we all mean by 'positing', seems to be of this nature. If you posit a proposition, it
thence forward 'lies' (), or, as we put it, 'stands'. It becomes a 'standing part' of your
thoughts, as opposed to the propositions that you merely entertain or believe for a moment
and then forget. It is not something known; to posit is not to know or apprehend or intuit or
realize. It is, we may roughly say, something believed. But it may be believed with all
degrees of confidence down to the very least; and perhaps it may be merely 'makebelieved'.
This is possible because positing is essentially a deliberate and selective activity.
The word does not cover beliefs which we hold without knowing how we came to hold
them, or which we never have conceived ourselves not holding. It does not cover naïve
acceptance, nor the mere taking for granted that A is B… — Positing is only that kind of
believing in which we deliberately and consciously adopt a proposition with the knowledge
that after all it may be false. It involves all the obscurities of the part played by the will in
judgement, or the intersection of will and understanding. — What is posited is always
provisional and tentative. It is posited only 'until further notice'. We are aware that we may
have to withdraw it and posit something else or suspend judgement. — Positing is
deliberate in that it is consciously doing something which we need not do... — That which
is posited is a 'thesis'; but the word Ô seems to carry this sense only once in Plato (Rp.
335A), though several times in Aristotle. Otherwise Plato has no name to represent
proposition as having been posited by someone and now being a 'standing part' of his
thoughts. » (Robinson, Plato's Earlier Dialectic, 93)
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