Abstract

Aristotle says that a fallacy of accident takes place whenever something is held to belong in the same way to an object and to its accident (SE 5 166b28-30). The Received View among interpreters takes “accident” (συμβεβηκός) in that connection to stand for any predicate that is not identical to its subject, and makes the fallacy consist in mistaking predication for identity. Such an analysis, however, gives “accident” a meaning otherwise unattested in the corpus; makes all cases of the fallacy inconclusive, whereas inferences of the same kind are warranted (with a qualification) at different places in the corpus; does not cover cases which in Aristotle’s view fall under the fallacy of accident, for which a different analysis and solution must be provided; and does not square with Aristotle’s own solution in terms of sameness or difference in substance and being. This chapter presents a new take on the subject, grounded on Aristotle’s expressed views in the Sophistical Refutations and other works, according to which the fallacy takes place whenever a substitution of co-extensives, or even of necessary equivalents, makes reciprocation fail to (necessarily) hold between relata.