g. on a
question of medicine they will agree with the doctor, and on a
question of geometry with the geometrician; and likewise also in other
cases.
11
A dialectical problem is a subject of inquiry that contributes
either to choice and avoidance, or to truth and knowledge, and that
either by itself, or as a help to the solution of some other such
problem. It must, moreover, be something on which either people hold
no opinion either way, or the masses hold a contrary opinion to the
philosophers, or the philosophers to the masses, or each of them among
themselves. For some problems it is useful to know with a view to
choice or avoidance, e.g. whether pleasure is to be chosen or not,
while some it is useful to know merely with a view to knowledge,
e.g. whether the universe is eternal or not: others, again, are not
useful in and by themselves for either of these purposes, but yet help
us in regard to some such problems; for there are many things which we
do not wish to know in and by themselves, but for the sake of other
things, in order that through them we may come to know something else.
Problems also include questions in regard to which reasonings conflict
(the difficulty then being whether so-and so is so or not, there being
convincing arguments for both views); others also in regard to which
we have no argument because they are so vast, and we find it difficult
to give our reasons, e.
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