Posterior Analytics

"Previous knowledge is required for all scientific studies or methods of
instruction. Examples from Mathematics, Dialectic and Rhetoric. Previous
knowledge as variously expressed in theses concerning either the existence of a
thing or the meaning of the word denoting it. Learning consists in the
conversion of universal into particular knowledge.
All communications of
knowledge from teacher to pupil by way of reasoning pre-suppose some
pre-existing knowledge. The truth of this statement may be seen from a complete
enumeration of instances:--it is thus that the mathematical sciences are
attained and every art also. The same is the case with dialectical arguments
whether proceeding by means of the syllogism or of induction, for the former
kind makes such assumptions as people who understand the meaning admit, the
latter uses the recognized clearness of the particular as an indication of the
universal, so that both convey their information by means of things already
known. So too orators produce conviction in a like manner, using either Example,
which is equivalent to induction, or Enthymeme, which corresponds to syllogism."


- Excerpted from "Posterior Analytics"