Aristotle's Works in Logic

Aristotle’s philosophy is considered with respect to one central concept of his philosophy, viz. opposition. Far from being a mere side-effect of syllogistic, it is argued in the present paper that opposition helps to articulate ontology and logic through an account of what can be or cannot be in a systematic and structural way. The paper is divided into three main parts. In Section I, the notion of Being is scrutinized through Aristotle’s theory of categories. In Section II, the notion (...) of Non-Being is connected to Aristotle’s theory of oppositions. In Section III, the notion of essence is revisited in order to bring about a holist theory of meaning by individuating through opposite properties. In conclusion, the legacy of Aristotle is depicted as balanced between a powerful reflection around Being and a restrictive ontology of substance. (shrink)

Celebrated as the equal to the great philosophers of old, namely Plato and Aristotle, whom – as Cassiodorus put it – he taught to speak Latin better than they spoke Greek, Boethius aspired to fully emancipate Roman culture from its Greek models through translations and exegesis so faithful they would leave nothing more to be desired from the original. The essay focuses on Boethius philhellenism, without complexes insofar as it had little to do either with the mixed feelings of his (...) Roman predecessors or with the plundering agenda of his Christian contemporaries. Special attention is paid to the close relationship Boethius established between word for word translations and multi-layered commentaries which he thought of and – albeit partially – carried out as part of the same scholarly endeavour. Devoid of literary pretentions as well as free from aspirations to autonomy, Boethius literal rendering and scrupulous interpretation were meant to be completely self-sufficient. Together they stand out as both the most innovative and the most conservative features of his ambitious cultural project. -/- Célébré comme l’égal des grands philosophes du passé, auxquels il aurait appris à parler Latin mieux qu’ils ne parlaient Grec, Boèce a caressé le rêve d’une émancipation radicale de la culture romaine vis-à-vis des modèles grecs qu’il se proposait de traduire et interpréter assez fidèlement pour que la comparaison avec les sources ne soit plus nécessaire. De son effort de livrer un Aristote et un Platon latins à la hauteur des originaux grecs, nous étudions l’étroite solidarité qui relie la traduction mot-à-mot des textes grecs et la restitution scrupuleuse de leur sens. Cette double tâche, que Boèce a conçue et menée d’un seul tenant, nous est dès lors apparue comme le reflet d’un philhellénisme sans complexes, tout aussi éloigné des sentiments ambivalents que nourrissaient vis-à-vis des hellènes ses devanciers romains que des efforts visant à domestiquer l’héritage classique auxquels se livraient certains de ses contemporains de même confession que lui. Affranchis de tout rêve d’autonomie, les traductions et les commentaires de Boèce se conçoivent comme parfaitement autosuffisants. Ensemble ils constituent ce qu’il y a à la fois de franchement novateur et de profondément conservateur dans son projet de faire parler Latin les sources grecques. (shrink)

Edward Meredith Cope was an English scholar of classics who served as Fellow and Tutor at Trinity College, Cambridge. One of the leading Greek specialists of his time, Cope published An Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric in 1867. Though now considered a 'standard work', that Introduction was intended as merely the first part of a full critical edition of the Rhetoric, which was left incomplete on Cope's death in 1873. Cope's manuscripts were collected and edited by John Edwin Sandys, and published (...) in this three-volume set in 1877. Cope's analysis represented an important advance in the modern interpretation of this foundational text on the art of persuasion. Volume 1 contains the Greek text of Book 1 together with a commentary on Aristotle's introduction to his topic and his definition of rhetoric and its subdivisions. (shrink)

Edward Meredith Cope was an English scholar of classics who served as Fellow and Tutor at Trinity College, Cambridge. One of the leading Greek specialists of his time, Cope published An Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric in 1867. Though now considered a 'standard work', that Introduction was intended as merely the first part of a full critical edition of the Rhetoric, which was left incomplete on Cope's death in 1873. Cope's manuscripts were collected and edited by John Edwin Sandys, and published (...) in this three-volume set in 1877. Cope's analysis represented an important advance in the modern interpretation of this foundational text on the art of persuasion. Volume 1 contains the Greek text of Book 1 together with a commentary on Aristotle's introduction to his topic and his definition of rhetoric and its subdivisions. (shrink)

In this major contribution to philosophy and rhetoric, Eugene Garver shows how Aristotle integrates logic and virtue in his great treatise, the _Rhetoric._ He raises and answers a central question: can there be a civic art of rhetoric, an art that forms the character of citizens? By demonstrating the importance of the _Rhetoric_ for understanding current philosophical problems of practical reason, virtue, and character, Garver has written the first work to treat the _Rhetoric_ as philosophy and to connect its themes (...) with parallel problems in Aristotle's _Ethics_ and _Politics._ Garver's study will help put rhetoric at the center of investigations of practice and practical reason. (shrink)

Aristotle presents a formal logic in the Prior Analytics in which the premises and conclusions are never conditionals. In this paper I argue that he did not simply overlook conditionals, nor does their absence reflect a metaphysical prejudice on his part. Instead, he thinks that arguments with conditionals cannot be syllogisms because of the way he understands the explanatory requirement in the definition of a syllogism: the requirement that the conclusion follow because of the premises. The key passage is Prior (...) Analytics I.32, 47a22–40, where Aristotle considers an argument with conditionals that we would consider valid, but which he denies is a syllogism. I argue that Aristotle thinks that to meet the explanatory requirement a syllogism must draw its conclusion through the way its terms are predicated of one another. Because arguments with conditionals do not, in general, draw their conclusions through predications, he did not include them in his logic. (shrink)

For the second edition, the translation has been completely rewritten and the commentary has been thoroughly revised in the light of recent scholarship.

This is a clear, accurate translation of Books I and VIII of Aristotle's Topics, with a philosophical commentary on these books and additional extracts from both Books II and III, and a related Aristotle work. It is ideal for students, especially those who do not know Greek.

This update to the award-winning first edition analyzes the pros and cons of different media and focuses on general guidelines and basic principles, making the ideas in this guide transferable to future technologies.

Jamie Dow presents an original treatment of Aristotle's views on rhetoric and the passions, and the first major study of Aristotle's Rhetoric in recent years. He attributes to Aristotle a normative view of rhetoric and its role in the state, and ascribes to him a particular view of the kinds of cognitions involved in the passions.

them. Though Aristotle does not say so, presumably the questioner who conceals in this way must be prepared, when challenged, to show that the conclusion...

In this collection edited by Alan G. Gross and Arthur E. Walzer, scholars in communication, rhetoric and composition, and philosophy seek to “reread” Aristotle’s Rhetoric from a purely rhetorical perspective.

This volume contains a critical edition of Bar Hebraeus’ _Book of Rhetoric_ in his _Cream of Wisdom_. The accompanying introduction, translation and commentary explore its relations with the Syriac Aristotle and the Arabic commentary of Ibn Sina.

Aristotle,Le confutazioni sofistiche. Organon VI. translated with notes by P. Fait. Bari: Laterza, 2007. lxi + 253 pp. [euro] 25.00. ISBN 978-88-420-8316-0. Reviewed by Annamaria Schiaparelli, The...

From its title, which since antiquity has occasioned interpretations of varying ingenuity and implausibility and which the book under review is probably right to judge both inauthentic and inappropriate, to its final chapter, thought to be post-Aristotelian or an exercise by Porphyry and the Greek commentators who followed him, On Interpretation has long been considered one of Aristotle’s most puzzling works. Brief as it is, this treatise was divided into four main parts by Ammonius, dealing with the principles of the (...) assertoric sentence, the proposition consisting of subject and predicate terms only, the proposition which contains an “added predicate”, and modal propositions. Modern commentators tend to find in the work important, but isolated, discussions of general semantic theory, the elements of grammar, and modality and fatalism, but not much else of interest. (shrink)

The Prior Analytics marks the beginning of formal logic, and is one of the most influential works in the history of thought. It is here that Aristotle sets out his system of syllogistic reasoning. The first book, to which this volume is devoted, offers a coherent presentation of Aristotle's logic as a general theory of deductive argument.

One of Aristotle's logic treatises, this text is published in the Oxford Classical Text series.

This work provides some interesting new results on the notion of the topos and the theory of hypothetical syllogisms in Aristotle based on an incisive interpretation of Aristotle's Topics and certain passages of the Analytics .

WE must first state the subject of our inquiry and the faculty to which it belongs: its subject is demonstration and the faculty that carries it out demonstrative science.

There is a central doctrine in Aristotle that usually isn’t recognized in its importance: the affirmation of the difference and the plurality. In the course of the centuries, Aristotelism lost which was perhaps its most characteristic and specific feature versus Platonism, that is, its criticism of unity and its defense of plurality. The first principle is not the One but the plurality. The horizon of thinking is not the unity but the diversity of the logos. The unity of the logos (...) presupposes the differences within reality. Heidegger attracted attention to the peculiarity of the practical philosophy of Aristotle. It was the case of dialectics, rhetoric, poetics, ethics, politics, etc. We are referring to knowledges that are art rather than science. Nothing is so differentiated as human action, as it is always performed from a new starting point. Dialectic and rhetorical speeches are always circumscribed to the individual. (shrink)

Introduction. Il est bien connu que la correspondance de Curry-Howard permet d'associer un programme, sous la forme d'un λ-terme, à toute preuve intuitionniste, formalisée dans le calcul des prédicats du second ordre. Cette correspondance a été étendue, assez récemment, à la logique classique moyennant une extension convenable du λ-calcul. Chaque théorème formalisé en logique du second ordre correspond donc à une spécification de programme.Il se pose alors le problème, en général tout à fait non trivial, de trouver la spécification associée (...) à un théorème donné; autrement dit, de déterminer le comportement opérationnel commun aux λ-termes associés aux diverses démonstrations formelles du théorème considéré.Cette question est résolue ici pour le théorème de complétude de la logique classique.La première étape consiste à formaliser convenablement ce théorème en logique du second ordre. Ce travail est fait complètement dans la section 1. Il a comme sous-produit, peut-être inattendu, de montrer que ce théorème est prouvable en logique intuitionniste du second ordre. Ceci, toutefois, à condition d'introduire une légère variante de la notion de modèle, en admettant un modèle supplémentaire trivial, où toute formule est satisfaite.On notera, à ce sujet, que des preuves intuitionnistes du théorème de complétude de la logique intuitionniste, utilisant des variantes de la notion de modele de Kripke, ont été données par H. Friedman [7] et W. Veldman [8]. On remarquera également qu'un argument de G. Kreisel [2] montre que le théorème de complétude habituel de la logique intuitionniste n'a pas de preuve intuitionniste. (shrink)

Only one philosopher has succeeded in building his reputation on silence—Cratylus. It is said that under no circumstance would he say anything, but would merely crook his finger. Nor is it known whether he achieved this unique glory by a persistence that lasted from toothless youth to toothless old age, or whether he merely petered out into withering speechlessness before the follies of man and the grandeur of God. More likely it was something like the latter, for otherwise we would (...) be confronted by the delicate riddle: why was he called a philosopher?Nevertheless, a tenable explanation is that Cratylus' reputation was arrived at by an experiment. Arranging philosophers on a scale of self.control in speech, one might derive the plausible law: the less one says the more he is of a philosopher. Ergo, say nothing and be declared the worthiest of philosophers. The difficulties in such an extrapolation, however, are very great. It is hard to see what harm just one word can do, and even two or three, or several, if they but fall short of being a sentence. Why absolute silence? Then, again, what harm is there in repeating even a multitude of words, the entire dictionary if you please, plus whatever sounds you can think of, provided you say nothing? And since we have progressed so far with the argument, what harm can there be even in connected speech, grammatical, fluent and mellifluous, provided you still say nothing? Cratylus, apparently, was playing a safe bet with a vengeance. He must have feared being understood by accident! (shrink)

This paper reviews Aristotle’s problematic relationship with modern economic theory. It argues that in terms of value and income distribution theory, Aristotle should probably be seen as a precursor to neither classical nor neoclassical economic thought. Indeed, there are strong arguments to be made that Aristotle’s views are completely at odds with all modern economic theory, since, among other things, he was not necessarily concerned with flexible market prices, opposed the use of money to acquire more money, and did not (...) think that the unintended consequences of human activity were generally beneficial. The paper argues however, that this interpretation goes too far. The Benthamite neoclassical theory of choice can be seen as a dumbing down of Aristotle’s theory, applicable to animals, not humans. Adam Smith and Karl Marx were deeply influenced by Aristotle’s work and both started their main economic works with Aristotle: Smith ultimately rejecting, and Marx ultimately developing Aristotle’s views of the use of money to acquire more money. Possibilities for the future development of a new Aristotelian Economics are explored. (shrink)

Carnes Lord is an eminent Aristotelian scholar who has since the mid-1970s intermittently occupied positions within the United States government. This article considers the linkages between his writings on Aristotle and the standpoints he has adopted when in government, with particular reference to the period in the early 1980s when he fulfilled an important role in developing a public diplomacy and information strategy against the Soviet Union. Attention is given to Lord’s interpretation and application, in both his writings and his (...) policy-making, of several key aspects of Aristotle’s political thought, such as rhetoric, regimes, and education. The influence of Leo Strauss on Lord’s thinking is also taken into account. (shrink)

It is standardly held that Aristotle denies that artifacts are substances. There is no consensus on why this is so, and proposals include taking artifacts to lack autonomy, to be merely accidental unities, and to be impermanent. In this paper, I argue that Aristotle holds that artifacts are substances. However, where natural substances are absolutely fundamental, artifacts are merely relatively fundamental—like any substance, an artifact can ground such nonsubstances as its qualities; but artifacts are themselves partly grounded in natural substances. (...) Many contemporary metaphysicians view authorial intentions or communal recognition as an essential feature of most artifactual kinds. Drawing on Aristotle’s own examples of artifactual definitions, I note that there is little reason to ascribe this view to Aristotle. So Aristotle has the resources to hold that it is possible that there are kinds with both artifactual and non-artifactual members. (shrink)

In the Categories Aristotle defines the analytic relationship of ‘being said’ in terms of ordinary categorical predication. The interpreters found themselves facing different interpretative problems, among others the meaning of categorial terms, how to understand the predication relation or the predication relations, what properties these relations have, etc. In the present brief contribution I consider two questions concerning transitivity and the metaphysical meaning of Aristotelian definitions.

This paper investigates two related aspects of Aristotle’s conception of primary substances in the Categories. In Section 1 I distinguish different interpretations of the relation between a primary substance and its accidental attributes: one (A) according to which a primary substance encompasses all of its attributes, including the accidental ones; another (B) according to which a primary substance encompasses only its essential attributes, whereas the accidental attributes are extrinsic to the substance, though related to it; and a third, intermediate one (...) (C) according to which a primary substance encompasses neither all of its attributes nor only the essential ones, but all the necessary ones. I trace the history of all three interpretations and argue in favour of (B). In Section 2 I defend the view that a particular human being, their soul, and their body all count as primary substances, and that the relation between these three substances is that soul and body are parts of the substance. I show that this hypothesis harmonizes both with some views advanced in the Categories and with some passages from other Aristotelian works. I conclude by drawing a comparison between this view and Aristotle’s mature hylomorphic doctrine. (shrink)

In Categories 7, Aristotle gives two different accounts of relatives, and presents the principle of cognitive symmetry, which seems to help distinguish between relatives and some secondary substances. I suggest that the long-disputed difference between the two accounts lies in a difference in the determination of the categorial status of the object in question, and I formulate the principle of cognitive symmetry such that it plays a crucial role in making explicit how one conceptualizes the categorial status of the object. (...) I then set out some consequences following from this understanding for certain interpretive issues, such as the unity of the Categories. (shrink)

Modern commentators recognize the irony of Aristotle’s Categories becoming a central text for Platonic schools. For similar reasons, these commentators would perhaps be surprised to see Aquinas’s In VII Metaphysics, where he apparently identifies the secondary substance of Aristotle’s Categories with a false Platonic sense of “substance” as if, for Aristotle, only Platonists would say secondary substances are substances. This passage in Aquinas’s commentary has led Mgr. Wippel to claim that, for Aquinas, secondary substance and essence are not the same (...) thing and that Aristotle’s notion of essence is absent from the Categories. This paper—by closely analyzing the apparently contradictory divisions of “substance” in Aquinas’s In V and VII Metaphysics—shows that essence and secondary substance are not altogether distinct for Aquinas. Moreover, when the Categories is viewed by Aquinas as a work of logic, it is found largely to cut across the disputes between Platonism and Aristotelianism. (shrink)

In the Categories, Aristotle addresses two different cases of dual categorization, cases in which the same thing might appear in two different categories: relatives and secondary substances in the first case, qualities and relatives in the second. His treatment of these two cases is markedly different. Ackrill thinks dual categorization poses a dilemma for Aristotle’s project as a whole, but I argue that there is a dilemma only on particular understandings of Aristotle’s purpose in compiling the list of categories. I (...) investigate various interpretations of the categories to find one that explains Aristotle’s reactions to dual categorization, and suggest an interpretation of the peculiar four-fold system of classification in Chapter 2. (shrink)

The subject of this paper is the issue of human speech in Aristotle, especially in his work Categories. Its primary goal is to elaborate an interpretation of Aristotle’s statements about human speech as a quantity (Cat. 4b20–b39, 5a15–b2) that would allow them to fit reasonably into the whole of Aristotle’s theory of language. The structure of the paper is as follows. In the first part a certain approach to the question of the reconstruction of Aristotle’s theory of language is proposed. (...) The second part, by means of the introduction of the criteria of separability and ontological priority of the first substance, creates a framework for the subsequent analysis of the two basic classifications, which constitute the main theme of Categories. The third part supplies its own interpretation of the ontological status of human speech in the context of the classification schemes in Categories, and this, in the fourth part, is inserted into the greater whole of Aristotle’s theory of language. (shrink)

The Middle Included is a systematic exploration of the meanings of logos throughout Aristotle’s work. It claims that the basic meaning is “gathering,” a relation that holds its terms together without isolating them or collapsing one to the other. This meaning also applies to logos in the sense of human language. Aristotle describes how some animals are capable of understanding non-firsthand experience without being able to relay it, while others relay it without understanding. Aygün argues that what distinguishes human language, (...) for Aristotle, is its ability to both understand and relay firsthand and non-firsthand experiences. This ability is key to understanding the human condition: science, history, news media, propaganda, gossip, utopian fiction, and sophistry, as well as philosophy. Ömer Aygün finds Aristotle’s name for this peculiar but crucial human ability of “gathering” both experiences is logos, and this leads to a claim about the specificity of human rationality and language. (shrink)

This work aims to a critical edition of an Aristotle’s Categories commentary, transmitted by M2 codex of St. Ambrose’s Chapter Archive in Milan. Written in Northern Italy, in the 12th century, it was probably a handbook for Chapter School. It is based upon some passages from the auctoritates, as it’s evident from the heading: incipiunt flores glosse categoriarum. It deals whit fundamental logical issues, and it presents a widespread use of the status’s theory, in order to solve some of the (...) logical, physical and metaphysical problems in Aristotle’s Categories. (shrink)